Pooteewheet is Cool

Pooteewheet is cool, because she used photoshop and Ikea to decorate my bike room with this... It's only got a funny angle because I took the picture in such a way that the flash wouldn't show up as a sunburst in the middle. It's a bike I saw at the Uptown Art Fair and took a picture of. She adjusted it for three different colors and stacked them. Looks very neat in the corner of my room. She should probably submit it for display at the coffee shop/bicycle shop/art shop downtown.

Time to Get out the String and the Doorknob

See this? Click to zoom in if you must. Hopefully she doesn't have pizza in her teeth. Notice how the circled tooth hangs down a little lower than the other ones? Maybe like something is pushing it out. Like another tooth? Oh yeah...wobbly wobbly wobbly. She's playing with it because it's funny it's loose. 3.5 years old and she's losing her first tooth. To all my friends with their kids who just about Eryn's age...it's time to feel just a little bit older.

Scene From Swimming Lessons

Swimming lessons were over. Eryn had engaged in a very productive half hour, blowing bubbles, kicking, floating and paddling. We went into the boys' bathroom, as I'm not allowed in the girls' bathroom and, as Eryn points out every time, "No girls over 5 allowed in boys shower room", and she's under 5. Flipping on two shower nozzles, we were washing the chlorine off of us, and two little boys and their Dad took the showers on the other side of the shower room. I notice one of them starts to cross his eyes and get this very strange look on his face while the water is pelting his butt, and I worry he's having some sort of ecstatic reaction. He fools me by suddenly turning on his brother and announcing loudly, "You're peeing! My feet are getting warm!"

Yuck. I'm glad the shower slopes toward the outside walls.

Angles?

MNSpeak has a post up about The Prophecy Club coming to Bloomington. So I wandered out to the site to check out and see what sorts of things I should be worried about. Fortunately, I learned that there are at least 285 angles I'm safe from, prophetically speaking, provided there's no doubling up, so that's reassuring (image below). I'm not sure how those angles relate to planes - maybe advice like, "Don't ride a plane engaged in angles close to 180. For the lord has said, these angles will cause you no end of grief, for lo, I have invented gravity, and it may smite thee." Or, "An angle of 90 or 270 is grevious in mine eyes, for it may indicate thou hast consumed all the sacrificial wine and should not be operating a motor vehicle." How good is your DVD/VHS quality if you can't proofread angels in your advertising?

LissyJo's Gymnatics Shirts Suck

LissyJo's gymnastics shirts suck, Because I've never seen anything like this one (courtesy of Eryn's community ed gymnastics course). But I have seen the video of LissyJo "missing" the parallel bars in high school, and if there's something that should be YouTubed, that's it. You can sit around and watch that while drinking for hours. Encourage her to post her most embarrassing moment, because it's damn funny (because she didn't get hurt). LissyJo - you might like Stick It, but you're sticking it without a cool shirt like this one.

The Book of Lost Things

Wow, was this good. I would strongly recommend it to Mean Mr. Mustard or Klund. John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things was just great on many, many levels. It was like Harry Potter meets Gaiman, with more of their darkness, and at the same time, more levity. I think Harry Potter is funny sometimes, but only because you recognize things in Harry and his friends, or recognize something clever, not because the author has posited something truly humorous. On some pages I thought I was reading Neil Gaiman or Emma Bull, on other pages I thought I was eyebrow deep in Pratchett, like when...damn it...I'm not going to ruin the dwarfs with a spoiler. They're so f-ing hilarious I laughed out loud. And in other sections, I was physically nervous it was so dark and disturbing. When the knight tells his story to the townmen's children, you're just sure you'd beat the bejesus out of anyone that did that to your kids. It makes the Blue Fairy Book look happy. I'm not sure what to complain about, other than that you can't read it to your children unless you want them to have nightmares, and that David, the main character was just the slightest touch flat, but only because Connolly had a definite arc he was imposing on him to make the story work the way he intended. But The Book of Lost Things is about stories, so you can forgive him for making it obvious that you're reading one.

A beautiful book that could have slid into cliche, but rises to some place much higher.

I knew my searching skills were good, but I didn't realize that I could pass a reverse-turing test.

In Which I Respond to the Meme-Mocking Meme

I would like to note that any meme-ing on my blog involves a category tag "meme" and the word "meme" in the title. They're pretty easy to avoid. Anyway, Klund has written a meme...someone needs to answer it, otherwise it might be construed as clever.

1. Memes have been called "crack for bloggers" - why do you agree with this statement?
Like crack, it's something you might take up doing in your spare time, but then you find yourself doing more and more and more memes, until the frequency of your meme-ing interferes with family life and you ability to get an erection. I mean, the will is there, but not the memes.

2. Which is more gay - writing a meme or answering a meme?
Writing a meme. Although I'm not sure I'd use "gay". Because it isn't really homosexual or festive. If you're going to be more exact, you should ask if, as a guy, writing a meme makes you a pussy. Someone has to write memes; we can't all be God.

3. In what way is this the best meme you have ever answered?
Kevin wrote it, and as much as he was joking about memes, it probably caused him at least a little mental anguish to construct it in that he felt at least a smidgeon of toolosity. That's a best of some sort.

4. Scooter said he never made out in a movie theater, while Mean Mr. Mustard is a fan of Sam Shepard. Which one of them is the biggest loser?
That's unfair. I don't even know Shelley Jeffers.

5. I've only been tagged once to do a meme. Does this mean I'm very lucky, have no friends, or both?
I think it means most of us are scared what sort of admissions you might actually make if faced with too many memes.

6. If you were stuck on a deserted island, which three memes would you want to have with you?
Food meme, so I could pretend my mangos and coconuts were steak and sushi. Sex meme, because if I'm buying myself a dinner meme, I deserve it. World's biggest meme, because I might be able to float to the mainland on it.

7. Why is question number 7 always the best question in a meme?
The first ones are whatever is on the top of your mind. Things you don't really have to think about. By #7 you're in a groove, with some questions that require thought. After that you just want it to end. Besides, flip 7 upside down and it almost looks like you're giving someone the finger.

8. If you could answer a meme about any topic, which topic would it be?
People who've used my shower. The tag list is huge.

9. Which would you rather answer - a meme about homosexual giraffes or one about dryer lint?
Fortunately, I have experience with both. But on a day-to-day basis I have more experience with dryer lint, and it comes in many pretty colors that lend themselves to questions like "what's your favorite color of lint", and "what's the weirdest place you ever found blue lint? white lint? red lint?", followed by "did it make you feel patriotic?", and "ever found lint somewhere on your body you didn't expect it? somewhere on someone else's body?"

10. Does your answer to question number 9 mean that you are A) a homophobe, or B) a lintphobe?
Strangely, there doesn't seem to be a DSM-IV definition for a fear of giraffes, at least per the Australasion Psychiatry journal, the bulletin of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. But I would guess it might be camelopardaliphobia, or more generally ungulaphobia, which is better, because homoungulaphobia sounds really scientific, and as someone married to a therapist who uses the DSM, I claim I invented it.

11. How happy are you that this meme is done now?
Eh. I think it needed more questions, like, have you ever gotten in trouble for putting a picture of your workplace in your blog, even though expansion pictures of the building are now available online? Or, do you think if you had two really tall friends, and one other friend who was just a little geeky, but they all really liked Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, maybe just a bit too much, that they might fit in really well as some sort of medieval fantasy unit (Darkon trailer, courtesy of Fimoculous) comprised of giants and their owner, sort of like in Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome with the Master Blaster, but with foam weapons instead of metal ones?

That'd be good meme-ing. I tag Michele Bachmann, because I know she's a homoungulaphobe (KSTP vid, Wonkette pic) - at least she'd never let them get married.

Koaly

She Says wanted to see my prized koala bear. So here he is, in all his ratty glory. He's made out of kangaroo skin, circa 1968, straight from Australia, although bits and pieces of him, particularly where his ear is falling apart, are reupholstered bunny rabbit. Bunny rabbits have much thinner skin than kangaroos, so the recovering didn't hold too well. I give my mom credit for trying. He used to have four little black plastic paws, but those fell off long ago. Obviously well loved.

Eryn Schmerin

Eryn is a busy little girl lately. We signed her up for her first gymastics class, which starts this weekend. She and I have daddy-daughter swimming twice a week (biking was making me a little itchy because I sweat a lot. Top it off with chlorine twice a week, and I'm considering bathing in hand lotion.) She's in phonics at daycare and is now an expert at rhyming (she called my brother "Andrew Mandrew" at the rental property, which really surprised both him and me and was damn funny when it came off the cuff), and has music lessons at daycare as well. And she's finally fully daytime potty trained (with even a few dry night time pullups), so we took her to Ikea to play in the ball pit. We were a little nervous leaving her somewhere other than daycare for an hour as that's not our scene, but when Pooteewheet picked her up an hour later, Eryn was absolutely dripping sweat, even though she'd stripped down to her tank top. She was playing that hard. Not to mention, Eryn's lunch cost me $1.15, and we found a cool present for my mother. It was all good.

Here's a mid-air ball leap.


And here she is fashion plating the sweater and matching scarf she wore that she eventually stripped off. Note the haircut. You can see her eyes again.

Marvin Poker Chip

Actually, it's for weighing down your cards and marking them so they don't get swept up by accident. Pooteewheet thinks I need some luck, because I'm apparently lacking all skill lately, so she bought me this cool Marvin and K-9 Poker Chip in a plastic case. Maybe it will keep me from getting very very angry next time I lose. The other side is Marvin solo with his ray gun. I'll have to figure out which side carries the better mojo.

I Have God's Email Address

(update: cleaned up loves to loaves and some spelling/formatting - doh. Pooteewheet said I should note that there are newer posts actually below this one.)

Yep, he left his card at a local coffee shop. It makes a certain amount of sense to me that if there's a creator, he (or she, or noodly it, I'm not picky) needs coffee to get through a day of creation and/or putting up with the prayers of others. If I had to talk to the Pope on a regular basis, I'd be downing the blackest cup of Peace Coffee I could lay my hands on. Then again, if I was god, I wouldn't be hanging in Lakeville, I'd find a home inside the loop.

So, I know you're wondering...what's his address? How do I reach him? Is this a substitute for prayer? If I'm Catholic, do I have to send an email to Pope at whatever.vatican.com first, and he'll forward it to God? Does God get mad if I turn that "notify me when read" feature on in Outlook, just to make sure I know he's paying attention?

I don't know the answers to those questions, though I suspect in the last case, Old Testament God would smite you for using "notify me when read", whereas Jesus would just send you FishesandLoaves.vbs. But, I could be wrong, after all, based on the address, which I think you could have figured out for yourself, God seems to be a Bill Gates fan.
While I find the idea of owning God's email address amusing, I find this video sermon, How to Pick Up Chicks, by the church that manages god's email address (Harmony, in Lakeville, part of their Sermons for Dummies series), disturbing. I kept expecting there to be a religious "punch line". You know what I mean. Talk about all the pick up lines you use, give cheesy examples, be obnoxious, and then in the end, "Hey, I go to Harmony where we worship in a hip, fun manner, with downloads and podcasts and direct access to God's email. Sort of God 2.0, if you're hip with the tech speak. And if you are, boy am I the Christian geek boy for you. Wanna go out Friday night to a youth sermon?" But that's not how it plays out. It devolves into some sort of masochistic, fetish, slapping video. Don't believe me that's a fetish? Just trawl Google (probably nsfw).

Scooter's Materialism Meme - His Own Answers

She Says is very fast. She finished my meme before midnight. I think that answers a future blogging meme question "blogging or sex?" It sounds as though I have to consider beer a materialistic item. I'm not entirely convinced. After all, it's just bread in a bottle. Water, hops, yeast, sugar. Some of the basic building blocks of life. There are monks (alt. at About) who lived on nothing but for long periods of time. But I guess materialism can be defined as a serious desire for something you could live without, and I drink less when I'm biking a lot, therefore it logically follows...fine. I'll factor alcohol into the equation.

Scooter's Materialism meme

1.) What's your most cherished item, the one item you would save if you couldn't save anything else (and not a cat or dog, a thing)?
Wow is that a tough one. I'd save the computer - it has pictures of Eryn on it. However, if things were appropriately backed up, and copies shipped to concerned grandparents, I'd save my kangaroo skin-covered koala bear. He's as old as I am and my Dad brought him back from Australia on one of his sub trips when he was in the Navy.

2.) Only for cat and dog owners - save the item in #1, or save the cat/dog?
I have problems with my dog. But I'd save her - she's too dumb to get out of the house on her own. She'd just run around in circles and bark and barf. As for the cat, I'd have to go open her door in the basement too, now that we shut her in the basement sometimes during the evening as she's taken up howling at the bedroom doors at 3 a.m. If I didn't let her out, Pooteewheet would be feaking out about the kitty kabob for the next decade, and I'm pretty sure that would be equivalent to letting my sex life burn in the fire.

3.) Can I buy #1 for $10? $100? $1000? $10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000? What's your lowest price? Does it have a price?
It's worth at least $100 to me. But I'd consider for $1000, and I'd cave at $10,000. I bought Eryn her own bear when I was in Australia for my sister's wedding, and my sister and brother-in-law (and niece) bought her a tiny one, so the only person missing the bear would be me, and I'd miss it a lot less if I had money for a new bike and tickets to ride it around Costa Rica or New Zealand (it'd be like "Koalie" was buying me a gift).

4.) If it doesn't have a price, have you sought therapy about your sentimental attachment to materialistic goods? And on a related note, do you hold your own garage sales?
I obviously have a price. You'd have to tackle issues like "poor job satisfaction" to find things that had extremely high prices for me (you'd have to pay me an unreasonable amount of money to be unhappy in my job, and that includes long commutes). I do not hold my own garage sales. The idea is revolting, nauseating, and makes my head hurt, and not just because I'd have to do an even better job of cleaning the garage. Instead of selling my things, I donate them to charity - the thrift store, the library, friends. When I lived in the apartment in St. Louis Park, Pooteewheet and I just left things on the table in the laundry room. Everything disappeared, including a coffee pot with a note that said "broke" and a Star Wars the Next Generation action figure in a glass jar.

5.) Favorite precious substance?
Coffee was a good call on She Says' part. I wouldn't have thought of that, but it's expensive, and I buy a lot. Which means beer is also a possibility, but I drink less beer than coffee (I hope). I was pondering agates, as I think they qualify as gemstones and I used to collect them when I visited Montana, but I don't really have many floating around anymore. So I'll answer diamonds. I like the bling. Not so much on myself - I own almost none - as on others.

6.) Every had an item blessed that really shouldn't have been blessed?
Nope. I see those car and pet blessings in the paper now and then, but I'm not convinced they'd make my dog behave the way I expect her to.

7.) What personal item has surprised you with its durability?
My Cyclosimulator bike trainer. I bought it in college and it's probably got at least seven thousand miles on it. I rarely do maintenance on it, and yet it's lasted all this time - the mechanical parts (windfan, wheel mount), the lcd computer, and the metal bits I sweat all over. It's only aging that I can see is that the white plastic is actually turning a bit yellow.

8.) What's the most expensive thing you've ever purchased (other than primary residence and vehicle)?
A secondary residence, for renters. But if you assume they're paying for that (most of the time, when we're not evicting someone), then probably the first computer Pooteewheet and I bought. I remember when computers were more than $2000 for something that was fairly "standard". I remember my inlaws were a little shocked that we were buying a computer instead of finding a house, but in the long run, considering my job history, it was a wise investment. I do have a bike that was very expensive when I bought it. Not $10,000, Lance Armstrong expensive, but with the clipless pedals and special shoes, it set me back about $1500, and that was on a previous year, on-sale model.

9.) What do you feel is the appropriate % of your income to give to charity? Do you donate something other than money (and what)?
I don't have a %, but I do try to give until it hurts a little. The community clinic my sister used to work for gets a fairly large chunk of change because I like to make at least one dontation that would make a big difference. It's still probably a drop in the bucket compared to their operating budget, but with company matching, it's not pocket change either. We do donate all sorts of other things, like books to the library, our old cars, and anything in good shape that we think someone else could use (keeping in mind that many of our own stuff is hand me downs). I don't donate a lot of personal time since I quit working with the Boy Scouts (we have a difference of philosophy), but I get in time to help my bike group (non-profit, educational) do registration for their largest ride, and I read to school kids some years, and participate in mock trials for local law schools in others (my company will match two days of donated time each year).

10.) Do you shop at garage sales? How often (and how much do you buy)?
Yes, but not as often as I'd like to as I'm usually not off work at the right time. I love to shop for books, particularly kids books. No one ever wants to keep them, and it's cheaper than buying them at Half Price. I don't ever buy clothes, but I always keep my eyes open for tools and toys and things that friends might like.

11.) If you said yes in #10, what's the best thing you ever bought at a garage sale?
Just books, mostly. When I was at the Now Then Threshing Show last year, I bought some hose nozzles for cheap, and they were copper, not crappy plastic. I took my friend Dan'l to a garage sale in my neighborhood and he bought a standalone disco ball for his computer room. That was a good purchase.

12.) What item do you constantly find yourself upgrading?
Computer. I'd say it's finally been quite a while since an upgrade, but we got a laptop, and that probably counts. I do upgrade my bike now and then, although "supplement with an extra" is probably more accurate.

13.) Day to yourself. Shopping or chores?
I was going to say chores, but then I thought "beer and games are shopping", and I'd always rather do that.

14.) Day to yourself. Shopping or reading?
Reading. Plopped down in the coffee shop for up to six hours, reading. Hey...I usually buy my coffee at Dunn Brothers, however. A paradox! If that's shopping, then still reading, I'll just do it at home.

15.) Day to yourself. Shopping or some sort of event (movie, play, sports event).
Event. No question.

16.) Let's press the issue. Shopping or sex?
Is it with Pooteewheet or someone else? I mean the shopping. Sex.

17.) Your boss gives you an award. Do you want the public acknowledgement, or a private $25 gift certificate.
Public acknowledgement. I usually feel I'm just doing my job. Extra money is weird and feels like a commission.

18.) If you could only carry an armload (let's say one to five) things out of your burning abode, not including the cherished item in #1, what would they be?
Let's say #1 was the computer. So my kangaroo skin-covered bear, the laptop, at least one bike, Eryn's Build-a-Bear giraffe she got for potty training, and Pooteewheet's jewelry (not worth a lot as those things go, but there are things she got from me for anniversaries/etc).

19.) What does another friend have that you want?
A flat screen t.v. or a king-sized bed. These are things I can't bring myself to buy, yet feel would make my life materialistically much better.

20.) Ever get nicked (arrested, detained) or confronted for taking something you wanted?
I was going to say never, but my mother did find a bunch of plastic sign letters - like you'd see on a DQ sign - in my closet one time and sent me off to therapy.

21.) Do you get a magazine that's primarily devoted to acquisition or reviews of material goods? Which one?
Wired is about technology, but they do send me a buyer's guide. I have purchased (or had purchased for me) the odd GQ, hoping to determine if such a guide would help me to be a little less unhip.

22.) Ever take a job just so you could get a discount on something?
Group legal? Naw...that's just a side benefit I can use. No discounts as the goal, although my bed is the result of another friend taking a job so she could get discounts at a furniture store.

23.) Where do you buy most of your stuff? And why there?
Liquor store. Because I like beer. Specifically, lately, Blue Max Liquor. My family gets most of our stuff from Target, because it's just down the street. If there were a Costco within ten miles, I'd be shopping there instead.

24.) Where would you buy most of your stuff, if you could? Why there?
Online if I could, because I don't have to deal with people unless there's a customer service issue. But, per #23, Costco would be an alternative. I like their politics.

25.) What do you consistently buy for yourself that you really (really) don't need?
Beer and board games. I have enough board games in a closet in the basement that it might be considered a collection.

26.) Did you meet any of your friends through a shared appreciation of certain materialistic goods? Did the friendship last?
If you consider the acquisition of a computer, then almost all of them that I didn't know in high school, and they've lasted longer than whatever computing job I was at. I haven't met many beer-only friends, at least none that have lasted, and I don't really have any biking friends either, and my gaming friends...well, I've met a few of them through blogging, not specifically gaming, so I'm not sure if that counts.

She Says' Add Ons:
27.) What do you collect?
Board games. Cast iron banks. Marvin the Martian memorabilia. Biking things (some art). A few castles and, specifically, history-related items (old books about Tudor/Stuart history, although not so much as I don't live near any good antique book stores).

28.) What one thing do you have that will most likely make it on some future version of Antiques Roadshow because it's rare, unusual, collectible, etc.?
I had a board game that went out of print that was up to $200-$250 on e-bay for a while, then they re-released it. And I had some Magic the Gathering cards that, for a while, were worth quite a bit of money. I'd guess I have a cast iron bank or two (one of the non reproductions) that would eventually be Antiques Roadshow worthy.

I tag LissyJo, because question #20 was added just for her.

Materialism Meme - Specifically for She Says

I'll answer it after She Says does, as I created it for her. She's had a few days without a meme to answer. It's sort of work in progress, but this is what I came up with after a short bout of brainstorming.

Scooter's Materialism meme

1.) What's your most cherished item, the one item you would save if you couldn't save anything else (and not a cat or dog, a thing)

2.) Only for cat and dog owners - save the item in #1, or save the cat/dog?

3.) Can I buy #1 for $10? $100? $1000? $10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000? What's your lowest price? Does it have a price?

4.) If it doesn't have a price, have you sought therapy about your sentimental attachment to materialistic goods? And on a related note, do you hold your own garage sales?

5.) Favorite precious substance?

6.) Every had an item blessed that really shouldn't have been blessed?

7.) What personal item has surprised you with its durability?

8.) What's the most expensive thing you've ever purchased (other than primary residence and vehicle)?

9.) What do you feel is the appropriate % of your income to give to charity? Do you donate something other than money (and what)?

10.) Do you shop at garage sales? How often (and how much do you buy)?

11.) If you said yes in #10, what's the best thing you ever bought at a garage sale?

12.) What item do you constantly find yourself upgrading?

13.) Day to yourself. Shopping or chores?

14.) Day to yourself. Shopping or reading?

15.) Day to yourself. Shopping or some sort of event (movie, play, sports event).

16.) Let's press the issue. Shopping or sex?

17.) Your boss gives you an award. Do you want the public acknowledgement, or a private $25 gift certificate.

18.) If you could only carry an armload (let's say one to five) things out of your burning abode, not including the cherished item in #1, what would they be?

19.) What does another friend have that you want?

20.) Every get nicked (arrested, detained) or confronted for taking something you wanted?

21.) Do you get a magazine that's primarily devoted to acquisition or reviews of material goods? Which one?

22.) Ever take a job just so you could get a discount on something?

23.) Where do you buy most of your stuff? And why there?

24.) Where would you buy most of your stuff, if you could? Why there?

25.) What do you consistently buy for yourself that you really (really) don't need?

26.) Did you meet any of your friends through a shared appreciation of certain materialistic goods? Did the friendship last?

Fun time catchup

There are a few links floating around my inbox that I thought I'd share:

Most importantly, the best 25 beers in America from Men's Journal. I've had Dogfish and Bell's, but I may have to dig around for the rest of them, particularly things in the top 5.

1 - Firestone Walker Pale Ale: Paso Robles, CA
2 - Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA: Milton, DE
3 - Stoudt's Pils: Adamstown, PA
4 - Russian River Temptation Ale: Santa Rosa, CA
5 - Avery Mephistopheles' Stout: Boulder, CO

Second, Eyeteeth lists some of the highlights from the Walker Museum's top 10s (here's the Walker link). I like the silver dog peeing on the wall. Almost as classy as the Britney Spears giving birth statue.

She Says sent me a CNN article about ways to decorate my cube, what with the big pole in the middle and all. I like the idea of little cube toys that are just copies of me, my friends, and our cubes. If I got them, I'd have to make them toys of their own so that people would get dizzy from the recursion.

That reminds me, a note for Mean Mr. Mustard: the Dunn Brothers closest to me has two computers and each of them sports a Findlaw mousepad.

Sky Blue Waters has two posts up about the nuclear plant in my home town - in sequence, they're funny...sort of...if you're not scared about your nuclear plant having problems.
Monticello's makeover - Part I
Monticello's makeover - Part II

And finally, this list of weapons that don't exist, but should, couresty of Tall Brad, who sort of ruined the humor by making Mean Mr. Mustard, Klund and myself try to figure out why he was asking us about whether we'd had anything to do with it, and then pointing us at the history tab. He meant it was our kind of humor, but the whole history tab thing was very confusing. That aside, everyone needs their own Chuck-Nun.

Witness to Barbarism

I took Klund's advice and made use of the inter library loan system last night. Not just because I wanted some of the Terry Pratchett books the Dakota library system doesn't carry, but because a number of books in my Amazon list aren't things I can get at Dakota County (not surprisingly, a few of them I can't get in Minnesota at all), and because I read the first Sandman collection (by Neil Gaiman), Preludes and Nocturnes, and wanted to get my hands on the other nine collections my own library doesn't carry. Yes, I am reading a comic book (eff that graphic novel stuff - Cain and Abel are mixed in, and I read enough old House of Mystery/House of Secrets comic books as a kid, courtesy of the flea market, that I know those weren't classics of literature), and one that's almost 20 years old now, but it's interesting to see where Gaiman did some of his early work.

On a more interesting note, I recently read Witness to Barbarism, by Horace R. Hansen, St. Paul lawyer (well, he was, he's passed on), and chief prosecutor of the Dachau war-crimes trials. My brother-in-law bought it for me last Christmas, and I've finally moved deep enough into my bedside shelf to tackle it.

First off, my apologies to Horace, but he's a horrible writer. More than a little bad. He details how people finish speaking (He folded his arms. We were all done speaking for the day), and not just once, but a couple hundred times, and often at the end of a chapter, when you'd know they were done because the chapter ends. But that's just nitpicking. His first-hand account of his experiences as a prosecutor at the end of the war is fascinating. Near the beginning of the book he talks about U.S. units engaged in raping locals and their trials and execution. Not one or two, but what sounds like large portions of certain units (he doesn't give exact numbers). There's also interesting bits about General Eisenhower ordering Germans to bury burnt concentration camp victims at Gardelegen, one German to dig each grave and to appoint a successor in perpetuity, and another bit where Eisenhower orders that German officer POWs are not to be allowed execution by guillotine (considered a more honorable way to die, and used extensively in Nazi Germany), but were to be hanged. I had also never heard the phrase Sitzkrieg, although it was apparently characteristic of a whole stage of WWII (also called the Phony War or Twilight War).

The pictures are incredible, many of them from Hansen's collection and the collections of the Germans he met, and as long as Horace sticks to his first-hand accounts, and not the accounts of the German recorders for Hitler's staff meetings, which take up a sizeable portion of the book, exceptional. It's the level of discussion of the recorders' interviews which make them not as interesting, as they mainly detail high level politics and events, not their day-to-day lives, or the lives of those they were in contact with. Whenever Horace swings back to the actual trial and his personal contact with those from the camps, both victims and victimizers, being told history stops, and listening to Horace live history begins. His personality peeks through when he refuses to stay for two months to run the trials when he gets enough points to go home (he's obviously sick of what he sees), and when he feels a pang of guilt about the American rapists because German soliders get one to three years for rape, while U.S. soldiers get immediate life imprisonment or death. That's something that certainly highlights the changes in our country when conservatives note that we need to fight on the same level and with the same rules as terrorists.

In that same vein, I close with a good quote (p. 146):

"He disliked professionals, like teachers, journalists, engineers, and lawyers, because they were trained to look at both sides of an issue and might come out in a gray area and take no stand," ends Reynitz.

"That's very interesting. Shows his character. How did he use propaganda?" I ask Krieger.

He always takes time to answer, and he speaks calmly now: "Hitler and his close associates used propaganda to take a position on an issue. By constantly repeating a position, even if false, the propaganda took on credibility. The Americans and British were saying in their newspapers that this was use of the Big Lie. He was good at it."

Exercise

I finished my first month of biking a few days ago on my current training program. Since I started (i.e. in the last month) I've biked 325.91 miles in 1,150 min. 13.9 seconds, using up 29,326.9 calories. I know that seems like a lot of calories, and it may be high. I just take the number my Cyclosimulator gives me (riding on a 2% grade with the wind fan on) and multiply by 1.6 for weight differential. That means if I continue to lose weight, I'll have to lower that number to adjust (and really it needs a modifier as I bike more because you get stronger). I think this week may be the first week I hit 100 miles (last week was 96.04), so that's exciting. But it's not anywhere near the 70-90 a day I'd be rolling on RAGBRAI, which is my goal this summer, or the 100 (strong) miles in a day I'll need to be able to do if I try to up my mileage on the Ironman and go the long haul with Pete this year (my Ironman 2005, 2006).

Why are so many Italians...

...particularly interested in this drawing of me from Chicago last year? At least according to my site stats they are. Many Italians are doing image searches, and following the thumbnail to the version at my blog. Could it be that I'm a sex symbol in the Boot? Maybe I'm the next Raoul Bova. Hey! I didn't know Rose McGowan was Italian. According to her trivia, she's not going to like that last post of mine. Those were mostly cephalopods, not fish, but I bet she won't split hairs.

Why I Think I Went to the UK Instead of Korea

Pooteewheet was on an eating octopus video kick last night. I'm not sure why, but she left me links for all of them, and they're absolutely disgusting. So, I must share...

I can't embed this one, but it's funny. It's a family eating octopus with a weird comedic voice over. They're doing it the traditional way according to the Weird Food show I saw on cable, which is wrapping it around the chopsticks. Make sure to stay with it until the little girl has an octopus to herself.

"It's leaving sucker marks on me!"


Oldboy "Eating Live Octopus" - Behind The Scenes. Oldboy is a great movie if you like things like Resevoir Dogs (but with a better plot and a Korean take). He makes it look like he's eating beef jerky. I think it's cheating if you spit it out, but at least he apologizes to it near the end.


This one wants to get away (nice and short). Damn freaky.


And finally this isn't just octopus, but penis fish as well. Yum. With the funky music, it's almost like the ocotopus bits are dancing.
With the music, it seems like they're dancing

I'm Part of the Military Industrial Complex

For the second time since I received my Blackberry, I've gotten a call from Peter, the automated customer voice service for something something Industry level Military Supplies, wanting to know if I can verify my industry level military order. I've kind of had to ignore him because he calls at the most inopportune times, and I can't call back because the number lists as private, but I must admit I'm intrigued. What would I get if I confirmed my industry level military order? Tanks? Helicopters? Spare stargate? All the body armor that should have ended up in the Gulf and hasn't?

Musical Interlude

A music video at Danerd.com Courtesy of Zach Selwyn and Blair Butler on The Daily Nut (The Daily Nut) - I post this just because I think it may actually give Klund a headache, and because it might actually be worse than Celine Dion covering AC/DC. Wow, is that ever a bad rap video.

What the Hell

Eryn's doing nude somersaults while watching Robots. She says it's called "The Golem Trick Express". Is that in the movie somewhere?

Tall Brad Must Get Married Again!

So that he can have his bachelor party during the summer. Because this (picture below - Pedalpub.com) looks so much cooler than the zebra-striped bus. Sure, there's no stripper pole, but it's got a built in keg, you can puke off the side instead of in a puke bucket, and there are no exhaust fumes. I imagine the worst part would be pedaling Brad and Dornie's asses around once they passed out at their stools (via MNBeer). Hey...Erik's not married yet. Maybe this is the sign he's been waiting for.

While you're at it, go check out Paul Selcke's SevenCycle.com. He's got video up at his site now, so you can watch the conference bike in action. I think biking in Minnesota in January or February for a conference meeting would be a serious bonding experience for any workgroup.

"Do you remember that time we had that offsite meeting on that bike?"

"Oh s***, was that ever cold. Can you believe we optimized most of our work processes and got a jump on two new patents?"

"I'd have drunk antifreeze if the boss would have just let us quit pedaling and find a cup of hot chocolate."

News

Klund wants me to blog about stupid Boy Scouts who haven't earned their fireman chit. He challenges me to stick up for them. I don't stick up for stupid Boy Scouts. If they can't manage sharp things and can't manage a fire, they have no place in the wilderness. Just like if they can't handle the fact that approximately ten percent of the population is gay, they don't really have any place in polite society. I fully admit I was a Scout. I was a Scout through and through - Eagle, multiple palms, Assistant Scout master, National Jamboree participant, camp counselor, Order of the Arrow Vigil member, and in charge of a troop at Many Point long past my eighteenth birthday. But I haven't given them any money since I decided their stance against gays was unreasonable (I didn't think it was reasonable before, I just didn't give it a thought as I knew gay Scouts and Scoutmasters). If they actually started a fire through negligence, they deserve to be fined by the government, just like the Scouts who were stabbing fish at a national monument (see National Jamboree, above) deserved to get caught by the cops. The Scouts I knew weren't stupid with fire. They had lots of fires, it went with camping out in sub-zero weather, but they weren't stupid.

Mean Mr. Mustard wants me to blog about the world record for stationary biking. The guy is a pussy. Seriously, RAAM is 8 to 9 days, 22 hours a day, three thousand miles (not a measly 1,000) in real heat and rain and darkness and sleep deprivation. This guy had full support, presumably a stash of food just sitting there, and was in a protected environment, with a five minute break every hour. And he's got music - look at the picture. And a computer, so he can do email or watch videos. And he's only going 12.7 miles per hour. I ride 17 mph+ at a 2% grade on a wind trainer for 90 minutes. I'm not saying that's 85 hours, not even close. But I'm a heavy, out-of-shape, bastard, and I'd feel silly doing 12.7. If he really wanted a challenge, he should have done like one of the other options on RAAM, and gone tandem, even if it was inside. I think 1,000 miles with someone else's butt in your face and their stink riding your nostrils would make it much more challenging.

I do respect the fact that he raised $25,000 for charity. That's pretty cool.

Interesting Times

I've actually read two books so far this year. Alastair Reynold's Pushing Ice (science fiction) and Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times (fantasy). I won't try to compare them as they're nothing alike.

Pushing Ice was pretty good, but not particularly original. Very Rendezvous with Rama, if you're familiar with that work, if the humans hitched a ride on Rama and rode it to a conclusion. Mash in a little bit of Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, and you've got almost the whole plot, except for the disgusting puppy aliens who ride a gristleship and pee on things to mark them and get them to bind together (like their ship). What I like about Reynolds, is that he doesn't need to make you love the characters. Some of them truly suck and aren't people you'd ever want to know. Nothing as bad as Iain Banks' character(s) in Use of Weapons, mind you, but definitely characters with grudges that are above and beyond reason (as is possible with humans).

Interesting Times was above average for one of the Discworld books. Mean Mr. Mustard might be interested to know that my version doesn't look like the one in the picture on the left, but is an older version with Rincewind's Wizzard hat on the cover. He was a little annoyed with me the other day because I made a joke about the hat and the legged luggage to Klund and he had to wiki it. Interesting Times takes place in a country that's a mix of Japan and China and mocks a few things, including their culture, barbarian (Western) culture, the English school system, the Lord of the Rings, et al. I think it was "raining cats and food" might be a little over the top, but the rest was pretty funny. I liked one of the 90-year old barbarians (part of the "silver horde") stating:

"Right, D'you know, when I went after that Five-Headed Vampire Goat over in Skund they said I shouldn't on account of it being endangered species? I said, yes, that was down to me. Were they grateful?"

"Huh," said Caleb. "Should've thanked you, giving them all those endangered species to worry about."

Blogging from the mall

I'm waiting for dinner and it's boring. So I'm going to blog from my Blackberry until the reservation buzzer goes off. I saw the outside ticket office that MNSpeak was talking about at Rosedale. They're insane. That looks freaking cold! Are they trying to make people stay home and watch DVDs?

Eryn just had a head-to-head collision on the playground. Looked pretty cool from 20 feet up with violin music in the background (live, at the jewelry store). My hand is cramping. This is a stupid way to blog.

Ish...

I bike for about 50 minutes in the morning now. I've always been a sweater. Not the wool or argyle kind, but the kind that drips a lot of stinky water all over the place. To protect my floor, I wear a t-shirt, keep a towel draped over the stem, handlebars, head tube and top tube, and have an extra slice of carpet on the floor so I won't have to replace the real carpet in just a year or two (strangely, the strip of carpet is lighter - I hope that's because it's a different carpet remnant and not washed shiny by my drippings).

Now that you can picture me all nasty and soggy, I'll relate my story. This morning I got in the shower after biking, turned on the shower, grabbed some shampoo, put it in my hair, and started lathering up. Then I realized I hadn't actually run my head under the shower water. I was completely lathering up with sweat. Ish. I rinced it all out and started the lather and repeat process from scratch.

Minnesota Nice

Maybe everyone else in the world has already seen this clip. But I was in class all day, so you'll have to excuse me for being 24 hours behind the times.

"You talk about the hostile enemy, obviously being Iraq, but hostile enemies right here on the home front: Yesterday Senator Ted Kennedy, proposing that any kind of a troop surge should mean there should be congressional approval of that."

— Former Miss Minnesota and Miss America turned Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, interviewing White House counselor Dan Bartlett, who stated the White House didn't view the senior senator from Massachusetts as a hostile enemy. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann honored Gretch as "Worst Person in the World" for her comment. (City Pages Blotter)

Scary scary scary!

Puppet ladies scare the crap out of me. I hope Eryn appreciates later in life that I went to her school winter carnival and sat in the front row by the puppet lady, because she was freaking me out. When she started singing "I wish I was a bar of soap" with a soapy hand puppet in a Carol Channing voice, I thought my fight or flight might kick in.

Here, you can see her for yourself. I've spoofed her website address just so she doesn't have to feel bad that I said she scares me (if she knows how to use technorati). Her website design implies probably not, but she has her own domain, so who knows. And I don't want kids linking back to me and thinking she's scary, because they all seemed to be enthralled.

MJ(Nospace)Puppet(DOT)com\Pictures.htm

I had to sit through this one (below) for two years as well, at work. Part of my donating time to children to help them read. There was a big party each year and they brought in these puppeteers. They did more than tell puppet stories, they made me come up in front of the audience. Sorry there's no video. Christy seemed to think it was extremely funny.

the(nospace)silly(nospace)sisters(dot)com

Oops

Scooter, at the kids winter carnival at day care, to the mother of one of the children: "Hi, you must be E's mom. That would make you H."

H: "Hi, I am H. How did you know."

Scooter: "E introduces herself to me on the playground when I'm picking up Eryn. She says H is my mom. R is my dad."

H: "R's not her dad. R's my boss."

Scooter, looking at a loss for words and hoping what he's thinking isn't obvious, then recovering: "She did say R was a jerk."

D (H's husband): "Yeah, Uncle Rick is a jerk."

Ministering Angels

Pooteewheet and I got our invitation to join The Military Book Club yestrday. This book club celebrates the "Warrior's Creed: Stand with the men who face danger" and allows me a discount on not only Gun Digest and Finding Your Father's War, but also Freddie Flint's Ministering Angels (NSFW - for only $0.20 at introductory prices!). If you're not into nurses, there's also the option for Vietnam Pets, Blue and Grey Babes (link to the book club, seriously, the civil war reenacted with nude full-color photos), Bootcamp Beauties, Tank Girls and Winsome Warriors.

Of course, if the nurses are what's really doing it for you, you're sort of out of luck, as BudPlant.com is out of their (NSFW) High Blood Pressure: Uncensored Fantasies statue. I don't know why large-thighed nurses are considered particularly sexy, but my sister was in gymnastics before she became an R.N., so maybe she has the scoop.

Elmo Live

Ming and son aren't the only ones going to Elmo Live. We have tickets too - we're just going to an evening one and not the afternoon matinee. I'm going to have Eryn call Logan the night before he goes and spoil it for him by telling him the plot.

Maybe, as Pooteewheet likes to point out, we're going to Elmo Dead. Otherwise, why point out that Elmo's live?

Sort of a Resume

I was tagged by She Says to do another meme. She's meme-obsessed lately. I think she's just happy about this one because she now has a job to meme about.

1. What was your first job ever (not including babysitting, mowing the lawn, paper routes and the like – I mean a job = where they took taxes out of your paycheck kinda thing)?
That's a tough one, because my first job was a paper route, and it sucked, because you had to carry that big, fifty-plus pound sack of papers around, and I was just a kid. Bailing hay probably doesn't count, because it was for my Dad. But he shafted me on the money, sort of like paying taxes. Farming probably doesn't count, because it was room and board at Grandpa and Grandma's, although it involved running the tractor and combine and picking freaking rock. Doesn't matter what you get paid for picking rock - it's not enough. I probably have to say that working for Third District Nurses was my first real job as it involved typing, labeling, cleaning, laying tile - anything that was worth a little more than minimum wage. But Kyle often accompanied me for the cleaning and boxing and labeling parts, so at least it wasn't lonely.

2. How old were you?
Probably 15. I know I was helping them move offices, clean bathrooms and do other work before I could drive.

3. What is the worst job you’ve ever had? Why do you consider it the worst?
Picking rock was the hardest job I ever hard. Labeling would be up there if it weren't for the fact that Kyle was around or you could do it in front of the television. You get used to cleaning toilets. I'll have to agree with Chris Sells that when he and I hand-picked weeds out of a lake to improve some guy's lakeshore, dumping the weeds into a rubber raft and then dumping the rubber raft whenever it was full - that blew. It was almost Dirty Jobs worthy.

4. What is the best job you’ve ever had? Why do you consider it the best?
Always the most recent one. I tend to really like what I'm doing, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. Today I had my first real assignment. It took me hours. It made me happy.

5. What’s the oddest job you’ve held?
Manual aquatic weed picker.

6. What is your “dream job”? And it has to be an actual job that exists somewhere…
There was a job in Arizona once that involved just biking around on trails and making sure they were up to speed. That sounds sweet. I'd enjoy being a bicycling tour guide if it could be a family endeavor. But let's be serious, I might be too lazy to persist in that. So, I'm going to go with Scotch taster at a Scottish brewery. It's probably not as exciting as it sounds, but one can hope. Wait! Bike tour guide of Scottish distilleries. That MUST exist, and that sounds perfect.

7. How long is the longest you’ve worked for one organization?
Ten years, plus some time, if you consider the fact that I moved from janitorial to other duties.

8. What is the shortest period you’ve held a job?
The weed picking thing didn't last very long at all, about a week or two.

9. Have you worked in food service, retail sales, telemarketing or any other job that required that either be nice to people and/or stand on your feet most of the time or both (for notsomuch money)?
No. I've spent my life trying not to be behind a counter or handling other people's food. I did have to make sandwiches for the nurses' board meetings, but that wasn't so bad, and I ate the leftovers.

10. How many states have you worked in? Have you worked in any other country?
Minnesota. Montana if you consider farming for room and board. No other countries.

11. Have you ever dated or otherwise “gotten involved” (defined as loosely as you are… I mean, as you’d like) with a co-worker?
No way. I once gave a nurse who was leaving the state a dozen roses, but she was leaving the state and was quite a bit older than jailbait me, so I'm free of any incrimination.

12. Ever worked as a camp counselor in the summer?
Oh yeah. Boy Scouts of America camp counselor for Cub Scouts and Webelos. Gun range. Archery range. Crafts (nature mobiles). Nature. Knots. Pioneering and lashing. One week there were only two or three of us there after the rest of them caught plant-induced pneumonia from trying to smoke WWII era hemp (for rope) from the Scout grounds. Another day I got to wake up, hop out of my hammock bed, and land in a huge puddle of beer (hop in the hops) and passed out camp counselors as the parents pulled up with the kids. I was the face of Scouting that day - very professional.

13. Any embarrassing on-the-job anecdotes? Do share!
Yes. I once sent a friend of mine a notice from a SQL Server email program that told him, "I know what you did in the bathroom", a joke based on the fact that we had both worked at a place where someone had literally exploded in the bathroom. Unfortunately, SQL Server wasn't too discriminating, and sent the email not only to "Adam" but to some other worker I didn't know with the word "Adam" in her name. She went ballistic, and I was called in to talk to management, which is fairly frightening when you're a contractor. My management guy told me a story about how he'd once been caught naked (just a tiny towel) in the corporate rental house by a VP and his wife while said management guy was washing all his clothes at once. The VP ordered him to just sit still, as the VP and his wife could move the table they'd come to pick up all by themselves. I guess they didn't want any sudden towel movements. He pointed out that everyone got one mistake. He'd had his. I now had mine.

14. If you won the lottery for uber big bucks, would you continue working?
Yes...but only because I'd have a new job doing bike tours and scotch tastings, while running the Scooter Charitable Foundation on the side.

15. If no, what would you do?
See #14. I'd ride my bike drunk until my own charitable foundation had to take care of me.

16. Ever have a job that required you to wear a uniform?
Boy Scout camp counselor. You have to wear the badges! And a neckerchief. I had a lot of neckerchiefs. Accessorizing is important.

17. Ever worked for a boss who was younger than you?
I don't believe so. Although sometime soon, I believe it's inevitable.

18. What’s the longest commute you’ve had? The shortest?
45 minutes, and it was a commute. I rode from Monticello to Minneapolis with my mother every day. Shortest is probably a tie for about 5-6 miles, or 15 minutes, once with the nurses, and at my current job. We've (Pooteewheet and I) traditionally moved to be close to where I work because I don't like to waste time driving to work and I was the bread winner for a long time. Fortunately, she got to pick the office for her self-employment and doesn't have much more of a commute than I do.

19. Any “worst boss ever” anecdotes?
Two. My first contracting job, my boss (from the contracting company) got my notice I was leaving. He called me into the office and told me that the more than 50% increase in salary I was getting from my new employer wouldn't make up for the fact that I was going to be working on internet applications, because that was "only a passing fad." He was like 80. He used to make contractors on the bench watch a video about how he spent like $150,000+ on the first private plane of some sort to come off the assembly line. That was generally the total of what all of the benchers in the room made together over the course of a year.

My other story is about a disagreement over paperwork. When I worked for the nurses, one of the professional staff (i.e., an R.N.) asked where I'd put the summary for a workshop she'd held. I directed her to a matrix I'd created that listed whether all the surveys had been scanned, when, and whether a copy had been delivered to the file, the meeting-owner's mail box and the executive director's mail box. Everything was checked and dated. At which point she began screaming at me about how my chart didn't mean a damn thing and I was lying and I hadn't run the survey and she sure as hell didn't have it and maybe I should check and run it again. It was one of the few times in my life I've ever become so mad I was incapable of thinking. The other administrative assistant took me by the shoulders, pushed me pass the R.N., out the office door, out the building door, and into the parking lot where she made me take deep breaths. When we came back inside quite a while later (after I was tempted to drink the bottle of vodka Mary the admin kept in the back of her car) the R.N. huffed from the other room, "I guess you left it on the bottom of my desk" (meaning under a big pile of papers that had been there for a while).

20. Ever work in an organization where one of your co-workers was caught in a scandal (e.g., caught in the act, caught stealing/lying, sued for something, etc.)?
I don't think I can answer this question in depth without getting into some sort of trouble. But yes. And there's a court case to prove it (it doesn't involve me).

I'm not going to tag Mean Mr. Mustard, because then I'd have to hear about how he worked in college as a movie usher and met local Miss Teen Pisbo County 1948 Shelley Jeffers who shared a tub of lap popcorn with him. Instead, I'll tag LissyJo, because I know she can say she worked outside the country and there may have been crying involved. I'd like to add question #21 before she begins, however - see below. I won't answer it myself, because it's contained above in my story about SQL Server.

21. Have you ever been fired? What for? If not, have you ever been severely reprimanded? What for?

Prince Honeycutt

That's right, I have one left. If I really felt like it, I could start doing movie review. After all, I did mention at the start of this whole thing that we finished three movies over the weekend. Instead, I'll just say that if you like screwed up, semi-violent, really weird movies, then King of the Ants is for you. You won't appreciate Norm (George Wendt) quite so much after his showing.

I discovered the other day that my company actually owns a copy of North Star, a documentary detailing the lives of influential black Minnesotans. I blogged about it once quite a while ago as I took time off work to go watch a few of the clips in Town Hall. While it's a bit embarrassing that I was interested in a book on ambient findability that was nearby (which I found by way of a book on Real World Web Services), that's how I found the DVD, and find it I did. It is wonderful. If you get a chance to watch it, do so. One of the first bits is on Prince Honeycutt of Fergus Falls, a sleepy little town home to both my dentist and Erik the Bearded Swede (of Overheard in Minneapolis fame). And he's not even the most interesting individual in the series. Lena Smith, the first black, female lawyer in Minnesota, who graduated from what became William Mitchell, is just fascinating. If you mosey around the Minnesota museums, you'll see plenty of references to the Pantages Theater, from which she was forcibly removed, and which she basically forced into integrating.

You can't have it until I'm done, unless you own a VCR. But we should be done soon.

Minnesota Winter

So not safe for work (NSFW) - via MNSpeak. I read Jim Walsh's original article about the Hamm's Bear in the City Pages. Here's a follow up with upper body, stripper nudity (and a thongish thing that doesn't cover her butt tat). Pooteewheet says, given picture #4, that the bear must be very very cold.

Mmmm...cake

Christy came back from her cruise with her son, her ex, and her mother. Don't ask me to expain. She understands the family dynamics, I guess that's enough. The Scooter clan was put in charge of watching the cats while she was gone, so she brought back a treat that we could all share...Rum cake. 1600 calories in a box too small for two Chipotle burritos. Scary. Scarier? Everyone on the ship was starting to come down with Norwalk virus toward the end of the trip and puking all over the ship. I'm not even sure I want to touch the box, let alone the cake inside the box. If Tortuga sounds familiar, it's because you heard Johnny Depp talking about it in Pirates of the Caribbean. Famous home of piracy and rum cake. I assume the later was the case because when the governor imported 1650 prositutes, there were too many to service the population, so they had to resort to cooking.

Duets

Because you've always wanted to hear me sing a duet on the web....you know you did...admit it.

An Open Invitation for my Sister

LissyJo. Eryn now owns a very large bottle of Strawberry Shortcake bubble bath. I thought you might like to come over some night soon and drink it. Maybe do shots with Pooteewheet. You know. Like you did when you were a kid. And it oozed out your sweat glands. And you smelled like sweaty strawberries. Delish.

P.S. Where's you blog entry about how you stayed in the Besty Tacy room? Is it really in Deep Valley, Minnesota? Is that a euphemism?

Headphones

I have wireless headphones at home, and I use them when I'm biking in the morning (at 5:30, ugh) to listen to a DVD on the computer. Lately, I've noticed that after about 35 minutes, there's a distinct possibility that they'll cut out and start doing this weird sort of choppy in-and-out noise. It's very peculiar, but the more I bike, so the better shape I'm in, the less likely they are to cut out. I've created a hypothesis - while exercising, my head becomes so hot that it affects the headphones, effectively overheating them. Exercise, copious amounts of sweat, and (semi-) precision electronics may not be the best mixture.

My headphones at work have a different problem. Something in the right earpiece (they're those fully fit over the ear sort of headphones) has come loose. So, if I hear a noise nearby, and quickly turn my head to see if someone needs my attention, "BAM!" there's an enormous clunking noise as whatever's wiggled lose slams back and forth within the plastic casing. It's loud enough to be painful, and it's started to affect how fast I turn my head when there's a startling noise. Some day soon, they'll find me dead in my cube from a crashing ceiling tile that I casually turned to check out.

"What happened?"

"The whole damn ceiling fell on his head."

"Why didn't he move?"

"We don't know. You could hear it in e-building. And he just sat there. It doesn't even seem like he really turned to see what was going on."

"Maybe the music was too loud?"

"No, that's the strange thing. It was on level 2 out of 100. It barely registers to human ears."

"Poor fucker."

Pow, Right in the Ming

There is the distinct possibility I may blog until your eyes bleed tonight. I actually have a list, and it's not so small. I can't help it - that's what happens when I skip a few days it's....Blogstipation. Hey...I trademark that or something. It's mine. And I don't have any Netflix videos because we watched them all on Saturday and Sunday.

So...this is what I imagine it looked like when, at a company paintball event, Klund shot Ming in the side of the head with a paintball. The way both Ming and Klund describe it, it just can't be that far off. It might even just be some sort of subset of how it looked, because they were much closer to each other. I think they were on the same team.

So, courtesy of The Daily Nut, this time starring Blair Butler and Zach Selwyn (who actually look like they belong on G4TV. Blair is damn funny.), Paintball Headshot on Medialunchbox.com.

Embracing the Prime Directive

In our defense, in a few billion years they would have had weapons of mass destruction, and no one wants the axis of evil to extend from the earth to Mars. That's just f-ing confusing.

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the Red Planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.

The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said." (CNN)

Superdickery

I've been out to this site before, and it's been linked to all over the place, but Superdickery, a site showing Superman comic book covers proving that Superman is a dick, is pretty funny. And disturbing. I knew that WWII-era comics often showed superheroes beating up Nazis and Japanese soldiers. Michael Chabon discussed it (fictionally, but certainly based on real events) in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

So...here are the WWII covers from Superdickery, for those of you who might find them interesting (I imagine that includes you, She Says). It does make me wonder if conservatives who talk about feminazis didn't spend a little too much time with their Superman comic books as kids. That might explain the whole black and white worldview (or red and blue view). Superdickery certainly subverts that view with the implication (scratch that, it's an outright statement) that Superman isn't all patriotism and altruism.

In addition to the covers below, there are a few out at Wired and some at STL Comics.

• http://www.superdickery..com/dick/20.html


• http://www.superdickery..com/dick/54.html


• http://www.superdickery..com/dick/69.html


• http://www.superdickery..com/dick/87.html


• http://www.superdickery..com/dick/89.html

We asked my niece

"How old are you?"

She replied, "Christmas."

I honestly can't speak as to how old that is.

Advice for Your Stay in Morocco

"If you see a bottle floating in a squatting toilet, leave it alone. It is there for a good reason--to deter passing rats from taking an interest in your behind." - Behave Yourself! The Essential Guide to International Etiquette by Michael Powell

So Quiet

Pooteewheet just locked herself in our bedroom after informing Eryn there would be a three minute mommy time out because Eryn was being super annoying. In protest, Eryn shut herself in her bedroom. It's so quiet. So peaceful. What did I do to deserve what basically amounts to an empty house? I like it. I must now forment dissent more often.

Two Favorite News Stories of the Day

Item 1: Eschaton, via Prospect.org. Walmart is just misunderstood, right? They're not out to mess with anyone's living wage. They care about their workers...

"Wal-Mart is moving towards widespread implementation of new employee scheduling software. Sounds innocent enough -- the software tracks customer habits over seven week periods, and reschedules workers for each one. Moreover, it also creates a range of daily possibilities, allowing Wal-Mart to schedule workers to be on-call during surges, or send them home during lulls, or implement a variety of other strategies to create a more flexible, adaptive, workforce. All sounds routine enough, right?

But pity the workforce. The new software will make advance scheduling and reliable paychecks a thing of the past. According to The Journal, "experts say [the program] can saddle workers with unpredictable schedules. In some cases, they may be asked to be "on call" to meet customer surges, or sent home because of a lull, resulting in less pay. The new systems also alert managers when a worker is approaching full-time status or overtime, which would require higher wages and benefits, so they can scale back that person's schedule...That means workers may not know when or if they will need a babysitter or whether they will work enough hours to pay that month's bills. Rather than work three eight-hour days, someone might now be plugged into six four-hour days, mornings one week and evenings the next."

Item 2: The everywhere story about Keith Ellison and the Quran owned by Thomas Jefferson (I choose to link to the Wege who links to the Washington Post). That is some serious, in your face smack for Virgil Goode. Damn is that funny.

"He wanted to use a Koran that was special," said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison's 5th District, was happy to help.

Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn't the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies -- the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

One person unlikely to be swayed by the book's illustrious history is Goode, who released a letter two weeks ago objecting to Ellison's use of the Koran. "I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible," the Virginia Republican told Fox News, and then went on to warn about what he regards as the dangers of Muslims immigrating to the United States and Muslims gaining elective office.

Yeah, but what about a Koran that belonged to one of the greatest Virginians in history? Goode, who represents Jefferson's birthplace of Albemarle County, had no comment yesterday."

Melonitis

Stupid New Year's. All sorts of left over beer floating around, and still in the trunk of the car where it's frosty cold. Probably where the 8.5 pounds came from.

Yesterday, while I was sitting in my cubicular comfortzone, a friend of my cube neighbor came over to talk to him about being gone for a week. Seems that while he was helping to prepare a Christmas-type feast of some sort, he was put in charge of balling...the green melon. He thinks it was a honeydew. Anyway, he balled for four hours (way to go!). The next day, he could barely move his hand (is he sure he was balling?) and when he got out of bed, he discovered he'd thrown out his back from some sort of repetitive balling disorder. I give Mean Mr. Mustard a hard time about being old, but he's never complained of a melon-induced injury.

Movie Meme

I've been tagged by Pooteewheet:

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.
The Princess Bride (also, Risky Business, Pink Floyd The Wall, and Apocalypse Now) – movies I watched a lot during my teenage years and at Boy Scout lock ins (not as sexually deviant as it sounds).

2. Name a movie that you've seen multiple times in the theater.
Unless a friend or Pooteewheet can remind me of one, I don’t think I’ve seen a movie multiple times in the theater. I’m just not a go-lots-of-times kind of guy. I have too much patience, so I just wait for the video.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.
John Cusack. Mark Wahlberg. Pierce Brosnan. Christian Bale. Minnie Driver (seriously, but not for any acting reason) – so Grosse Pointe Blank was something of a double feature.

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.
Rob Schneider. You’d have to capture me and make me watch something with him in it, ala A Clockwork Orange. Tom Cruise. Reese Witherspoon (I like her, I just don’t like most of her movies). Tom Green. Jamie Kennedy. I always have second thoughts about anything with Ben Stiller, although he’s done some good, and funny, stuff. It’s a pretty big list.

5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.
Mars Attacks! Anhk, anhk, anhk, ahnk… Also Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, although sometimes I’m slightly off on my quotes. But that’s fun, because it bugs Pooteewheet.

6. Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
I was going to say none…but that would be wrong. I probably know all the words to Annie Get Your Gun and The Sound of Music, as I played a Native American in the first musical, and the admiral who delivered the draft notice in the second.

7. Name a movie that have been known to sing along with.
Yellow Submarine (really, anything with Beatles music in it).

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.
Murderball. Absolutely excellent. I’d also recommend The Station Agent.

9. Name a movie that you own.
Brazil, Logan’s Run, Bladerunner, A Clockwork Orange – dystopic fun!

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Markie Mark of the Funky Bunch. I love his movies, even the ones that aren’t very good.

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
Magic at the Drive-in that used to be by Monticello. I remember it being scary, although it probably isn’t and just presaged the Child’s Play movies.

12. Ever made out in a movie?
No. In high school I had a habit of taking all my friends with me to a show, even if I was on a date. It limited make out time. My friend, Joe, once ended up dating someone from the class ahead of us after she squeezed his crotch in the theater.

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't yet gotten around to it.
For a long time, it was Hotel Rwanda, because Pooteewheet saw it without me, and I couldn’t bring myself to make her watch it again via Netflix. But we finally took care of that. Currently, An Inconvenient Truth keeps sliding down because there’s a short wait. And I have yet to see Borat.

14. Ever walked out of a movie?
Nah. A bad movie is just an excuse to close your eyes and relax.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
Not in the theater, but Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka). What a horribly sad and wonderful movie. My friend Adam cried during the presidential speech in Independence Day.

16. Popcorn?
If I go by myself, pretty much never. If I go with Pooteewheet and/or Eryn, then yes.

17. How often do go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
Less often than Pooteewheet, but still once or twice a month (if you don’t include kid movies with Eryn).

18. What's the last movie you saw in the theater?
I think it was Casino Royale, the James bond movie. But based on my story about going, it might be argued that I never really saw it.

19. What's your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
I’m a science fiction guy. I’m not sure if that’s the bulk of what I watch, but I don’t think I miss too many. I have to admit my favorites tend to be good documentaries. Pooteewheet and I used to attend the City Pages Documentary festival every year (to the extent of taking a day or two of vacation) until it disappeared.

20. What's the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
It was either Call of the Wild or The Land that Time Forgot (with Doug McClure!), because I remember going with my Dad and without my brother, although one of those is ’72 and the other is ’75. So it must be the first one. I do remember the first movie I went to pseudo-alone, i.e. without my parents – I took my brother to Close Encounters of the Third Kind for his birthday.

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
The Cave. Hands down horsecrap. But I can name many. I hated Congo. Pooteewheet and I still joke about how much House of the Dead sucked. Anchorman. The Brown Bunny (maybe that should move way up the list of bad, particularly as Vincent Gallo is selling his sexual services on the web. They don’t even seem to list it as a movie on IMDB – wait, there it is, you just can’t search for it).

22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?
Project Grizzly. Notably, Pooteewheet and I saw it at the Bell at the U of MN (after we graduated), same place with saw Julien Donkey-Boy.

23. What is the scariest movie you've seen?
Call of the Wild (dog licks owners dead face through the ice – I was, oh…5?) and Soylent Green (also seen at age 5 or 6, but by myself in the middle of the night when I snuck into the living room after seeing it listed in the t.v. guide). I also love Prince of Darkness, although it’s dated and not very scary. Recently (as a grown up), Dawn of the Dead has been the only movie that made me twitchy as I left the theater. I think there are a few very scary bits in that movie.

24. What is the funniest movie you've seen?
My favorite funny movies are things like The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, Office Space (probably my favorite) and Napoleon Dynamite. I usually like my humor low key, not completely over the top, although I can find enjoyment in Dodgeball, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and Zoolander. I also like The Aristrocrats, Thank You for Smoking and The Jerk.

Tag, Mean Mr. Mustard (though he’s not a very meme-y guy), Klund (because he’s sort of blogging again, sometimes, with old stuff), and Kyle (because he doesn't have a blog, so maybe he'll have to do the whole thing in Blogger comments).

8.5 Pounds

Between Friday morning, before I biked 16 miles and Tuesday morning (after logging another 16 on Saturday), I gained 8.5 pounds according to the scale in my basement. I fully confess that I had a lot of alcohol and cheese and cake, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about 30,000 excess calories worth (8.5 x 3500 + 2 hours of biking). There is something seriously f-ed up with that scale. It's one of those digital step on it and wait for it to zero itself out numbers. I tried it a few times, moved it all over the place in case the floor was flexy, but the best I could do was 7 pounds heavier instead of 8.5. Must be the moon. Or the Klunds, messing with me.

On a positive note, I lost 4 pounds between yesterday morning and this morning.

New Year 2007

This year was Salty Pretzel, C his wife, little J and little J's not arrived yet sister's year to host New Year's. That meant that festivities were way up north of Monticello where they moved this year. Normally, that wouldn't be so bad. But last night was the night the moratorium on snow was lifted and it rained, slushed, then snowed all the way there. A drive that would normally take about 60 minutes took about 2.5+ hours instead as traffic on the interstate in many places stopped, and in others merged into a single, slow lane.

To make it really frightening, just south of St. Michael, our Focus just quit. In the middle of a snow storm. With Eryn along. No reason...just quit. I was worried we'd lost the alternator or had an electrical failure. But five minutes later (lots of room to park on the side of the interstate, fortunately), it started up and we snuck into St. Michael where we turned it on and off a few times at the Conoco just to see if we could reproduce the problem. No go...it's a mystery. I'm hoping it's water in a fuel line.

Eventually, with only one short turn down a wrong way in Monti that earned me a very condescending look, we made it all the way to Salty Pretzel's house, so the drinking could begin.

Here's an example of what we drank. The snow made it all nice and frosty. Don't let it fool you, we also drank beer and Mad Dog 20/20. I didn't drink MD, but Dan'l, Kyle and Salty Pretzel did, particularly SP as he was out of Hold 'Em a bit early.


Here's an example of what we eat...mmmm....cheesy...with hamburger...and really hot peppers. When coupled with beer, designed to keep you constipated for at least three or four days, just so you remember the New Year's fun. There was tons of food. More than anyone could possibly eat. Ming need not worry - Cookie Queen subbed for him vis-a-vis the cooked weenies.


Most of the gang, hanging out in a break between poker hands. That is my blackberry in the foreground. I'm just like Florida Governor Jeb Bush!


Eryn and J playing with Eryn's new Leapster.


Cookie Queen and son celebrating the new year.


The host and son...this was either close to midnight or close to 2:00 a.m. The kids were up for quite a while. They were excited about the company and the toys.


I honestly can't remember why Kyle is looking at Dan'l's nipples. Although I think at this point he's talking to his mom on the phone.


This is Cookie Queen after Kyle pegged her in the side of the head with a snowball. He was a problem all night - just a violent drunk. After I tackled him outside for writing bad things on my wife's car window, just a love tap really, he tackled me back, cut my forehead, and then rubbed road salt in it. Uncalled for, if you ask me. But Cookie Queen hadn't done anything when he nailed her with the ice ball in the ear. He was just being spiteful.


Unrelated...Eryn enjoying the new snow and making a snow Eryn. There's video below that.


Snow Eryn video: