Thursday, November 29, 2007

Wanna hear something scary?



A few weeks ago I heard the most terrifying words anyone has ever spoken to me.
I was sitting at home at the time. Minding my own business. Chances are I was watching TV. Probably something terrible. Then, the phone rang. It was my realtor.
"He accepted your offer on the house," he said.
Gulp.
I realize this was supposed to be good news. Most people, I understand, make an offer to buy something with the hope that offer will be accepted. In theory, that's what I did when I made a bid on this particular one-and-a-half story home. In that particular moment, though, my most immediate thought was something along the lines of, "Nonononononono! Take it back! Take it back! You can't make me!"
I'm paraphrasing, obviously. And more than likely editing out a few less than printable words.
I've had a little time now to adjust to the idea of home ownership. I've bought supplies. I paid a whole bunch money that could have gone to something important like a new iPod or a few Playstation games for something silly like an inspection to make sure the home is structurally sound.
On Tuesday I officially closed on the purchase, a process that largely involved someone pointing at a line on a piece of paper and me, blank stare on my face, signing my name. They told me all of the documents were related to the purchase, but as far as I know, in addition to my mortgage and loan documents, I signed away the rights to any oil discovered on the property, my entire baseball card collection and my first born child.
I signed my name so many times Tuesday morning I started to understand how professional athletes must feel, only without the legion of groupies or the steriod rush.
I'm looking forward to moving into my new home now, although I've discovered the line between excitement and terror is surprisingly thin. I think it will be good to move out of the room I've rented for the past year or so in the basement of my step-sister's house. I understand moving away from my 5-year-old nephew will seriously cut down on my opportunities to play with Thomas the Tank Engine toys, but nobody ever said owning a home was perfect.
Really, what's not to get excited about? Now that I own a home I'll have a lawn to rake and mow. I'll have a sidewalk to shovel and gutters to clean. I'll have mortgage and insurance and property tax payments to make. But I'll also have an opportunity to borrow tools from my neighbor and never return them. This, I've come to understand from comic strips and situational comedies, is what neighbors do.
Buying a house means I can finally get a puppy, although given the amount of time I'm actually at home these days that seems like a bad idea. It means I can throw big, loud parties without worrying about disturbing people in neighboring apartments. Scrabble parties can really get out of hand when people start arguing about triple letter scores.
I suppose it's appropriate that this particular purchase takes place just a couple of weeks before my 33rd birthday. If anything, buying a home is just another part of getting older.
Like I said. Gulp.


----------------
Now playing: Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
via FoxyTunes

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Searching for patriotism

I would certainly never suggest that veterans of the United States Military do not deserve recognition for their service. The men and women who have served this country, even those who returned home safely, have made significant sacrifices in the name of protecting the rest of us. They fought bravely and they deserve our respect.
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.

----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
via FoxyTunes

Searching for patriotism

I would certainly never suggest that veterans of the United States Military do not deserve recognition for their service. The men and women who have served this country, even those who returned home safely, have made significant sacrifices in the name of protecting the rest of us. They fought bravely and they deserve our respect.
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.

----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
via FoxyTunes

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Solidarity

I thought about skipping this column. I wanted to show solidarity with the members of the Writers Guild of America, who went on strike this week after failing to reach a deal with studios. In the end, though, my sense of devotion to my loyal readers, all baker’s dozen of you, was simply too strong. Also, this was a light week for letters to the editor and I couldn’t find anything else to put in this space. This strike is serious business. According to Reuters, the motion picture and television industry generates $30 billion in annual economic activity for Los Angeles County alone and the U.S. film and television industry, which will in many cases be idled by the strike, employs 200,000 people. Economists estimate a 22-week writers’ strike in 1988 cost the entertainment industry roughly $500 million. That doesn’t even take into account the impact on the poor families who might now be forced to hold a conversation while they eat dinner. You can’t put a price on that kind of psychological trauma. Some of the strike’s effects have already started to show up. Late night talk shows went to re-runs on Monday. Apparently Jay Leno needs a full staff of writers to prepare him for reading wacky headlines. (City council runs out of time to discuss shorter meetings? Precious!) The film industry, which prepared for a possible strike by stockpiling scripts, will likely not be affected. But the impact elsewhere could be significant. Though the producers of television series typically work ahead a long strike could mean more reruns for prime time shows. This could actually be good news for fans who want to catch up with their favorite shows. It could be even better news for viewers looking for an excuse to finally stop watching Two and a Half Men. If there are too many reruns we could ultimately lose some of the weaker shows on the schedule. If things get really bad we could find ourselves cutting down to just six or seven CSI series and only a couple of dozen Law and Order spin offs. It’s the law of the television jungle. Ultimately, the strike could mean more reality shows popping up in the months ahead. In other words, the studios might finally listen to my “Strand seven unstable strangers on an island, make them dance and have an angry British guy yell at them” pitch. I call it Real Dancing with the Idol. It’s going to be huge. I shouldn’t make jokes, though. This strike is serious business for the people involved. And it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the writers. According to most reports all they really want is a bigger cut of the roughly $315 million expected to be spent this year on Internet downloads of movies and television shows. That’s a whole lot of money. And who are we to say the writers don’t deserve every penny? Without the talented members of the Writers Guild, after all, we wouldn’t have quality television fare like Cavemen, the half-hour sitcom based on a series of insurance ads, or Cane, which is about Jimmy Smits being sexy and probably evil or something. I haven’t actually watched the show, but the commercials are pretty annoying. It’s hard to know how this will play out from here. The smart thing would be for everyone involved to work out their differences and get back to business before Americans realize they can fill the time they used to spend watching TV by reading a book or taking a walk, a process that by most estimates will take until somewhere in mid-2013. Then again, this is the entertainment industry we’re talking about. It’s hard to count on an industry that keeps Rob Schneider gainfully employed to ever do the smart thing.


----------------
Now playing: Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
via FoxyTunes

Friday, November 02, 2007

Your Halloween history lesson

Earlier this week children and adults in Rosemount and across the country celebrated Halloween, a popular holiday that in its modern incarnation is largely associated with excess.
For children, Halloween is an excuse to dress in costumes that are typically either adorable or horrifying and go door to door extort massive amounts of candy from friends and neighbors.
For adults, Halloween parties are frequently an excuse to consume excessive amounts of food and alcohol, and to dress in excessively revealing outfits. In this way, Halloween has followed an evolution similar to many other popular holidays in the United States, from New Year's Eve to the Fourth of July to Arbor Day.
But to focus on the modern trappings of Halloween is to ignore the holiday's proud history. Halloween at its beginning looked little like the holiday we celebrate today. Originally called All Hollow Eaves, Halloween began in 1783 as a way for roofers of the day to show off their work. Essentially an early ancestor of our modern Parade of Homes, construction companies would use the promise of sweet treats such as sugar cubes and caramel apples to lure children and their parents to view what were then remarkable advances in roofing technology. In fact, had the advent of modern gutter technology not coincided that year with a bountiful sugar beet crop the last day of October might look very different today.
There were no costumes at the first Halloween. It is widely believed the first instance of dressing up for the holiday occurred the following year, when Jack O'Lantern, then one of the most prominent roofers in of the day, decided he could draw more people to his homes if he gave prizes for the best dressed visitors to his homes. Among the most popular costumes that first year were John Wesley, who had gained fame in February of that year when he chartered the Methodist church, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, a pioneer in the field of summation.
Also common in those early years, though frowned upon by many, were costumes we see still today such as the slutty nurse and the cat woman.
O'Lantern's Halloween inventions did not stop with the costume, of course. As you may have guessed he is also widely believed to be the first to carve a face in a pumpkin, which grew in abundance that year, and place a candle in it as a kind of torch so people could admire his handiwork well into the night. He called this innovation the punk-o-torch. The name was changed later, but surprising to honor not the creator of the punk-o-torch but an entirely different Jack O'Lantern whose direct connection to the carved pumpkin remains shrouded in mystery but there are those who believe he was the first to perfect the now common "pointy-teeth" carving method.
Halloween has continued to evolve over the years. Bobbing for apples, though now a popular and lighthearted event common at Halloween parties, has a surprisingly tragic origin as a commemoration of the Great Apple Drownin' of 1832.
The name of the holiday was officially changed during the Great Depression as a way to save on printing costs, and the association with with roofing gradually faded away, replaced with overtones of the occult as people decided witches and ghosts made way cooler costumes than roofers.

----------------
Now playing: Iffy - Da Blink
via FoxyTunes