The World Cup started last week. Around the world, soccer fans are on edge as they follow their team’s fortunes. Countries are declaring national holidays so their citizens can stay home and watch their team’s games.
Meanwhile, in the United States, people are wondering why it’s taking so long this month to the golf highlights on SportsCenter.
It’s no secret soccer’s in the United States has a popularity that ranks it somewhere in the vicinity of lawn bowling and dwarf tossing. Every time the subject comes up — essentially every four years during the World Cup — Twin Cities newspaper columnists renew an argument against the game that has been going on at least since I played soccer in high school. This time around, one actually suggested liking soccer was just a few steps removed from burning the flag. “We’re Americans,” the message seemed to be. “We know better than to like that silly no-hands game.”
Ask them and Americans will give several reason for their dislike of soccer. A nation raised on the thrill-a-minute pacing of baseball does not believe the game is exciting enough. A country where fans frequently celebrate sports championships by turning over cars and starting fires tut-tut over the soccer hooligans who celebrate their team by fighting with the hooligan fans of rival teams.
Admittedly, there have been reports of Polish fans trying to schedule fights against rival fans. I don’t condone the violence, but it’s nice to know it’s so well scheduled. Although presumably the Poles would be wary of an planned brawl German fans, though.
Granted, soccer is not the easiest game to watch on TV. It’s hard to appreciate the individual work players do without seeing them up close, but it’s hard to appreciate the tactical aspect of the game — the reasons a team would pass the ball all the way back to its own goalkeeper when the goal is to get the ball in the net at the other end of the field — without a wide view.
Our sports do not lend themselves to moving backward, and it’s not a notion we accept readily. A runner would never voluntarily move back a base in baseball and a football team would never give up a sack just because it gave them more plays to choose from. About the closest we come in this country is a center in basketball passing the ball out for a three-pointer. But in Minnesota, home of the Timberwolves, even that must seem like a foreign concept.
I could argue the merits of soccer as a game, but that has been done before. Americans have their arguments and there isn’t much soccer fans will ever be able to do to convince them the game the rest of the world adores might be at least as entertaining as a rerun of According to Jim. Maybe what we need to do is find ways to make the world’s most popular game more appealing to the American public. With that in mind, I propose the following:
• At halftime, the team that is behind has to eat a tub of cow intestines.
• Two words: alligator pits.
• Every 15 minutes, someone gets voted off the team.
• Replace referees with women in striped bikinis.
• Speaking of scantily-clad women: where are the cheerleaders? How are we supposed to take a sport seriously when there are no dance squads? Come on, Sweden. Bring out the bikini team!
• Miss a shot, do a shot.
• Come on, you can use your hands just a little bit, can’t you?
• Is it too much to ask to have an occasional fight? And how about some kind of car crash?
• Two more words: exploding ball.
• No more letting goals decide the results of games. From now on, America votes. Think South Korea played the better game? Text your vote to 3845. Think Togo deserves the win? Text 3846.
I’m not sure any of this would actually be enough to make soccer appealing to the average American fan, but I’m pretty sure it’s a step in the right direction. If you disagree and would like to fight about it, please call to schedule a time.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Lessons learned
Things you learn when you ride your bicycle 450 miles in five days:
1. Bringing an extra chain is a good idea.
2. The farther you go, the bigger the hills get.
3. There are more ways than you would expect to sit on a bike seat.
4. Number three really doesn’t matter, because by the middle of day two sitting on a bike seat hurts no matter how you do it.
The last time I wrote a column for this space I knew it might very well be the last time I ever wrote for the Independent. As that newspaper arrived in mailboxes around Farmington, I was on my way with my dad and my brother to Hayward, Wisc., to begin a bike trip that in less than a week would take us across northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Mackinac Island, a city that exists solely to fill tourists with fudge and caramel corn. In five days of riding we covered distances of 95, 89, 93, 83 and 68 miles. This is what happens when my family plans vacations after a few drinks.
I didn’t know what to expect from the trip. I’m comfortable riding my bike long distances, but I didn’t know how I would feel riding so far so many days in a row. And there were some trying times. There was a while toward the end of a hilly, windy third day when I started mentally divvying up my earthly possessions (a disappointingly brief exercise, at least when we’re talking about things anyone would actually want) and wondering whether my riding companions would roll me into the ditch or just leave my body on the shoulder after I collapsed. Other than that, though I felt pretty good.
Even better, thanks to big breakfasts and bigger dinners I managed to burn all of those calories without actually losing any weight. That’s when you know you’re eating well.
We rode through a lot of remote forests, but we didn’t exactly get back to nature on this trip. With my step-mother and my brother’s girlfriend meeting us at our hotel at the end of each day, the closest we got to roughing it was staying in a bed and breakfast the fourth night and not being able to watch TV.
We all made it through the ride in pretty good shape. I broke my chain 93 miles into the first day’s ride, requiring me to walk the remaining two miles to the motel and forcing our support crew to spring into action a day earlier than they planned. They drove late into the night to meet us with a replacement. My brother broke his crank somewhere along the way, but that wasn’t as painful as it sounds and he was able to finish without any other major problems.
We were even lucky with the weather. While my co-workers back in Farmington dealt with a broken air conditioner in 90-plus degree weather, I was riding my bike in temperatures that never got much above 80. There were occasional threats of rain, but even the thunderstorm that greeted us on the morning of the fourth day cleared up early enough for us to ride and provided a nice tailwind for most of the day. Altogether we rode in the rain for about 15 seconds.
I don’t know that I’ll be in a hurry to try a bike marathon like this again anytime soon, but it’s at least nice to know I’m capable of doing it. Next time, though, I’m bringing a cushier seat.
1. Bringing an extra chain is a good idea.
2. The farther you go, the bigger the hills get.
3. There are more ways than you would expect to sit on a bike seat.
4. Number three really doesn’t matter, because by the middle of day two sitting on a bike seat hurts no matter how you do it.
The last time I wrote a column for this space I knew it might very well be the last time I ever wrote for the Independent. As that newspaper arrived in mailboxes around Farmington, I was on my way with my dad and my brother to Hayward, Wisc., to begin a bike trip that in less than a week would take us across northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Mackinac Island, a city that exists solely to fill tourists with fudge and caramel corn. In five days of riding we covered distances of 95, 89, 93, 83 and 68 miles. This is what happens when my family plans vacations after a few drinks.
I didn’t know what to expect from the trip. I’m comfortable riding my bike long distances, but I didn’t know how I would feel riding so far so many days in a row. And there were some trying times. There was a while toward the end of a hilly, windy third day when I started mentally divvying up my earthly possessions (a disappointingly brief exercise, at least when we’re talking about things anyone would actually want) and wondering whether my riding companions would roll me into the ditch or just leave my body on the shoulder after I collapsed. Other than that, though I felt pretty good.
Even better, thanks to big breakfasts and bigger dinners I managed to burn all of those calories without actually losing any weight. That’s when you know you’re eating well.
We rode through a lot of remote forests, but we didn’t exactly get back to nature on this trip. With my step-mother and my brother’s girlfriend meeting us at our hotel at the end of each day, the closest we got to roughing it was staying in a bed and breakfast the fourth night and not being able to watch TV.
We all made it through the ride in pretty good shape. I broke my chain 93 miles into the first day’s ride, requiring me to walk the remaining two miles to the motel and forcing our support crew to spring into action a day earlier than they planned. They drove late into the night to meet us with a replacement. My brother broke his crank somewhere along the way, but that wasn’t as painful as it sounds and he was able to finish without any other major problems.
We were even lucky with the weather. While my co-workers back in Farmington dealt with a broken air conditioner in 90-plus degree weather, I was riding my bike in temperatures that never got much above 80. There were occasional threats of rain, but even the thunderstorm that greeted us on the morning of the fourth day cleared up early enough for us to ride and provided a nice tailwind for most of the day. Altogether we rode in the rain for about 15 seconds.
I don’t know that I’ll be in a hurry to try a bike marathon like this again anytime soon, but it’s at least nice to know I’m capable of doing it. Next time, though, I’m bringing a cushier seat.
A Rhose by any other name...
Until you’ve tried to identify kids for a picture that will run in a newspaper, it’s hard to understand just how many ways there are to spell what otherwise seems like a straightforward name. For every Erin, it seems, there’s an Aerin or an Aryn. For every Justin there’s a Juston or a Justyn.
Things seem to get more difficult the younger the children are. I can imagine a day in the near future when I will take a picture of a group of smiling fourth grade students and not know how to spell a single child’s name.
“What’s your name?” I will ask the first girl.
“Taylor,” she’ll say.
“OK. Taylor,” I’ll say, writing in my notebook.
“That’s T-A-E-Y-L-O-R-R.”
“Um, OK. And you?”
“I’m Zachary.”
“Zachary?”
“Z-A-K-K-E-R-Y.”
“Really? And you?”
“Matthew.”
“Well, that one’s easy.”
“M-A-T-T-H-U-E.”
“No.”
“Yep.”
“I’m Ashley.”
“And how do you …?”
“A-S-H-S-L-E-I-G-H.”
“Ash-slay?”
“The S is silent.”
“Of course it is.”
There is some fundamental aspect of baby naming I just don’t understand. I realize parents want their child to have unique names, but things seem to be getting out of control. We live in a world with Madelines, Madelyns, Madelinns and, for all I know, Maddelyinns.
The unique spelling trend seems to be most common among girls, but there is enough of it on both sides of the gender gap that that on the Social Security Administration’s recently released list of Minnesota’s most popular boys’ names for 2005 there were entries for both Aidan (No. 38) and Aiden (49), Caden (69) and Kaden (79).
Maybe it’s because I work with words, but I’m all for predictable spellings. Someone I know recently named his baby girl Maya. It’s a unique name. Before she was born the only other Maya I’d heard of was a character on the mediocre sitcom “Just Shoot Me,” although I’m not sure that’s a ringing endorsement. But the name was spelled exactly how I would expect it to be spelled — like the people who built all those pyramids in Mexico — not with vowels and consonants placed willy-nilly to serve as linguistic landmines to otherwise well-meaning journalists just trying to do a job.
I don’t understand how certain names become popular, either. Some parents name their children after relatives, but I can’t imagine there are enough young girls being named after Grandma Destiny to account for that name’s popularity (No. 90 on the list, apparently setting the stage for a large influx of exotic dancers in Minnesota sometime around 2023). There are hardly any baby Margarets these days, a fact I blame mostly on the negative portrayal of Margarets in the Dennis the Menace comic strip. The first Kayla I ever knew was a Farmington High School student who mentored with me a couple of years ago. Now every third elementary school girl in the United States is a Kayla. How does that happen?
According to a story in Tuesday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press, the hottest name for girls these days is Nevaeh, at No. 55 last year on Minnesota’s baby names list and apparently climbing like a monkey on amphetamines. The name is “Heaven” spelled backward and is pronounced nuh-VAY-uh, which mostly makes me think of lotion.
What might be most frightening, though, is the story gave at least part of the credit for the name’s popularity to the fact a member of the Christian rock band P.O.D. named his own daughter Nevaeh, a fact he apparently revealed on the MTV show “Cribs.” In other words, America is taking it’s baby-naming tips from a show where mid-level celebrities show off their cars and swimming pools. And, apparently, their newborns.
When I mentioned the growing popularity of Nevaeh to someone in my office he threatened to name his firstborn son Lleh. I would never go that far, although might name one of my children Yrotagrup, which I would of course pronounce “Frank.”
Things seem to get more difficult the younger the children are. I can imagine a day in the near future when I will take a picture of a group of smiling fourth grade students and not know how to spell a single child’s name.
“What’s your name?” I will ask the first girl.
“Taylor,” she’ll say.
“OK. Taylor,” I’ll say, writing in my notebook.
“That’s T-A-E-Y-L-O-R-R.”
“Um, OK. And you?”
“I’m Zachary.”
“Zachary?”
“Z-A-K-K-E-R-Y.”
“Really? And you?”
“Matthew.”
“Well, that one’s easy.”
“M-A-T-T-H-U-E.”
“No.”
“Yep.”
“I’m Ashley.”
“And how do you …?”
“A-S-H-S-L-E-I-G-H.”
“Ash-slay?”
“The S is silent.”
“Of course it is.”
There is some fundamental aspect of baby naming I just don’t understand. I realize parents want their child to have unique names, but things seem to be getting out of control. We live in a world with Madelines, Madelyns, Madelinns and, for all I know, Maddelyinns.
The unique spelling trend seems to be most common among girls, but there is enough of it on both sides of the gender gap that that on the Social Security Administration’s recently released list of Minnesota’s most popular boys’ names for 2005 there were entries for both Aidan (No. 38) and Aiden (49), Caden (69) and Kaden (79).
Maybe it’s because I work with words, but I’m all for predictable spellings. Someone I know recently named his baby girl Maya. It’s a unique name. Before she was born the only other Maya I’d heard of was a character on the mediocre sitcom “Just Shoot Me,” although I’m not sure that’s a ringing endorsement. But the name was spelled exactly how I would expect it to be spelled — like the people who built all those pyramids in Mexico — not with vowels and consonants placed willy-nilly to serve as linguistic landmines to otherwise well-meaning journalists just trying to do a job.
I don’t understand how certain names become popular, either. Some parents name their children after relatives, but I can’t imagine there are enough young girls being named after Grandma Destiny to account for that name’s popularity (No. 90 on the list, apparently setting the stage for a large influx of exotic dancers in Minnesota sometime around 2023). There are hardly any baby Margarets these days, a fact I blame mostly on the negative portrayal of Margarets in the Dennis the Menace comic strip. The first Kayla I ever knew was a Farmington High School student who mentored with me a couple of years ago. Now every third elementary school girl in the United States is a Kayla. How does that happen?
According to a story in Tuesday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press, the hottest name for girls these days is Nevaeh, at No. 55 last year on Minnesota’s baby names list and apparently climbing like a monkey on amphetamines. The name is “Heaven” spelled backward and is pronounced nuh-VAY-uh, which mostly makes me think of lotion.
What might be most frightening, though, is the story gave at least part of the credit for the name’s popularity to the fact a member of the Christian rock band P.O.D. named his own daughter Nevaeh, a fact he apparently revealed on the MTV show “Cribs.” In other words, America is taking it’s baby-naming tips from a show where mid-level celebrities show off their cars and swimming pools. And, apparently, their newborns.
When I mentioned the growing popularity of Nevaeh to someone in my office he threatened to name his firstborn son Lleh. I would never go that far, although might name one of my children Yrotagrup, which I would of course pronounce “Frank.”
Friday, May 19, 2006
It's a going thing
There are certain things a person has to know when he chooses a place to eat. What is the menu like? How’s the food? What are the prices? And, last but certainly not least, how’s the can?
For too long, public bathrooms have been a hit-or-miss affair. Often literally. But no longer. Thanks to Minneapolis-based web site restroomratings.com, diners can find out in advance the quality of water closets from St. Paul to Seattle to Sao Paolo.
The site is flush with toilet reviews. By my quick estimate, the site currently features reviews of close to 460 toilets worldwide, including one for Minneapolis restaurant Yummy! that features an unsettling capsule review that reads, simply, “Yummy!”
The site reviews public bathrooms of all kinds, from restaurants to parks to gas stations. So, the next time you’re cruising through Breezewood, Pa. with a need to make a pit stop you’ll at least know the Shell station has a bathroom that is, according to the site, “Nothing to write home about, but decent enough to poop on.”
Don’t say you never learned anything from this column.
I have no idea, aside from the obvious cleanliness issues, what makes one bathroom superior to another. I found the facilities at El Meson, a restaurant where I ate dinner a few weeks ago, entirely ordinary. But the site’s reviewer gave it an eight out of 10, claiming it reflected the restaurant’s “rustic textures of a quaint Spanish villa.” Having spent limited time in the bathrooms of Spanish villas, I am forced to take them at their word. The cramped and generally uninspiring men’s room at The Chatterbox Pub, one of my favorite places to have a drink, got good marks for the cartoon characters painted on the walls.
I have never found a Taco Bell bathroom inspiring in any way, but one of the fast food chain’s restaurants got credit for its “sturdy and satisfying lock.” A toilet in New South Wales, Australia got bonus points because most of the water used for flushing is snow melt. And while the bathrooms at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis lost points for being dirty and having stalls that are “uncomfortably close to each other,” it benefitted for a certain undefinable hipness.
On the flipside, the toilet at Afton State Park lost points because someone had, um, used the urinal for the wrong kind of relief. Actually, that ones is pretty easy to understand.
While I haven’t had time to thoroughly review the site, the capsule reviews for bathrooms can range from disturbing (One for Pizza Hut in Mauston Ill. gets, “Well kept place to eat and poop.” Eat? Really?) to odd (Pizzaria Uno in Phoenix, Ariz., gets, “Beware of crouching dwarves.” I have no idea what that means.) to predictable (The Phi Tau fraternity house in Hanover, NH gets, “Eewwww, just eeewww,” yet still somehow scores a six in the full review.).
The site has gotten its fair share of media attention. In a 2004 Pioneer Press story, Ami Thompson, who founded the site with her husband, Jon, explained the project began when she complained during a car trip that it was impossible to know which bathrooms were suitable for use. Making the decision where to stop, she told the reporter, was a crapshoot. I can’t be sure, but I choose to believe she intended to make a pun there.
Most of the reviews also feature pictures, although that presents certain issues. Some people, you might be surprised to know, do not take well to people taking pictures in the bathroom.
“If there’s a crowd, I plan my escape,” Jon says in the Pioneer Press article. “I’ll take a photo and run out so people don’t think I’m a pervert.”
This raises an interesting question: Are you more likely to consider someone if they snap a picture of a toilet and run out or if they take a photo, hang around and comment on the feng shui of the toilet stall? I have to imagine it’s a tossup.
Either way, we owe the Thompsons a debt of gratitude. In a world filled with disgusting bathrooms, it’s nice to have someone there to tell us where to go.
For too long, public bathrooms have been a hit-or-miss affair. Often literally. But no longer. Thanks to Minneapolis-based web site restroomratings.com, diners can find out in advance the quality of water closets from St. Paul to Seattle to Sao Paolo.
The site is flush with toilet reviews. By my quick estimate, the site currently features reviews of close to 460 toilets worldwide, including one for Minneapolis restaurant Yummy! that features an unsettling capsule review that reads, simply, “Yummy!”
The site reviews public bathrooms of all kinds, from restaurants to parks to gas stations. So, the next time you’re cruising through Breezewood, Pa. with a need to make a pit stop you’ll at least know the Shell station has a bathroom that is, according to the site, “Nothing to write home about, but decent enough to poop on.”
Don’t say you never learned anything from this column.
I have no idea, aside from the obvious cleanliness issues, what makes one bathroom superior to another. I found the facilities at El Meson, a restaurant where I ate dinner a few weeks ago, entirely ordinary. But the site’s reviewer gave it an eight out of 10, claiming it reflected the restaurant’s “rustic textures of a quaint Spanish villa.” Having spent limited time in the bathrooms of Spanish villas, I am forced to take them at their word. The cramped and generally uninspiring men’s room at The Chatterbox Pub, one of my favorite places to have a drink, got good marks for the cartoon characters painted on the walls.
I have never found a Taco Bell bathroom inspiring in any way, but one of the fast food chain’s restaurants got credit for its “sturdy and satisfying lock.” A toilet in New South Wales, Australia got bonus points because most of the water used for flushing is snow melt. And while the bathrooms at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis lost points for being dirty and having stalls that are “uncomfortably close to each other,” it benefitted for a certain undefinable hipness.
On the flipside, the toilet at Afton State Park lost points because someone had, um, used the urinal for the wrong kind of relief. Actually, that ones is pretty easy to understand.
While I haven’t had time to thoroughly review the site, the capsule reviews for bathrooms can range from disturbing (One for Pizza Hut in Mauston Ill. gets, “Well kept place to eat and poop.” Eat? Really?) to odd (Pizzaria Uno in Phoenix, Ariz., gets, “Beware of crouching dwarves.” I have no idea what that means.) to predictable (The Phi Tau fraternity house in Hanover, NH gets, “Eewwww, just eeewww,” yet still somehow scores a six in the full review.).
The site has gotten its fair share of media attention. In a 2004 Pioneer Press story, Ami Thompson, who founded the site with her husband, Jon, explained the project began when she complained during a car trip that it was impossible to know which bathrooms were suitable for use. Making the decision where to stop, she told the reporter, was a crapshoot. I can’t be sure, but I choose to believe she intended to make a pun there.
Most of the reviews also feature pictures, although that presents certain issues. Some people, you might be surprised to know, do not take well to people taking pictures in the bathroom.
“If there’s a crowd, I plan my escape,” Jon says in the Pioneer Press article. “I’ll take a photo and run out so people don’t think I’m a pervert.”
This raises an interesting question: Are you more likely to consider someone if they snap a picture of a toilet and run out or if they take a photo, hang around and comment on the feng shui of the toilet stall? I have to imagine it’s a tossup.
Either way, we owe the Thompsons a debt of gratitude. In a world filled with disgusting bathrooms, it’s nice to have someone there to tell us where to go.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Do I make you angry?
Benjamin Franklin gets a lot of press for being one of this country’s Founding Fathers, or for tying a key to a kite during a lightning storm or for inexplicably supporting the wild turkey over the bald eagle as the symbol of the United States. He gets far less attention, it seems, for his role in the early development of American newspapers.
Maybe it’s because I was out of the country the year most students in my high school studied American history, or maybe I just never paid much attention, but until last weekend I knew next to nothing about Franklin’s role as a newspaperman. He did not publish the country’s first newspaper, but his Pennsylvania Gazette, which he founded after ending an apprenticeship with his older brother, James, is, according to Infamous Scribblers, Eric Burns’ history of the beginnings of journalism in America, one of the first respectable publications in the country.
I mention this because, according to Burns, Franklin published an essay in 1731 that does a pretty good job of defining the role of newspapers from the Washington Post to the Farmington Independent. He intended it, he wrote, to be “a standing Apology for my self.”
As quoted in Burns’ book Franklin asked those who disagreed with or were angered by something he printed to consider the following:
“1. That the Opinions of Men are almost as various as their Faces….
“2. That the Business of Printing has chiefly to do with Mens Opinions; most things that are printed tending to promote some, or oppose others.
“3. That hence arises the peculiar Unhappiness of that Businesss ... they who follow printing being scarce able to do any thing in their way of getting a Living, which shall probably not give Offence to some, and perhaps to many; whereas the Smith, the Shoemaker, the Carpenter or the Man of any other Trade may work indifferently for People of all Persuasions, without offending any of them….
“4. That it is unreasonable in any one Man or Set of Men to be expected to be pleased with every thing that is printed, as to think that nobody ought to be pleased but themselves….
“8. That if all printers were determined not to print any Thing until they were sure it would offend no Body, there would be very little printed.”
In other words, Franklin told his readers that if they read his newspaper long enough he was bound to make them mad. The same can be said of this newspaper. At least, I hope it can.
Maybe I should clarify: It is never our goal to make our readers angry. That would be irresponsible and unprofessional. But with so much happening around us we are bound to touch on some sensitive subjects.
Our readers, we hope, have opinions about things like the site of the new Farmington High School or the superintendent’s contract or the state of business in downtown Farmington. And while we believe our news reporting is free from our own opinions and as balanced as possible, there are bound to be items that hit a nerve with one reader or another.
Cover enough sensitive subjects, and we are certain to upset one person or another. It is not something we strive for, but neither is it something we can shy away from and still believe we are doing our jobs to the best of our ability.
So, yes. Sometimes we make people mad at us. We know there are readers who believe we cover some subjects too much and others not enough. Sometimes those readers let us know how they feel. More often, they don’t.
We don’t mind the criticism. We wouldn’t last long in this business if we did. But too often small-town newspapers have a reputation for being the Polyannas of the journalism world: focusing on good news to the exclusion of anything that would rub someone the wrong way and serving always as cheerleaders and rarely as critics. We believe on balance our pages contain more good news than bad, but we also believe we cannot shy away from the bad when it is there to be reported.
I guess what I’m asking is, the next time you read something in this paper that really gets your blood boiling, stop for a minute and think of Ben Franklin’s message.
If that doesn’t work, imagine how ridiculous a turkey would look on the back of a dollar bill.
Maybe it’s because I was out of the country the year most students in my high school studied American history, or maybe I just never paid much attention, but until last weekend I knew next to nothing about Franklin’s role as a newspaperman. He did not publish the country’s first newspaper, but his Pennsylvania Gazette, which he founded after ending an apprenticeship with his older brother, James, is, according to Infamous Scribblers, Eric Burns’ history of the beginnings of journalism in America, one of the first respectable publications in the country.
I mention this because, according to Burns, Franklin published an essay in 1731 that does a pretty good job of defining the role of newspapers from the Washington Post to the Farmington Independent. He intended it, he wrote, to be “a standing Apology for my self.”
As quoted in Burns’ book Franklin asked those who disagreed with or were angered by something he printed to consider the following:
“1. That the Opinions of Men are almost as various as their Faces….
“2. That the Business of Printing has chiefly to do with Mens Opinions; most things that are printed tending to promote some, or oppose others.
“3. That hence arises the peculiar Unhappiness of that Businesss ... they who follow printing being scarce able to do any thing in their way of getting a Living, which shall probably not give Offence to some, and perhaps to many; whereas the Smith, the Shoemaker, the Carpenter or the Man of any other Trade may work indifferently for People of all Persuasions, without offending any of them….
“4. That it is unreasonable in any one Man or Set of Men to be expected to be pleased with every thing that is printed, as to think that nobody ought to be pleased but themselves….
“8. That if all printers were determined not to print any Thing until they were sure it would offend no Body, there would be very little printed.”
In other words, Franklin told his readers that if they read his newspaper long enough he was bound to make them mad. The same can be said of this newspaper. At least, I hope it can.
Maybe I should clarify: It is never our goal to make our readers angry. That would be irresponsible and unprofessional. But with so much happening around us we are bound to touch on some sensitive subjects.
Our readers, we hope, have opinions about things like the site of the new Farmington High School or the superintendent’s contract or the state of business in downtown Farmington. And while we believe our news reporting is free from our own opinions and as balanced as possible, there are bound to be items that hit a nerve with one reader or another.
Cover enough sensitive subjects, and we are certain to upset one person or another. It is not something we strive for, but neither is it something we can shy away from and still believe we are doing our jobs to the best of our ability.
So, yes. Sometimes we make people mad at us. We know there are readers who believe we cover some subjects too much and others not enough. Sometimes those readers let us know how they feel. More often, they don’t.
We don’t mind the criticism. We wouldn’t last long in this business if we did. But too often small-town newspapers have a reputation for being the Polyannas of the journalism world: focusing on good news to the exclusion of anything that would rub someone the wrong way and serving always as cheerleaders and rarely as critics. We believe on balance our pages contain more good news than bad, but we also believe we cannot shy away from the bad when it is there to be reported.
I guess what I’m asking is, the next time you read something in this paper that really gets your blood boiling, stop for a minute and think of Ben Franklin’s message.
If that doesn’t work, imagine how ridiculous a turkey would look on the back of a dollar bill.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Large and in charge
I understand that at six feet, six inches I am taller than the average person.
It’s hard to get asked on a nearly weekly basis if you play basketball without starting to suspect something your dreams of becoming a jockey are best put behind you. Although, for a long time I convinced myself as I wanted to believe people were seeing in me some as-yet untapped natural athletic ability. It’s an thought few people who have ever seen me perform an athletic activity would understand.
I don’t typically think of myself of tall. It’s not until I get right up next to other people that it occurs to me, hey, I can tell whether they’re starting to go a little bald on top.
I don’t know that being tall has ever really been good for much beyond guaranteeing I can always reach things on high shelves or have a good view at concerts. Mostly, it’s created challenges. Over the years I’ve gotten really good at ducking. And it’s always been hard to buy clothes. You try finding a pair of pants with a 38 waist and a 36 inseam. It’s like looking for a four-leaf clover or the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or the real O.J. killers.
Still, for years I’ve resisted shopping at so-called big and tall stores. I’m not sure why, exactly. I guess I just didn’t like the idea of being singled out to shop at a special store just for abnormal people like me.
Lately, though, I’ve been looking for a new sportcoat. As near as I can figure, I need a 46 extra long, another size that does not exist in nature. After a few fruitless attempts, I decided it was time to give the big and tall world its opportunity. Approaching the store, located in a perfectly nice-looking shopping center, I started to feel like I should be wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses and looking around to make sure nobody recognized me.
I should have known the store would be trouble the minute I walked in. The first thing I saw was a shirt that, while it seemed stylish, would have been big enough to power a competitive America’s Cup yacht or get the Kon Tiki across the Atlantic. There were pants big enough to serve as windsocks at most major airports. It quickly became clear the emphasis in the typical big and tall store rests much heavier, so to speak, on the first part of the name than on the second.
Extra wide seemed to be a much higher priority than extra long in the sportcoat section, and the selection of pants appeared to start at a waist size of about 40 inches. In the big and tall section at JC Penny I found a pair of pants with a 54-inch waist and a 30-inch inseam. Outside of Humpty Dumpty, I have no idea who those pants would fit.
I’m starting to worry there might be a problem with obesity in this country. Has anyone ever looked into that? It might make a good subject for some kind of investigative report.
I’m not sure what to make of my first big-and-tall shopping trip. My circuit of the store didn’t last more than five minutes, so I didn’t have much chance to form a strong opinion beyond, “Who are these people and why don’t they eat more salad?” I’m not sure whether I should feel good my uninformed opinion of big and tall stores fit so neatly with my slightly-better-informed opinion or bad because even the stores that claim to be made for me can’t even come up with my size.
Mostly, I guess I’m just glad I don’t need pants with a 54-inch waist.
It’s hard to get asked on a nearly weekly basis if you play basketball without starting to suspect something your dreams of becoming a jockey are best put behind you. Although, for a long time I convinced myself as I wanted to believe people were seeing in me some as-yet untapped natural athletic ability. It’s an thought few people who have ever seen me perform an athletic activity would understand.
I don’t typically think of myself of tall. It’s not until I get right up next to other people that it occurs to me, hey, I can tell whether they’re starting to go a little bald on top.
I don’t know that being tall has ever really been good for much beyond guaranteeing I can always reach things on high shelves or have a good view at concerts. Mostly, it’s created challenges. Over the years I’ve gotten really good at ducking. And it’s always been hard to buy clothes. You try finding a pair of pants with a 38 waist and a 36 inseam. It’s like looking for a four-leaf clover or the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or the real O.J. killers.
Still, for years I’ve resisted shopping at so-called big and tall stores. I’m not sure why, exactly. I guess I just didn’t like the idea of being singled out to shop at a special store just for abnormal people like me.
Lately, though, I’ve been looking for a new sportcoat. As near as I can figure, I need a 46 extra long, another size that does not exist in nature. After a few fruitless attempts, I decided it was time to give the big and tall world its opportunity. Approaching the store, located in a perfectly nice-looking shopping center, I started to feel like I should be wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses and looking around to make sure nobody recognized me.
I should have known the store would be trouble the minute I walked in. The first thing I saw was a shirt that, while it seemed stylish, would have been big enough to power a competitive America’s Cup yacht or get the Kon Tiki across the Atlantic. There were pants big enough to serve as windsocks at most major airports. It quickly became clear the emphasis in the typical big and tall store rests much heavier, so to speak, on the first part of the name than on the second.
Extra wide seemed to be a much higher priority than extra long in the sportcoat section, and the selection of pants appeared to start at a waist size of about 40 inches. In the big and tall section at JC Penny I found a pair of pants with a 54-inch waist and a 30-inch inseam. Outside of Humpty Dumpty, I have no idea who those pants would fit.
I’m starting to worry there might be a problem with obesity in this country. Has anyone ever looked into that? It might make a good subject for some kind of investigative report.
I’m not sure what to make of my first big-and-tall shopping trip. My circuit of the store didn’t last more than five minutes, so I didn’t have much chance to form a strong opinion beyond, “Who are these people and why don’t they eat more salad?” I’m not sure whether I should feel good my uninformed opinion of big and tall stores fit so neatly with my slightly-better-informed opinion or bad because even the stores that claim to be made for me can’t even come up with my size.
Mostly, I guess I’m just glad I don’t need pants with a 54-inch waist.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
The wheel deal
I have come to realize that getting moderately serious about biking has made me both more and less tolerant of other bikers.
On one hand, I support all other bikers. I want other people to get out and enjoy this hobby. I want them to have fun and get fit and spread the word to all of their friends. Just so long as they don’t weave like Billy Joel leaving a party when I try to pass them.
This is the hand that makes me look good. It’s the hand on which I am an ambassador for goodwill among the bicycling community. Unfortunately, compared to the other hand it is small and withered not all that appealing. It’s like the Strom Thurmond of theoretical hands. On the other, much more robust, hand there is a long list of bike-related pet peeves.
Most of these have to do with types of bikes. In roughly ascending order I am annoyed by:
• Tandem bikes. I suppose there are situations where these are of use. Like when two fugitives find themselves chained together in a comical fashion, or when you’re courting someone in the 1920s. Mostly, though, I find them ridiculous. Ride your own bike. Show a little independence. This is America, after all.
• Recumbent bikes. Again, I realize there is a use for these. Some people have back problems and can’t ride a regular bike without horrible pain. They get a pass. Still, if you have to put a flag on your bike so cars can see you, we’ve got a problem.
Recumbents also seem more likely than other bikes to be modified in some unspeakable ways. I have seen recumbent bikes encased in aerodynamic fiberglass shells. It’s like watching an egg bike down the street, only without the possibility of a giant omelet.
Then there’s the tandem recumbent. I have seen these, but I refuse to acknowledge their existence.
And still, none of these is as bad as:
• The tall bike. Have you seen these? Apparently here is a certain subset of the Twin Cities bicycling community that has decided it is a good idea to weld one bike frame on top of another. Riders have to climb on top of cars or walls or tall friends to mount them, and I don’t want to think about what happens if they have to stop suddenly. Essentially, they have created the Paris Hilton of the bicycle community: kind of intriguing at first glance yet awkward-looking and vaguely useless the more you think about it, relying more on unique looks than actual usefulness to get attention.
I try to be accepting. But when I see someone riding a tall bike, I mostly feel like pushing them over. Which, now that I think about it, is actually how I feel pretty much every time I see Paris Hilton, too.
Maybe this all makes me sound petty and elitist. I don’t think that’s the case, though. Biking has changed the way I look at the world. I pay more attention when I drive. I watch out for bikers on the road. Although when I see them I’m mostly thinking about whether I’m faster than they are. Usually, I figure I am. I’m pretty sure if I saw Lance Armstrong and his entire team rolling down the road, as long as I was safe in my car my first thought would be, “I could take ‘em.”
Confidence is important, I think.
There is one final issue I want to address today, and it’s going to take a little explaining. It goes back to tandems, and who should be riding them. I made some jokes about this earlier, but there really are situations where tandems are acceptable. If one member of a couple is really into biking and the other isn’t, I’m open to tandems as a compromise. The biker gets his or her partner to go along for the ride and the non-biker gets to make his or her partner look ridiculous. Everyone wins. I think they’re also nice for parents and their children.
But they are never acceptable for two dudes.
This isn’t a homophobic thing. I think two men should be able to do just about anything they want together. They can get married as far as I’m concerned, or compete in doubles luge. But ride a tandem? That’s just a little too weird.
Two women on a bike, though? Everyone knows that’s hot.
On one hand, I support all other bikers. I want other people to get out and enjoy this hobby. I want them to have fun and get fit and spread the word to all of their friends. Just so long as they don’t weave like Billy Joel leaving a party when I try to pass them.
This is the hand that makes me look good. It’s the hand on which I am an ambassador for goodwill among the bicycling community. Unfortunately, compared to the other hand it is small and withered not all that appealing. It’s like the Strom Thurmond of theoretical hands. On the other, much more robust, hand there is a long list of bike-related pet peeves.
Most of these have to do with types of bikes. In roughly ascending order I am annoyed by:
• Tandem bikes. I suppose there are situations where these are of use. Like when two fugitives find themselves chained together in a comical fashion, or when you’re courting someone in the 1920s. Mostly, though, I find them ridiculous. Ride your own bike. Show a little independence. This is America, after all.
• Recumbent bikes. Again, I realize there is a use for these. Some people have back problems and can’t ride a regular bike without horrible pain. They get a pass. Still, if you have to put a flag on your bike so cars can see you, we’ve got a problem.
Recumbents also seem more likely than other bikes to be modified in some unspeakable ways. I have seen recumbent bikes encased in aerodynamic fiberglass shells. It’s like watching an egg bike down the street, only without the possibility of a giant omelet.
Then there’s the tandem recumbent. I have seen these, but I refuse to acknowledge their existence.
And still, none of these is as bad as:
• The tall bike. Have you seen these? Apparently here is a certain subset of the Twin Cities bicycling community that has decided it is a good idea to weld one bike frame on top of another. Riders have to climb on top of cars or walls or tall friends to mount them, and I don’t want to think about what happens if they have to stop suddenly. Essentially, they have created the Paris Hilton of the bicycle community: kind of intriguing at first glance yet awkward-looking and vaguely useless the more you think about it, relying more on unique looks than actual usefulness to get attention.
I try to be accepting. But when I see someone riding a tall bike, I mostly feel like pushing them over. Which, now that I think about it, is actually how I feel pretty much every time I see Paris Hilton, too.
Maybe this all makes me sound petty and elitist. I don’t think that’s the case, though. Biking has changed the way I look at the world. I pay more attention when I drive. I watch out for bikers on the road. Although when I see them I’m mostly thinking about whether I’m faster than they are. Usually, I figure I am. I’m pretty sure if I saw Lance Armstrong and his entire team rolling down the road, as long as I was safe in my car my first thought would be, “I could take ‘em.”
Confidence is important, I think.
There is one final issue I want to address today, and it’s going to take a little explaining. It goes back to tandems, and who should be riding them. I made some jokes about this earlier, but there really are situations where tandems are acceptable. If one member of a couple is really into biking and the other isn’t, I’m open to tandems as a compromise. The biker gets his or her partner to go along for the ride and the non-biker gets to make his or her partner look ridiculous. Everyone wins. I think they’re also nice for parents and their children.
But they are never acceptable for two dudes.
This isn’t a homophobic thing. I think two men should be able to do just about anything they want together. They can get married as far as I’m concerned, or compete in doubles luge. But ride a tandem? That’s just a little too weird.
Two women on a bike, though? Everyone knows that’s hot.
This one's for the peeps
I need to take a moment here to wish everyone out there a very happy Easter.
I realize I might well have just offended half of my reading audience. To those four of you, I apologize. But I’ve never backed away from controversy. If there are hard things to say about frog guns or turkey funerals or flaming mice, well, I’m going to say them.
So, yes, I’m taking a stand. I’m speaking out about the removal of holidays from our public lives. I’m pretty sure I’m the first one to do this. At the very least I imagine I’m the first to do it while also talking about frog guns.
On the surface it sounds a little strange to talk about the elimination of Easter. Most stores are currently filled with egg-themed decorations and marshmallow candies shaped like bunnies and birds. Families everywhere will be up to their rabbit-ears in chocolate for months to come.
But those are all commercial components of the holiday. They will be around for as long as there are people in the world willing to decorate their yards with six-foot tall inflatable eggs. What I’m talking is far more disturbing.
That’s right. More disturbing than giant inflatable lawn ornaments. Can you imagine such a thing?
The city of St. Paul made the news recently when it removed Easter decorations from its offices. The fear, as I understand it, was that the display — presumably Easter Bunnies and eggs and not Jesus on the cross — would offend non-Christians. Meanwhile, nobody seems to worry who might be offended by those “I can only please one person today ... today’s not your day” signs that seem to be in nearly every government office I’ve seen.
The whole thing is a little bit ridiculous, although it has the benefit of leading to one of my favorite political statements of all time, in which people piled marshmallow peeps at the base of the stately Vision of Peace statue at St. Paul city hall. It was a kind of peeps-ful resistance, I guess.
According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, one protester added a sign renaming the statue, through the Easter season, “Vision of Peeps.” I haven’t been so entertained by a sign since the impromptu memorial a couple of years ago to the turkey that lived along Pilot Knob Road.
Last Saturday, the city of Rosemount held its annual egg hunt. It was not, parks and recreation officials were clear, an Easter egg hunt. It was just a chance for Rosemount kids to gather and scrounge in the grass for plastic eggs filled with toys and candy. It’s the kind of thing that I’m sure takes place year-round in some communities. The fact Rosemount’s hunt took place just a week before Easter was a coincidence, I guess.
I don’t see what the problem is with Easter. My churchgoing experience has mostly been limited to the occasional performance in my youth as a member of the St. Croix Valley Boy’s Choir, but that never stopped me from enjoying a hunt for brightly-colored eggs or kept me from eating a piece of candy. Although I always felt a little guilty eating the chocolate rabbits.
If other religions want in on the action, that’s fine with me, too. If Hallmark can find a market for Ramadan cards or Yom Kippur gift baskets, then so be it. More fun for everyone.
Our holidays are being taken away from us one by one. First, we weren’t supposed to wish anyone a Merry Christmas. Now we’re losing our only major bunny-based holiday. What’s next? Will we be forbidden from putting up handprint turkeys at Thanksgiving?
I realize Thanksgiving isn’t actually a religious holiday, but I couldn’t think of any good jokes about Ash Wednesday.
I think this is a dangerous path we are on. The more we worry about being entirely correct in all situations — about not offending anyone in any situation — the more we will foster a backlash against that kind of behavior. And when that happens people start mistaking being “politically incorrect” as being entertaining. Then terrible television shows like “The War at Home” turn political incorrectness into a marketing campaign. And if “The War at Home” wins, we all lose.
I realize I might well have just offended half of my reading audience. To those four of you, I apologize. But I’ve never backed away from controversy. If there are hard things to say about frog guns or turkey funerals or flaming mice, well, I’m going to say them.
So, yes, I’m taking a stand. I’m speaking out about the removal of holidays from our public lives. I’m pretty sure I’m the first one to do this. At the very least I imagine I’m the first to do it while also talking about frog guns.
On the surface it sounds a little strange to talk about the elimination of Easter. Most stores are currently filled with egg-themed decorations and marshmallow candies shaped like bunnies and birds. Families everywhere will be up to their rabbit-ears in chocolate for months to come.
But those are all commercial components of the holiday. They will be around for as long as there are people in the world willing to decorate their yards with six-foot tall inflatable eggs. What I’m talking is far more disturbing.
That’s right. More disturbing than giant inflatable lawn ornaments. Can you imagine such a thing?
The city of St. Paul made the news recently when it removed Easter decorations from its offices. The fear, as I understand it, was that the display — presumably Easter Bunnies and eggs and not Jesus on the cross — would offend non-Christians. Meanwhile, nobody seems to worry who might be offended by those “I can only please one person today ... today’s not your day” signs that seem to be in nearly every government office I’ve seen.
The whole thing is a little bit ridiculous, although it has the benefit of leading to one of my favorite political statements of all time, in which people piled marshmallow peeps at the base of the stately Vision of Peace statue at St. Paul city hall. It was a kind of peeps-ful resistance, I guess.
According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, one protester added a sign renaming the statue, through the Easter season, “Vision of Peeps.” I haven’t been so entertained by a sign since the impromptu memorial a couple of years ago to the turkey that lived along Pilot Knob Road.
Last Saturday, the city of Rosemount held its annual egg hunt. It was not, parks and recreation officials were clear, an Easter egg hunt. It was just a chance for Rosemount kids to gather and scrounge in the grass for plastic eggs filled with toys and candy. It’s the kind of thing that I’m sure takes place year-round in some communities. The fact Rosemount’s hunt took place just a week before Easter was a coincidence, I guess.
I don’t see what the problem is with Easter. My churchgoing experience has mostly been limited to the occasional performance in my youth as a member of the St. Croix Valley Boy’s Choir, but that never stopped me from enjoying a hunt for brightly-colored eggs or kept me from eating a piece of candy. Although I always felt a little guilty eating the chocolate rabbits.
If other religions want in on the action, that’s fine with me, too. If Hallmark can find a market for Ramadan cards or Yom Kippur gift baskets, then so be it. More fun for everyone.
Our holidays are being taken away from us one by one. First, we weren’t supposed to wish anyone a Merry Christmas. Now we’re losing our only major bunny-based holiday. What’s next? Will we be forbidden from putting up handprint turkeys at Thanksgiving?
I realize Thanksgiving isn’t actually a religious holiday, but I couldn’t think of any good jokes about Ash Wednesday.
I think this is a dangerous path we are on. The more we worry about being entirely correct in all situations — about not offending anyone in any situation — the more we will foster a backlash against that kind of behavior. And when that happens people start mistaking being “politically incorrect” as being entertaining. Then terrible television shows like “The War at Home” turn political incorrectness into a marketing campaign. And if “The War at Home” wins, we all lose.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Making tracks
At the end of February, desperate to get away from an apartment with a collapsing ceiling and non-functioning light fixtures in two rooms, I rented a room from my step-sister.
So far, it’s working out pretty well. The rent is a lot cheaper, getting to work is easier and I don’t have to worry about getting hit on the head by falling chunks of plaster. It’s pretty much good news all around.
The new living arrangement also means I share the house with a dog, a semi-dopey black lab mix named Sophie, and my 4-year-old nephew, Mackinley, whose mother would probably not appreciate it if I described him as dopey. I don’t think even semi-dopey would go over very well.
I like both Sophie and Mackinley a lot — honestly, I’d missed living in a house with a dog — but both present certain challenges I’m not used to dealing with.
Sophie is probably a little easier to deal with. She can be a little pushy, and some of my clothes are more covered with dog hair than they have been in years. But if she ever gets to be too big a nuisance I can always let her outside to run around in the yard for a while. My step-sister made it very clear after the first time that is not an acceptable solution with her son. In my defense, it was only raining a little that day.
Living with a 4-year-old has introduced me to skills I never realized would be so important in day-to-day life. I’m still developing the ability to step around toys on the floor, for example, but it’s getting better. With Mackinley, that mostly means threading my way around the large, elaborate train tracks he sets up in the living room.
Mackinley is crazy about trains. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine, a children’s series with surprisingly bad animation and creepy trains that think for themselves yet still for some reason have people driving them. In the time I have lived there he has watched his Thomas movie (specifically, Thomas and Friends: Making Tracks to Great Destinations, a name I know only because that’s how Mackinley refers to it every single time he mentions the movie) more times than I have seen any movie in my life.
Spend any amount of time around him and there is a good chance you will be asked — although “asked” might be too mild a word for this particular circumstance; instructed is maybe better — to “play trains.” Mostly, this means working on the track while Mackinley runs his Thomas toys back and forth. Mistakes made while playing trains — there are more ways to mess up than you might expect — bring swift and fierce corrections.
Playing trains with my nephew also frequently means being witness to terrible tragedies. In the weeks I have shared a house with him I have seen enough plane and train crashes to occupy the front page of USA Today for months. Although, for all the collisions and collapses, there seems to be very little loss of life. Even the plane full of kids that crashed into the ocean one day seemed to be having a fine time living underwater. If Mackinley weren’t too young for it, I’d suspect he had actually crash-landed a plane full of Snorks, the deep-sea Smurfs rip-off that had their own cartoon for a while when I was a kid.
It’s a good thing, I guess, because there seemed to be discouragingly little interest in mounting a rescue effort.
Living with Mackinley has also broadened my music knowledge, albeit very slightly. Thanks to my nephew, I now have two songs — I have no idea what they’re called, but one is about clocks and the other one is about broccoli — permanently burned into my mind. That kind of thing can happen when you listen to the same song about 20 times a night. From time to time I’ll find myself sitting at my desk and singing — usually in my head, thankfully, “No, don’t give me that broccoli.” It’s a little unsettling.
This new living arrangement takes some getting used to, I’ll admit. On the bright side,though, I’m better than ever at putting together train tracks.
So far, it’s working out pretty well. The rent is a lot cheaper, getting to work is easier and I don’t have to worry about getting hit on the head by falling chunks of plaster. It’s pretty much good news all around.
The new living arrangement also means I share the house with a dog, a semi-dopey black lab mix named Sophie, and my 4-year-old nephew, Mackinley, whose mother would probably not appreciate it if I described him as dopey. I don’t think even semi-dopey would go over very well.
I like both Sophie and Mackinley a lot — honestly, I’d missed living in a house with a dog — but both present certain challenges I’m not used to dealing with.
Sophie is probably a little easier to deal with. She can be a little pushy, and some of my clothes are more covered with dog hair than they have been in years. But if she ever gets to be too big a nuisance I can always let her outside to run around in the yard for a while. My step-sister made it very clear after the first time that is not an acceptable solution with her son. In my defense, it was only raining a little that day.
Living with a 4-year-old has introduced me to skills I never realized would be so important in day-to-day life. I’m still developing the ability to step around toys on the floor, for example, but it’s getting better. With Mackinley, that mostly means threading my way around the large, elaborate train tracks he sets up in the living room.
Mackinley is crazy about trains. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine, a children’s series with surprisingly bad animation and creepy trains that think for themselves yet still for some reason have people driving them. In the time I have lived there he has watched his Thomas movie (specifically, Thomas and Friends: Making Tracks to Great Destinations, a name I know only because that’s how Mackinley refers to it every single time he mentions the movie) more times than I have seen any movie in my life.
Spend any amount of time around him and there is a good chance you will be asked — although “asked” might be too mild a word for this particular circumstance; instructed is maybe better — to “play trains.” Mostly, this means working on the track while Mackinley runs his Thomas toys back and forth. Mistakes made while playing trains — there are more ways to mess up than you might expect — bring swift and fierce corrections.
Playing trains with my nephew also frequently means being witness to terrible tragedies. In the weeks I have shared a house with him I have seen enough plane and train crashes to occupy the front page of USA Today for months. Although, for all the collisions and collapses, there seems to be very little loss of life. Even the plane full of kids that crashed into the ocean one day seemed to be having a fine time living underwater. If Mackinley weren’t too young for it, I’d suspect he had actually crash-landed a plane full of Snorks, the deep-sea Smurfs rip-off that had their own cartoon for a while when I was a kid.
It’s a good thing, I guess, because there seemed to be discouragingly little interest in mounting a rescue effort.
Living with Mackinley has also broadened my music knowledge, albeit very slightly. Thanks to my nephew, I now have two songs — I have no idea what they’re called, but one is about clocks and the other one is about broccoli — permanently burned into my mind. That kind of thing can happen when you listen to the same song about 20 times a night. From time to time I’ll find myself sitting at my desk and singing — usually in my head, thankfully, “No, don’t give me that broccoli.” It’s a little unsettling.
This new living arrangement takes some getting used to, I’ll admit. On the bright side,though, I’m better than ever at putting together train tracks.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
It's Madness!
This time of year always reminds me why I don’t spend more time covering sports.
Like millions of Americans, I filled out a bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament that started last week. Actually, I filled out four. Each one was slightly different, and yet, improbably, after just four days of games each one was somehow equally wrong. I picked upsets that didn’t happen and didn’t pick the ones that did. I picked a team for the national championship game that lost in the first round. I’m not sure how it happened, but I think I might have picked one team that didn’t actually make the tournament and another school that I don’t think even has a basketball team.
None of it was pretty, but none of it was particularly surprising. I have a history of poor performance in tournament pools. My family has held a friendly competition since 1993. I have won just once, and I have the lowest cumulative score over the 14 years of the competition. And while my brother holds the honor of recording the lowest single-year score, I have the next-lowest score. And I’ve gotten it twice.
(A quick side note here: I just rattled off a whole lot of statistics about a competition that has been going on since I was in high school. I am able to do this because my father has tracked every year’s bracket in an Excel spreadsheet. He can tell you how any individual family scored in a given bracket, how many points a family member scores on average, even, I think, what each family member tends to eat while watching games. My dad’s kind of a dork.)
I’ve developed a reputation over these years of competition. It’s what my brother, as he looked over my picks for this year, called my “crazy-ass” upset pick. It’s a proud tradition that dates to the year, early on in the competition, that I picked Ball State to go to the Final Four. For the record, this year’s “crazy-ass” pick was 14th seed South Alabama over third seed Florida. For the record, Florida will come to the Metrodome this weekend to play in the Sweet 16. For the record, South Alabama won as many games this year as Ball State did the year I picked them. In other words, the Vegas sports books are not clamoring for my services, although they might like me to place a few bets.
I don’t know how to explain such consistent poor performance. I try to pay attention to college basketball. It’s one of the few sports in which I have more than a passing interest. I consider the brackets carefully. I try to play things safe with the occasional crazy-ass exception. And yet, year after year, I end up with a bracket that might as well have been filled out by a blind hermit who has never seen a basketball game and is unfamiliar with the entire bracket concept. Even the year I won my family pool was one of the worst years for scoring overall. This might start to get discouraging after a while.
There’s always next year, though, and I can feel my luck starting to turn around. I think South Alabama is going to bounce back strong.
Like millions of Americans, I filled out a bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament that started last week. Actually, I filled out four. Each one was slightly different, and yet, improbably, after just four days of games each one was somehow equally wrong. I picked upsets that didn’t happen and didn’t pick the ones that did. I picked a team for the national championship game that lost in the first round. I’m not sure how it happened, but I think I might have picked one team that didn’t actually make the tournament and another school that I don’t think even has a basketball team.
None of it was pretty, but none of it was particularly surprising. I have a history of poor performance in tournament pools. My family has held a friendly competition since 1993. I have won just once, and I have the lowest cumulative score over the 14 years of the competition. And while my brother holds the honor of recording the lowest single-year score, I have the next-lowest score. And I’ve gotten it twice.
(A quick side note here: I just rattled off a whole lot of statistics about a competition that has been going on since I was in high school. I am able to do this because my father has tracked every year’s bracket in an Excel spreadsheet. He can tell you how any individual family scored in a given bracket, how many points a family member scores on average, even, I think, what each family member tends to eat while watching games. My dad’s kind of a dork.)
I’ve developed a reputation over these years of competition. It’s what my brother, as he looked over my picks for this year, called my “crazy-ass” upset pick. It’s a proud tradition that dates to the year, early on in the competition, that I picked Ball State to go to the Final Four. For the record, this year’s “crazy-ass” pick was 14th seed South Alabama over third seed Florida. For the record, Florida will come to the Metrodome this weekend to play in the Sweet 16. For the record, South Alabama won as many games this year as Ball State did the year I picked them. In other words, the Vegas sports books are not clamoring for my services, although they might like me to place a few bets.
I don’t know how to explain such consistent poor performance. I try to pay attention to college basketball. It’s one of the few sports in which I have more than a passing interest. I consider the brackets carefully. I try to play things safe with the occasional crazy-ass exception. And yet, year after year, I end up with a bracket that might as well have been filled out by a blind hermit who has never seen a basketball game and is unfamiliar with the entire bracket concept. Even the year I won my family pool was one of the worst years for scoring overall. This might start to get discouraging after a while.
There’s always next year, though, and I can feel my luck starting to turn around. I think South Alabama is going to bounce back strong.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The journalism game
I never studied journalism formally, but if I’d known there might be opportunities to play video games, I probably would have given the idea some more serious consideration.
The University of Minnesota’s journalism school recently turned a heavily modified version of the online role playing game Neverwinter Nights into a teaching tool for its students. Early on, students in the U of M’s Information for Mass Communication class played through a scenario that still had lava pits, editors who looked like ogres and librarians who wore breastplates, but more recent versions feature a version of the typically medieval-themed game updated to look like a modern city. In it, students must gather information about a train crash and hazardous chemical spill in the fictional city of Harperville. There are dozens of characters to interview, and a library filled with online resources.
"We know that students today are used to interactivity and that they don't like to sit still in lecture classrooms being 'fed' information," Kathleen Hansen, a U of M journalism professor, said in an article posted on the school’s web site. "What we don't know is if educational gaming is going to be an effective method of enhancing conceptual mastery of subject matter or complex processes.”
When conducting interviews with characters ranging from retired railroad engineers to hospital workers, in-game reporters can choose from four conversation options, each with a different level of assertiveness. Come off as too much of a jerk, and the subject will end the interview.
Some people might think it’s strange using a fantasy-based game to teach future reporters real-world skills. But when you consider how many people think journalists make up most of their stories, it starts to make a little bit more sense.
At least one other part of the simulation seems to fit well with the public’s opinions of journalists, too. Scenario designers had originally wanted to have a crowd of characters hanging around at the scene of the accident, but a bug in the program meant that any time the reporter approached a group of characters he was immediately attacked and killed. And people wonder why reporters drink.
Using computer games for something other than simple entertainment is not an entirely new idea. When I was in high school we used a flight simulation program that consisted solely of planning a destination and picking a route, then watching to make sure your never-seen plane didn’t crash. It was really boring, but it taught me ... actually, I have no idea what it taught me. Or what it was supposed to teach me.
There are more successful examples, though. More sophisticated flight simulators are used to train real-life pilots, and the United State’s military uses versions of popular first-person shooting games to help train soldiers in tactics. There are plenty of other options, too. For example:
• There are several good Indiana Jones games out there. These seem like ideal training tools for budding archaeologists?
• The two main characters in the Super Mario Brothers games are plumbers. Couldn’t these games be useful to a trade school somewhere looking for a way to teach its students how to deal with the killer turtles and walking mushrooms found in sewer pipes?
• There is a game out there called Crazy Taxi. This seems pretty self-explanatory.
• Dancing games, in which players stop on specific parts of a floor mat at appropriate times, are very popular these days and seem like an ideal tool for training future generations of professional cheerleaders or possibly music video backup dancers.
• Classic game Burger Time could be useful to fast food workers everywhere — especially as portions get so large they might actually reach the point making a cheeseburger will involve running up and down ladders and jumping on top of giant hamburger buns.
• Tetris, the maddeningly addictive puzzle game that involves stacking falling blocks, could be useful for warehouse workers.
• And, of course, future spies everywhere could benefit from a few good games of Elevator Action.
The University of Minnesota’s journalism school recently turned a heavily modified version of the online role playing game Neverwinter Nights into a teaching tool for its students. Early on, students in the U of M’s Information for Mass Communication class played through a scenario that still had lava pits, editors who looked like ogres and librarians who wore breastplates, but more recent versions feature a version of the typically medieval-themed game updated to look like a modern city. In it, students must gather information about a train crash and hazardous chemical spill in the fictional city of Harperville. There are dozens of characters to interview, and a library filled with online resources.
"We know that students today are used to interactivity and that they don't like to sit still in lecture classrooms being 'fed' information," Kathleen Hansen, a U of M journalism professor, said in an article posted on the school’s web site. "What we don't know is if educational gaming is going to be an effective method of enhancing conceptual mastery of subject matter or complex processes.”
When conducting interviews with characters ranging from retired railroad engineers to hospital workers, in-game reporters can choose from four conversation options, each with a different level of assertiveness. Come off as too much of a jerk, and the subject will end the interview.
Some people might think it’s strange using a fantasy-based game to teach future reporters real-world skills. But when you consider how many people think journalists make up most of their stories, it starts to make a little bit more sense.
At least one other part of the simulation seems to fit well with the public’s opinions of journalists, too. Scenario designers had originally wanted to have a crowd of characters hanging around at the scene of the accident, but a bug in the program meant that any time the reporter approached a group of characters he was immediately attacked and killed. And people wonder why reporters drink.
Using computer games for something other than simple entertainment is not an entirely new idea. When I was in high school we used a flight simulation program that consisted solely of planning a destination and picking a route, then watching to make sure your never-seen plane didn’t crash. It was really boring, but it taught me ... actually, I have no idea what it taught me. Or what it was supposed to teach me.
There are more successful examples, though. More sophisticated flight simulators are used to train real-life pilots, and the United State’s military uses versions of popular first-person shooting games to help train soldiers in tactics. There are plenty of other options, too. For example:
• There are several good Indiana Jones games out there. These seem like ideal training tools for budding archaeologists?
• The two main characters in the Super Mario Brothers games are plumbers. Couldn’t these games be useful to a trade school somewhere looking for a way to teach its students how to deal with the killer turtles and walking mushrooms found in sewer pipes?
• There is a game out there called Crazy Taxi. This seems pretty self-explanatory.
• Dancing games, in which players stop on specific parts of a floor mat at appropriate times, are very popular these days and seem like an ideal tool for training future generations of professional cheerleaders or possibly music video backup dancers.
• Classic game Burger Time could be useful to fast food workers everywhere — especially as portions get so large they might actually reach the point making a cheeseburger will involve running up and down ladders and jumping on top of giant hamburger buns.
• Tetris, the maddeningly addictive puzzle game that involves stacking falling blocks, could be useful for warehouse workers.
• And, of course, future spies everywhere could benefit from a few good games of Elevator Action.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
An open letter to Bill Cosby
Re: Your sense of humor.
Mr. Cosby, you are undoubtedly a funny man. Your comedy routines about parenting and ... um ... Jell-o, I guess ... will go down as some of the greatest of all time. You have made great contributions to the history of television, from Fat Albert and his friends to I-Spy to young kids being coached to say slightly inappropriate things. Your "Cosby Show" allowed NBC to create the Thursday night Must See TV block that it uses to this day to shove crap like "Joey" or "Will and Grace" down our throats.
Actually, I have mixed feelings about that last one. I can't give you all the blame for "Union Square" or "Four Kings", but I feel like you deserve at least some of it.
Your movie career has been less distinguished, although no less notable. I don't recall hating Ghost Dad, although I admit I was young when I saw it and might not have known any better. In its defense, it appears to have been directed by Sidney Poitier. I'll admit I didn't see that coming when I looked the movie up on IMDB. They call me Mr. Ghost Dad.
I'm not sure I've ever seen Leonard Part 6. but I can't imagine it's as bad as everyone says. If nothing else, it has given us years of hilarious jokes. Seriously, what happened to parts 1-5? It never gets old!
I don't bring all of this up simply as an excuse to practice my linking skills. I bring it up because I'm concerned. When did the sense of humor disappear? When did you lose the ability to take a joke? When did you become the cranky old man yelling at kids like the people behind House of Cosbys to get off of your metaphorical lawn?
Granted, House of Cosbys is a silly little thing. It's sophomoric and stupid and crude. But it's also kind of funny. I mean, at least a little. I mean, seriously: a remote compound filled with superpowered Cosby clones? It's worth a chuckle, at least. And despite what you claim in your Cease and Desist letter it doesn't besmirch your name any more than "The Cosby Mysteries."
Is this really the way you want to be remembered? As the humorless old coot who can't take a joke anymore? As the formerly funny man who is now best known for drugging and assaulting women? Maybe it is, but before you answer I want you to ask yourself one thing, and I want you to consider it carefully: What would Mushmouth do?
I'll leave you with that.
Thank you for your time.
Nathan Hansen
Mr. Cosby, you are undoubtedly a funny man. Your comedy routines about parenting and ... um ... Jell-o, I guess ... will go down as some of the greatest of all time. You have made great contributions to the history of television, from Fat Albert and his friends to I-Spy to young kids being coached to say slightly inappropriate things. Your "Cosby Show" allowed NBC to create the Thursday night Must See TV block that it uses to this day to shove crap like "Joey" or "Will and Grace" down our throats.
Actually, I have mixed feelings about that last one. I can't give you all the blame for "Union Square" or "Four Kings", but I feel like you deserve at least some of it.
Your movie career has been less distinguished, although no less notable. I don't recall hating Ghost Dad, although I admit I was young when I saw it and might not have known any better. In its defense, it appears to have been directed by Sidney Poitier. I'll admit I didn't see that coming when I looked the movie up on IMDB. They call me Mr. Ghost Dad.
I'm not sure I've ever seen Leonard Part 6. but I can't imagine it's as bad as everyone says. If nothing else, it has given us years of hilarious jokes. Seriously, what happened to parts 1-5? It never gets old!
I don't bring all of this up simply as an excuse to practice my linking skills. I bring it up because I'm concerned. When did the sense of humor disappear? When did you lose the ability to take a joke? When did you become the cranky old man yelling at kids like the people behind House of Cosbys to get off of your metaphorical lawn?
Granted, House of Cosbys is a silly little thing. It's sophomoric and stupid and crude. But it's also kind of funny. I mean, at least a little. I mean, seriously: a remote compound filled with superpowered Cosby clones? It's worth a chuckle, at least. And despite what you claim in your Cease and Desist letter it doesn't besmirch your name any more than "The Cosby Mysteries."
Is this really the way you want to be remembered? As the humorless old coot who can't take a joke anymore? As the formerly funny man who is now best known for drugging and assaulting women? Maybe it is, but before you answer I want you to ask yourself one thing, and I want you to consider it carefully: What would Mushmouth do?
I'll leave you with that.
Thank you for your time.
Nathan Hansen
Friday, March 03, 2006
Isn't it romantic?
I’m not trying to suggest women’s ideas about romance are unrealistic, but have you seen romance novels lately? According to the Feb. 27 issue of Time magazine, the hot new trend in the genre is vampires. Apparently there’s a big crossover between fans of the X-Files and fans of poorly written, vaguely obscene literature.
I don’t know how to react to this. I could handle women getting excited about a shirtless Fabio. I could at least understand that, even if I didn’t understand his particular beefy appeal and happened to take great pleasure a few years ago when a goose smacked into the hunky Italian’s face as he rode a rollercoaster.
But this? If I’ve got this straight, the women of America are fantasizing in large numbers about men who are interested in sucking the life from their bodies. And despite what television sitcoms would have us believe about men being stupid and lazy, I’m not sure any of us is ready to go toe-to-toe with the undead in that department.
I’m not saying women should be fantasizing about plumbers or janitors or newspaper editors, but undying minions of evil? What’s the appeal?
“I think vampires are very dark, and women have a tendency to want to save them,” Christine Feehan, whose vampire romances regularly sell more than half a million copies, told Time by way of explanation. I don’t buy that. These are vampires we’re talking about. They don’t stay out too late or drink too much or forget to call from time to time. They plunge their teeth into people’s necks and turn them into bloodthirsty creatures of the night. That seems downright antisocial.
Meanwhile, in the real world, women get upset when men leave the toilet seat up.
It’s not just vampires, either. These books are also about shape-shifters and werewolves, even though I have to believe the shedding would be a major turn-off in real life.
There are all kinds of other unrealistic fantasies out there, too. A few years ago someone described to me a romance novel that involved a Viking warrior being transported forward in time – in the mouth of a magic killer whale, no less – and finding tender, passionate love with a modern woman. It’s a nice story, but I think it ignores some pretty commonly held wisdom about the general temperament and hygiene habits of the typical Viking. Not to mention the time travel ability of the common orca.
This isn’t an isolated example, either. Apparently modern women are so fed up with modern men they have created an entire genre of time-travel romance novels. A woman named Tess Mallory has written a trilogy of novels about a Highland warrior transported backward and forward through time. I have no idea what else happens in the books, but I really enjoy the claim in one reader’s review of Mallory’s “Highland Dream” that “Another problem arises when Jamie shows the girls his ansestral (sic) sword.” Isn’t that always the case?
In another book, called “A Blast to the Past,” a modern American explosives expert is transported to 14th century Scotland by the explosion of an “unidentified device.” There, he is mistaken for one of Braveheart’s soldiers, finds love with a young, widowed healer and finds the ingredients to create black powder. According to a Booklist summary on Amazon.com, the book “will appeal to readers who can’t enough of romances set in Scotland featuring a protagonist from the present.” This is a demographic I worry about.
Actually, I think we should be encouraged in some ways by the ability of ancient people’s to so readily adapt to modern conveniences like electricity and flush toilets. Apparently, even when they find themselves in a strange place surrounded by cars and skyscrapers and McDonald’s apple pies they’re still all about finding a solid, long-term relationship. Love really does conquer all, I guess.
Earlier in this column I laid these romantic fantasies at the feet of women. I suppose it’s possible men read these books, but I doubt it. I don’t think men’s fantasies are ever that involved. All we need is a few risqué pictures of Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson and we’re set.
Now that’s realistic.
I don’t know how to react to this. I could handle women getting excited about a shirtless Fabio. I could at least understand that, even if I didn’t understand his particular beefy appeal and happened to take great pleasure a few years ago when a goose smacked into the hunky Italian’s face as he rode a rollercoaster.
But this? If I’ve got this straight, the women of America are fantasizing in large numbers about men who are interested in sucking the life from their bodies. And despite what television sitcoms would have us believe about men being stupid and lazy, I’m not sure any of us is ready to go toe-to-toe with the undead in that department.
I’m not saying women should be fantasizing about plumbers or janitors or newspaper editors, but undying minions of evil? What’s the appeal?
“I think vampires are very dark, and women have a tendency to want to save them,” Christine Feehan, whose vampire romances regularly sell more than half a million copies, told Time by way of explanation. I don’t buy that. These are vampires we’re talking about. They don’t stay out too late or drink too much or forget to call from time to time. They plunge their teeth into people’s necks and turn them into bloodthirsty creatures of the night. That seems downright antisocial.
Meanwhile, in the real world, women get upset when men leave the toilet seat up.
It’s not just vampires, either. These books are also about shape-shifters and werewolves, even though I have to believe the shedding would be a major turn-off in real life.
There are all kinds of other unrealistic fantasies out there, too. A few years ago someone described to me a romance novel that involved a Viking warrior being transported forward in time – in the mouth of a magic killer whale, no less – and finding tender, passionate love with a modern woman. It’s a nice story, but I think it ignores some pretty commonly held wisdom about the general temperament and hygiene habits of the typical Viking. Not to mention the time travel ability of the common orca.
This isn’t an isolated example, either. Apparently modern women are so fed up with modern men they have created an entire genre of time-travel romance novels. A woman named Tess Mallory has written a trilogy of novels about a Highland warrior transported backward and forward through time. I have no idea what else happens in the books, but I really enjoy the claim in one reader’s review of Mallory’s “Highland Dream” that “Another problem arises when Jamie shows the girls his ansestral (sic) sword.” Isn’t that always the case?
In another book, called “A Blast to the Past,” a modern American explosives expert is transported to 14th century Scotland by the explosion of an “unidentified device.” There, he is mistaken for one of Braveheart’s soldiers, finds love with a young, widowed healer and finds the ingredients to create black powder. According to a Booklist summary on Amazon.com, the book “will appeal to readers who can’t enough of romances set in Scotland featuring a protagonist from the present.” This is a demographic I worry about.
Actually, I think we should be encouraged in some ways by the ability of ancient people’s to so readily adapt to modern conveniences like electricity and flush toilets. Apparently, even when they find themselves in a strange place surrounded by cars and skyscrapers and McDonald’s apple pies they’re still all about finding a solid, long-term relationship. Love really does conquer all, I guess.
Earlier in this column I laid these romantic fantasies at the feet of women. I suppose it’s possible men read these books, but I doubt it. I don’t think men’s fantasies are ever that involved. All we need is a few risqué pictures of Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson and we’re set.
Now that’s realistic.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
A shocking photo
A few weeks ago I wrote about getting Tasered. Here's a photo, courtesy of the Farmington Police Department.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Men in tights, men in caves
I can’t think of any good reason I would ever need a hastily researched, 12-year-old essay on the origins of the Robin Hood legend. And yet, as I discovered over the weekend, I have one.
I found the essay, which I wrote for an English 101 class my freshman year of college, in a box tucked away in one of my closets as I made a half-hearted attempt to get ready for a move next weekend. As a result, I find myself suddenly a little better informed on, among other things, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, gender roles in Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” and the role alcohol played in three novels I have no clear recollection of ever reading. It’s a little bit like I imagine Milli Vanilli or Ashley Simpson must feel every time they hear a song they supposedly recorded.
The essays themselves aren’t particularly informative. Plato might be a little disappointed to learn the best an 18-year-old me could come up with to discuss his allegory about enlightenment is, essentially, “learning is hard,” but I try not to get too worked up about bad reviews from anybody wearing a toga. And it was still at least mildly interesting to see what my writing was like back then. Honestly, it’s not as bad as I might have guessed.
I certainly had a predilection for using song quotes in my younger days. Nearly every essay I found is either titled with a quote from a song I happened to like at the time or uses one between the title and the opening lines. Some of them had both. My essay on “The Legend and History of Robin Hood” begins with a quote from the REM song “Superman.” The essay about the Allegory of the Cave, which is, at least on the surface, about dragging people out of a cave and into the sunlight, is titled with a quote from the Matthew Sweet song “Looking at the Sun.” Although now that I think about it, given the message of the essay, maybe the Pink Floyd line “We don’t need no education” would have been more appropriate.
As you can see, I was really clever back then.
I was also big on superheroes. In one essay I compared Robin Hood to modern comic book heroes like Spider-Man and Batman. And while writing about Bede’s “A History of the English Church and People” made an argument by creating the character of “Super Bishop.” So, clearly I had a pretty broad view of literature.
The writing itself is, aside from a few awkwardly worded passages and some evidence of really halfhearted proofreading, surprisingly not horrible. I’m not sure why I thought it would be — I got good grades on all of the essays — but when I look back at some of the earliest stories I wrote for this paper it’s painful. I just assumed this would be the same.
Take this passage from the Robin Hood essay: In this difficult time, when peasants lack even the most basic of fights, they need a hero to rally behind.” If you can ignore the similarity to a Tina Turner song, that’s not entirely bad.
On the other hand, there’s this description of the Sheriff of Nottingham: “He is the evil man, enemy of all that is good. He is a bad man who must be struck down by the goodness of Robin Hood.” Even the writing in Keanu Reeves movies isn’t that overdone.
The feedback isn’t all positive. On an essay that starts “Isn’t there some old saying, something along the lines of ‘Hell hath no fury like a Greek guy scorned?’” the professor accused me of being too flippant.
It’s good to see I’ve grown out of that.
I found the essay, which I wrote for an English 101 class my freshman year of college, in a box tucked away in one of my closets as I made a half-hearted attempt to get ready for a move next weekend. As a result, I find myself suddenly a little better informed on, among other things, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, gender roles in Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” and the role alcohol played in three novels I have no clear recollection of ever reading. It’s a little bit like I imagine Milli Vanilli or Ashley Simpson must feel every time they hear a song they supposedly recorded.
The essays themselves aren’t particularly informative. Plato might be a little disappointed to learn the best an 18-year-old me could come up with to discuss his allegory about enlightenment is, essentially, “learning is hard,” but I try not to get too worked up about bad reviews from anybody wearing a toga. And it was still at least mildly interesting to see what my writing was like back then. Honestly, it’s not as bad as I might have guessed.
I certainly had a predilection for using song quotes in my younger days. Nearly every essay I found is either titled with a quote from a song I happened to like at the time or uses one between the title and the opening lines. Some of them had both. My essay on “The Legend and History of Robin Hood” begins with a quote from the REM song “Superman.” The essay about the Allegory of the Cave, which is, at least on the surface, about dragging people out of a cave and into the sunlight, is titled with a quote from the Matthew Sweet song “Looking at the Sun.” Although now that I think about it, given the message of the essay, maybe the Pink Floyd line “We don’t need no education” would have been more appropriate.
As you can see, I was really clever back then.
I was also big on superheroes. In one essay I compared Robin Hood to modern comic book heroes like Spider-Man and Batman. And while writing about Bede’s “A History of the English Church and People” made an argument by creating the character of “Super Bishop.” So, clearly I had a pretty broad view of literature.
The writing itself is, aside from a few awkwardly worded passages and some evidence of really halfhearted proofreading, surprisingly not horrible. I’m not sure why I thought it would be — I got good grades on all of the essays — but when I look back at some of the earliest stories I wrote for this paper it’s painful. I just assumed this would be the same.
Take this passage from the Robin Hood essay: In this difficult time, when peasants lack even the most basic of fights, they need a hero to rally behind.” If you can ignore the similarity to a Tina Turner song, that’s not entirely bad.
On the other hand, there’s this description of the Sheriff of Nottingham: “He is the evil man, enemy of all that is good. He is a bad man who must be struck down by the goodness of Robin Hood.” Even the writing in Keanu Reeves movies isn’t that overdone.
The feedback isn’t all positive. On an essay that starts “Isn’t there some old saying, something along the lines of ‘Hell hath no fury like a Greek guy scorned?’” the professor accused me of being too flippant.
It’s good to see I’ve grown out of that.
Do you have the time?
Apparently, I'm behind the times when it comes to telling time.
I've been looking for a new watch lately. I like the one I have, but it's starting to look a little worse for wear. The crystal is cracked, and the gold plating on the case is starting to look a little rough after something like a decade of use. Like all of us, it's just plain getting older.
I don't need anything flashy. I'm a newspaper editor, not a rapper. I don't need the bling. Just something simple that looks good. I've found a few things that are close to what I want, but nothing that's exactly right. At least not for less than $1,000.
But now I lean the fact I'm looking at all means I'm about as with it as MC Hammer.
According to a Dec. 23 article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, none of the cool kids wear watches anymore. They all keep time on their cell phones and iPods. Watches, they say, are good when you want to dress up for fancy occasions but not for much else. Like tuxedoes and underarm deodorant.
"I have the cell phone, and it's all I use to look at time," 21-year-old Nathan Hoeppner told the Journal-Sentinel reporter. "It would be a duplication of time devices if I would wear a watch."
Another person quoted in the story referred to a friend who regularly wears a watch as "a dork."
I can think of several good reasons people wouldn't consider me cool. For example, I'm a 31-year-old white guy who just used the word "bling." I just don't think regularly wearing a watch is one of them.
I'm not sure what disturbs me more: that people think watches are obsolete and uncool or that I'm giving any real weight to fashion advice from people who live in Wisconsin.
In any case, I disagree with the idea watches have outlived their usefulness. And it will take a lot more than a bunch of Wisconsinites in their teens and early 20s to convince me watches are uncool.
Except for those digital watches with the calculator built in. Those are pretty dorky.
Other watches, though, have a lot going for them. I've worn a watch nearly every day since probably junior high school. The one I'm wearing now was a gift to replace a watch that fell off my wrist at a concert. I found it after the crowd cleared out — plus one other watch — but both had been trampled beyond repair. Before that, I wore a series of unremarkable watches, most of them probably digital. Now, I don't think I'd feel quite right without one. And while most people already probably think I'm not quite right, I'd at least like to feel normal myself.
I like watches, and I don't care what a bunch of punks hanging out at some Milwaukee mall have to say. Being able to tell time is nice, but it's only part of the appeal. I've gotten used to the feel of one on my wrist, and I like the way they look. I like the idea that mechanical systems invented more than 100 years ago are still useful in at least one small way. And I like the idea of all those little pieces working together to keep something resembling accurate time.
There's a metaphor in there about society and everybody working together, but I'm afraid commenting on it would make people think I'm an even bigger dork.
It's true I can probably keep more accurate time on my cell phone, which sets its clock according to the signal it gets, or on my iPod, which resets itself every time I plug it into my computer. But neither one feels quite as satisfying as using a watch. Besides, I don't take my iPod with me everywhere I go and I think I'd feel too much like a Star Trek character checking his Tricorder if I pulled out my cell phone every time I needed to know whether I was going to be late for an appointment.
The expert consulted for the story, mall watch kiosk manager Chuck Reardon, said business has suffered due to the lack of interest among young people in using watches to tell time. He holds out hope, though, that yet-to-be invented high-tech communicator watches "like (in) Dick Tracy" will renew interest in watches as functioning timepieces. I wish him luck, but I'm not sure a 75-year-old comic strip is really the thing to appeal to the kids.
I don't know what the future holds for watches. And I guess I don't care all that much. As long as I can find something that works for me it doesn't matter if the rest of the world thinks I'm a giant dweeb.
You know, more than they already do.
I've been looking for a new watch lately. I like the one I have, but it's starting to look a little worse for wear. The crystal is cracked, and the gold plating on the case is starting to look a little rough after something like a decade of use. Like all of us, it's just plain getting older.
I don't need anything flashy. I'm a newspaper editor, not a rapper. I don't need the bling. Just something simple that looks good. I've found a few things that are close to what I want, but nothing that's exactly right. At least not for less than $1,000.
But now I lean the fact I'm looking at all means I'm about as with it as MC Hammer.
According to a Dec. 23 article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, none of the cool kids wear watches anymore. They all keep time on their cell phones and iPods. Watches, they say, are good when you want to dress up for fancy occasions but not for much else. Like tuxedoes and underarm deodorant.
"I have the cell phone, and it's all I use to look at time," 21-year-old Nathan Hoeppner told the Journal-Sentinel reporter. "It would be a duplication of time devices if I would wear a watch."
Another person quoted in the story referred to a friend who regularly wears a watch as "a dork."
I can think of several good reasons people wouldn't consider me cool. For example, I'm a 31-year-old white guy who just used the word "bling." I just don't think regularly wearing a watch is one of them.
I'm not sure what disturbs me more: that people think watches are obsolete and uncool or that I'm giving any real weight to fashion advice from people who live in Wisconsin.
In any case, I disagree with the idea watches have outlived their usefulness. And it will take a lot more than a bunch of Wisconsinites in their teens and early 20s to convince me watches are uncool.
Except for those digital watches with the calculator built in. Those are pretty dorky.
Other watches, though, have a lot going for them. I've worn a watch nearly every day since probably junior high school. The one I'm wearing now was a gift to replace a watch that fell off my wrist at a concert. I found it after the crowd cleared out — plus one other watch — but both had been trampled beyond repair. Before that, I wore a series of unremarkable watches, most of them probably digital. Now, I don't think I'd feel quite right without one. And while most people already probably think I'm not quite right, I'd at least like to feel normal myself.
I like watches, and I don't care what a bunch of punks hanging out at some Milwaukee mall have to say. Being able to tell time is nice, but it's only part of the appeal. I've gotten used to the feel of one on my wrist, and I like the way they look. I like the idea that mechanical systems invented more than 100 years ago are still useful in at least one small way. And I like the idea of all those little pieces working together to keep something resembling accurate time.
There's a metaphor in there about society and everybody working together, but I'm afraid commenting on it would make people think I'm an even bigger dork.
It's true I can probably keep more accurate time on my cell phone, which sets its clock according to the signal it gets, or on my iPod, which resets itself every time I plug it into my computer. But neither one feels quite as satisfying as using a watch. Besides, I don't take my iPod with me everywhere I go and I think I'd feel too much like a Star Trek character checking his Tricorder if I pulled out my cell phone every time I needed to know whether I was going to be late for an appointment.
The expert consulted for the story, mall watch kiosk manager Chuck Reardon, said business has suffered due to the lack of interest among young people in using watches to tell time. He holds out hope, though, that yet-to-be invented high-tech communicator watches "like (in) Dick Tracy" will renew interest in watches as functioning timepieces. I wish him luck, but I'm not sure a 75-year-old comic strip is really the thing to appeal to the kids.
I don't know what the future holds for watches. And I guess I don't care all that much. As long as I can find something that works for me it doesn't matter if the rest of the world thinks I'm a giant dweeb.
You know, more than they already do.
Eat, drink, be (a little) merry
The other day, as a group of people from our office sat around at the Minnesota Newspaper Association Convention, one of my co-workers announced that one of her goals in life — or at least in her current job — is to see me get really, really drunk.
This concerns me for a number of reasons. First, and probably most important, it makes me worry I’m working with people whose priorities in life are questionable at best. Are people around here really that starved for entertainment?
Second, it puts a lot of pressure on me. The way I see it, at some point I’m going to have to decide between either drinking too much and acting foolishly or disappointing a co-worker. I hate the idea of letting people down, but frankly, with a few notable exceptions, I have never drunk to excess.
At least not since I graduated from college. But that was New Orleans. That doesn’t count. I’m pretty sure drinking is required there.
(Kids, I’d like to take a moment here to point out you really shouldn’t drink alcohol. It’s bad for your liver and it causes you to make questionable decisions — things painting large cartoon cats on your wall, as someone I know once did, leading police on a high-speed chase while pantsless, as a man in Denver did, or, like British man Tony Alleyne, going broke turning your apartment into a replica of Star Trek’s Starship Voyager. Although that last one would probably require more than just a one-night drinking binge.)
I really don’t have many good stories about drinking too much. The first time I had too much I threw up on a friend’s socks in the lounge of our dorm. In my defense, though, there wasn’t much in my stomach at that point and I’m pretty sure I’d loaned him the socks, anyway. The last time I had at least a little too much was a few weeks ago. That night I apparently agreed to bike 500-some miles from Hayward, Wisc., to Mackinack Island, Mich. with my dad and my brother.
Like I said, alcohol can impair your ability to make rational decisions.
There are probably a few other stories in between, but nothing I need to share with the general public. And certainly nothing I need to tell my mom, who I imagine is already preparing the appropriate disapproving look for the next time she sees me.
I don’t mean to suggest I’ve matured beyond the point in my life where getting falling-down drunk is a good time — mostly because I continue to argue I am no more mature now than I was 10 years ago — but maybe that’s not all that far from the truth. Maybe as I get older having one or two drinks too many has more of an effect on me than it used to. Or maybe I’ve just decided that acting foolishly is just as easy sober as it is after a bunch of drinks. Cheaper, too.
Besides, there are too many risks to overindulging.
I don’t want to end up like US Olympic skier Bode Miller, who caused some controversy when he admitted showing up for competitions after tying one on. I’m not sure I see what the problem is. If I were going that fast down a hill I’d want a little bit of buzz, too. Besides, with a name like Miller he’s created a perfect promotional opportunity in the beer industry.
I also have to be careful for the sake of my job. Because our company’s insurance policy requires a clean driving record, getting arrested for a DUI would cost me my job. And anyway, I know enough police officers around here I wouldn’t want to be pulled over for something like that. They’ve already Tasered me once, and they may just be looking for an excuse to do it again.
This concerns me for a number of reasons. First, and probably most important, it makes me worry I’m working with people whose priorities in life are questionable at best. Are people around here really that starved for entertainment?
Second, it puts a lot of pressure on me. The way I see it, at some point I’m going to have to decide between either drinking too much and acting foolishly or disappointing a co-worker. I hate the idea of letting people down, but frankly, with a few notable exceptions, I have never drunk to excess.
At least not since I graduated from college. But that was New Orleans. That doesn’t count. I’m pretty sure drinking is required there.
(Kids, I’d like to take a moment here to point out you really shouldn’t drink alcohol. It’s bad for your liver and it causes you to make questionable decisions — things painting large cartoon cats on your wall, as someone I know once did, leading police on a high-speed chase while pantsless, as a man in Denver did, or, like British man Tony Alleyne, going broke turning your apartment into a replica of Star Trek’s Starship Voyager. Although that last one would probably require more than just a one-night drinking binge.)
I really don’t have many good stories about drinking too much. The first time I had too much I threw up on a friend’s socks in the lounge of our dorm. In my defense, though, there wasn’t much in my stomach at that point and I’m pretty sure I’d loaned him the socks, anyway. The last time I had at least a little too much was a few weeks ago. That night I apparently agreed to bike 500-some miles from Hayward, Wisc., to Mackinack Island, Mich. with my dad and my brother.
Like I said, alcohol can impair your ability to make rational decisions.
There are probably a few other stories in between, but nothing I need to share with the general public. And certainly nothing I need to tell my mom, who I imagine is already preparing the appropriate disapproving look for the next time she sees me.
I don’t mean to suggest I’ve matured beyond the point in my life where getting falling-down drunk is a good time — mostly because I continue to argue I am no more mature now than I was 10 years ago — but maybe that’s not all that far from the truth. Maybe as I get older having one or two drinks too many has more of an effect on me than it used to. Or maybe I’ve just decided that acting foolishly is just as easy sober as it is after a bunch of drinks. Cheaper, too.
Besides, there are too many risks to overindulging.
I don’t want to end up like US Olympic skier Bode Miller, who caused some controversy when he admitted showing up for competitions after tying one on. I’m not sure I see what the problem is. If I were going that fast down a hill I’d want a little bit of buzz, too. Besides, with a name like Miller he’s created a perfect promotional opportunity in the beer industry.
I also have to be careful for the sake of my job. Because our company’s insurance policy requires a clean driving record, getting arrested for a DUI would cost me my job. And anyway, I know enough police officers around here I wouldn’t want to be pulled over for something like that. They’ve already Tasered me once, and they may just be looking for an excuse to do it again.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Truth, trust and flaming mice
As a reporter, I like to believe everything printed in the pages of a newspaper is true. It is part of the trust between a newspaper and its readers, that we will do our best to report a story fully and accurately and that you, after reading that story, will use the pages on which it appeared to line the bottoms of your bird cages.
Still, sometimes it's hard to know what to believe. There has been a disturbing number of stories in recent years about reporters who fudged facts and in some cases simply made up stories. New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is the best-known example, but I have my doubts about Dear Abbey, too.
Then there are the stories that are so fantastic you want to believe them no matter how hard it might be.
Take my favorite story of recent weeks. It is perhaps the best tale of revenge since the nerds taught the Adams College jocks a thing or two with an improbably well-produced talent show number. It comes from New Mexico, and it involves a flaming mouse setting fire to the home of the man who first trapped him, then threw him in a pile of burning leaves. Really, how can you go wrong?
As reported on CNN.com, the story began with an 81-year-old man named Luciano Mares. Mares, it seems, had a mouse problem. And he did what just about anybody with a rodent infestation would do. He set traps.
Mares told reporters he caught this particular spiteful mouse in a glue trap Jan. 7. When he couldn't get it unstuck, he threw the mouse, trap and all, into a pile of burning leaves in his yard. The fire melted the glue. The flaming mouse scampered back into the house - possibly screaming, "vengeance" in a high-pitched mouse language as it ran - and set the house on fire. The house was destroyed.
"That dang mouse crawled in there," Mares reportedly told the media from the hotel where he was staying with his nephew. "I have an awful hate for those critters."
Frankly, who can blame him? If a flaming puppy had burned down my house, I'd think twice before my next trip to the pound. Even if the puppy was really cute.
If the story had stopped there, it might have been the best news story of the year. But then, a few days later, Mares changed his mind. The fire, he said, was the result of high winds, not revenge-minded vermin. I'm not sure I've ever been more disappointed.
And if the story had ended there, well, it might have gone down as one of the biggest disappointments of the year, somewhere close behind the Super Bowl that will be played a couple of weeks from now.
But then, the very next day, Mares changed his story again, this time back to his original story. Yes, he said, it really was the mouse.
And apparently this time he really, really meant it.
For the record, Fort Sumner fire chief Juan Chavez, whose department responded to the fire, believes Mares' original story. According to CNN.com, the department's record of the fire will include the mouse-related incident as the cause.
I don't know what to believe. If the mouse really did cause the fire, it would be great. If it didn't it would be a big letdown. For now, it's mostly just confusing.
Still, sometimes it's hard to know what to believe. There has been a disturbing number of stories in recent years about reporters who fudged facts and in some cases simply made up stories. New York Times reporter Jayson Blair is the best-known example, but I have my doubts about Dear Abbey, too.
Then there are the stories that are so fantastic you want to believe them no matter how hard it might be.
Take my favorite story of recent weeks. It is perhaps the best tale of revenge since the nerds taught the Adams College jocks a thing or two with an improbably well-produced talent show number. It comes from New Mexico, and it involves a flaming mouse setting fire to the home of the man who first trapped him, then threw him in a pile of burning leaves. Really, how can you go wrong?
As reported on CNN.com, the story began with an 81-year-old man named Luciano Mares. Mares, it seems, had a mouse problem. And he did what just about anybody with a rodent infestation would do. He set traps.
Mares told reporters he caught this particular spiteful mouse in a glue trap Jan. 7. When he couldn't get it unstuck, he threw the mouse, trap and all, into a pile of burning leaves in his yard. The fire melted the glue. The flaming mouse scampered back into the house - possibly screaming, "vengeance" in a high-pitched mouse language as it ran - and set the house on fire. The house was destroyed.
"That dang mouse crawled in there," Mares reportedly told the media from the hotel where he was staying with his nephew. "I have an awful hate for those critters."
Frankly, who can blame him? If a flaming puppy had burned down my house, I'd think twice before my next trip to the pound. Even if the puppy was really cute.
If the story had stopped there, it might have been the best news story of the year. But then, a few days later, Mares changed his mind. The fire, he said, was the result of high winds, not revenge-minded vermin. I'm not sure I've ever been more disappointed.
And if the story had ended there, well, it might have gone down as one of the biggest disappointments of the year, somewhere close behind the Super Bowl that will be played a couple of weeks from now.
But then, the very next day, Mares changed his story again, this time back to his original story. Yes, he said, it really was the mouse.
And apparently this time he really, really meant it.
For the record, Fort Sumner fire chief Juan Chavez, whose department responded to the fire, believes Mares' original story. According to CNN.com, the department's record of the fire will include the mouse-related incident as the cause.
I don't know what to believe. If the mouse really did cause the fire, it would be great. If it didn't it would be a big letdown. For now, it's mostly just confusing.
Legend of the fall
It doesn't usually show itself in polite company, but I have a competitive side.
I lost more than 30 pounds two summers ago, and I did it mostly because I got tired of being the last one up hills on bike rides with my dad and my brother. It worked, too. Now I'm almost always second.
So, maybe it's not the most competitive side in the world, but it's there.
I'm tell you this now as a way of explaining why I spent most of the weekend nursing a headache and sore ribs. It is, I have to believe, the result of my unwillingness in any way to be outdone by the people around me.
Maybe this doesn't make sense right now, but bear with me for a minute.
A couple of weeks ago, one of my co-workers, Michelle Leonard, wrote in this space about a fall she took on New Year's Eve. She was putting a crock pot full of mini hot dogs out onto the deck when she slipped on some ice and fell. The crock pot broke and Michelle ended up with 66 stitches.
It was a good fall, I'll admit, but I was pretty sure I could do better. I've certainly seen more impressive falls. Once, on a family vacation, a step-cousin fell off of a cliff in Spain. He broke both of his arms in several places, then had to climb back up the cliff to find help. He spent the rest of the vacation with his arms propped out to the side in heavy plaster casts. So, the bar for spectacular falls has been set pretty high in my mind.
My own fall last weekend wasn't nearly that dramatic, but it was still pretty good. I was on the way to meet a former co-worker at a Minneapolis bar at the time. I jogged across a street and jumped - gracefully, in my mind - over a small pile of snow in the boulevard.
I came down with my right foot on a patch of ice and before I knew what was happening I was on the ground. My head hit the sidewalk hard enough that I saw stars. Fortunately, I don't think anyone saw me.
At the bar, I cleaned blood off of my face, although I like to think
I looked pretty tough with the scrapes on my right temple. I had a couple of drinks with my friend before my headache got too bad. I'm pretty sure alcohol is one of the recommended treatments for potential head injuries.
I was sore the next day, and had a headache almost constantly until
Monday night. My teeth still hurt when I chew on the right side and my ribs still hurt when I move to vigorously. Sneezing is especially bad.
Worst of all, though, even after all of that I'm pretty sure I can't legitimately make a claim of best fall in the office. For one thing,
"I fell on the ice," doesn't get nearly the reaction that, "I fell on a crock pot of mini weenies," does. And I'm clearly far behind when it comes to lasting evidence of the fall, too. I was hoping I'd at least get a big bruise on the side of my face to help me impress people, but when I sat down next to my brother at a basketball game
Sunday he asked me why I had a rash on my face. Rashes don't say "tough" as much as they say "possibly contagious," so that was hardly impressive.
Clearly, the fall story is a loser. So, if anyone asks, I got into a bar fight.
I lost more than 30 pounds two summers ago, and I did it mostly because I got tired of being the last one up hills on bike rides with my dad and my brother. It worked, too. Now I'm almost always second.
So, maybe it's not the most competitive side in the world, but it's there.
I'm tell you this now as a way of explaining why I spent most of the weekend nursing a headache and sore ribs. It is, I have to believe, the result of my unwillingness in any way to be outdone by the people around me.
Maybe this doesn't make sense right now, but bear with me for a minute.
A couple of weeks ago, one of my co-workers, Michelle Leonard, wrote in this space about a fall she took on New Year's Eve. She was putting a crock pot full of mini hot dogs out onto the deck when she slipped on some ice and fell. The crock pot broke and Michelle ended up with 66 stitches.
It was a good fall, I'll admit, but I was pretty sure I could do better. I've certainly seen more impressive falls. Once, on a family vacation, a step-cousin fell off of a cliff in Spain. He broke both of his arms in several places, then had to climb back up the cliff to find help. He spent the rest of the vacation with his arms propped out to the side in heavy plaster casts. So, the bar for spectacular falls has been set pretty high in my mind.
My own fall last weekend wasn't nearly that dramatic, but it was still pretty good. I was on the way to meet a former co-worker at a Minneapolis bar at the time. I jogged across a street and jumped - gracefully, in my mind - over a small pile of snow in the boulevard.
I came down with my right foot on a patch of ice and before I knew what was happening I was on the ground. My head hit the sidewalk hard enough that I saw stars. Fortunately, I don't think anyone saw me.
At the bar, I cleaned blood off of my face, although I like to think
I looked pretty tough with the scrapes on my right temple. I had a couple of drinks with my friend before my headache got too bad. I'm pretty sure alcohol is one of the recommended treatments for potential head injuries.
I was sore the next day, and had a headache almost constantly until
Monday night. My teeth still hurt when I chew on the right side and my ribs still hurt when I move to vigorously. Sneezing is especially bad.
Worst of all, though, even after all of that I'm pretty sure I can't legitimately make a claim of best fall in the office. For one thing,
"I fell on the ice," doesn't get nearly the reaction that, "I fell on a crock pot of mini weenies," does. And I'm clearly far behind when it comes to lasting evidence of the fall, too. I was hoping I'd at least get a big bruise on the side of my face to help me impress people, but when I sat down next to my brother at a basketball game
Sunday he asked me why I had a rash on my face. Rashes don't say "tough" as much as they say "possibly contagious," so that was hardly impressive.
Clearly, the fall story is a loser. So, if anyone asks, I got into a bar fight.
Monday, January 23, 2006
In the market
Last week, I made my first real inquiry into buying a house. I'm starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into.
I know just a few weeks ago I claimed I never wanted to be the kind of guy to talk about real estate, and I still feel that way. But when you’re thinking seriously about buying a house it’s hard to avoid. This might be simultaneously the most exciting and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
I probably wouldn't be in the house market at all if not for some problems with my current landlord. It's minor things, like a hole in my kitchen ceiling and light fixtures that don't work and no signs any of that is likely to change anytime soon. Somehow, it all put me off the idea of relying on someone else to make repairs to the place I live. It seems like a much better idea now to own a place of my own, where I can be the one not making repairs.
It seemed like a good enough plan, but I never really factored in the whole home-buying process. Apparently it's a little more complicated than buying a carton of milk at the grocery store.
Take last week's showing. I'd been looking at this particular house -- a nice little duplex -- for several weeks. It helps that the place is directly across the street from my current apartment.
From the outside, the building looks nice. Online, it looks nice. It's a little bit small, maybe, but I don't need a lot of space. It would be perfect if not for the fact the main bedroom is tucked up so tight under the roof I'd practically have to crawl on my hands and knees to get to bed each night. Also, the owner is bumping the price up $10,000 so she can replace a couple of furnaces insulated with asbestos. It's the little things, you know?
So, that place was out, and my entire buying plan changed. I think there was a part of me that actually believed buying a house would be as easy as walking across the street and making an offer. Then again, there's also a very small part of me that still thinks the Vikings will win the Super Bowl someday.
So, now I'm looking again. I spent part of my weekend driving around to check out at places a Realtor had suggested to me. Some looked OK, at least from the outside. Others had minor problems, such as being painted a garish green not actually found in nature or having a front porch that appeared to have been designed by someone who had never actually seen the house the porch would eventually be attached to and who might possibly have been drunk at the time.
Of course, finding a home is only part of the process. I'm pretty sure I'll also have to pay for it. And that's where things really get scary.
It is not in my nature to accept debt readily. I can only think of one occasion when I carried a balance on a credit card, and the idea of borrowing enough to buy my first car nearly sent me into a state of shock. My second car loan was a little easier — mild heart palpitations, maybe — but not by a lot.
Now there’s this. Sometime in the next few weeks I might very well ask someone to loan me nearly as much money as Bill Gates probably has in his pocket right now. Enough money that I can put this whole apartment-living thing behind me and pretend to be an actual adult. And somehow I can’t shake this feeling that as soon as the forms are processed my loan officer is going to rip off his mask and reveal he is some sort of minor demon and I have just signed away my soul. Or, if not my soul, then at least my spleen or my liver. That would be especially weird considering I’m probably going to get my loan through my cousin, and there are hardly any demons on that side of the family.
In any case, I may very well keel over as soon as I sign my name on the dotted line.
On the positive side, that would mean I wouldn’t have to make any of the payments.
I know just a few weeks ago I claimed I never wanted to be the kind of guy to talk about real estate, and I still feel that way. But when you’re thinking seriously about buying a house it’s hard to avoid. This might be simultaneously the most exciting and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.
I probably wouldn't be in the house market at all if not for some problems with my current landlord. It's minor things, like a hole in my kitchen ceiling and light fixtures that don't work and no signs any of that is likely to change anytime soon. Somehow, it all put me off the idea of relying on someone else to make repairs to the place I live. It seems like a much better idea now to own a place of my own, where I can be the one not making repairs.
It seemed like a good enough plan, but I never really factored in the whole home-buying process. Apparently it's a little more complicated than buying a carton of milk at the grocery store.
Take last week's showing. I'd been looking at this particular house -- a nice little duplex -- for several weeks. It helps that the place is directly across the street from my current apartment.
From the outside, the building looks nice. Online, it looks nice. It's a little bit small, maybe, but I don't need a lot of space. It would be perfect if not for the fact the main bedroom is tucked up so tight under the roof I'd practically have to crawl on my hands and knees to get to bed each night. Also, the owner is bumping the price up $10,000 so she can replace a couple of furnaces insulated with asbestos. It's the little things, you know?
So, that place was out, and my entire buying plan changed. I think there was a part of me that actually believed buying a house would be as easy as walking across the street and making an offer. Then again, there's also a very small part of me that still thinks the Vikings will win the Super Bowl someday.
So, now I'm looking again. I spent part of my weekend driving around to check out at places a Realtor had suggested to me. Some looked OK, at least from the outside. Others had minor problems, such as being painted a garish green not actually found in nature or having a front porch that appeared to have been designed by someone who had never actually seen the house the porch would eventually be attached to and who might possibly have been drunk at the time.
Of course, finding a home is only part of the process. I'm pretty sure I'll also have to pay for it. And that's where things really get scary.
It is not in my nature to accept debt readily. I can only think of one occasion when I carried a balance on a credit card, and the idea of borrowing enough to buy my first car nearly sent me into a state of shock. My second car loan was a little easier — mild heart palpitations, maybe — but not by a lot.
Now there’s this. Sometime in the next few weeks I might very well ask someone to loan me nearly as much money as Bill Gates probably has in his pocket right now. Enough money that I can put this whole apartment-living thing behind me and pretend to be an actual adult. And somehow I can’t shake this feeling that as soon as the forms are processed my loan officer is going to rip off his mask and reveal he is some sort of minor demon and I have just signed away my soul. Or, if not my soul, then at least my spleen or my liver. That would be especially weird considering I’m probably going to get my loan through my cousin, and there are hardly any demons on that side of the family.
In any case, I may very well keel over as soon as I sign my name on the dotted line.
On the positive side, that would mean I wouldn’t have to make any of the payments.
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