I never claimed to be any kind of genius, but I don't think I'm a dummy, either. I got good grades in school. I read books with big words. And I'm pretty sure I understood the deeper meaning of last summer's Transformers movie. The heroic Autobots represented Man's quest for understanding and peace among all people, right? And the evil Decepticons represented big freaking robots?
See? I've got a couple of brain cells to rub together. But there are still some things I just don't understand.
I don't understand tattoos, for example. I get that body art has special meaning for some people, and that's fine. It just seems to me there are better forms of self-expression than having someone permanently etch a strand of barbed wire around your bicep or Tweety Bird on your fanny.
Still, a lower back tattoo of a butterfly is downright ordinary compared to what a Canadian tattoo artist did to himself recently. According to the Edmonton Sun, 30-year-old Lane Jensen wanted to add a little something to the tattoo of the buxom cowgirl on his calf. So, last December he gave her breast implants. Like, actual bags of silicone implanted in his calf. How he ever intended to make his socks fit right again I have no idea.
Perhaps not surprisingly, things did not go well for old Lane. His tiny fake calf-breasts got infected and by Christmas eve the sutures had split and, according to the Sun, drained a liter of lymphatic fluid. For those unfamiliar, a liter is metric-speak for "a whole lot of gross leg-goo."
In other words, ick.
I don't understand people who are way too into their pets, either. It's great if you love your cats and dogs and treat them well. But when you find yourself shopping on a site like kittywigs.com it might be time to take a closer look at your life. Kittywigs, as the name suggests, produces wigs for your feline friends. You know, in case you ever feel the need to make kitty look more like a shorter, hairier Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The wigs come in four models, each certain to induce weeks of nightmares involving former first ladies hacking up hairballs.
When it comes to producing feelings of unease, though, even cat wigs have nothing on dog armor. I have no earthly idea why, outside of severe mental instability, a person would want to dress his dog like a character from an awful fantasy novel. If you do, though, the people at organicarmor.com can take care of you. Even better: You can get you and your dog matching suits. Probably a good idea to be well protected when your dog, sick of parading around in his jeweled helmet, tries to chew your throat open while you sleep.
I'm sure I'll never understand fashion.
I'm not talking about that Haute Coture stuff. Those aren't really clothes. I'm pretty sure they're an elaborate method devised for communicating with alien beings who secretly visit Earth to find great bargains at our outlet malls. I'm talking about everyday stuff. Stuff like Reebok's recently released line of Kool Ade scented shoes. You know, for those times you find yourself saying, "Gosh, I wish my shoes smelled more like I'd just spilled a pitcher of fruit punch on them."
The shoes, available in grape, strawberry and cherry, went on sale at the beginning of the month.
I just don't get it.
----------------
Now playing: Tim Fite - Over The Counter Culture
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Coming soon to prime time?
There is good news and bad news to be found in the end this week of the three month-plus strike by the Writer's Guild of America. Certainly, the deal is good news for television fans. With professional writers back on the job we will once again have quality, first-run entertainment flowing to our living rooms each night. It hurts me to think fans of According to Jim have been left with unresolved storylines although not as much as it hurts to realize there are actually fans of According to Jim. The deal is also good news for writers, who will now reportedly get paid more for DVD and online reproduction of their work. This is entirely reasonable. These people are professionals and deserve to be compensated as such. You certainly can't trust amateurs with important things like plots involving oafish husbands, their disproportionately attractive wives and their sassy children and/or wacky neighbors. It would be chaos. Most of the jokes involved in these shows have been around since Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners and they've grown brittle over the years. Handling them now takes a delicate touch. The news isn't as good for television studios, which will have to pay more to a class of employees that, given the success of high-quality reality fare like that show where they hook people to polygraphs and ask them whether they've ever cheated on their taxes or been physically attracted to livestock, has started to seem less and less necessary. So much for next season's Thursday night lineup of Playing Shuffleboard with the Stars, Hey, Dummy, this Preschooler is Smarter than You and Fornication Beach. The WGA deal is also bad news for me. Sure, I'm as happy as anyone to have a fresh stream of new CSI: Without a Special Victims Cold Case episodes on the way, but with professional writers returning to work there's almost no chance the networks are going to want the scripts I've been working up to help fill the gaps. These scripts still needed a little polishing, but since they'll probably never see the light of a cathode ray tube I figured I'd share a few of them here.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: The scene opens at a party. Attractive women in short skirts are laughing and having a good time with square-jawed men. Suddenly, there's a scream. Someone has been impaled on an ice sculpture. There is no evidence. But wait! Here come the CSI guys! They look at the crime scene and smirk knowingly. (Insert 40-minute special effects sequence of CSI investigators collecting evidence and suggesting theories) The investigators wrap up the case with an improbable explanation of what happened and more special effects. They high-five.
CSI: Miami: See above, but replace impaled by an ice sculpture with swarmed by rabid bats. Also, instead of high-fiving the CSI investigators dance the twist. Also, intercut special effects sequences with shots of David Caruso looking impossibly smug.
Law and Order: The one With the Crazy Guy: Vincent D'Onofrio acts like a lunatic for an hour.
Medium: Patricia Arquette sees spooky things, gets spooked, never seems to get used to the idea that she's seeing spooky things even though it's been, like, three seasons now. Cold
Case: Detectives look into a case from several years ago. First suspect tells them he didn't do it, but sends them to someone else. Period-appropriate music plays. Detectives accuse second suspect, who blames someone else. (Music) Detectives accuse third suspect, who puts the blame back on first suspect, who the detectives then arrest. More music. Viewers try to figure out what the heck just happened.
According to Jim: Jim does something exasperating, acts goofy. Jim's wife gets exasperated. Jim bickers with his sister-in-law or whoever that woman is. Jim redeems himself. Viewers continue to watch for some reason.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: The scene opens at a party. Attractive women in short skirts are laughing and having a good time with square-jawed men. Suddenly, there's a scream. Someone has been impaled on an ice sculpture. There is no evidence. But wait! Here come the CSI guys! They look at the crime scene and smirk knowingly. (Insert 40-minute special effects sequence of CSI investigators collecting evidence and suggesting theories) The investigators wrap up the case with an improbable explanation of what happened and more special effects. They high-five.
CSI: Miami: See above, but replace impaled by an ice sculpture with swarmed by rabid bats. Also, instead of high-fiving the CSI investigators dance the twist. Also, intercut special effects sequences with shots of David Caruso looking impossibly smug.
Law and Order: The one With the Crazy Guy: Vincent D'Onofrio acts like a lunatic for an hour.
Medium: Patricia Arquette sees spooky things, gets spooked, never seems to get used to the idea that she's seeing spooky things even though it's been, like, three seasons now. Cold
Case: Detectives look into a case from several years ago. First suspect tells them he didn't do it, but sends them to someone else. Period-appropriate music plays. Detectives accuse second suspect, who blames someone else. (Music) Detectives accuse third suspect, who puts the blame back on first suspect, who the detectives then arrest. More music. Viewers try to figure out what the heck just happened.
According to Jim: Jim does something exasperating, acts goofy. Jim's wife gets exasperated. Jim bickers with his sister-in-law or whoever that woman is. Jim redeems himself. Viewers continue to watch for some reason.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Minnesota's official state column?
So, I'm driving to work the other day and I'm listening to NPR and they're airing a story about somebody trying to get something or other named the official state whatsit of Maryland.
I'll admit I really wasn't paying close attention. And even though later review has revealed it was walking Marylanders were trying to have enshrined as the state's official exercise I still can't say I care too much.
What caught my attention, though, came at the end of the story. That's when the reporter revealed some in the state opposed granting walking state symbol status because they feel Maryland has too many such symbols, including blue crabs (official state crustacean), the shell of an extinct snail (official state fossil shell) and jousting (official state sport).
This revelation raised two interesting points. One, the fossil shell of the cucuella ginanta really got a raw deal. And, two, apparently the sporting scene in Maryland has yet to advance past the middle ages. Which, I guess, explains University of Maryland basketball.
It got me thinking, though. I know the ladyslipper is Minnesota's state flower, wild rice is the state grain and the loon is the state bird (unless you believe the novelty t-shirts, in which case it's the comically oversized mosquito). But are there other symbols I should know about? Was I somehow living in ignorance of the fact my home state for some reason identifies its sporting scene with jai alai?
Apparently I wasn't. Minnesota's list of state symbols is almost disappointingly short and predictable. The state fish is the walleye. The state gem is the Lake Superior Agate. The state tree is the Norway pine.
Yawn. There wasn't an archaic sporting practice or a long-dead mollusk anywhere to be found. California has a state fife and drum band, Michigan has a state reptile and all we've got is a state drink.
It's milk, which, I suppose, goes really well with our state muffin (blueberry). If only we could get our legislators to designate Nesquick mix our state powder I could have myself an official Minnesota chocolate milk.
It's not until you get to the list of our rejected state symbols that things start to get interesting. I'm not sure whether the fact we have on multiple occasions rejected efforts to name the leopard frog our state amphibian means we have better things to do than other states or if it just means our legislators really can't get anything done.
It turns out there's a long list of rejected state symbols. Most recently, there was legislation introduced in 2007 that would have made the tilt-a-whirl our state ride. A companion bill that would have made queasiness our official state of being didn't go anywhere.
The competition for state mammal status has been heated over the years. There have been eight failed attempts to give that status to the white tailed deer and six attempts to give it to the eastern timber wolf. You have to figure the performance of our state's NBA franchise isn't helping that animal's chances.
There were competing bills in 1987 to designate a state beer. I cannot confirm that supporters of either Schell's Deer Brand beer or Cold Spring beer missed the votes in question because they were too hung over to get out of bed that day.
There has been legislation to name an official state fossil (the giant beaver), state folk dance (square dance) and state mineral (iron ore). HF970 tried to introduce a state soup in 1998 (wild rice) and in both 1998 and 1999 there were attempts to name a state reptile (the blandings turtle).
Maybe most unsettling, though, is HF970, which Senator Jack Davies introduced in 1977 in an attempt to have the leech named Minnesota's state parasite.
I mean, everyone knows that should be the lawyer.
----------------
Now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - The Valley Of Malls
via FoxyTunes
I'll admit I really wasn't paying close attention. And even though later review has revealed it was walking Marylanders were trying to have enshrined as the state's official exercise I still can't say I care too much.
What caught my attention, though, came at the end of the story. That's when the reporter revealed some in the state opposed granting walking state symbol status because they feel Maryland has too many such symbols, including blue crabs (official state crustacean), the shell of an extinct snail (official state fossil shell) and jousting (official state sport).
This revelation raised two interesting points. One, the fossil shell of the cucuella ginanta really got a raw deal. And, two, apparently the sporting scene in Maryland has yet to advance past the middle ages. Which, I guess, explains University of Maryland basketball.
It got me thinking, though. I know the ladyslipper is Minnesota's state flower, wild rice is the state grain and the loon is the state bird (unless you believe the novelty t-shirts, in which case it's the comically oversized mosquito). But are there other symbols I should know about? Was I somehow living in ignorance of the fact my home state for some reason identifies its sporting scene with jai alai?
Apparently I wasn't. Minnesota's list of state symbols is almost disappointingly short and predictable. The state fish is the walleye. The state gem is the Lake Superior Agate. The state tree is the Norway pine.
Yawn. There wasn't an archaic sporting practice or a long-dead mollusk anywhere to be found. California has a state fife and drum band, Michigan has a state reptile and all we've got is a state drink.
It's milk, which, I suppose, goes really well with our state muffin (blueberry). If only we could get our legislators to designate Nesquick mix our state powder I could have myself an official Minnesota chocolate milk.
It's not until you get to the list of our rejected state symbols that things start to get interesting. I'm not sure whether the fact we have on multiple occasions rejected efforts to name the leopard frog our state amphibian means we have better things to do than other states or if it just means our legislators really can't get anything done.
It turns out there's a long list of rejected state symbols. Most recently, there was legislation introduced in 2007 that would have made the tilt-a-whirl our state ride. A companion bill that would have made queasiness our official state of being didn't go anywhere.
The competition for state mammal status has been heated over the years. There have been eight failed attempts to give that status to the white tailed deer and six attempts to give it to the eastern timber wolf. You have to figure the performance of our state's NBA franchise isn't helping that animal's chances.
There were competing bills in 1987 to designate a state beer. I cannot confirm that supporters of either Schell's Deer Brand beer or Cold Spring beer missed the votes in question because they were too hung over to get out of bed that day.
There has been legislation to name an official state fossil (the giant beaver), state folk dance (square dance) and state mineral (iron ore). HF970 tried to introduce a state soup in 1998 (wild rice) and in both 1998 and 1999 there were attempts to name a state reptile (the blandings turtle).
Maybe most unsettling, though, is HF970, which Senator Jack Davies introduced in 1977 in an attempt to have the leech named Minnesota's state parasite.
I mean, everyone knows that should be the lawyer.
----------------
Now playing: Fountains Of Wayne - The Valley Of Malls
via FoxyTunes
Friday, February 01, 2008
What's next? Smurfs: the Movie?
Little by little, Hollywood is destroying my childhood.
Not all of it, obviously. So far as I know no producer has proposed a sitcom exploring my brief careers in 4-H or Cub Scouts. And there will probably never be an inspirational sports movie about the time my indoor soccer team won its league championship (Although there totally should be; we were awesome!).
No, mostly our nation’s entertainment industry has limited itself to producing mildly soul-killing updates on the television shows and movies that brought me so much joy when I was younger.
This isn't a new trend, I realize, but it seems to be picking up speed. Writers and producers don't have time to wait for their audience to actually become nostalgic about something. They have to create the nostalgia out of bailing wire, papier mache and the tears of tiny infants.
It was just a few years ago, remember, that the viewing public was subjected to remakes of before-my-time material like The Mod Squad, The Avengers and Bewitched. And while I'm not sure it's fair to say anyone was truly nostalgic for a show about the hilarious consequences of a human marrying a witch, at least enough time had passed that it was possible.
Now, the window between original and remake keeps shrinking. The past 12 months alone has brought newfangled versions of at least four television programs I enjoyed in my youth which, I swear, wasn’t all that long ago.
The adaptations met with varying levels of success. Transformers, which took its inspiration from a series of half-hour commercials for a line of toy robots, was big and stupid but ultimately kind of fun. I could have done without the scene where a robot relieved itself, but I’m willing to let it go.
I didn’t see either Underdog, about a super-powered canine, or The Chipmunks, but I saw trailers for both and feel confident when I say the would have made me weep for the lost innocence of youth and the death of creativity. Or maybe they just would have made me nauseous.
The movies share some characteristics. Both bring live action into what was once entirely a cartoon world, and both feature Jason Lee, who seemed pretty cool back when he was making movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy but who now apparently sees nothing wrong with scenes in which he eats chipmunk poop.
I don’t know what the deal is with remakes and bodily function-related humor, but it makes me really nervous about any potential MacGuyver remakes.
Just a few weeks ago, NBC relaunched American Gladiators, the long lost and little mourned competition in which ordinary folks went up against steroid-crazed “Gladiators” with names like Thunder and Tower and Bulkyguy in events that involved whacking each other with padded sticks and rolling around in oversized metal balls. Watching the remake, which somehow managed to bump the crazy level of the gladiators up about three notches and which features Hulk Hogan and Mohammed Ali’s daughter as hosts, I had a hard time remembering what I ever found appealing about the original.
There are more remakes coming, too. A live-action version of G.I. Joe, perhaps the finest cartoon of my childhood, is due soon. So is a remake of Knight Rider, which promises to be awful, but in a completely different way than the David Hasselhoff-filled original.
I imagine the trend will only pick up steam. The window between original and remake will only get shorter.
I, for one, can’t wait for the theatrical release of Saved by the Bell: The Movie.
Not all of it, obviously. So far as I know no producer has proposed a sitcom exploring my brief careers in 4-H or Cub Scouts. And there will probably never be an inspirational sports movie about the time my indoor soccer team won its league championship (Although there totally should be; we were awesome!).
No, mostly our nation’s entertainment industry has limited itself to producing mildly soul-killing updates on the television shows and movies that brought me so much joy when I was younger.
This isn't a new trend, I realize, but it seems to be picking up speed. Writers and producers don't have time to wait for their audience to actually become nostalgic about something. They have to create the nostalgia out of bailing wire, papier mache and the tears of tiny infants.
It was just a few years ago, remember, that the viewing public was subjected to remakes of before-my-time material like The Mod Squad, The Avengers and Bewitched. And while I'm not sure it's fair to say anyone was truly nostalgic for a show about the hilarious consequences of a human marrying a witch, at least enough time had passed that it was possible.
Now, the window between original and remake keeps shrinking. The past 12 months alone has brought newfangled versions of at least four television programs I enjoyed in my youth which, I swear, wasn’t all that long ago.
The adaptations met with varying levels of success. Transformers, which took its inspiration from a series of half-hour commercials for a line of toy robots, was big and stupid but ultimately kind of fun. I could have done without the scene where a robot relieved itself, but I’m willing to let it go.
I didn’t see either Underdog, about a super-powered canine, or The Chipmunks, but I saw trailers for both and feel confident when I say the would have made me weep for the lost innocence of youth and the death of creativity. Or maybe they just would have made me nauseous.
The movies share some characteristics. Both bring live action into what was once entirely a cartoon world, and both feature Jason Lee, who seemed pretty cool back when he was making movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy but who now apparently sees nothing wrong with scenes in which he eats chipmunk poop.
I don’t know what the deal is with remakes and bodily function-related humor, but it makes me really nervous about any potential MacGuyver remakes.
Just a few weeks ago, NBC relaunched American Gladiators, the long lost and little mourned competition in which ordinary folks went up against steroid-crazed “Gladiators” with names like Thunder and Tower and Bulkyguy in events that involved whacking each other with padded sticks and rolling around in oversized metal balls. Watching the remake, which somehow managed to bump the crazy level of the gladiators up about three notches and which features Hulk Hogan and Mohammed Ali’s daughter as hosts, I had a hard time remembering what I ever found appealing about the original.
There are more remakes coming, too. A live-action version of G.I. Joe, perhaps the finest cartoon of my childhood, is due soon. So is a remake of Knight Rider, which promises to be awful, but in a completely different way than the David Hasselhoff-filled original.
I imagine the trend will only pick up steam. The window between original and remake will only get shorter.
I, for one, can’t wait for the theatrical release of Saved by the Bell: The Movie.
Sorry, Swedes
I don't have anything in particular against the Swedes. I spent 10 months living among them during my junior year of high school. I studied their culture, a surprising amount of which revolved around pickled herring and cheese sandwiches. They are a fine, sturdy people who possess many admirable qualities, not least the ability to live in a country that is dark for a good seven-ninths of the day during the winter. Trust me, Sweden is a good place to own a franchise on a flashlight shop.
Sweden has also produced many things that are of great benefit to the world as a whole. I am a big fan of their meatballs, their red gummy candies and their bikini teams.
So please, believe me when I say I have no quarrel with the Nordic peoples as a whole. But I worry that if I have to shop at their furniture store one more time I'm liable to punch someone in the head.
Fortunately, given my marked lack of upper body strength, that is unlikely to do any significant damage. It sure would make me feel better, though.
IKEA, that massive marketer of hex wrench-assembled furniture, caused a big stir when it opened several years ago in Bloomington, it's gigantic blue-and-yellow building proclaiming its overwhelming Swedishness to anyone driving by. People lined up for days for the chance to be the first to buy attractively priced knickknacks with whimsical, pseudo-Swedish names.
I have been to IKEA precisely three times since that day, and I believe a little piece of my soul died each time.
The crowds are part of what drive me crazy about IKEA. For someone whose job involves talking to other people I have remarkably little patience for humanity as a whole.
Actually, I'm generally OK with individuals. It's when you gather a bunch of people as a group, cram them into a confined space and wave bargain-priced glassware in their faces my eyelid really starts to twitch. This is why my rare trips to the Mall of America are typically followed by me locking myself in a dark room for about a week.
It's the design of the store that bugs me most, though. If you've never been, basically you enter through one door, go up an elevator and, with the exception of a few shortcuts, are forced to wander through acre after acre of competitively priced sofas and bed frames. There's only one way in. There's only one way out.
Walking through the store I imagine I understand how cattle feel as they're herded down a long chute toward the slaughterhouse. Only instead of a guy with a hacksaw there's a cash register and a plastic bucket of ginger cookies waiting for me at the end of the line. I think I'm getting a better deal than the cows, but not by much.
I imagine it didn't help that the first time I visited IKEA, ignorant of the unidirectional traffic pattern, I circled the store in reverse, like a salmon swimming upstream. By the time I'd made it halfway I was hoping a bear would come along and put me out of my misery.
Still, when a store's got what you need it's got what you need. And since I needed more cabinet and counter space in my new kitchen I girded my loins, put in my favorite ABBA CD and made the short drive to Bloomington. I got my counter. Now I just need to put it together.
Is anyone good with pictographs?
Sweden has also produced many things that are of great benefit to the world as a whole. I am a big fan of their meatballs, their red gummy candies and their bikini teams.
So please, believe me when I say I have no quarrel with the Nordic peoples as a whole. But I worry that if I have to shop at their furniture store one more time I'm liable to punch someone in the head.
Fortunately, given my marked lack of upper body strength, that is unlikely to do any significant damage. It sure would make me feel better, though.
IKEA, that massive marketer of hex wrench-assembled furniture, caused a big stir when it opened several years ago in Bloomington, it's gigantic blue-and-yellow building proclaiming its overwhelming Swedishness to anyone driving by. People lined up for days for the chance to be the first to buy attractively priced knickknacks with whimsical, pseudo-Swedish names.
I have been to IKEA precisely three times since that day, and I believe a little piece of my soul died each time.
The crowds are part of what drive me crazy about IKEA. For someone whose job involves talking to other people I have remarkably little patience for humanity as a whole.
Actually, I'm generally OK with individuals. It's when you gather a bunch of people as a group, cram them into a confined space and wave bargain-priced glassware in their faces my eyelid really starts to twitch. This is why my rare trips to the Mall of America are typically followed by me locking myself in a dark room for about a week.
It's the design of the store that bugs me most, though. If you've never been, basically you enter through one door, go up an elevator and, with the exception of a few shortcuts, are forced to wander through acre after acre of competitively priced sofas and bed frames. There's only one way in. There's only one way out.
Walking through the store I imagine I understand how cattle feel as they're herded down a long chute toward the slaughterhouse. Only instead of a guy with a hacksaw there's a cash register and a plastic bucket of ginger cookies waiting for me at the end of the line. I think I'm getting a better deal than the cows, but not by much.
I imagine it didn't help that the first time I visited IKEA, ignorant of the unidirectional traffic pattern, I circled the store in reverse, like a salmon swimming upstream. By the time I'd made it halfway I was hoping a bear would come along and put me out of my misery.
Still, when a store's got what you need it's got what you need. And since I needed more cabinet and counter space in my new kitchen I girded my loins, put in my favorite ABBA CD and made the short drive to Bloomington. I got my counter. Now I just need to put it together.
Is anyone good with pictographs?
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Dude, put some pants on!
Dear naked guys hanging out in the locker room at the gym,
Seriously, guys, what's that all about? I get that there needs to be some degree of nakedness in the locker room. It goes with the territory when you've got large crowds of men who need to change clothes in the same room. And I get that, even in the typically reserved Scandinavian population of Minnesota, there are some people who are more at ease with the idea of lounging, stark raving naked, in a room filled with other dudes in similar states of undress. Maybe you're really excited about your body. Maybe you've reached a point in your life where you just don't give a darn. Maybe I'm just being uptight and I should applaud you for the level of comfort you have with your own body. If so, kudos. But I still don't want to see your fanny. There need to be limits in the locker room. A pants-up pact, if you will. Like I said, some level of nudity is unavoidable. Naked dudes in the shower is a given. I certainly don't expect the nation's gym-going public to suddenly wash up in their bathing suits. But if you're going to or coming from the shower, for god's sake put on a towel. I realize we all have basically the same parts, but I really don't care. My co-workers' cars all have engines that look more or less like the engine in my car, but I don't want to see them. Speaking of the shower, know that if one or both of us is naked in the locker room I do not want to talk to you. If I don't know you, please do not try to start a conversation with me in the shower. I don't want to be rude. I just really won't have anything to say to you. As long as one of us is showing more than 75 percent of our skin I'm not going to have an opinion about the big game, the election or the weather. Heck, even if we're close friends chances are I'm not going to want to chat. Please understand. I also accept a certain amount of nakedness is necessary as people change from street to workout clothes and vice versa. Still, some of you seem to stretch this farther than is absolutely necessary. There is really no reason to be topless and bottomless at the same time. Changing clothes should not take long. And it should not involve conversation with the person at the locker next to you. Again, my level of chattiness is nearly directly proportionate to the degree to which I and those around me are clothed. And I'm not all that talkative to start with. I don't understand men who choose to perform detailed acts of personal grooming at the gym, but if you truly feel the need to shave in the locker room, please put some pants on. Finally, to the guy my brother saw Sunday using the urinal while mooning anyone who happened to look the wrong way — seriously, you don't think that was a bit much? Put some pants on!
----------------
Now playing: The Shins - Your Algebra
via FoxyTunes
Seriously, guys, what's that all about? I get that there needs to be some degree of nakedness in the locker room. It goes with the territory when you've got large crowds of men who need to change clothes in the same room. And I get that, even in the typically reserved Scandinavian population of Minnesota, there are some people who are more at ease with the idea of lounging, stark raving naked, in a room filled with other dudes in similar states of undress. Maybe you're really excited about your body. Maybe you've reached a point in your life where you just don't give a darn. Maybe I'm just being uptight and I should applaud you for the level of comfort you have with your own body. If so, kudos. But I still don't want to see your fanny. There need to be limits in the locker room. A pants-up pact, if you will. Like I said, some level of nudity is unavoidable. Naked dudes in the shower is a given. I certainly don't expect the nation's gym-going public to suddenly wash up in their bathing suits. But if you're going to or coming from the shower, for god's sake put on a towel. I realize we all have basically the same parts, but I really don't care. My co-workers' cars all have engines that look more or less like the engine in my car, but I don't want to see them. Speaking of the shower, know that if one or both of us is naked in the locker room I do not want to talk to you. If I don't know you, please do not try to start a conversation with me in the shower. I don't want to be rude. I just really won't have anything to say to you. As long as one of us is showing more than 75 percent of our skin I'm not going to have an opinion about the big game, the election or the weather. Heck, even if we're close friends chances are I'm not going to want to chat. Please understand. I also accept a certain amount of nakedness is necessary as people change from street to workout clothes and vice versa. Still, some of you seem to stretch this farther than is absolutely necessary. There is really no reason to be topless and bottomless at the same time. Changing clothes should not take long. And it should not involve conversation with the person at the locker next to you. Again, my level of chattiness is nearly directly proportionate to the degree to which I and those around me are clothed. And I'm not all that talkative to start with. I don't understand men who choose to perform detailed acts of personal grooming at the gym, but if you truly feel the need to shave in the locker room, please put some pants on. Finally, to the guy my brother saw Sunday using the urinal while mooning anyone who happened to look the wrong way — seriously, you don't think that was a bit much? Put some pants on!
----------------
Now playing: The Shins - Your Algebra
via FoxyTunes
Friday, January 11, 2008
A manly weekend
I've never claimed to be particularly handy. Actually, I've frequently said just the opposite. Carpentry and I go together like peanut butter and asparagus.
When my dad and I successfully built a coffee table a few years ago it was less a sign of my skill with hammer and nails than it was a evidence there truly is a higher power in the universe and he really wants me to have sturdy furniture.
Still, I am a man and thus not entirely immune to the lure of power tools. If Tim Allen and the inexplicably long-running sitcom Home Improvement have taught us anything — and I would argue they haven't — it's that all men are drawn to heavy equipment on a genetic level.
My dad and I spent New Year's Day working on our second furniture project. I realize hoping for two successful efforts in less than a decade might have been a little ambitious, but the sofa table we built seems sturdy enough. And it's definitely attractive enough for the location I have in mind, tucked in behind a couch where nobody will ever see more than its top.
Last weekend I decided to push my luck. I didn't necessarily plan it this way, but Sunday turned into what I'm calling my Manly Power Tool Day. I drilled. I sawed. I hammered. I got so much done I felt like I should be in a commercial for pick-up trucks. One of those ones where the Toyota Tundra uses its massive engine and rigid frame to haul the remains of the Titanic to the surface, maybe. Or where a Ford F-150, thanks to the power of its oversized brakes and big honkin' leaf spring single-handedly brings peace to the Middle East.
And, OK. Maybe installing mini-blinds in my office isn't the most masculine of activities. And maybe there are tougher-sounding things to do than install what the signage at Home Depot described as a "closet system" in my bedroom. But the important thing to remember here is that there was a drill involved. And a jig saw. And I still have every single one of my fingers and most of my toes.
There was almost no bleeding involved, though, so I'm declaring the day a resounding success.
While we're on the subject, I have to admit I'm new to the concept of the closet system. I apparently wasn't savvy enough about the world of fashion to realize keeping clothes off the floor required a system. Running a solid NFL defense requires a system. Beating the odds at the blackjack table requires a system. Hanging your clothes in the closet requires a stick. But then, you can't charge ridiculous prices for a closet stick.
Granted, the specific stick that was in my closet when I moved into my house last month was less than adequate for the job, having fallen to the floor as soon as I hung my clothes on it. Still, I think elevating metal rods and wire shelves to system status is just asking for trouble. Next thing you know the appliances will unionize.
It's hard to complain too much, though. As of Monday night my windows were still covered and my clothes were still hanging high and proud.
Thanks, furniture gods!
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - The Flame
via FoxyTunes
When my dad and I successfully built a coffee table a few years ago it was less a sign of my skill with hammer and nails than it was a evidence there truly is a higher power in the universe and he really wants me to have sturdy furniture.
Still, I am a man and thus not entirely immune to the lure of power tools. If Tim Allen and the inexplicably long-running sitcom Home Improvement have taught us anything — and I would argue they haven't — it's that all men are drawn to heavy equipment on a genetic level.
My dad and I spent New Year's Day working on our second furniture project. I realize hoping for two successful efforts in less than a decade might have been a little ambitious, but the sofa table we built seems sturdy enough. And it's definitely attractive enough for the location I have in mind, tucked in behind a couch where nobody will ever see more than its top.
Last weekend I decided to push my luck. I didn't necessarily plan it this way, but Sunday turned into what I'm calling my Manly Power Tool Day. I drilled. I sawed. I hammered. I got so much done I felt like I should be in a commercial for pick-up trucks. One of those ones where the Toyota Tundra uses its massive engine and rigid frame to haul the remains of the Titanic to the surface, maybe. Or where a Ford F-150, thanks to the power of its oversized brakes and big honkin' leaf spring single-handedly brings peace to the Middle East.
And, OK. Maybe installing mini-blinds in my office isn't the most masculine of activities. And maybe there are tougher-sounding things to do than install what the signage at Home Depot described as a "closet system" in my bedroom. But the important thing to remember here is that there was a drill involved. And a jig saw. And I still have every single one of my fingers and most of my toes.
There was almost no bleeding involved, though, so I'm declaring the day a resounding success.
While we're on the subject, I have to admit I'm new to the concept of the closet system. I apparently wasn't savvy enough about the world of fashion to realize keeping clothes off the floor required a system. Running a solid NFL defense requires a system. Beating the odds at the blackjack table requires a system. Hanging your clothes in the closet requires a stick. But then, you can't charge ridiculous prices for a closet stick.
Granted, the specific stick that was in my closet when I moved into my house last month was less than adequate for the job, having fallen to the floor as soon as I hung my clothes on it. Still, I think elevating metal rods and wire shelves to system status is just asking for trouble. Next thing you know the appliances will unionize.
It's hard to complain too much, though. As of Monday night my windows were still covered and my clothes were still hanging high and proud.
Thanks, furniture gods!
----------------
Now playing: The Black Keys - The Flame
via FoxyTunes
Sending Jesus a text message
The last time I spent any significant amount of time in a church I was there to write a story about a community meal program. About the only exposure I get to religious sermons is when I accidentally flip on some television ministry on a Sunday morning. So I'm hardly the best person to comment on what would or would not be an offense to God. I'd hazard a guess He'd be none too thrilled if Paris Hilton were cast as Mary in a new Christmas movie, but I have no idea if the "Grow Jesus" figure I was given for Christmas (grows six times its size in water, though surprisingly does not float) will keep me from having a happy afterlife.
God's got a sense of humor, right? I mean, how else can you explain aardvarks?
Still, there's one new trend that has sparked divided opinions in people more knowledgeable than I about the petty annoyances of the Lord. And it's an issue I suspect will become increasingly common as technology becomes a bigger part of our daily lives.
According to a Reuters story, Vatican representatives have expressed disapproval of a new Italian company that allows the faithful to download images of saints to use as wallpaper on their cell phones. Representatives of the company, which is available at www.santiprotettori.com/indexusa.html, say they are simply offering an updated take on "santini" — images of saints that the faithful tape to the dashboards of their cars or carry in their wallets.
I don't pretend to understand exactly why they do this, but it seems like a kind of holy version of Pokemon, only a lot less popular with pre-teens. (He's using St. Pio of Petralcina — Go, St. Lucy of Siracusa! Use your vow of chastity defense!)
Some in the church, however, see the downloadable saints as much less innocent.
"This is in really bad taste," Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi, a member of the Italian bishops conference committee for doctrinal matters, reportedly told told the Turin newspaper La Stampa.
"It is a distortion of sacred things ... selling 'santini' for cell phones is horrifying."
I don't know how God would feel about my Grow Jesus, but I'm guessing Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi wouldn't be cool with it.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I can see how some people might object to treating the images of saints the same way you might treat, say, the photo of the funny road sign you snapped on your last road trip (Buckle up — the life you save could be your own self).
And cell phone saints open the door for technology to horn its way into other aspects of religion. Before you know it people everywhere will take confession by text message. "Bls me Fr. 4 I hv snnd. Kthxbai."
On the other hand, is putting a picture of Saint Patrick on your cell phone really that much worse than sticking Jesus' trading card in your wallet? Let's be honest: there are much worse things you can download on your cell phone.
I know. I get e-mails about them all the time. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure God wouldn't be thrilled about those.
----------------
Now playing: Teddybears - Little Stereo
via FoxyTunes
God's got a sense of humor, right? I mean, how else can you explain aardvarks?
Still, there's one new trend that has sparked divided opinions in people more knowledgeable than I about the petty annoyances of the Lord. And it's an issue I suspect will become increasingly common as technology becomes a bigger part of our daily lives.
According to a Reuters story, Vatican representatives have expressed disapproval of a new Italian company that allows the faithful to download images of saints to use as wallpaper on their cell phones. Representatives of the company, which is available at www.santiprotettori.com/indexusa.html, say they are simply offering an updated take on "santini" — images of saints that the faithful tape to the dashboards of their cars or carry in their wallets.
I don't pretend to understand exactly why they do this, but it seems like a kind of holy version of Pokemon, only a lot less popular with pre-teens. (He's using St. Pio of Petralcina — Go, St. Lucy of Siracusa! Use your vow of chastity defense!)
Some in the church, however, see the downloadable saints as much less innocent.
"This is in really bad taste," Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi, a member of the Italian bishops conference committee for doctrinal matters, reportedly told told the Turin newspaper La Stampa.
"It is a distortion of sacred things ... selling 'santini' for cell phones is horrifying."
I don't know how God would feel about my Grow Jesus, but I'm guessing Bishop Lucio Soravito De Franceschi wouldn't be cool with it.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I can see how some people might object to treating the images of saints the same way you might treat, say, the photo of the funny road sign you snapped on your last road trip (Buckle up — the life you save could be your own self).
And cell phone saints open the door for technology to horn its way into other aspects of religion. Before you know it people everywhere will take confession by text message. "Bls me Fr. 4 I hv snnd. Kthxbai."
On the other hand, is putting a picture of Saint Patrick on your cell phone really that much worse than sticking Jesus' trading card in your wallet? Let's be honest: there are much worse things you can download on your cell phone.
I know. I get e-mails about them all the time. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure God wouldn't be thrilled about those.
----------------
Now playing: Teddybears - Little Stereo
via FoxyTunes
The things I'll do for terrible television
I’m not sure if it was during the three hours I waited for the Comcast technician to show up, or the sixth time a customer service representative put me on hold or the second trip in less than a week to the Comcast office, but at some point last week I found myself wondering just how much hassle I was willing to put myself through in the name of having access to a wider selection of bad television shows.
The answer, apparently, is a lot.
It really shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve never had a significant problem with a cable company before. Service technicians showed up on time. The service was reliable. Even when there was a problem it worked in my favor. I once got free cable for a year because the company forgot to charge me.
Apparently now I’m paying.
Things went bad pretty much from the start. All I wanted to do was get cable hooked up in my new house. I called the company’s 800 number and told them what I wanted. They told me I couldn’t have it. Apparently the last person to live in my house was a deadbeat who didn’t pay his cable bills. If I wanted access to quality programming like America’s Next Top Model, they said, I’d have to apply in person so I could prove I was who I said I was.
For the record, I am.
Still, even that wasn’t too bad. I set up an installation appointment and even got a great rate on programming.
That’s when things really got obnoxious.
The installation technician showed up last Saturday two minutes before the end of his three-hour installation window. He looked at my house and told me he couldn’t do the job. The house wasn’t connected to the system, he said. It would have to be a new installation, and he didn’t have time, he said.
This confused me, I’ll admit. I was fooled by the fact there was a cable coming out of the wall in two separate rooms in my house. It seemed logical to me that someone would have had to have had cable service at the house in order to be guilty of not paying his bill.
In any case, he left and I called to set up a new appointment. I explained my situation and was put on hold. For a very long time.
While I waited, the technician came back. His schedule had been rearranged, he said. He had time to help me now. He was going to do one quick job and he’d be back. Easy as that.
So, he left. And the customer service rep. to come back on the line to tell me she’d canceled my installation and was ready to schedule a new one. When I explained that was no longer necessary, she seemed dubious. She wanted the technician to check in when he got back.
She had good reason to be uncertain.
When the technician came back he told me he could no longer do the job because the installation had been canceled and he didn’t have access to the good deal I’d gotten at the store. The best he could offer, he said, was a bigger package — even more channels I don’t care about! — for twice the price.
Somehow it didn’t seem like a great deal. So, I made another call to customer service. They couldn’t find the deal I’d gotten, either, and sent me back to the store. It was annoying, but for the kind of money I could save I figured it was worth it. So, I jumped in the car and rushed to Richfield, where the office was located, before they closed Saturday afternoon.
They couldn’t find my deal, either. Apparently this particular cable package existed in this dimension for only a brief moment last Wednesday afternoon thanks to a sub-atomic disturbance caused by solar flares, global warming and the inexplicable fact that According to Jim is still on television.
I’ve been assured now that the situation will be taken care of by the time a technician returns to my house this weekend, but I have my doubts.
A nice set of rabbit ears has never looked quite so good.
The answer, apparently, is a lot.
It really shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve never had a significant problem with a cable company before. Service technicians showed up on time. The service was reliable. Even when there was a problem it worked in my favor. I once got free cable for a year because the company forgot to charge me.
Apparently now I’m paying.
Things went bad pretty much from the start. All I wanted to do was get cable hooked up in my new house. I called the company’s 800 number and told them what I wanted. They told me I couldn’t have it. Apparently the last person to live in my house was a deadbeat who didn’t pay his cable bills. If I wanted access to quality programming like America’s Next Top Model, they said, I’d have to apply in person so I could prove I was who I said I was.
For the record, I am.
Still, even that wasn’t too bad. I set up an installation appointment and even got a great rate on programming.
That’s when things really got obnoxious.
The installation technician showed up last Saturday two minutes before the end of his three-hour installation window. He looked at my house and told me he couldn’t do the job. The house wasn’t connected to the system, he said. It would have to be a new installation, and he didn’t have time, he said.
This confused me, I’ll admit. I was fooled by the fact there was a cable coming out of the wall in two separate rooms in my house. It seemed logical to me that someone would have had to have had cable service at the house in order to be guilty of not paying his bill.
In any case, he left and I called to set up a new appointment. I explained my situation and was put on hold. For a very long time.
While I waited, the technician came back. His schedule had been rearranged, he said. He had time to help me now. He was going to do one quick job and he’d be back. Easy as that.
So, he left. And the customer service rep. to come back on the line to tell me she’d canceled my installation and was ready to schedule a new one. When I explained that was no longer necessary, she seemed dubious. She wanted the technician to check in when he got back.
She had good reason to be uncertain.
When the technician came back he told me he could no longer do the job because the installation had been canceled and he didn’t have access to the good deal I’d gotten at the store. The best he could offer, he said, was a bigger package — even more channels I don’t care about! — for twice the price.
Somehow it didn’t seem like a great deal. So, I made another call to customer service. They couldn’t find the deal I’d gotten, either, and sent me back to the store. It was annoying, but for the kind of money I could save I figured it was worth it. So, I jumped in the car and rushed to Richfield, where the office was located, before they closed Saturday afternoon.
They couldn’t find my deal, either. Apparently this particular cable package existed in this dimension for only a brief moment last Wednesday afternoon thanks to a sub-atomic disturbance caused by solar flares, global warming and the inexplicable fact that According to Jim is still on television.
I’ve been assured now that the situation will be taken care of by the time a technician returns to my house this weekend, but I have my doubts.
A nice set of rabbit ears has never looked quite so good.
They've gotta (try to) give me credit
Say what you will about the junk mail industry. Call them vile names. Accuse them of wasting paper. Visualize yourself punching them in the face. Whatever your opinion, though, these are people who clearly know their business.
I closed on my new house in late November and by the time I moved in last Sunday I'd received somewhere in the neighborhood of 83 applications for pre-approved credit cards, all in my name and with my current address. At this rate, I figure I'll have enough to paper the bathroom by the end of the year. Add in the menus, coupons and other special offers and I could probably move on to the smallest of my bedrooms by early February.
If we really want to get serious about catching Osama bin Laden, we just need set the countries armies of bulk mailers loose in Afghanistan. They'd have anthrax-laced MasterCard offers and warnings that the warranty on his car is about to expire sitting on the stoop of his cave within a week.
The plan isn't perfect, I'll admit. Since nobody actually opens their junk mail this particular strategy would have limited strategic value.
While we're on the subject of moving (We were, weren't we? Back before we started talking about terrorist leaders?) I have a few thoughts.
First, and maybe most important, don't do it. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Moving solely with the help of those people either closely related or indebted enough to you to feel obligated, is not a pleasant experience. My house would be so much tidier now if I'd never moved in. The floors wouldn't have gotten mud tracked over them. And I'm sure nobody would have left a big gouge on the stairwell because the couch we were trying to move upstairs was squeezed in tighter than Britney Spears in her Video Music Awards outfit.
I realize not all people feel this way. When I was growing up we moved so many times I started worrying we were on the lam. At one point we moved from a house on the 16th fairway of a golf course in Stillwater to a new house on the fifth hole of the same course.
I figured my parents had blown up a government lab during a protest of the Vietnam War or something. Anyway, that's the story I told all my friends. I didn't care if it was true. It sounded a lot cooler than any alternatives.
If you must move, I seriously recommend doing it sometime other than a day in early December when the temperature is somewhere in the neighborhood of absolute zero. I don't know if boiling water would have frozen when thrown into the air last Sunday, but it was cold enough that a light fixture in my stairwell shattered when all we did was ram a couch into it. Talk about brittle.
I also recommend putting a ham into the oven as soon as you start moving. I don't care if you don't like ham. It smells really good. Also, the oven will provide some heat.
I'm not sure when this moving process will actually be over. There are boxes and bags I have yet to fully unpack. There are some that haven't made it out of my old residence yet. I don't have cable TV. I don't have an Internet connection. I don't even have all the pieces of my desk yet.
But if I ever need a sweet rate on a credit card I'm set.
I closed on my new house in late November and by the time I moved in last Sunday I'd received somewhere in the neighborhood of 83 applications for pre-approved credit cards, all in my name and with my current address. At this rate, I figure I'll have enough to paper the bathroom by the end of the year. Add in the menus, coupons and other special offers and I could probably move on to the smallest of my bedrooms by early February.
If we really want to get serious about catching Osama bin Laden, we just need set the countries armies of bulk mailers loose in Afghanistan. They'd have anthrax-laced MasterCard offers and warnings that the warranty on his car is about to expire sitting on the stoop of his cave within a week.
The plan isn't perfect, I'll admit. Since nobody actually opens their junk mail this particular strategy would have limited strategic value.
While we're on the subject of moving (We were, weren't we? Back before we started talking about terrorist leaders?) I have a few thoughts.
First, and maybe most important, don't do it. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Moving solely with the help of those people either closely related or indebted enough to you to feel obligated, is not a pleasant experience. My house would be so much tidier now if I'd never moved in. The floors wouldn't have gotten mud tracked over them. And I'm sure nobody would have left a big gouge on the stairwell because the couch we were trying to move upstairs was squeezed in tighter than Britney Spears in her Video Music Awards outfit.
I realize not all people feel this way. When I was growing up we moved so many times I started worrying we were on the lam. At one point we moved from a house on the 16th fairway of a golf course in Stillwater to a new house on the fifth hole of the same course.
I figured my parents had blown up a government lab during a protest of the Vietnam War or something. Anyway, that's the story I told all my friends. I didn't care if it was true. It sounded a lot cooler than any alternatives.
If you must move, I seriously recommend doing it sometime other than a day in early December when the temperature is somewhere in the neighborhood of absolute zero. I don't know if boiling water would have frozen when thrown into the air last Sunday, but it was cold enough that a light fixture in my stairwell shattered when all we did was ram a couch into it. Talk about brittle.
I also recommend putting a ham into the oven as soon as you start moving. I don't care if you don't like ham. It smells really good. Also, the oven will provide some heat.
I'm not sure when this moving process will actually be over. There are boxes and bags I have yet to fully unpack. There are some that haven't made it out of my old residence yet. I don't have cable TV. I don't have an Internet connection. I don't even have all the pieces of my desk yet.
But if I ever need a sweet rate on a credit card I'm set.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Looking ahead — and for a fork
I realize I'm supposed to get all contemplative at this time of year. 2007 is almost over. People everywhere are compiling lists of their favorite music, movies and celebrity scandals of the past 12 months. Well, phooey on that. Here, in no particular order, is what I'm going to remember from the year that's about to wrap up: I bought a house. That's pretty much it. I realize there was some other stuff going on. Some of it was fairly important. I keep hearing things about a Presidential election. I know one of the candidates is a Mormon, one used to be mayor of New York City and one used to be an actor on Night Court or something. I suspect at least three or four of them are just plain nuts. But that's all about that I can tell you about the campaign. I'm sure someone will let me know when I need to start paying attention. I'm fairly confident we celebrated Christmas recently, but I can't be sure. People gave me gifts. I gave some wrapped packages to other people. There were family members in town I hadn't seen for a while, and I kept hearing annoying, Christmas-related songs on the radio lately. For the past month or so, though, I haven't thought about much besides buying and moving into my first home. I'm sure you know that, though. I keep writing about it. Don't worry. I promise I'll stop soon. For weeks now I have been surrounded by boxes. I'm awash in cables and cords. I've got so many wires connecting my DVD player to my TV and my TV player to my speaker system and about a dozen other audio-visual components to each other that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to puzzle them all out. I'm a little afraid I'm going to push the wrong button and trigger a situation right out of WarGames, the 1983 classic in which Matthew Broderick nearly causes a global nuclear war while playing a computer game. I'm not sure how that would happen, but I'm not taking any chances. Slowly but surely, I've put away most of the bags and boxes I used to move my possessions to my new house, which has simultaneously made the house seem both cleaner and much emptier. I'm not sure if that's better than cluttered and full. I hauled the final load from my old home on Tuesday night — a fan, a jar of gumballs and four sheets of wood I'd been using in place of the box spring that didn't fit down the stairs to my bedroom. It was an odd collection of stuff, I'll admit. I still can't find my silverware, though. And pretty soon I'm going to run out of things I can eat with my fingers. I have cable TV (finally). I have an Internet connection. I have done dishes in my new dishwasher and laundry in my new washer and dryer. Sometime this week I'll have to write my first mortgage check, although I'm kind of hoping the bank will kind of forget about it. That happens sometimes, right? I didn't sleep very will my first night in the new house, but that's gotten better. I've had to shovel a couple of times since I moved in. It wasn't bad. And it was certainly better than the two times I had to shovel before I had a single possession in the house. I'm not sure the house feels entirely like a home yet, but I'm sure that will happen. The heck with looking back, then. I'm looking forward to that.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
International relations
Dear unidentified Venezuelan woman, Please stop calling me. Seriously. Enough is enough. It was actually kind of funny when you called the first time last Thursday and tried to speak to me in Spanish. But when you left a voicemail message that consisted entirely of you singing unintelligible words to me, I started to worry I was in some bizarre Spanish-language sequel of The Ring. I spent the next few days waiting for a creepy girl to come crawling out of the TV at me, only in this case I imagine she'd be dressed like a bumblebee or something. When you called me 15 more times over the next four days, I started to feel like I was the victim of the least efficient stalker ever. Honestly, you called me two times as I drove from Farmington to Rosemount and three more as I sat in McDonald's trying to eat my lunch. It just seems like overkill. I hope you don't take this personally. It's not that I dislike you. How could I? To the best of my memory, the sum total of our intelligible conversation would, if transcribed, look something like this: Unidentified Venezuelan woman: Do you speak Spanish? Confused Minnesotan editor: No. UVW: What ... city ... are ... you? CME: Farmington, Minnesota. UVW: What ... city ... are ... you? CME: Farmington. UVW: I ... am ... Venezuela. It goes on like that for a while, but you get the idea. I can hardly claim I know you well enough to form an opinion of your personality. For all I know you're perfectly pleasant when you're talking to people who understand you. It's just that I'm not one of them, and I'm starting to question the value of continuing this long-distance conversation. I have no idea why you're calling me so much. I know everyone in your country is very excited about Twins pitcher Johan Santana, but I promise I don't have any inside information for you on his status with the Twins. Even if I did, what good would it do? You don't speak English, remember? We're kind of at a stalemate there, you understand? Of course you don't. As I write this it's been two days since I've heard from you, unidentified Venezuelan woman. Maybe you've grown tired of trying to figure out what city I am. Maybe you've finally figured out the intricacies of international dialing and are finally calling the person you've been trying all along to get through to. I hope that's the case. If I've heard the last of you, unidentified Venezuelan woman, I hope life treats you well. I hope the weather is nice in Valencia, which according to the city code in your phone number is where you're calling from. We've had a lot of snow here in Minnesota (That's a serious chubasco to you, if about.com has that translation right.). I can't say I'll miss you, unidentified Venezuelan woman, but you certainly made four days of my life a little more interesting. Seriously, though. Stop calling. Sincerely, Nathan Hansen
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wanna hear something scary?
A few weeks ago I heard the most terrifying words anyone has ever spoken to me.
I was sitting at home at the time. Minding my own business. Chances are I was watching TV. Probably something terrible. Then, the phone rang. It was my realtor.
"He accepted your offer on the house," he said.
Gulp.
I realize this was supposed to be good news. Most people, I understand, make an offer to buy something with the hope that offer will be accepted. In theory, that's what I did when I made a bid on this particular one-and-a-half story home. In that particular moment, though, my most immediate thought was something along the lines of, "Nonononononono! Take it back! Take it back! You can't make me!"
I'm paraphrasing, obviously. And more than likely editing out a few less than printable words.
I've had a little time now to adjust to the idea of home ownership. I've bought supplies. I paid a whole bunch money that could have gone to something important like a new iPod or a few Playstation games for something silly like an inspection to make sure the home is structurally sound.
On Tuesday I officially closed on the purchase, a process that largely involved someone pointing at a line on a piece of paper and me, blank stare on my face, signing my name. They told me all of the documents were related to the purchase, but as far as I know, in addition to my mortgage and loan documents, I signed away the rights to any oil discovered on the property, my entire baseball card collection and my first born child.
I signed my name so many times Tuesday morning I started to understand how professional athletes must feel, only without the legion of groupies or the steriod rush.
I'm looking forward to moving into my new home now, although I've discovered the line between excitement and terror is surprisingly thin. I think it will be good to move out of the room I've rented for the past year or so in the basement of my step-sister's house. I understand moving away from my 5-year-old nephew will seriously cut down on my opportunities to play with Thomas the Tank Engine toys, but nobody ever said owning a home was perfect.
Really, what's not to get excited about? Now that I own a home I'll have a lawn to rake and mow. I'll have a sidewalk to shovel and gutters to clean. I'll have mortgage and insurance and property tax payments to make. But I'll also have an opportunity to borrow tools from my neighbor and never return them. This, I've come to understand from comic strips and situational comedies, is what neighbors do.
Buying a house means I can finally get a puppy, although given the amount of time I'm actually at home these days that seems like a bad idea. It means I can throw big, loud parties without worrying about disturbing people in neighboring apartments. Scrabble parties can really get out of hand when people start arguing about triple letter scores.
I suppose it's appropriate that this particular purchase takes place just a couple of weeks before my 33rd birthday. If anything, buying a home is just another part of getting older.
Like I said. Gulp.
----------------
Now playing: Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Searching for patriotism
I would certainly never suggest that veterans of the United States Military do not deserve recognition for their service. The men and women who have served this country, even those who returned home safely, have made significant sacrifices in the name of protecting the rest of us. They fought bravely and they deserve our respect.
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
via FoxyTunes
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
via FoxyTunes
Searching for patriotism
I would certainly never suggest that veterans of the United States Military do not deserve recognition for their service. The men and women who have served this country, even those who returned home safely, have made significant sacrifices in the name of protecting the rest of us. They fought bravely and they deserve our respect.
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
via FoxyTunes
It's just, in "lets support the veterans" efforts, as in war, it's important to pick your battles.
Livable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and efforts to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans adjust to life at home? That's an important way of supporting veterans. Patriotic logos on the home page of search engine Google for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day? I mean, that's got to be a little bit farther down the priority list, doesn't it?
Possibly not.
Several conservative groups seem to have gotten themselves worked into a tizzy in recent years over the fact the search company, which frequently modifies its logo for special occasions, had until this year not made an effort to recognize either Memorial Day or Veteran's Day. In a web log posting last year a group called California Conserv-atives called it "utterly disgusting" that Google would fail to recognize U.S. veterans while using its logo to pay tribute to such obscure events as Persian New Year and the birthday of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
If that's the group's reaction to the lack of a military-themed cartoon, I'd hate to see it's reaction the local paper ever pulls Beetle Bailey.
The questions about Google's perceived lack of patriotism have gotten so serious that the Los Angeles Times last month published a story about the controversy. In the story, a conservative blogger named Giovanni Gallucci who clearly gets too emotionally involved with his Internet searches, calls Google's logo shortcomings "A kick to your belly."
The story also quotes Joseph Farah, whose worldnetdaily.com site clearly has issues with Google. The site has no fewer than 15 stories about the evils the world's most popular search engine has visited upon this country and the world at large. It's a lot of anger to build up over targeted advertising.
Google's response to the controversy had been to suggest its logo alterations, generally light-hearted doodles, were not solemn enough to capture an event like Veteran's Day. According to the Times a web site called zombietime.com took that as a challenge and sponsored a contest to solicit suggestions.
Certainly we must take something called zombietime.com seriously as a source of political discourse. If you'd like to see the suggestions they're on the site somewhere among links to photos of San Francisco's World Naked Bike Ride and a topless protest at a Hillary Clinton rally.
A word of warning: You really, really don't want to click on those links. Talk about utterly disgusting kicks to the belly.
This isn't the first time the lack of overt displays of patriotism have caused problems. Presidential candidate Barack Obama took heat recently for failing to wear a U.S. flag lapel pin, and shortly after 9/11 a women's college basketball player caused a stir by choosing not to face the flag during the National Anthem.
I'm all for displays of patriotism, but wearing a flag pin so everyone knows how much you love America is a little bit like driving a Toyota Prius instead of a more traditional-looking hybrid so everyone will know how much you love the environment. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance out loud doesn't make me any more patriotic in my heart than reading the Vikings' playbook out loud makes me qualified to play quarterback in the NFL.
(OK, that's a bad example. At this point, I think I might be a better option at quarterback than anyone currently playing the position for the Vikings. And I can't even throw a decent spiral.)
For the record, this Veteran's Day Google's logo sported World War I-era Army helmets on both of its Os and its E.
Now that we've got that taken care of we can turn our attention to the next blatant example of disrespecting this country: McDonald's, which honors St. Patrick's Day with a Shamrock Shake but has yet to introduce red, white and blue McNuggets.
Shame on you, Ronald.
----------------
Now playing: The Bad Plus - Iron Man
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Solidarity
I thought about skipping this column. I wanted to show solidarity with the members of the Writers Guild of America, who went on strike this week after failing to reach a deal with studios. In the end, though, my sense of devotion to my loyal readers, all baker’s dozen of you, was simply too strong. Also, this was a light week for letters to the editor and I couldn’t find anything else to put in this space. This strike is serious business. According to Reuters, the motion picture and television industry generates $30 billion in annual economic activity for Los Angeles County alone and the U.S. film and television industry, which will in many cases be idled by the strike, employs 200,000 people. Economists estimate a 22-week writers’ strike in 1988 cost the entertainment industry roughly $500 million. That doesn’t even take into account the impact on the poor families who might now be forced to hold a conversation while they eat dinner. You can’t put a price on that kind of psychological trauma. Some of the strike’s effects have already started to show up. Late night talk shows went to re-runs on Monday. Apparently Jay Leno needs a full staff of writers to prepare him for reading wacky headlines. (City council runs out of time to discuss shorter meetings? Precious!) The film industry, which prepared for a possible strike by stockpiling scripts, will likely not be affected. But the impact elsewhere could be significant. Though the producers of television series typically work ahead a long strike could mean more reruns for prime time shows. This could actually be good news for fans who want to catch up with their favorite shows. It could be even better news for viewers looking for an excuse to finally stop watching Two and a Half Men. If there are too many reruns we could ultimately lose some of the weaker shows on the schedule. If things get really bad we could find ourselves cutting down to just six or seven CSI series and only a couple of dozen Law and Order spin offs. It’s the law of the television jungle. Ultimately, the strike could mean more reality shows popping up in the months ahead. In other words, the studios might finally listen to my “Strand seven unstable strangers on an island, make them dance and have an angry British guy yell at them” pitch. I call it Real Dancing with the Idol. It’s going to be huge. I shouldn’t make jokes, though. This strike is serious business for the people involved. And it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the writers. According to most reports all they really want is a bigger cut of the roughly $315 million expected to be spent this year on Internet downloads of movies and television shows. That’s a whole lot of money. And who are we to say the writers don’t deserve every penny? Without the talented members of the Writers Guild, after all, we wouldn’t have quality television fare like Cavemen, the half-hour sitcom based on a series of insurance ads, or Cane, which is about Jimmy Smits being sexy and probably evil or something. I haven’t actually watched the show, but the commercials are pretty annoying. It’s hard to know how this will play out from here. The smart thing would be for everyone involved to work out their differences and get back to business before Americans realize they can fill the time they used to spend watching TV by reading a book or taking a walk, a process that by most estimates will take until somewhere in mid-2013. Then again, this is the entertainment industry we’re talking about. It’s hard to count on an industry that keeps Rob Schneider gainfully employed to ever do the smart thing.
----------------
Now playing: Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
via FoxyTunes
----------------
Now playing: Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
via FoxyTunes
Friday, November 02, 2007
Your Halloween history lesson
Earlier this week children and adults in Rosemount and across the country celebrated Halloween, a popular holiday that in its modern incarnation is largely associated with excess.
For children, Halloween is an excuse to dress in costumes that are typically either adorable or horrifying and go door to door extort massive amounts of candy from friends and neighbors.
For adults, Halloween parties are frequently an excuse to consume excessive amounts of food and alcohol, and to dress in excessively revealing outfits. In this way, Halloween has followed an evolution similar to many other popular holidays in the United States, from New Year's Eve to the Fourth of July to Arbor Day.
But to focus on the modern trappings of Halloween is to ignore the holiday's proud history. Halloween at its beginning looked little like the holiday we celebrate today. Originally called All Hollow Eaves, Halloween began in 1783 as a way for roofers of the day to show off their work. Essentially an early ancestor of our modern Parade of Homes, construction companies would use the promise of sweet treats such as sugar cubes and caramel apples to lure children and their parents to view what were then remarkable advances in roofing technology. In fact, had the advent of modern gutter technology not coincided that year with a bountiful sugar beet crop the last day of October might look very different today.
There were no costumes at the first Halloween. It is widely believed the first instance of dressing up for the holiday occurred the following year, when Jack O'Lantern, then one of the most prominent roofers in of the day, decided he could draw more people to his homes if he gave prizes for the best dressed visitors to his homes. Among the most popular costumes that first year were John Wesley, who had gained fame in February of that year when he chartered the Methodist church, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, a pioneer in the field of summation.
Also common in those early years, though frowned upon by many, were costumes we see still today such as the slutty nurse and the cat woman.
O'Lantern's Halloween inventions did not stop with the costume, of course. As you may have guessed he is also widely believed to be the first to carve a face in a pumpkin, which grew in abundance that year, and place a candle in it as a kind of torch so people could admire his handiwork well into the night. He called this innovation the punk-o-torch. The name was changed later, but surprising to honor not the creator of the punk-o-torch but an entirely different Jack O'Lantern whose direct connection to the carved pumpkin remains shrouded in mystery but there are those who believe he was the first to perfect the now common "pointy-teeth" carving method.
Halloween has continued to evolve over the years. Bobbing for apples, though now a popular and lighthearted event common at Halloween parties, has a surprisingly tragic origin as a commemoration of the Great Apple Drownin' of 1832.
The name of the holiday was officially changed during the Great Depression as a way to save on printing costs, and the association with with roofing gradually faded away, replaced with overtones of the occult as people decided witches and ghosts made way cooler costumes than roofers.
----------------
Now playing: Iffy - Da Blink
via FoxyTunes
For children, Halloween is an excuse to dress in costumes that are typically either adorable or horrifying and go door to door extort massive amounts of candy from friends and neighbors.
For adults, Halloween parties are frequently an excuse to consume excessive amounts of food and alcohol, and to dress in excessively revealing outfits. In this way, Halloween has followed an evolution similar to many other popular holidays in the United States, from New Year's Eve to the Fourth of July to Arbor Day.
But to focus on the modern trappings of Halloween is to ignore the holiday's proud history. Halloween at its beginning looked little like the holiday we celebrate today. Originally called All Hollow Eaves, Halloween began in 1783 as a way for roofers of the day to show off their work. Essentially an early ancestor of our modern Parade of Homes, construction companies would use the promise of sweet treats such as sugar cubes and caramel apples to lure children and their parents to view what were then remarkable advances in roofing technology. In fact, had the advent of modern gutter technology not coincided that year with a bountiful sugar beet crop the last day of October might look very different today.
There were no costumes at the first Halloween. It is widely believed the first instance of dressing up for the holiday occurred the following year, when Jack O'Lantern, then one of the most prominent roofers in of the day, decided he could draw more people to his homes if he gave prizes for the best dressed visitors to his homes. Among the most popular costumes that first year were John Wesley, who had gained fame in February of that year when he chartered the Methodist church, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, a pioneer in the field of summation.
Also common in those early years, though frowned upon by many, were costumes we see still today such as the slutty nurse and the cat woman.
O'Lantern's Halloween inventions did not stop with the costume, of course. As you may have guessed he is also widely believed to be the first to carve a face in a pumpkin, which grew in abundance that year, and place a candle in it as a kind of torch so people could admire his handiwork well into the night. He called this innovation the punk-o-torch. The name was changed later, but surprising to honor not the creator of the punk-o-torch but an entirely different Jack O'Lantern whose direct connection to the carved pumpkin remains shrouded in mystery but there are those who believe he was the first to perfect the now common "pointy-teeth" carving method.
Halloween has continued to evolve over the years. Bobbing for apples, though now a popular and lighthearted event common at Halloween parties, has a surprisingly tragic origin as a commemoration of the Great Apple Drownin' of 1832.
The name of the holiday was officially changed during the Great Depression as a way to save on printing costs, and the association with with roofing gradually faded away, replaced with overtones of the occult as people decided witches and ghosts made way cooler costumes than roofers.
----------------
Now playing: Iffy - Da Blink
via FoxyTunes
Friday, October 26, 2007
Don't make me chime you!
I'm....
I just....
I don't....
I'm sorry if I seem a bit incoherent at the moment. It's just ... have you ever read something that inspired so many thoughts and emotions you didn't quite know which one to follow? That's the way I feel right now.
I mean, how am I supposed to react when Time freaking Magazine runs a story on its web page about the growing trend in Japan that involves using a cell phone application to fight public train groping?
I don't mean groping public trains, obviously. I mean ... well, you know what I mean.
How do I react to the news that Japan, a country with a reputation for good manners, apparently finds itself the victim of a happy hands epidemic?
Should I be concerned it's become so difficult for Japanese women to keep their private parts private that many have turned to technology for an answer?
Should I worry that interpersonal skills have degraded to the point someone would rely on the assistance of a cell phone in a situation when a more direct response seems called for?
Should I hop a plane to Tokyo to find out just how effective this new kind of hands-free phone is?
I honestly don't know.
Here's the thing. According to Time this so-called "Anti-groping appli," released in late 2005, has recently climbed to No. 7 on the list of most popular cell phone applications. The free, downloadable program works by flashing what Time describes as a series of increasingly threatening messages from the gropee to the groper. The messages progress from, "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" (Does anyone ever actually admit this?) to "Groping is a crime." To "Shall we head to the police?"
There is not, so far as I can tell, a message that reads, "You want to keep those fingers, buddy?"
A "warning chime" accompanies each message, and users can advance from one to the next by hitting a button labeled "anger."
In other words, Japanese women are responding to blatant violations of their personal space with a chime, possibly the least threatening warning sound ever.
Citing numbers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Time reports that 1,853 people were arrested in 2005 for groping passengers on trains in Tokyo. Experts (in groping? In trains? It's not clear) say the actual number of incidents in which passengers are harassed is much higher, but women are embarrassed to report them.
I respect Japanese culture. I really do. It's given us reliable hybrid cars and dancing robots and cartoons about adorable creatures that fight to the death. But there are certain situations that call for good, old-fashioned American directness. Women shouldn't be embarrassed about getting groped. They should be ticked off. Not button-pushing, chime-ringing ticked off, either. I'm talking about in-your-face, call-attention-to-the-creepy-guy, "Buddy, your hand better not be where I think it is," angry.
Dealing with subway gropers doesn't call for an anger button. It calls for a button that makes a giant boot pop out of the top of the phone and kick the mister grabby hands somewhere that will get his attention a whole lot faster than a digital threat to call the cops.
Now that's some useful technology.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Bodysnatchers
via FoxyTunes
I just....
I don't....
I'm sorry if I seem a bit incoherent at the moment. It's just ... have you ever read something that inspired so many thoughts and emotions you didn't quite know which one to follow? That's the way I feel right now.
I mean, how am I supposed to react when Time freaking Magazine runs a story on its web page about the growing trend in Japan that involves using a cell phone application to fight public train groping?
I don't mean groping public trains, obviously. I mean ... well, you know what I mean.
How do I react to the news that Japan, a country with a reputation for good manners, apparently finds itself the victim of a happy hands epidemic?
Should I be concerned it's become so difficult for Japanese women to keep their private parts private that many have turned to technology for an answer?
Should I worry that interpersonal skills have degraded to the point someone would rely on the assistance of a cell phone in a situation when a more direct response seems called for?
Should I hop a plane to Tokyo to find out just how effective this new kind of hands-free phone is?
I honestly don't know.
Here's the thing. According to Time this so-called "Anti-groping appli," released in late 2005, has recently climbed to No. 7 on the list of most popular cell phone applications. The free, downloadable program works by flashing what Time describes as a series of increasingly threatening messages from the gropee to the groper. The messages progress from, "Excuse me, did you just grope me?" (Does anyone ever actually admit this?) to "Groping is a crime." To "Shall we head to the police?"
There is not, so far as I can tell, a message that reads, "You want to keep those fingers, buddy?"
A "warning chime" accompanies each message, and users can advance from one to the next by hitting a button labeled "anger."
In other words, Japanese women are responding to blatant violations of their personal space with a chime, possibly the least threatening warning sound ever.
Citing numbers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Time reports that 1,853 people were arrested in 2005 for groping passengers on trains in Tokyo. Experts (in groping? In trains? It's not clear) say the actual number of incidents in which passengers are harassed is much higher, but women are embarrassed to report them.
I respect Japanese culture. I really do. It's given us reliable hybrid cars and dancing robots and cartoons about adorable creatures that fight to the death. But there are certain situations that call for good, old-fashioned American directness. Women shouldn't be embarrassed about getting groped. They should be ticked off. Not button-pushing, chime-ringing ticked off, either. I'm talking about in-your-face, call-attention-to-the-creepy-guy, "Buddy, your hand better not be where I think it is," angry.
Dealing with subway gropers doesn't call for an anger button. It calls for a button that makes a giant boot pop out of the top of the phone and kick the mister grabby hands somewhere that will get his attention a whole lot faster than a digital threat to call the cops.
Now that's some useful technology.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Bodysnatchers
via FoxyTunes
@%*&#!
This is a big week for swearing-related news. Turns out, letting loose with a few choice expletives every now and then has certain benefits and certain drawbacks.
The week's better news for fans of blue language comes from the University of East Anglia, which reported earlier this week that, far from being inappropriate, spewing the occasional four-letter word in the workplace can benefit everyone by reducing stress and helping people get along. Because who hasn't felt better about their co-workers after letting loose with a long string of obscenities?
Randomly cursing at a computer when it won't print the document you want isn't causing a disruption, says the study, published in a recent edition of Leadership and Organisational Develop-ment Journal (Darn, and I just let my subscription lapse.). It's blowing off steam.
"In many cases, taboo language serves the needs of people for developing and maintaining solidarity, and as a mechanism to cope with stress," Barach told England's Sun newspaper. "Banning it could backfire."
Basically, the co-workers who curse together stay together.
Finally, a f***ing management style I can get behind.
Baruch seems to believe swearing at work is simply too common to control.
"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," he said. Apparently there is a way to swear in a positive, nurturing manner. "I love you, you little @#!*."
Though it is never specified, I can only assume the University of East Anglia has a lot of sailors on the payroll and that Baruch and Jenkins conducted the bulk of their research in the locker rooms of professional sports teams.
The news isn't all good on the pottymouth front, though. While swearing at work is apparently all the rage across the pond, in Pennsylvania the occasional curse word aimed at a malfunctioning potty can land you in jail.
According to web site ananova.com a West Scranton resident faces the possibility of up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300 after her neighbor, a police officer, heard her swearing at an overflowing toilet. The police officer asked the woman to quiet down. When she didn't, he reported her.
I have to be honest, if this is the kind of trouble you can get in for swearing at inanimate objects in the privacy of your own home I just might go away from life.
For the record, the woman said she doesn't remember exactly what she said to her backflowing porcelain throne but admits she was frustrated and might have used some off-color language. She is fighting the charge with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"You can't prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet," ACLU representative Mary Catherine Roper told the Times-Tribune.
Darn tootin'.
----------------
Now playing: Mazzy Star - Bells Ring
via FoxyTunes
The week's better news for fans of blue language comes from the University of East Anglia, which reported earlier this week that, far from being inappropriate, spewing the occasional four-letter word in the workplace can benefit everyone by reducing stress and helping people get along. Because who hasn't felt better about their co-workers after letting loose with a long string of obscenities?
Randomly cursing at a computer when it won't print the document you want isn't causing a disruption, says the study, published in a recent edition of Leadership and Organisational Develop-ment Journal (Darn, and I just let my subscription lapse.). It's blowing off steam.
"In many cases, taboo language serves the needs of people for developing and maintaining solidarity, and as a mechanism to cope with stress," Barach told England's Sun newspaper. "Banning it could backfire."
Basically, the co-workers who curse together stay together.
Finally, a f***ing management style I can get behind.
Baruch seems to believe swearing at work is simply too common to control.
"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," he said. Apparently there is a way to swear in a positive, nurturing manner. "I love you, you little @#!*."
Though it is never specified, I can only assume the University of East Anglia has a lot of sailors on the payroll and that Baruch and Jenkins conducted the bulk of their research in the locker rooms of professional sports teams.
The news isn't all good on the pottymouth front, though. While swearing at work is apparently all the rage across the pond, in Pennsylvania the occasional curse word aimed at a malfunctioning potty can land you in jail.
According to web site ananova.com a West Scranton resident faces the possibility of up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300 after her neighbor, a police officer, heard her swearing at an overflowing toilet. The police officer asked the woman to quiet down. When she didn't, he reported her.
I have to be honest, if this is the kind of trouble you can get in for swearing at inanimate objects in the privacy of your own home I just might go away from life.
For the record, the woman said she doesn't remember exactly what she said to her backflowing porcelain throne but admits she was frustrated and might have used some off-color language. She is fighting the charge with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"You can't prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet," ACLU representative Mary Catherine Roper told the Times-Tribune.
Darn tootin'.
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Now playing: Mazzy Star - Bells Ring
via FoxyTunes
If you don’t read this column....
Back when I was spending my junior year of high school in Sweden there was a series of ads for self-adhesive bandages — they might have been Band-Aids, they might have been some Scandinavian equivalent that users had to assemble themselves with an allen wrench; I can't be sure — that featured adorable young children about to suffer some kind of misfortune.
One adorable moppet, no doubt blonde-haired and blue-eyed as adorable Swedish children tend to be, was about to step barefoot onto a piece of broken glass. Another was on the verge of scraping himself on a nail or some other such sharp, menacing object.
The tagline on these ads, roughly translated, was, "Accidents happen so easily."
I always found them immensely disturbing. Why, I wondered, do the advertising efforts of Sweden's bandage industry sound so much like they were written by a low-level mobster running a protection racket.
"That's a real nice kid you got there," these Nordic bandage thugs seemed to be telling potential customers. "Be a shame if something happened to him."
Is the Scandinavian Mob (The Møb?) really so heavily invested in the home healthcare industry?
That could be, I suppose. But I'm starting to suspect there's more to it than a cunning crime syndicate that wants to both break your thumbs and sell you splints to set them with. I realize now that vaguely threatening advertisements involving children are far more common than I realized.
Take my trip out West earlier this year. I mentioned this a few months ago, but it seems worth bringing up again, if only because it was seriously creepy. Somewhere in Montana there was a billboard that featured a stark, black-and-white picture of a young boy aiming a firearm at the camera. "If he doesn't believe in God," the tagline read, "will he believe in you?"
In other words, take your kid to church or he'll shoot you in the face.
Then there's the ad I saw Wednesday night. The one that brought this all back to mind. It features a woman getting ready for what appears to be a night on the town. Her daughter, presumably about to be left behind with a babysitter while Mom and Dad whoop it up, is playing dress-up along with Mommy. They're laughing. They appear to be having the kind of happy mother-daughter moment they’ll both treasure in their later years. But then Mom does something terrible. She puts some lipstick on, then turns to apply a little to her daughter's lips. Meanwhile, an ominous-sounding voice-over warns us that if we adults fail to get our flu shots, "You're not just fluin' yourself."
Awful puns aside, I'm not convinced this is really the best way to push flu immunization. I'm not sure a message like, "Get immunized or BIRD FLU WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN!" really makes me want to rush out to the clinic. Mostly it makes me want to lock myself in my bedroom and not come out until spring.
I’d do it, too. But I'm afraid there's something sharp in there. And accidents happen so easily.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - The Tourist
via FoxyTunes
One adorable moppet, no doubt blonde-haired and blue-eyed as adorable Swedish children tend to be, was about to step barefoot onto a piece of broken glass. Another was on the verge of scraping himself on a nail or some other such sharp, menacing object.
The tagline on these ads, roughly translated, was, "Accidents happen so easily."
I always found them immensely disturbing. Why, I wondered, do the advertising efforts of Sweden's bandage industry sound so much like they were written by a low-level mobster running a protection racket.
"That's a real nice kid you got there," these Nordic bandage thugs seemed to be telling potential customers. "Be a shame if something happened to him."
Is the Scandinavian Mob (The Møb?) really so heavily invested in the home healthcare industry?
That could be, I suppose. But I'm starting to suspect there's more to it than a cunning crime syndicate that wants to both break your thumbs and sell you splints to set them with. I realize now that vaguely threatening advertisements involving children are far more common than I realized.
Take my trip out West earlier this year. I mentioned this a few months ago, but it seems worth bringing up again, if only because it was seriously creepy. Somewhere in Montana there was a billboard that featured a stark, black-and-white picture of a young boy aiming a firearm at the camera. "If he doesn't believe in God," the tagline read, "will he believe in you?"
In other words, take your kid to church or he'll shoot you in the face.
Then there's the ad I saw Wednesday night. The one that brought this all back to mind. It features a woman getting ready for what appears to be a night on the town. Her daughter, presumably about to be left behind with a babysitter while Mom and Dad whoop it up, is playing dress-up along with Mommy. They're laughing. They appear to be having the kind of happy mother-daughter moment they’ll both treasure in their later years. But then Mom does something terrible. She puts some lipstick on, then turns to apply a little to her daughter's lips. Meanwhile, an ominous-sounding voice-over warns us that if we adults fail to get our flu shots, "You're not just fluin' yourself."
Awful puns aside, I'm not convinced this is really the best way to push flu immunization. I'm not sure a message like, "Get immunized or BIRD FLU WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN!" really makes me want to rush out to the clinic. Mostly it makes me want to lock myself in my bedroom and not come out until spring.
I’d do it, too. But I'm afraid there's something sharp in there. And accidents happen so easily.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - The Tourist
via FoxyTunes
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