Accelerated Culture

Buhler Reunion Menu

2011-07-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I've created a menu for the upcoming reunion.

Calendar Graphic

If that doesn't print correctly, here is the link.

Seriously?

2011-03-04T08:05:00.001-08:00

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor. - Max Eastman

Daddy, There's POOPIE!

2010-09-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Two nights in a row the poopie has suddenly appeared in the bath tub.

My son has been quite put out by this.

We’re offering a $5,000,000,000,000,000,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest and capture of the Poopie Bandit who keeps putting poopie in my son’s bath.

Thank you.

Burn, Baby, Burn

2010-09-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Burn, Baby, Burn

So, if you’re following along at home, you probably don’t know that I’ve had in my possession a 1941 Chevy truck for going on four years. It runs, but it doesn’t drive, and slowly, but surely, my father and I have been working on it to get it into drivable condition.

It hasn’t so much been a matter of money, as a matter of time and effort. Mostly, I’m lazy and I don’t want to give up quality movie-watching time.

But we have turned the slowly-rusting, much-neglected but incredibly beautiful truck into a non-rusting, and only semi-neglected beautiful truck with potential.

But sometimes, we get it wrong. And by we, I mean me.

This weekend, my parents came to town, and my father and I decided to put in the gas gauge that we had serviced and repaired. The problem with the ’41 is two-fold: 1- It’s old, so everything costs far more than it should; 2- It’s a 6-volt system.

The first isn’t so great an issue that it can’t be dealt with. In fact, there is no problem so great that if you throw enough cash at it, it won’t get solved.

The second, though, can really mess with your head. Most cars these days run on a 12-volt system. Don’t ask me why. We decided to convert the ’41 to 12-volt, as it made certain things easier (like headlights), but other things tricky (like gas gauges). But, again, enough money, and problems are solved. A $20 resistor reduces the voltage to the necessary amount, and away you go.

Unless you happen to hook the gauge up wrong the first time, then you get smoke, the potential for fire, a fried gauge and a useless resistor. Essentially, $75 in burned-out equipment and few hours of sweat and frustration.

Ask me how I know.

Life, Death and Toy Story

2010-06-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

It was asserted to me that the reason the Toy Story series has performed so well is because it resonated so strongly with children who have grown up with that movie. However, the resonance with adult audiences disagrees with this. It is the emotional impact of the toys, especially Woody, that is a greater vehicle for “tugging at human” emotions, and not just childhood emotions. If this was just a nostalgic remembrance of playing make-believe with our action figures, it wouldn’t have nearly the same impact.

This is most significant in the first Toy Story, Woody is confronted with significant change in his life. His position of power and friendship is severely challenged by the arrival of the new kid on the block, Buzz Lightyear. Everything he has worked for, everything that he has done, his time and commitment to the betterment of his community are all cast aside for the newest flavor of the month. This is most obviously seen in Woody’s treatment by the other toys, which is more importantly (or even most importantly) a reflection of his treatment from Andy. He is obsolete, shut out, and cast aside. That’s a very real and very scary thought for adults. Most especially for adults who brought their kids to see this animated “kids” movie. Parents relate directly, and almost completely to Woody, who acts as a brilliant stand-in for their parent-child relationship. Eventually, something shiny, new, and “awesome” is going to come along and that child’s world, which revolved almost exclusively around their parent, is going to expand and shift. Once that happens, parents find themselves less and less the focus of involvement. This is equated, right or wrong, to the amount of love the child has, which is exactly how Woody sees himself, and why he tries to remove Buzz from the scene. When Woody is trying to console Buzz, he suddenly understands all of this, “As a matter of fact you're too cool. I mean, I mean what chance does a toy like me have against a Buzz Lightyear action figure? . . . Why would Andy ever want to play with me, when he's got you?” In place of Buzz’s name, we could just as easily insert “teenage friends” or “current pop band” or “girlfriend/boyfriend” and the realization is the same. But Woody actually already has the keys to the kingdom, he just didn’t use them before, when he said, “It doesn't matter how much we're played with. What matters is that we're here for Andy when he needs us. That's what we're made for.” Parents especially can empathize with both Woody’s diminished role, and his bit of impromptu wisdom that will take confronting his own crisis to understand.

Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 take our empathy through the course of life, where first Woody confronts his own mortality and the diminished role of not just himself, but of an ever decreasing circle of friends. This is heavily emphasize in the beginning of the Toy Story 3, where the toys go out of their way to make a phone call to Andy in the hopes that he might remember them and play with them. Worse than dying, for almost all parents, is the realization that you’ve been forgotten. Perhaps that’s what makes Toy Story 3 so dark, and at times very frightening. When we parallel what the toys are going through, how Woody has lost his romantic significant other Bo Peep, and pauses over her name, we adults also consider the loss of our own significant others. As the toys consider going into the attic for storage, with the hope that when Andy has kids they might be brought out again, we can see ourselves being wheeled into a retirement home, and only wheeled out to visit with the grandchildren. Even more frightening is the further parallel of an elderly care facility and Sunnyside, the name of which even sounds like one of those bright and cheery places in contrast to the horrors that go on there, real or imagined.

While the action and silliness of the toys flopping around on the screen is aimed at children, there are some extremely adult themes and issues taken into consideration and viewed at in frightening detail. From the initial joy of playing with our own children, to confronting the loss of loved ones and our own mortality, the Toy Story series really doesn’t pull any punches. That might be why I didn’t like/enjoy the third movie as much as the first two. The first two end with Woody and the gang back with Andy, happy and playing as if even the bad stuff was just a rough patch and all is well again. The third movie ends with Andy saying goodbye to his toys, and while they are certainly thrilled to be played with again, what they’ve gone through to get to this point is more than just a rough patch; they’ve lost Andy forever.

Being a parent has changed my world perspective, and when I consider the future for my sons, I also have to take into consideration the future for my own parents, as well as the future for myself as a parent. Right now, my oldest son (2 ½) loves and adores playing with me. But soon, like Woody and his friends, I’ll start being replaced by newer, shiny distractions, and my role in his life will steadily decrease. I can only hope, as all parents hope, that I will still be an important part of his life, no matter how small my role will eventually become.

Wow! What a Bunch of Crap!

2009-08-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, it's been "some time" since I've posted.

Thanks for sitting here patiently refreshing your screen in eager anticipation of my next post.

I suddenly feel like Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin rolled into one.

The upshot here is that Lil and I, while we were in Idaho for the 4th of July vacation we took, decided to really roll up our sleeves and hire some folk to make some rennovations to our home. Initially, it seemed like both a good idea and a necessary step forward.

Turns out it was neither.

It was just a necessary evil that became, with slow inexorbility, the most stress inducing chaos of my young life.

Three projects. Three simple projects and our lives were turned completely upside down:

Renovate Porter's closet
Replace the carpeting
Repair the kitchen ceiling

For the first, you should understand that our house was built in 1922. I love old houses. I'm a big fan of their construction techniques, the overall feel of a house that has stood many times longer that I have, and in general just how maleable they are. Unfortunately, in 1922, they didn't believe in closets or closet space the way we currently think of it. Pretty much a closet for 1922 was a door with a 2' x 2' room inside. Enough room to hang your school clothes and your Sunday best. The upshot of Porter's room was that his closet made an immediate left hand turn and kept going for about five feet. We just needed to knock out that wall, and we could hang sliding doors or whatever and suddenly we have a functional closet!

Replacing the carpeting in the house seemed like a good idea as well, especially when we decided to lay laminate flooring in the front room and the dining room, visually tying these two rooms together. The downside of this little adventure was that everything, and I mean everything, that we have collected over the past six years had to be moved off the floor. The heavy furniture, the light furniture, the little treasures we left sitting out and never dusted. All of that.

The kitchen ceiling wasn't our fault. It came that way, and there was nothing for it. We've been meaning to paint the entire kitchen at some point (you know . . . the "future"), and this seemed like a good time to take care of that. However, everything that we've been storing on the kitchen counter-tops had to disappear because paint in 1922 was filled with lead. Also, dust makes me sneeze.

But being the smart people we are, we decided to do EVERYTHING at the same time, which required, in simple terms, moving out of the house.

Yeah, it's been that kind of a week.

Seeing all our stuff out of the house makes the house look GREAT! But it is simply mind-boggling to think of how much "stuff" and "junk" and "someday-we-might-use-this" that we have collected (and never dusted) over the years. If everything on the back porch were to somehow disappear, I'm faily certain I would only miss my DVDs.

And then I would hunt that person down with a fiery vengence the likes of which ten suns could no match.

But yeah, other than that, I wouldn't mind it all just disappearing.

So, anyone want some "stuff"?

Better Than Last Year - Fontana Days Race

2009-06-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Fontana Days Race Like the Wind was fairly good this year. I only blistered my left foot instead of both feet. My calves, on the other hand, are screaming about the lack of training I put in for this race. Apparently, sitting on the couch, watching re-runs of Andromeda and eating chips and Tostitos Salsa con Queso is not an Olympic training regimen.

Still, I performed better than I did last year:

Overall - 97th

Time - 21:42

Division* - 7th

Splits - 7:00/mile

This year:

Overall – 76^th

Time – 21:37

Division – 5^th

Splits – 6:59/mile

Daylight Saving Time

2009-03-11T09:14:00.001-07:00

Epic Fail.

Riverside Raincross 5k

2009-02-26T11:59:00.050-08:00

Here it is, baby! The 2009 Riverside Raincross 5k results.

The race, once again, started fast. There was a group of youngsters who were quite disturbed the first time they tried to cut me off and I boomed out, "Watch where you're running." They quickly fell back and I never saw them again. I can only guess they are still out there, huddled together for fear of me.

It happens.

I cleaned the first mile in 6:10-ish. I don't know the exact time, I was running. Don't judge me.

Yeah, that was way, way, way too fast.

So, being the expert runner that I am (i.e. too tired to continue at that pace), I dropped the next mile down to 8:30-ish. This is the mile where they throw that really big, suicide hill in your way and then laugh. Oh, they laugh. Don't tell me they don't.

I've been training on hills so I was ok on it, but we lost many a good runner there, kicking and cursing their treadmills, while screaming for Hermes to deliver them.

Hermes also laughed.

After that, the race lets you coast downhill through the third mile, until about 500 yards from the finish, when, just for repeat giggles, they throw that second hill in your path. You can almost see the race organizers' evil grin as they placed the Mile 3 marker right at the foot of this last hill.

Ooo, those bad, bad organizers, with their black cloak and their twirled mustacheos!

I maintained a sub-8ish mile pace (STOP JUDGING ME) through this, and powered the hill. I thought I was going to pass one more runner, but his shapely hips and thighs managed a final burst of youthful speed and he managed a two second margin. I had no kick whatsoever to answer with, and really didn't care. Contrary to popular belief, I'm more interested in competition in my division, than giving some 15-year old the heave-ho at the end of a long struggle.

Shut up, it's true because it's on my blog.

Here's the reward:

Time: 22:16
Overall: 45th of 449
Division (35-39): 3rd (medal me baby!)

Now, what's interesting about this is last year, I managed 2nd in my age division (30-34) with a worse time. So, either the older competition is getting stiffer (and with viagra readily available, who can't imagine that) or . . . I don't know. Essentially, the older competition was just faster.

If you feel the need of reliving them, here are the links to the past two races. It goes like this:

2007 Time: 24:14
2008 Time: 23:52

Insult to Injury

2009-01-29T13:08:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was the Ontario Mills 5k/10k. This normally would have been my weekend to run the Diamond Valley Lake, but the Ontario Mills was a closer race, and since I’m trying to be all green and stuff, as well as bring my wife and son along as cheering section, I figured I’d give it a go.

Mistake.

We arrived a goof 30 minutes ahead of time because I’m anal retentive and paranoid.

Hey, go with what you’re good at.

There were two lines in front of the registration table, and no one seemed to know which line was for which, so I just got in the shorter line.

Mistake.

About ten people from the front, I was told that I was in the late-registration line. I don’t register late because, as mentioned above I’m anal retentive and paranoid. Also, registering the same day costs more.

I’m tight-fisted to boot.

But I’ve been running races for a couple years now, and I know that the registration table folks are somewhat accommodating. At worst, they would just ask me to step to the side, sign one of the proper table workers to my request and I’d be on my way.

Mistake.

Two people ahead of me, they announce that they have “run out of numbers”, and they will only be handling the pre-registered people now. I realize listening to the girls immediately in front of me that they, likewise, have already registered. I take action:

“Just step to the middle, they’ll help us out.”

The girls did, and I got the attention of a worker, who actually did help us out. But I now realized what one of the main problems with the registration desk was. They had six people at the desk, but no one was assigned a particular group, and so lists were being passed back and forth, and frustrations were rising, meanwhile late registrants were being handled one at a time, instead of told to fill out their registration and then come back for their number.

The term “fubar” begins to apply.

My turn comes up, as I check the time, and note there is only 5 minutes to race start.

“Sorry, we’re out of shirts, so we’ll have to mail you one.”

Right. No worries. What do I care? I’m not really here for the shirt. I race for the thrill of competition. I’ve never proudly pulled out a race-day t-shirt to reflect that I am a runner, and compete against other runners in official running-day events for which I pay way too much money and only receive this t-shirt in lieu of glory.

Never.

So I get my bib number, and I’m pinning it on, when we’re all informed that the race start is actually ¾ of a mile away from the registration table. Alright, no worries. I’m an athlete, I can hack walking that distance, except that it’s 5 minutes from the start.

Fortunately, the race organizers had thought of this, and given their incompetence, decided to start the race 30 minutes late. Did I mention the race was around a mall? Did I further mention that the mall started opening at 8:00 am, which is when the race was now set to go off? Did I even further mention that we were running on the road where cars would be driving to get to the mall?

Well, enough of that. The race goes off, and it’s a very flat course, so I’m at my cruising speed, and I run a pretty decent race. I even manage to hear the times as I cross what passed for a finish line (they used the crosswalk along the road, with no other sign that that was the finish). My time was about 21:32, which is more than great. It's Grrrr-eeeaatt! It's freaking fantastic. It's a new PR for me.

All that training and pain (not to mention the steroids and cheetah-gene injections) are actually starting to pay off!

Thus, imagine my surprise, chagrin and eventual rage when I checked the official rankings. Not only am I at the bottom of the pack, but my time is almost exactly double what it was when I crossed the line.

So, the Official information is:

Overall – 74th of 88
Time – 43:01
Age Division – N/A (they didn’t break it out by age)

Not only can't they run a race, they can't even write down a bib number and a time correctly. Needless to say, I will not be returning to the Ontario Mills 5k/10k next year. Diamond Lake will have me back with bells on!

Oh, and Unofficially:

Overall – 19th of 88
Time – 21:32 (New PR)

New New Year's Resolution 2009 - Part I

2009-01-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

So here is my review of last year’s New Year’s resolution. This will be part one of a two part series which, at some point, might be available for download at my store for a modest fee.

10- Spend less time with my family, friends and new son.

Failed. I missed this one right out of the gate. As you can see, I spent so much time with my new son that I ended up spending time with my family, and then, because they were so much fun, we spent time with friends new and old.

9- Gain weight and/or inches.

Failed. Apparently, running increases your metabolism, burns calories and reduces fat. I can't attest to shapely hips and thighs, but I've been told that I have buns of copper verging on bronze.

8- Put up progressively worse race times.

Semi-failed. There were times when my races were worse, but never progressively worse. So, unfortunately, I improved overall. The closest I got was Matt's Run (25:11), but I was slowed by 30 extra pounds of stroller and baby. The worst offense was my current PR of 21:42 at Fontana Days 5k.

7- Swear, curse, and blaspheme more.

Failed. Apparently, failing #10 means that my language cleans up as well.

6- Write fewer blogs.

Failed.

5- Write less on my own fiction.

Succeeded. Due to my carpal tunnel, and my spending more time with Porter, family and friends, I succeeded in having less time and thus less writing.

4- Eat more carbs containing cholesterol and fat, more fat containing carbs and cholesterol and more cholesterol containing fat and carbs.

Failed. I kicked my Dr Pepper habit (sniff, sniff), ate more veggies and less potato chips. I also started bringing my own lunch, which meant I could regulate the type and amount of food. It was a very sad year.

3- See less of the world and adopt a radically Republican viewpoint on the world at large.

Failed miserably. Not only was I unable to see the Republican viewpoint, I was also unable to vote Republican.

2- Vote for no one, since it's just one vote and won't make any difference anyhow.

Failed. I voted early and often. Yes, we can!

And my #1 New Years Resolution for 2008 . . .

1- Look gift horses in the mouth, judge books by their covers, leap without looking, and wake sleeping dogs, bears, lions and tigers. Oh My!

Success. It’s the little things in life. But at least I could outrun them.

Longest Name Race Ever

2008-12-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

So the Loma Linda Lopers Club 5K and 15K Race (the Lopers are also trying for the longest, most incongruent race name ever) was almost a bust. It started at 7am, which isn’t a bad time for a start, but at this time of the year it means fumbling around in the dark for my running shoes, and finding Porter’s carefully placed landmines.

All those years of Mindsweeper were wasted!

But the time wasn’t the issue, so much as it was a residential race, and Loma Linda was laid out by three drunks and a chimpanzee. The chimpanzee was the only one with sense, and he quit in disgust. How else to explain that a road you just passed later turns into the same road you’ve been traveling down in a straight line?

Three drunks and a chimpanzee.

Anyhow, this meant that I was about 15 minutes from start time while just pulling into the parking lot. A parking lot, I might add, that was about 15 minute walk from the registration tables.

I ran.

I then ran back to drop of my excellent race shirt.

I then ran back to the starting line, where they were just announcing the start.

Sufficiently warmed up, I’d already run about half the race before the gun had even gone off.

It was a lovely, lovely day for a run. The temperature was in the low 60s, and the sky was cloudy enough that I’d left my sunglasses in my truck.

This mostly residential race run up and down hills before looping back to the finish. At one point, some guy with HUGE speakers was playing his violin for the benefit of the runners. I wondered how his neighbors felt about being woken up to the rumblings of 10,000 speaker watts of power booming out some classical music at 7:15 in the morning.

That might account for the small piles of shoes near the violinist. Or fiddler. I didn’t stop to ask which he was.

All in all, I felt good during the race. I started out too quickly, as usual, with a 7 minute first mile. This was better than my last race, where I cleaned a 6:40 first mile and mentally flogged myself. Not hard, of course. Despite my running, I’m no masochist.

I even managed to finish pretty strongly, sprinting the last 100 yards downhill. It was nice.

Here’s the results:

Time: 22:36 (7:16 splits)
Overall Place: 35th of 335
Division Place: 4th

Hayden Humphrey Sat on a Wall

2008-11-13T15:05:00.000-08:00

The 2008 Mission Inn Run was pretty good considering I hadn’t been able to train for about three weeks due to illness. (Curse you modern viruses and your resistance to antibiotics!) I improved my time from last years run by about 2:30, which is not bad considering.

The upshot of this race was the final 300 yards. I had Jim Schaumleffel in my sights, and had saved just enough to open it up with a confident stride into the finish when young Hayden Humphrey came steaming up on my right. Passing on the right is just silly, so I poured in just a bit more and we both dashed the last 50 yards in, where Hayden refused to give up and would have ended up in the hospital when I shoulder checked him crossing the line, but didn’t.

Why?

Maturity my friends. Years and years of maturity.

Hayden was obviously young and to have turned in such a successful time was impressive in my book. So I didn’t shoulder check him, or yell at him for nearly causing an accident. Instead, I gave him my place, clapped him on the shoulders, and congratulated him on his run. I suggested he be mindful of tripping up older, more fragile runners like myself, and he said he would.

All in all, a very good day.

Time: 22:25 (about 8 minute splits)
Overall Place: 225th out of 1,187
Division Place: 11th

It's All True

2008-11-05T16:28:00.004-08:00

American Conservatives and Neo-Cons, everything you've heard is true. Rest assured that now President-Elect Barak Hussein Obama will redistribute your wealth and land to cover important expenses like pink wedding cakes for gay marriages.

Matt's Run

2008-10-30T09:55:00.001-07:00

Matt’s Run was Porter’s first race and also his mother’s first race. I am happy to report that both mother and son are doing well.

Porter ran with me, which is to say he sat while I pushed his running stroller around the course, changing from right to left in order to not cramp my arms, something I’ve never experienced before.

The upshot of running with Porter was that you get more cheers. A lot more cheers.

“Go baby, go!”
“Alright baby!”

Little punk. All he did was sit there and look cute. Not tricky for Porter. I was doing all the work. I paid for it with my time, but the race felt good, which is, for me anyhow, much better than a new PR. I was two minutes off from my previous race, but given that I was pushing 20+ pounds of baby and another 10+ pounds of stroller, I think I can be forgiven the 45 seconds extra on each split.

Porter and I came in first of the strollers, but there was no ranking for us. We were unsung heroes of the course.

Overall: 104th of 571
Time: 25:11
Division: Unknown
Splits: 8:06

Next to Godliness

2008-10-03T11:12:00.001-07:00

I have a very poor memory. Being a man, I therefore must overcompensate this quirky character trait. My choice of overcompensation is to be ultra-tidy. A decidedly unmanly choice, as manly-men are not tidy. This lends further confusion on my sexuality which I won’t go into now.

My wife has a very good memory. Damn near perfect. Being that close to perfection, and being a woman, she doesn’t overcompensate by being tidy. Instead, she makes piles of paper that she memorizes the exact contents and locations. Then she leaves them in my direct line-of-sight.

Comedy hijinx ensue.

Lil: Where’s that receipt that I put in this pile of paper that you’ve obviously tidied in an attempt to overcompensate and prove your manliness? We only have a day to return this million-dollar item and for some reason I don’t think we need a jewel-encrusted version of the Star Wars Box Set, which you already have five different video formats. Plus, I don’t think the signature Jorge Lucas is worth the extra expense, no matter what he’s done for the Hispanic people.

Me [channeling the spirit of Lucille Ball]: Ohhhhhh, Lillian!

Lil [channeling Ricky Ricardo]: Rob, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do!

[cue audience laugh track]

Me: But I’m quirky!

[roll credits]

Noted

2008-09-30T13:48:00.001-07:00

Fish gotta swim. Red-blooded American boys gotta turn any possible situation into a lesbian porn-fest.

Weekend Camping with the Scouts of Troop 6

2008-09-22T15:52:00.001-07:00

Perhaps things have changed since I was a scout. The following is an actual conversation with a Boy Scout this weekend:

Me: Where’s your coat?
Scout: I don’t have a coat.
Me: But it’s 40 degrees.
Scout (shivering): So?
Me: Your lips are turning blue.
Scout: So?
Me: You’re in a short-sleeved shirt!
Scout (going into hypothermic shock): So?
Me: Do you know what the Scout motto is?
Scout: No.

Congratulations. Here’s your Eagle Scout Award!

Sufficient

2008-09-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

There is no problem so great it cannot be surrmounted by the careful placement of a small amount of explosives.

Guy Poncy Memorial Run The Block 5K

2008-08-25T11:48:00.042-07:00

I stopped training two weeks prior to this race. It's a new strategy I call, My Damn Foot Hurts and I Don't Want a Permanent Injury.

I'm not certain it worked.

But I ran the Guy Poncy Memorial Run The Block anyway.

Three points to the race:

First
The race was the first in memorial of the Lutheran High School of Orange County's recently passed track coach, Guy Poncy. As such, almost all the runners there were from the track team, younger than me, and lacking in the age-induced injuries and sedantary lifestyle that I've "suffered".

Second
The first quater to half mile was inside The Block, which is a large outdoor mall. This meant that with all the runners about equally paced, and sent down such tight quarters, it quickly became claustrophobic and not a little bit dangerous.

Third
I wasn't really trained up for this race. I felt ok on the gun (where I yelled "go" since the horn didn't sound), my knees and feet were fine. But I just didn't feel like I had the energy to run the race I should have. I was tired and felt like I struggled throughout. This wasn't born out by my time, or my place in my age group, but that's how it felt, which is never fun for a runner.

Anyhow, here are the results:

Overall - 109th
Time - 23:07
Division - 6th
Splits - 7:26/mile

A Thought Occurs

2008-08-13T08:44:00.013-07:00

In trying to prove that God is a "jerk" or even "evil", most folk use the Bible to reflect contradictions of God's stance on events, circumstances, efforts, etc. It occured to me yesterday that any evidence being used to prove the cruel and arbitrary nature of God comes almost exclusively from a document (series of documents) which would require that:

A) You believe there is a God, and

B) You believe that His/Her/Its actions are being accurately recorded by the "witnesses".

Rejection of any one means rejection of the evidence being used to prove the point altogether, which most people who are trying to prove the God-as-jerk theme have already done.

Hey, fun with argumentation logic!

Dream Team ERA 5K

2008-07-30T14:34:00.001-07:00

At mile 20 in Boston Marathon, runners hit what's called Heartbreak Hill. The description of this 1/2 mile ascent is apt. It's a late climb in the race when energy stores are at their lowest, and muscles and feet their sorest. Then, suddenly looms this monstrous hill to crush the life from even the most stalwart runners.

The Dream Team ERA was something like that. We started the race going up hill. Then we made a left-hand turn up a steeper hill, then a right-hand turn up an even steeper hill. We then had a small dip, a slight hill, and finally we made the turn-around, so that everything was downhill, pounding our little hearts and feet all the way to the finish line.

I passed a lot of runners who, on a flatter course, would have crushed me easily. But I run the 5-mile round trip of Mt. Rubidoux near our house almost every weekend. It's not a terribly steep grade, but it's enough to get your hill work in, and prepare you for just this kind of fun and excitement.

They don't currently have their results online so I could be making all this up. I am, after all, in marketing, and thus a known liar. I'll get the link into this post as soon as it goes live:

Overall - 31st
Time - 23:42 (perfect pace for me)
Division - 7th
Splits - 7:39/mile

Help Defeat Prop 8

2008-07-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Usually, my blogging doesn't take the form of ranting and raving about political issues of any kind.

Usually, I just rant and rave.

But given the idiocy of Prop 8, and how important this vote will be, I feel it's time to put my shoulder to the wheel.

You can provide your support, strike a blow for democracy, and defeat of Prop 8 by donating at the Equality for All website.

Or, provide your support, strike a blow against discrimination, and defeat Prop 8 by donating at the Equality for All website.

Or, provide your support, burn some of the extra cash the government gave you, and defeat Prop 8 by donating at the Equality for All website.

You don't even have to have a reason. Just donate at the Equality for All website.

You DO NOT have to be a California resident to give to this worthy cause.

Die Prop 8! Die! Die!

2008-07-24T15:22:00.001-07:00

First, the name is wrong. Instead of calling it the "California Marriage Protection Act" they should call it the "California We're Scared of Homosexuals and would Rather Not Treat Them as Human Beings Act". Because that's what it is.

If they wanted to protect marriage, they would make people take tests, prove their ability to be a good spouse, hold down a regular job, be a good and supportive parent, and limit who could and couldn't get married on a whim.

That would protect marriage.

This only furthers the divide, promotes homophobic attitudes, and silently supports hate-crimes. This makes second-class citizens of people. This is intollerance at its finest.

Fortunately, California's majority seems to be aware of this. Here's the latest on Prop 8, for which I'm happy.

Social Standing

2008-07-23T13:32:00.001-07:00

I found out today just where I stand in the social pecking order of my household:

Wiggles
Mom
Anything else of interest in the vicinity
Me

It's good to be the man of the house!

Faster than Fast

2008-06-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

The 53rd Annual Fontana Days 5K is almost completely downhill. Not falling down, downhill, but a nice, gentle grade that blisters the feet, pounds the heels, and ruins the knees.

Ahhh, running. Where would podiatrists be without you?

The race was huge with over 600 runners. That's a lot of bodies to fit on a course. You'll note that I placed about twice again what I normally do, but the race size makes the reason for that obvious.

Because of the downhill nature of the race, typical runners will gain two to two-and-a-half minutes on their usual time. This was definitely true for me. So I put the blisters I earned from my scorching fast run, rather than from my poor form, or weak foot pads.

Anyhow, the news you want is here:

Overall - 97th
Time - 21:42
Division* - 7th
Splits - 7:00/mile

*I had problems with the sign-up, so you'll notice they didn't actually place me in an age division. That doesn't matter after 3rd place, but what the hell.

Doomed to Repeat It?

2008-05-30T15:00:00.001-07:00

There are days when I actually don't mind living in California.

The good weather, the lack of pollution and traffic.

Well, one out of three isn't bad.

But this one really sorta makes my day.

It's not that I'm an ultra-liberal, left-winging my way in a blue-state bastion of radicalism. I'm reasonably far from it. I don't like paying my taxes, but I don't mind them either, and pooling all that funding which keeps my streets paved, relatively free from debris and refuse, and somewhat crime relieved is a pretty good thing. I'm not a rah-rah military interventionist, but I do see the benefit a few good men and women heavily armed and well-trained.

Still, the intervention of the puritanical, ultra-conservative Christian right into the realm of politics has always painted a sour frown on my face.

Why? I always wonder.

Why do you care?

Why do you want to make it harder for someone else, when you could nod, smile, let them go about their way and be a little happier in a world where the cares of two men or two women don't amount to a hill of beans?

(Momentary pause to reflect on my integration of a Casablanca line.)

(Pause)

So yeah, I applaud the rock-star madness of the California Supreme Court for taking the unconstitutional law by it's big, fat head and saying, "We're not going to bat for you, or anyone else!"

(Another pause to reflect on my integration of a Wayne's World line.)

(Pause)

The saying goes that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The key word is not "learn". The key word is "from". History doesn't just teach us names, dates, facts and figures. It is a guide to how people can react in situations. When confronted with anger, fear, hatred, animosity, people typically react in the same patterns. When confronted with xenophobic intolerance of that which is different . . . well, let's start with the Crusades and then work our way through all the genocidal moments of history perpetrated by one group onto another because they looked, spoke, acted, thought, lived differently.

History is a revolution, but not one with radical change. It's the slow turning of a wheel that presents similar opportunities time and again. This time, California's Supreme Court said that different is neither good nor bad; it just is.

It is, and it's protected.

Correlation

2008-05-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

The actual time that passed when a man is watching a sporting event and says, "There's just two more minutes" is directly proportional to when a woman is in the bathroom right before going out and says, "I'm almost ready."

It's funny because it's true.

Civil-licious Baby!

2008-05-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Monday, I was called to serve jury duty.

In truth, I was called to sit in the "Juror Lounge" and wait to serve jury duty. I decided to chronicle this little adventure for your benefit and that of all posteriors.

7:47 am - I arrive at the parking garage and secure one of the 150 juror parking spots. Juror parking is on the roof of the garage. Sherpas assist me in hiking back to the ground level.

8:31 am - We are advised that things will start shortly. It is Juror Appreciation Week. Free donuts and coffee abound.

9:12 am - Orientation starts. We watch as a lady blathers on and on about things that have already been addressed: be nice to the Sherpas. Don't hit or steal. Sit quietly with your hands to yourself. This goes on for an hour.

10:22 am - We go on our first break. Low jacks are stapled under our skulls, and those jurors who appear to be a flight risk are escorted by heavily armed guards dressed in black.

10:38 am - Roll call is taken. We are advised to answer "here" when our name is called. I suddenly feel like I'm back in high school. Not in a good way either.

10:53 am - The first fifty jurors are called and the rest of us are waiting.

11:27 am - The second group is called and those with enough influence, or money, or luck are allowed to leave the "lounge" or as I like to call it Free French Morocco. The rest of us must sit and wait, and wait, and wait . . .

11:45 am - We are released for lunch. Between now and our break, barb wire and machine gun towers have gone up. Also, someone is giving orders in what sounds suspiciously like German.

1:32 pm - Some fellow dealing in "letters of transit" approaches me, speaking in a strange, European accent that I can't place.

2:18 pm - As a demonstration of efficiency, the little European fellow is captured. He calls out, "Rob! You must help me! Rob!" But I stick my neck out for no one.

Won't Somebody Think of the Children!?

2008-04-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

Was singing a little “Wonder Woman” theme song today (In your satin tights, fighting for your rights, and the old Red, White and BLUE!!) . . . it’s best not to ask how these things get in my head. Anyhow, my co-worker suggested that I sing the She-Ra theme song instead. Apparently, she had a She-Ra lunch box and was feeling nostalgic.

Of course, the theme song has no words, just She-Ra giving away all her various secrets to the audience in a voice over . . . which, if you think about it, is pretty lame. I mean, even as a 17 year-old I could pretty much grasp the basic premise of She-Ra: Princess of Power. It's not like that tricky A-Team. Every time they'd get captured, I just had no idea how they were going to get away. It's a good thing they had Hannibal as their leader, and a familiarity with power tools. Total nail-biter.

And then it occurred to me: I MUST POSSESS THE DANCE RE-MIX OF SHE-RA'S OPENING MONOLOGUE.

Unfortunately, I can’t find one, which I find a sad commentary on today’s youth. Usually, if I can think of it, someone else has already thought of it, created it, marketed it, gone IPO and is now smoking a fat Cuban cigar while lounging on large piles of cash surrounded by naked women.

The fact that this re-mix doesn't exist filled me with all kinds of dread and apprehension. Has today's youth, who have corrupted everything from the once sane Transformers to the mighty Speed Racer never seen She-Ra? What about her cousin, He-Man, or their close associates G.I. Joe?

How do they get their moral compasses aligned without She-Ra admonishing them against the sins of racism? Where do they find their ethical path without He-Man, waving his cautionary finger, carrying on about sexual harassment while wearing nothing but his briefs, a foppish bob haircut, and S&M bondage straps? What do they do when confronted with the evils of fallen power-lines and there is no imperialistic, dogma-defending Duke from G.I. Joe to give them half the batter?

I think we all see where the nation has taken a wrong turn.

2008 Cesar E. Chavez 5k - Killing Me Loudly

2008-04-07T12:17:00.000-07:00

Initially, up until the end of the race, the 2008 Cesar E. Chavez 5k, I thought this was a pretty fun time. Granted, my left knee has been troubling me. Nothing major, but it has been sending sternly worded letters to my brain about potential strikes or even rebellion. Still, the race felt fast (even though I was slower) and I didn't feel like I overly exerted.

There's a but in here, as you're well aware, and it started with Mr. Rey Navarro, who came in right behind me, and then I projected back and in truth the whole race was a wash.

Before I build up to Mr. Navarro, we'll start at the beginning, go through the middle and when I get to the end, we'll stop.

I thought this might prove an interesting race, since it was sponsored by the Hispanic club, or some such, at UCR. My first clue that all was not as it should be was that this race didn't even have an electronic form until a few days before the race, at which point you had to pay the larger fee. I like living in the Internet Age where I can pay my entrance fee, receive an email confirming it, and file it all away safely in mere moments.

Mailing things is so 20th century.

Still, the race is ten minutes from my house, so that appealed, and mail I did. What they failed to mention, and what almost every other race either advertises or waives, is that there would be a parking fee. As I explained to the student-attendant, I came for the race, I didn't bring any money or credit cards. Why would I? Now, granted, I usually prepare for this contingency, but this fine Saturday, I just hadn't thought $5 ahead, and didn't want to stop at the ATM. The attendant told me I could "park at your own risk", which I did, and nothing bad happened, so there we go.

Now, the race. It was schedule to start at 8:30 at the Bell Tower. This seemed to suggest that the race would start on time, since the Bell Tower is a reasonably accurate time piece in the center of the university's campus, and tolls loudly, with bells as it happens, on the hour and half hour. About fifteen minutes after the half hour had tolled, there was a sudden horn, and we were off. Yeah, no, "Runners to your marks", no guy with a bullhorn, no instructions, just a late air horn that no one was really prepared for except the eight people at the front of the start.

Water stations. The bane of any amateur runner, since there is no real training for how to properly run a water station, hand the water, or really drink it while running. Most runners end up choking on the quarter-cup they managed to not spill as they grabbed it from a station volunteer who was holding it too tightly while looking for his/her boy/girlfriend somewhere in the pack. At the one-mile water station, our dutiful attendants were so prepared they were pouring cups of water as we approached and had managed to stock up exactly two extra cups. Most of the people with me passed without even approaching the station.

None of this really phased me too greatly. I mostly race to keep my training on pace, to incent me to keep going, keep in shape, eat a little better, and be a decent competitor. At my "level" usually everyone around is in the same position. We're runners who have been to a few races, perhaps competed in high school or college, and are now here for the exercise portion of our lives.

Not so Mr. Rey Navarro.

Dressed in sweats, high-tops with tube socks, a sweatshirt tied precariously around his waist and some kind of funny t-shirt, I passed Mr. Navarro just before the last quarter mile. I rounded out the last turn to a straight-away of maybe 200 yards and was settling in to battle it out with a fire fighter Paul Young, when Mr. Navarro decided he actually had a kick, threw himself forward and careened past me. Normally, a non-issue. I've run my race, there's no money on the line here, I'm tired and don't care if someone wants to sprint it in past me. But here's the kicker, or rather, the bumper. Mr. Navarro wasn't exactly in control as he passed me and bumped me. Not severely, but that's hardly the point. At the end of a race, when everyone is tired, and folk are going the distance, they're going for speed, a bump can end in tragedy. Even then, this wouldn't have been a big issue, but Mr. Navarro couldn't even be bothered to call out an "ooops" or a "sorry" in his goal of taking 40th place.

Fueled by anger over the incident, I pressed myself into a full out sprint, caught him right before the finish, then turned around, and pointing an admonishing finger told him, "You need to watch where you're running."

I suppose I should be lucky that Mr. Navarro didn't pull a blackjack, tap my favorite head and reply, "That's the Chicago Way, boy-o!" I'm often reminded that my anger could quickly incite a full-on confrontation that I'm not really looking for or prepared to handle.

And all this wouldn't matter too greatly, except the race results are wrong. I was concerned this would happen since the finish-line chute was being very poorly handled with the runners being held up while one race attendant tried to instruct two others on how to handle the bib tags which tell who came in where and at what time. I know this because I was, at best one-second ahead of Mr. Navarro, not one second behind, and Fireman Paul Young came in behind us, not ahead.

Which leaves me with an "official" set of results of:

Overall - 42nd
Time - 24:31
Division - 11th

Random Comments

2008-03-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

From time to time I get some random comments on my blog. I assume someone is surfing along, minding their own business, and gets sucked into a vortex where I'm considered the height of entertaining hubris.

At least that's the google that gets me the most hits.

Today, I logged in to see if anyone had seen my recent coup d'etat on the running circuit, and came across this little diddy:

Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the MP3 e MP4, I hope you enjoy. The address is (address). A hug.

Now I've had my comments spammed before and it's flattering. I mean, they obviously see the genuis that is my comedic observations and know that five or even ten people must be reading my blog on a yearly basis, much less the comments that go along with said ramblings. This means they have the potential of no one coming to their site by advertisings via mine.

But what made this particular divestiture from all marketing logic was the closing remark. "A hug." A compassionate moment among two internet denizens, one who is so desperate to have his/her site viewed by others that he/she has reached out to me, placed his/her site link on my comments, and offered an electronic hug, a bit of warmth in an otherwise cold, barren void of communication.

I rejected it.

New PR

2008-03-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

First, here was this comment from the weekend:

Me: Babe, when you're done reading the Stephen King article from the EW, will you tear it out for me?
Lil: Why, was it that good?
Me: I don't know, I haven't read it yet.
Lil: (puzzled look)
Me: There's a huge, freaking spider on the next page's advertisement and I can't even touch the damn thing.
Lil: There, there. I'll help you, poor, little guy.
Me: (collapses into a quivering heap)

Now, onto my real news: the 2008 Coyote Challenge 5k.

Overall - 39th
Time - 22:56
Age Division - 3rd

Now, while third place is nice and all, and another age division victory for me (once again, I didn't attend the awards ceremony . . . perhaps that's a sign), it's really the bolded time that's important here. Since I've been training for 5Ks as of, whatever, 13 months ago, this is a new personal record (PR) for me. This puts me running 7:24 splits on my miles.

So, say it with me now: Wooo-FREAKING-Hooo!

Woo-Freaking-Hoo!

2008-02-29T10:26:00.000-08:00

Riverside Raincross 5K 2008 results:

The story goes like this: Re-learning that you can be caught,beaten into a bloody mass, and then laughed at by the walkers and stroller-pushers from Hell, I was up at the front of the pack and made people pass me. Stick that in your heart-monitor and smoke it!

Turns out, training for a race actually helps. I may even consider writing a book about how to run. I'm sure it will be the first on the subject.

Anyhow, long story longer is that I did pretty decent in my race. Consistent with where I've been running, but a little better than last year.

I'll put up both last years results and this years, just so I can keep them all straight:

Last year's Riverside Raincross 5K:
Overall - 60th
Time - 24:14
Age Division - 5th

This year's Riverside Raincross 5K:
Overall - 47th
Time - 23:52
Age Division - 2nd

That's right, boys and girls. I was 2nd in my age division. Doesn't make me Olympic hopeful material, but it certainly does make me hopeful!

How I Roll

2008-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Basically, I'm a lackey.

I'm not a lackey to a super-hero. Those guys get killed all the time for dramatic effect, and to truly enrage the hero who then goes all noble and stuff on the baddies.

Nopers, I'm the lackey to the bad, evil, corporate empire. The ones that attend dinners with Republicans, laughing about how much money they've made together.

Yeah, that's how evil we are.

And life is great for a lackey. Let me tell you. Whenever an do-gooder breaks into our headquarters, I'm one of the eighteen guys that gets ordered to take him/her down, and then quickly is defeated, left moaning over my own lack of skills.

But here's the thing: I'm still alive.

Yeah, that's right. The hero doesn't want me. I'm just a deluded follower. He/she wants the head honcho, and that's so very not me.

The upside to this, is when there's derision in the ranks, my particular Big Cheese actually has my back. That's right, I have an evil manager who knows and understand that the potential for me to assist in some later operation depends mostly on my still being alive and upright.

So, take Tuesday, for example. Another evil Duchess decides that I've stepped out of line, and leveled her Death Ray in my direction. Knowing where I stand in the world, I take it like a man. I do nothing. Immediately, my boss leaped into action, rallied her own troops, powered up her Death Ray Nullifier (boy, was that a sound investment) and went to work.

Next thing I know, I have an email with the title line of: Apologies.

I love being a lackey.

Diamond Valley Lake - Results

2008-02-05T12:37:00.000-08:00

So, here it is, the much anticipated, over-hyped results from my last 5K at Diamond Valley Lake.

I ran a time of 24.21, which gave me a split of 7.50. This placed me 33rd overall, but apparently in a HUGE division of similar-aged runners, I was only 17 of 21.

Bastards.

Still, that's a much better race than the previous two where I was slipping backward in times and splits.

The trick for me this time was I left my iPod at home. Yeah, that's right. It was flat out, racing as God intended it . . . except with clothes and shoes and safety equipment. But other than that, exactly how God intended it.

What the Prick!?

2008-01-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

As part of my company's "get tough on health" we had our "biometric" exam today. All the questions were asked via machines that determine heart rate and whatnot. They also did a cholesterol blood-sugar thingy which involved being stabbed in the finger.

My station nurse poked my finger just fine, took a ton of blood, and while I sat woozy from it, I watched as she dabbed a bit on the test strip for the cholesterol exam and then promptly tossed it away without looking at the blood-sugar exam at all.

"I just threw that away, didn't I?" she asked me.

If I'd eaten, I might have had a witty retort, something in the Here's Your Sign category. But being in pain from the twelve-inch spike she used the first time, woozy from the loss of blood and low on sugar already, I just nodded dumbly.

"We'll just have to use another finger," and she laughed as if we were old friends sharing a joke that we both found beyond humorous and couldn't contain our mutual mirth.

I did not smile.

Then, she took an Band-Aid and wrapped it around my finger.

Yes, the finger that wasn't bleeding such that she had to stab me a second time. That finger.

So now, the second and third fingers of my left hand are completely unusable.

Where's my sign?

You Say You Want A Resolution

2008-01-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

If you've been a faithful reader, and a Rob-trivia afficionado, then you know that I don't make New Years Resolutions. Mostly because I take my personal records the way I take my coffee: clean with no coffee.

However, that's all about to change, and you can witness history in the making, right here, right now:

Rob's New Years Resolution - 2008

10- Spend less time with my family, friends and new son.
9- Gain weight and/or inches.
8- Put up progressively worse race times.
7- Swear, curse, and blaspheme more.
6- Write fewer blogs.
5- Write less on my own fiction.
4- Eat more carbs containing cholesterol and fat, more fat containing carbs and cholesterol and more cholesterol containing fat and carbs.
3- See less of the world and adopt a radically Republican viewpoint on the world at large.
2- Vote for no one, since it's just one vote and won't make any difference anyhow.

And my #1 New Years Resolution for 2008 . . .

1- Look gift horses in the mouth, judge books by their covers, leap without looking, and wake sleeping dogs, bears, lions and tigers. Oh My!

Happy New Year 2008 to everyone!

Blech

2007-12-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

So, I did awful race in the San Diego Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis. I knew I kicked way, way, way too late.

Over all: 83
My Division: 7/17
Total Time: 25:38
Splits: 8:16

I'd better start training smarter, rather than harder. Maybe smarter AND harder. Or maybe I should find a sport that I can actually excel in.

Movie watching. I hear that's got a future.

Mission Inn Run

2007-11-13T15:30:00.001-08:00

Illness, a new baby, lack of sleep, a new job, and then just my basic laziness all led to a completely untrained entrance in the Mission Inn Run this past Sunday, November 11th.

It was a huge event, with 734 participants in the 5k run alone (there was also a 5k walk, a 10k run and two kids events).

My stats weren't too shaby given that I only prepared for a week in advance:

Time: 24:52 (about 8 minute splits)
Overall Place: 306th
Division Place: 14th

That's only 35+ seconds off my race in February, which I was in shape for!

She Is Legend

2007-10-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

I debated over posting this story here, on my less-specific blog, or on Impending Doom, my baby-specific blog. This is the tale of the delivery of Porter, which should make the choice fairly easy. The crux is, while Porter was the main-event, the real story was all about Lil.

So, mostly to pad my post count and get it into triple digits, I’m going to post it here.

My wife is a FREAKING CHAMP.

She is LEGENDARY.

Dateline: Tuesday, September 25th, 2007, 2:12pm, somewhere in Southern California.

“Hi hunny.”

“Hi Lil.”

“I think I’m having contractions.”

About ten-thousand things now raced through my mind, all on a collision course. I’m an hour-and-a-half away from home, no immediate transportation, and the train left exactly 9 minutes ago.

I consider running to catch the train, or the fifty-two miles to home.

Lil saves me from myself.

“I’m on my way to my doctor’s appointment, so we’ll see what she says and then I’ll call you.”

This is good because if I ran, I would then have to shower and change clothes, and my current clothing choice is pretty spectacular.

Fast-forward 20 hours.

Lil has been given an epidural, I’ve been doped with three shots of Demerol and Valium. The nurse comes in and tells us that Lil is fully dilated and its time to start pushing. My training immediately kicks in:

“Excuse me, sir, pushing down on your wife’s stomach is not going to help.”

I pause to consider this.

“What if I jump? Atomic elbow from the top turnbuckle?”

Two hours after that, I’ve managed to work one arm out of the strait-jacket by dislocating my shoulder. It’s actually not as painful as it sounds. It’s more painful. I also learned that not everything you see in the movies is true. Mel Gibson, I’m talking to you here.

Fortunately, the doctor walked in at that moment, popped my shoulder back into place, retied my restraints, and checked my wife . . . all with one hand tied behind his back. Apparently, it’s a new method for delivering babies, mostly based on a dare.

“C-section,” the doctor said.

“No thanks,” Lil responded.

“Can you please release the doctor from the headlock?” the nurse asks my wife. “His face is turning blue. I’m pretty sure that’s not healthy.”

The doctor, who can now only communicate through writing and rude gestures, agrees to let Lil push for another hour. I cheer her on from the wall where they’ve chained me.

“You’re making progress,” the nurse keeps saying, then turns to me, “For the last time, I am NOT a robot.”

“That’s just what a robot would say.”

The hour is up, and the doctor appears again . . . just like a robot would.

“Mrphl-gurble,” he says.

“What was that?” Lil asks suspiciously, and the doctor flinches.

“I think he said, c-section.”

I’m good help.

Lil then cuts loose with a string of vitriolic abandon not heard since the first truck-driver sprung from the mold fully clothed in denim, flannel and a sweat-stained baseball cap, angry that he was alive.

The doctor, backing away slowly toward the door where a phalanx of nervous guards hold electric cattle-prods, agrees to give Lil another 30 minutes of pushing.

Now, and I’m not making this part up, Lil transforms from the beautiful woman I’ve been married to for exactly 3 years, 11 months and 29 days, in a pushing machine. She takes a grip on the birthing bed’s hand bars so that they groan and twist in a squeal of protesting metal. Flames, white-hot and twelve feet long if they were an inch, shoot from her eyes and scorch my eyebrows from my face, never to return. A wail like the cries of the damned in Hell itself issues from the depths of her soul. Using nothing but the sheer force of her will, which is picked up by seismometers as “the big one” two states away, she orders the nurse to her side.

And so, after 38 hours of labor and nearly five hours of pushing, Porter is born.

So let me say it again:

My wife is LEGENDARY.

And if someone has a spare key for a straight-jacket, it would be appreciated. You actually cannot use the bathroom in one of these things.

Curse you Mel Gibson!

End of a Streak

2007-09-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Thursday, September 20th, 2007.

On the train outside of Orange . . . or maybe it was Anaheim Canyon. Anyone, somewhere. Hard for me to say as once I have my Peter Gabriel on my iPod and Robert Jordan as my read, I'm pretty well tuned out of the rest of the world. However, folks cursing loudly (though not angrily) tend to get my attention. I see a couple come up the steps and offer a little prayer, as I do when anyone gets on the train, that they don't sit by me.

It's not that I'm unfriendly. Ok, well, I am unfriendly. I pretty much figure the gene pool needs a little chlorine. Mostly, I don't want to be bothered. A bit of this includes anyone taking my leg room by sitting opposite me on the train. That it happens every day doesn't take away from dreaming the impossible dream.

But, as usual, I digress.

Couple gets on the train, and he's swearing like a sailor. Or perhaps like a salty sailor training a green sailor how to swear like a sailor. As mentioned, the lad is not angry, he just seems to use "fuck" in all its iterations as distractors, the same way you and I might use "um" or "like" or George Bush uses "Democractic political statement". It's just a way to take up room while he's thinking of the next thing to say. Interestingly, the guy wore a triple mohawk (I don't know the actual, technical term for this hairstyle), one strip of hair on the top of his head, and then one on either side like a clown from pergatory (not hell, since, again, the guy seemed nice enough). Ahead of him came his girlfriend who had pink hair. Not the expert pink dye-job that, say the eponymous Pink still wore when she was still making a name. No, this was the more traditional, out of a bottle pink that let her blonde show through.

Maybe she meant it to look that way. A very punk rock way of saying, "Yeah, mate, I dye my hair, and I use a crappy dye, because I HATE THE GOVERNMENT."

The train was crowded so Pink sat across from me, while Mohawk sat further down. I didn't really think much of this, since Peter Gabriel had given way to some Heart (yes, I listen to Heart, Bad Animals rocks all), and Trollocs had just attached Rand and his father. Very exciting all around.

A little later, as the train commuter crowd thinned, I realized that Mohawk was now sitting by himself, and Pink was still sitting near me. I did not credit my stellar personality as the reasoning, since she and I hadn't exchanged more than a glance when she sat down. My phone rang, it was Lil asking what I wanted for dinner, and when I closed the phone, I looked out the window to get my bearings and just observe the passing lush, greenery that is the Inland Empire.

"Didja hear he died?" Pink said.

It took me a moment to realize she was addressing my book's author, Robert Jordan, and not the cyclist I had followed for a moment out the window.

"Ohhh, yes. I did hear. He'd been sick for awhile."

"I saw him at Comicon about . . . three years ago when he announced he had the disease."

Wow, her kung fu was strong. Not only was she clearly not with Mohawk, but she'd read Jordan and she attended cons. My impression of Pink went up about fifty stories.

It occurs to me that there is this link amongst readers of a particular writer that doesn't exist between, say, fans of a particular singer/group or of a particular movie/director/actor/actress. If you read a series, typically, you enjoy the writer, who is a one man/woman show. Jordan, Tolkien, Swann, Rowling, Lewis, McCaffrey, Hamilton, King. Pretty much, it's their deal, their make or break, their voice, their thoughts, their characters down on the page that we love, hate, love to hate, or hate to love. No back-up singers, no make-up artists, just them, the empty page, and the world they create out of it all. Sharing in that is an experience in ways deeper than that of a movie, sharper and more clear than the "perfect" four-minute she-understands-me! song. Fans of the author tend to be of the same mind (though for different reasons).

Pink and I had shared that moment of grief together born out of sharing the adventures Robert Jordan had crafted.

It also occured to me that I can be wrong, dead, dead, dead wrong about people. Well, not about Mohawk, who passed out over one of the tables before we hit my stop. But still, people.

I'm Right Again!

2007-09-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

I got hot tea with my lunch today.

See, I’m sick (bronchitis), hate coffee, and work in an office kept at meat-locker temperature levels. Not those sissy warm meat-lockers either. This one operates close to absolute zero. That's -273.15 C or -460 F or 0 K.

Ya gotta love Lord Kelvin, and not just because he would have you beaten if you didn't. No, people would say, "My lord (since he was a lord), it's cold today." And he'd respond, "You think this is cold, wait til I hit zero. Then that bastard Farenheit will really see something."

Ahh, thermodynamic humor.

But I digress. Back to my tea.

It was nothing fancy. No Earl Grey, my usual, or peppermint or anything like that. Just plain-Jane green tea. As I ripped open the outer packaging I noticed at the top, helpfully printed in white over green, it said: Microwave Safe.

Wow, how nice of them, I thought. Ya know, because most people don’t have access to hot tea-temperature water and so use the microwave to bring tap water up to the proper brewing level.

But then I paused.

Microwave Safe?

What exactly does this suggest of my usual teas which don’t say “Microwave Safe” on the outer packaging? Are they non-microwave inspected? Does this mean that I’m creating hostile chemicals in my otherwise caffeine free teas? Am I poisoning my body by combining those deadly little waves with water and herbs shoved into an E-Z-Flo baggie? Or am I, perhaps, mutating the tea via radiation ala Godzilla?

Could a green lizard the size of the Tower Record building even now be lurking in the luke-warm water of my cup waiting to rampage Tokyo?

Good lord, consider the implications!

Then, of course, I took hold of myself. My paranoia checked, along with some oxygen from the local paramedics as they carried me out on a crash cart, when I realized this was nothing but marketing! That’s right, fear-induced marketing from clever little men with pony-tails and button-up women with useless Communications degrees.

Unless my tea bag is made from some hyper-explosive plastique filaments, cast from Uranium 235, or has really sharp, rusty corners, there’s practically no danger of mishap once I put my mug, water and tea bag into the microwave, or when I take that potential Molotov Cocktail back out again.

I say practically because, even as we speak, somewhere, out there, someone is heating a tea bag past the plasma stage just to prove me wrong, and in so doing, they've caused their microwave to crack, thus sterilizing themselves and anyone stupid enough to be around them while they attempted this experiment.

You see kids, trying to prove me wrong is just silly.

And so, once again we see that marketers are a wretched hive of scum and villainy. More importantly, we see that I'm right, which is what blogging is all about.

Truth in Advertising

2007-08-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Today I realized that even though Snickers is packed with peanuts, it doesn’t really satisfy. It doesn’t provide the warmth and love that I need to feel self-actualized. In truth, the peanuts are about the same number you get on an airline flight, if they give you peanuts. And the chewy-nougaty center is just empty promises.

Maxwell house is NOT good to the last drop. Coffee generally tastes like someone burnt something, and the last drop is cold, stale and forlorn.

Red Bull doesn’t give you wings, it gives you the shakes.

I’ve managed to eat just one Pringle. Once I've popped, I can and have stopped, especially if there's a dead rat inside. I know it’s more than three licks to get the center of the Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop. I’ve never been cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. And I don’t want that damn leprechaun’s Lucky Charms. He can keep them. I want the gold, damnit.

There is a wrong way to eat a Reese’s Peanutbutter Cup, and no, I’m not going to explain.

I will never, ever wake up with that freaky, big-headed king from Burger King. I have nothing against big-headed people in general. I’m sure they’re lovely. Just not interested in finding them in my house, in my bed, and wearing that crazy, psychopathic grin after a night when I clearly have not been drinking.

Or after I have been drinking. Either way, I'm not waking up with the King.

If it was my way, right away, it would be surrounded by $100s, with a cashier’s check for $2 million, the keys to a Porche 911, and Lexa Doig in the passenger seat.

Some days I don’t want to think outside the bun, or make a run for the border. Some days boring is good, cheap and tasty.

If they were really friendly skies we were flying, the airline stewardess would serve free alcohol and wear far less clothing. This also proves that Delta doesn’t really love to fly, and that there’s more than one way to fly than . . . that company who's slogan was that this is "The Only Way To Fly". Clearly a slogan that sold me many of their tickets.

If quality were really job one for Ford then my Ranger wouldn’t have had eight recalls already.

And finally, if Radio Shack really had the questions to my answers they wouldn’t need my phone number when I buy batteries. They also wouldn’t have taken a restraining order out against me, now would they? I mean honestly, how hard is it to come up with the nature of God?

Picture Pages

2007-08-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

As the old Bill Cosby program says:

Picture pages, picture pages.

Time to get your picture pages.

Time to get your paper and your PENCIL!

This wasn't my idea. Someone made the request, my wife told me to do it, and because I love (and fear) her, here it is:

Corporate Improvements

2007-07-24T14:59:00.001-07:00

I am a font of corporate strength. When deadlines come rushing headlong toward me, with their horns blaring, their lights flashing, and steam pouring from their stacks like a runaway locomotive hauling razor blades and lemon juice, I just laugh. When stalwart co-workers become crushed beneath a burden of overwork and merit demotions that leave them whimpering in the production room, I chuckle.

I eat multi-project, multi-deliverable timelines like Ritz Crackers with a squirt of E-Z-Cheeze, turn to my boss and say, “Please ma’am, may I have ten more?”

I am a marketing machine.

Because of this, I hold others up to the high bar of prestige and exacting quality that I use to govern my own career. And yet, there are times when even I feel the slightest quiver of a major artery as it threatens to collapse under the strain of stress and seismic activity that is my job.

To that end, I have decided there are certain survival, emergency and stress-relieving elements that every corporate marketing team should install to insure the continued viability (i.e. feeding themselves) of middle management marketers across the country:

1 – Fully-armed and Operational Bar – This isn’t just something you do immediately following work on a weekday. This is the time between frustration and pathological insanity that could easily save mental lives.

2 – Tranquilizer guns – Nothing less than a rhino-level dosage. This is effective both on yourself, and on those pesky clients who believe you have a magic bat-a-rang that can turn back time, speed up the harvest or teleport their project directly into a customer’s hands.

3 – Cloning – forget life-saving organ replacement, or struck-by-a-car-and-brain-transferred-spouses, the ability to function in multiple places at the same times has previously required an act of time paradox that is extremely taxing on the soul and the manicure.

4 – Sales Staff Mute Button – A must for any fully-equipped and mentally-functional marketing team, this little button is a life-saver. When a sales team member with poor planning and preparation skills comes streaking into your cubicle demanding that their problem become your problem, you simply hit the candy-red button, sit back, and every now and then say softly, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”

I’m pleased that my own company has spared no expense when it comes to these, and many other task-necessary devices. Rather than pushing back on the time-machine-required deadlines, or the my-emergency-is-your-tragedy, they understand human nature and have provided for every possible outcome.

Three cheers!

Inland Empire 66ers - Reasons

2007-06-27T11:36:00.000-07:00

Lil, Kelly, Tim and I went to the Inland Empire 66ers game last night. The 66ers, in case you didn't click the link, are a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Dodgers.

It occured to me that we all went, barring mutual friendship, for different reasons:

Lil and Kelly went for the game.

Tim went for the 66er Dance Team who are shown here wearing far more clothing than they actually had on last night.

I?

I went for the food.

Hot dogs, nachos, cheep beer (you had your choice of "regular" and "lite", they both look and taste the same too me) apples slices in a carmel bath, funnel cake with strawberries and powdered sugar. Don't think any of this is high quality or even medium quality stuff. For $15 I can feed Lil and myself until we're sufficiently gorged and must be greased with sticks of butter and rolled out of the stadium.

I have no real knowledge or desire to know who the players are, what their stats mean, or why the guy sitting next to us was decked out in knee-highs, knickers and a flat cap, all in an American Flag theme.

No, those things remain a mystery to me, and in this case ignorance is bliss.

I am there to hoark down mass quantities of terrible food and quaff cheep beer.

Quaffing, for the uninitiated, is different from swilling. In quaffing, the object is to toss the head and plastic cup with enough momentum that the drink spills in a trajectory toward the mouth, but the majority does not actually enter. Those who are untrained will end up swilling, in which the cheep alcoholic beverage is actually consumed.

It takes a very steady hand, and the more quaffing you do, the less steady you will be. Practice is the only friend to the true quaffer, and thus the reason that I attend 66er baseball games. Well, that, and my wife likes them.

It's always good to give your wife what she wants, especially when pregnant.

Why I Prefer a Private Bathroom

2007-06-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

Besides the cleanliness issue, the comfortable toilet paper, and the privacy . . . there's always that odd individual who makes your public bathroom experience slightly uncomfortable. Today, for example, there was a man, in a stall, talking to someone on his phone.

I do not make this up.

The guy is on the throne, taking care of business, and at the same time holding forth at great length on some topic that requires he keep his friend on the line.

Sign of the apocolypse? You decide.

Papa

2007-06-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

A number of years ago, I was asked to speak at my wife's church on Mother's Day. It is not often that non-members speak at church, not out of fear of what they will say, but rather that the talk, as it is called, is supposed to be a teaching/learning experience, and thus is better given by a member rather than a non-member. Think of it as asking a Catholic to stand in place of the priest during the homily.

It can be done, but it's not a regular occurance.

I only mention this because the conclusion of my speech was aimed specifically at my own mother:

[Y]ou did not know that your children would grow so fast or go so far, but as a loving teacher, a nurturer, with sacrifice and God’s blessings we have prospered.

I say this because it equally applies to my father as well. While I gained a certain dry humor from my father, a degree of stubborness to rival various extinct mules, and a temper that can go from zero to psychopathic-killer in 2.5 seconds, I also learned some very valuable lessons:

1 - True friends are to be considered a gift. My father would, and in some ways has, given the very shirt off his back to those people he considers to be friends. His old mining partner, Jack Vanoy, though as curmudgeonly and difficult a breed of gnarly, twisted oak as you will ever find, was always treated with dignity and respect. I know that, when asked, my father did not question a call for assistance, but jumped in the truck, slammed the gas and drove as fast, legally of course and obeying all the rules of the road, as possible.

2 - Money isn't everything. There is something to be said for being a skin-flint and tight-fisted where money is concerned. Certainly, many of our culture's problems stem directly from the get-it-right-now instant gratification mentality. This has never extended, for my father, toward those around him. To be certain, while working in the corporate world he could have negotiated with the devil's own advocate and come away with a peach of a contract, but for himself, his deals are, if not completely fair, then slanted toward the other side.

3 - Education, education, education. My father came from a time where education wasn't as important as experience. He has done more with his 60-odd years of life than I ever hope to accomplish. But the days when experience-only was a determining factor have faded to the point that even a good mechnic requires a wall full of degrees. My father hammered this concept home, so that now, of three siblings, I boast the least education with my measly Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication.

So, dad, Papa, you did not know that your children would grow so fast or go so far, but as a loving teacher, a nurturer, with sacrifice we have prospered. Thanks dad.

Home Improvement Skills Be-Damned

2007-06-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I'm actually handy to have around. My grandfather was a precision carpenter who built cabinets by hand. If you don't think that takes some measure of skill and expertise, go out and build a set of cabinets with only hand tools and let me know how they turn out.

Mine were rejected by homeless children living in Paraguay as "unsafe for life as we know it."

I think they paid someone to write that. Homeless children are generally not known for their scathing litanies.

My father, on the other hand, is a rough carpenter. Together we've rebuilt the covered porch on my first house. Installed bottoms in the original cabinets in my third house and repaired any number of other smaller items. We've even drawn up some impressive plans to enclose the back patio and turn it into a sitting/entertainment room.

Now me, I'm more of a crude carpenter. By the love, patience and understanding of my parents, not to mention the "motivation stick" my father beat me with, I was able to follow a career path that largely steered me away from having to rely on my carpentry skills to support me.

Most carpenters agree this is a good thing.

They have a party to celebrate my not joining their ranks.

This dubious distinction has not prevented me from doing the odd jobs around the house. To wit, we recently had central air installed in our house, which allowed us to remove the through-the-window air conditioners and replace the original windows and screens. All except one.

There is one window in the front room that was removed before the previous owner painted the front room. The missing window was carefully stored in the wood shed and covered with protective debris, bricks, odd ends and logs. Retriveing the window, which had somehow been taken for a god by a tribe of were-rats from Patagoinia, I found that the window didn't match at all.

"At last," I said to myself, "I can try my hand at stripping and staining a small window."

I rushed off to Home Depot, not because I have an affinity for Home Depot, but because I have an affinity for being lazy, and Home Depot is close. I asked for directions to the paint-strippers and was only mildly let down to find out that the name was something of a misnomer. They really shouldn't mislead people like this.

Trucking my roll of singles back in my pocket, I purchaseda smallish bottle of orange-type paint-stripper that said it was "Easily strips off even the oldest layers of paint." I eagerly rushed home and applied the substance to one side of the window's framing, watching to see as my miracle paint-stripper tore through the offending layers of hundred-year old, mercury and lead-filled coverings.

Alas, it was not to be. Back in the 1920s they understood something that my grandfather also understood. Anyone can slap a house together, spill paint over it and sell it for a profit. If you wanted it done right, though, you had to put some effort into it. They apparently built their paint at some kind of foundry complete with large vats of molten metals and secret chemicals that would join so strongly to wood that the two would form a bond stronger and more impenetrable than the mind of God Himself.

The mind of God Himself.

Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exageration and not a little blasphemous, but still, after two coats of the orange paint-stripper, the frame has only shed a couple of layers of gooey, messy, permanently staining and eye-melting paint.

I'm thinking I'll just paint the damn thing white.

Tagged - And I'm It

2007-06-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

Tagging, for those of you who don't know, is a time-honored tradition among bloggers going back almost five years. Some of you weren't even alive back then . . . no, wait, that doesn't work.

Some of you didn't even read my blog back then.

Ahhh, much better.

Anyhow, the object of tagging is to have a little fun with people you like or have an acquaintance with and ask them some questions or receive some hithertofor unknown information.

A friend of mine, SubDes, from ToonDoo tagged me with this:

Here are the rules:
1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

8 random facts/habits about me:

1 - I was a runner in high school and college, I specialized in long-distance and cross-country running.

2 - I wore glasses/contacts until 2003 when I had laser eye-surgery. I love it.

3 - I've had surgery on both of my knees, most likely from over use due to #1.

4 - I knew my wife for ten years before we dated.

5 - I'm a writer. No, wait, that's not random. Everyone knows that. Oh, well, too late to delete it now!

6 - I'm a videophile and have wasted more time watching mediocre and bad movies than most people do with useful hobbies like stamp collecting.

7 - I hate coffee. Coffee tastes like someone burnt something.

8 - I'm painfully hard to shop for, and in general prefer to not give out my birthday for this reason.

Ok, there ya go. I've been tagged and fulfilled my tagg-esque responsibilities. Hope everyone enjoyed!

Yarrr - I've been Robbed!

2007-05-31T09:50:00.000-07:00

I will reserve my entire fault-finding mission of Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End for some other day.

Right now, I have one, count it UNO issue that has tugged at my psuedo-martial heart:

I will take this opportunity to offer you, dead reader a:

SPOILER WARNING
P
O
I
L
E
R

Alright, that's done with.

To set the stage, the two opposing fleets of pirates and the East India Trading Company have faced off in what was supposed to be the naval battle to put all other theatrical naval battles to shame wasn't happing. But that's ok, because in rides Lord Beckett aboard his multi-gunned, multi-decked warship Endeavor. From the pirate side we have the now-dwarfed Black Pearl and, unbeknownst to Beckett, the newly captained Flying Dutchman.

Our heros aboard the Pearl and the Dutchman flank the Endeavor, which to my mind is suicidal after seeing all those impressive cannons. I mean, paranormal powers asside, Endeavor has both ships out-gunned three to one. At the very least the Pearl is about to see and smell the wrong end of Davy Jones' gym shorts!

What happens?

Nothing.

No, that's being too kind. Beckett knows he has our heros cornered, out-manned, out-manuevered, out-gunned. His captain, lieutenant, whatever keeps shouting, "WHAT ARE YOUR ORDERS!?" at a shocked Beckett who can't even manage to say the word fire.

It's not tricky, is it? Fire? One word?

Say it in a crowded movie theater and you'll start a panic. Say it at the beach and you can roast hot dogs. Say it to archers, and they'll look at you blankly. Say it aboard a ship with two enemies in your broadsides and you can crush them beneath your black jack-booted heal!

I demand an inquiry. I demand justice. I demand my money back.

Thanks, But No Thanks

2007-05-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

As I’m currently considering an offer of employment, I thought I would chronicle a humorous job-seeking moment in my life.

Nearly a year ago, reasonably tired of my three-plus-hour commute (and that hasn’t changed), I applied for a position that was exactly one minute from my house by car, and ten by foot. That’s ten minutes through the nearby park where I run on weekends. Despite this, at the time, I didn’t necessarily want to leave my current employ. I had only been marketing for a year, and I knew I still had much to learn. Ya know, like how to lick stamps without going all gummy in the tongue.

The big things.

The opportunity to really-really flesh out my resume and experience was too golden, but the appeal of a ten minute morning walk through grasses and trees to my employer deserved exploration.

The interview was great. I actually interview very well. In fact, I would say that I interview better than I am in my actual position. It’s a gift.

My college buddy, Quintilian, told me once that an orator was a good man, speaking well. I am not an orator. More like the Devil’s Advocate, or perhaps the Devil’s Advocate’s gopher-boy. In any case, I do know how to interview.

Usually, if I get an interview, I get an offer. No brag, just fact. I also know how to look good on paper. I am a writer, after all. Looking good on paper means they give me an interview to find out if I’m a real person.

What I do may seem like illegal misdirection and malicious deceit, but it’s really just marketing.

The offer from this company was less than I currently make. It was less than I had provided as a range of salaries which I would find acceptable in the interview itself. When a company asks you how much you’re looking for as salary, this is one of your moments to shine. Express to them that you know the current market trends for that particular position in that particular region (there’s a nice, easy and free calculater offered by Salary.com) and given that you’re a good, honest and hard-working employee with a stellar background and more experience than God, you would expect to be on the upper end of that scale.

At least, that’s what I do.

Anyhow, the offer was less and given that I didn’t really want to leave, and the job smelled exactly like a job I’d quit previously. I turned it down, politely of course. I then got a call from the man, the company’s attorney/volley-ball captain to “discuss” it. I kept saying that I simply wasn’t interested, but being an attorney, and something of an ass, he pressed me for details, perhaps under the misguided impression that my saying “no” was some kind of negotiation tactic. Finally, I stated that the base salary was below both what I make and what I thought was reasonable, and to be fair I was insulted by it since they had specifically asked for a salary range in the interview.

Amazingly, the attorney/volleyball captain asked me to prove, that’s right, to prove this salary range for the area. Using the site above, and a couple of others, I did. I thought this would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. I was asked what I thought would be a reasonable offer to bring me on board.

Evil grin.

Given that I didn’t really want to come “on board” I gave what I thought was a preposterous number. About a 33% more than my current level.

Outrageous.

They met it.

Now I had conundrum. Not just one of those that presents itself so you can use the word “conundrum” and sound smart. This wasn’t dilemma, predicament or even a quandary-level decision. This was a true conundrum, the type that JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been hard-pressed to resolve.

Fortunately, my would-be employer made the decision for me. Less than an hour later, as I was taking the second leg of my aforementioned three-hour-plus commute journey, I received a call from the attorney/volleyball captain.

“Hi there,” he said cheerfully. “We’ve found someone else who is more experienced and enthusiastic about the position. We’d like to withdraw our offer.”

I smiled what I’m certain was an evil, Devil’s Advocate smile.

“Certainly,” I said. “You’ve just told me everything I need to know about your company.”

In a bit of bravado, I then hung up. Sure, I probably shouldn’t have slammed that door, but it’s not often that you’re in the right place at the right time with the right comeback. That only happens in movies, sitcoms and staff meetings with my old boss Kellie.

So, I carpe diemed the hell out of the opportunity.

Can I use diem as a verb?

Probably I should have carped, but that sounds like it had something to do with fish. I'm sure my brother will set me straight.

An Immodest Proposal

2007-05-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today, I came across this article which describes an online event where a girl offered up her body for a virtual "Epic Flying Mount".

Now, I've never really been that big into the MMORPG scene. In fact, I had to look up the term in order to use it here as some form of credibility in this particular article. That should establish my lack of involvement in such things. Back in my day, we only had MUDs and MUSHs. They were entirely text-based, your fingers would bleed just logging in and that's the way we liked it!

I did have friends who tried to lure me into EverQuest, and I played a monk who managed to get to level something, but then they changed the computer requirements and I wasn't willing to upgrade my computer just to play a game, so I cancelled.

Also, it annoyed me to have most conversations revolve around the playing of EverQuest. Terms like "camp" and "stack" "epic" and "non-melee damage" just didn't appeal to me for some reason. Apparently, I only hold a gold-level Nerd Card. Even now, Firefly is fading from the public conscious, which places my nerd skills on shaky ground.

Still, my faith in humanity, or rather lack-there-of, is once again renewed by the girl who had to have her flying mount. Proof that the Apocolypse came and went and now I'm living in Hell on Earth . . . with cookies.

Some Headlines

2007-05-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

US defends actions of Lebanese troops - What the hell, we haven't invaded anyone recently. Let's back a government that is bombing refugees!

Dems set war bill without Iraq timeline - But it will include a recipe for waffles and fence-sitting.

Expert in Landis doping case calls evidence "sloppy data" - "But the French are still snappy dressers!"

Sharpton: Mormon friction 'fabricated' - "But those Latter Day Saints, now them I hate," Sharpton concluded.

Tale of the 'Idol' tape: Jordin vs Blake - Or, as I like to call it, "Proof the apocalypse came and went."

ToonDoo

2007-05-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

To coin a phrase, "I'm cookoo for Cocoa Puffs!"

Except that instead of a sugary breakfast cereal lacking in most nutritional value including the milk once it sucks up all those chemical supplements and preservatives, I'm talking about building cartoons.

Some of the cartoons are really, really, really bad. Feel free to replace "really" with "damn" and you'll get the same concept. Scatalogical and base sexual/homophobic humor abounds, but there are the rare gems.

I'm still building my comic toolkit, and I've talked with the administrators of the site, so I hope to provide more than just the standard three poses I've been using. In the meantime, I've tried to keep my own humor in the mix, but I've done a couple of homages just for kicks.

Daddy, Where Do Nerds Come From?

2007-05-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, bear with me, there will be prizes at the end.

First, go put in your copy of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. You know you've got one, so go watch it, and we'll all wait here.

That Lando, what a character, eh?

Anyhow, let me draw your attention to this particular scene and information-drop in the movie:

The data brought to us by the Bothan spies pinpoints the exact location of the Emperor's new battle station. We also know that the weapon systems of this Death Star are not yet operational. With the Imperial Fleet spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage us, it is relatively unprotected. But, most important of all, we've learned that the Emperor himself is personally overseeing the final stages of the construction of this Death Star.

Mon Mothma - Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

So the Bothans brought three peices of important information:

1 - "The exact location" of the new Death Star
2 - The weapon's systems weren't operational
3 - The Emperor would be on board

That's not a bad days' spying. Even James Bond would be hard-pressed to deliver all that without an Astin Martin in sight!

Initially, this all seems well and good. The Rebels have some key intelligence, they have the means and will to take advantage and exploit this. Clearly, things are coming to an exciting and dramatic conclusion in a galaxy far, far away.

And yet . . .

Are the Rebel leaders idiots!?!

Ok, check this: From watching the movies, we, the audience, know that the weapons system on the second Death Star (DS2 as it was known around the Imperial Court) were actually functional, it appears that the Emperor was moving the peices the entire time (which he was), and the Rebellion was playing straight into his hands (which they did). These crucial peices of information gained by the Bothans were likely deliberately leaked in order to draw the entire might of the Rebellion to Endor so that the Emperor could finish them off and turn or kill Luke.

Which nearly happened!

So, to the question: If, as Mon Mothma stated, "many Bothans died to bring us this information" (which she did), why would, in the name of all that is good and holy, would the Rebellion believe this information was still viable? The fact that Bothans were killed suggests very-damn-strongly, correctly, that the Empire was on to them. Knowing that, the immediate assumption should be that the Empire would be expecting an attack on the "uncompleted" Death Star. Which they were!

All attack groups were surprised and shocked and awed that it was a trap, when the obvious and logical conclusion, given the Bothan deaths points directly to a trap.

I mean, c'mon, I'm no military strategist, but even I can figure out that if the spy is captured while transmitting information, as Han might say, "It's a good bet the Empire knows we're coming."

On the flip-side of this question is this:

Is the Emperor an idiot!?!

Why did the Empire kill the Bothan spies? I mean, yeah, I get the whole spying thing and capital punishment and what not, but feeding misinformation is hardly a new technique in espionage and military strategy, and killing the messenger, while time-honored, usually defeats the purpose. Killing the Bothans should have immediately alerted the Rebellion leadership that the Empire was on to them and their little spies too. Any information passed to them especially in the last couple of days, was probably compromised and useless or bait for a trap. If the Emperor wanted to lead the Rebellion into his trap, which he clearly did, he should have left the Bothans alone (i.e. not killed them) at least until the trap was sprung. Or had the Emperor already "forseen" that the Rebellion didn't have the sharpest tools in the shed, or rather any tools or even a shed to hold them. Clearly, offing the Bothans wouldn't mean anything except this information was pretty durn important!

Bothan Spy - Sir, I've just managed to steal this highly important and very secret information away from those Imperial slugs. You'll have to mobilize immediately to take advantage of it
Rebel Leader - Excellent, transmit it.
Bothan Spy - Alright, done. Arrrggghhhh . . .
Rebel Leader - What happened?
Stormtrooper 1 - We just shot and killed this guy for spying.
Stormtrooper 2 - Yeah, we shot him alot too, because we're bad aims and he didn't move!
Rebel Leader - Dead you say?
Stormtrooper 1 - Dead as a doorknob.
Rebel Leader - For spying?
Stomtrooper 2 - Yeah, and telling secret stuff too!
Rebel Leader - Oh, very good then. Carry on. We'll just go ahead and mobilize as if nothing had happened.
Emperor [rubbing his hands together] - Exxxcellent!

Seriously, am I the only one who figured this out? Were there no CIA operatives, or twelve year-old kids who put this together and said, "Umm, hey, Mr. Lucas, sir, you can write this in, but it really doesn't make sense."

Well, the downside on this is that I fully expect to hear the title line on the playground while watching my son instructs other children on the proper self-destruct sequence for a Constitution class starship and why it requires at least two command officers to initiate.

Kinna makes ya feel bad for the unborn boy, don't it?

Life With Wife

2007-05-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

I found this fun little program for making your own cartoon strips. It's a little limited in expression choices, but overall it gives guys like me who think they are funny, but totally lack drawing ability, to make their own name in the world of the internet cartoon strip.

Unfortunately, I'm not blog/tech-savvy enough to put the actual image here, and have it be readable without it messing up the frames for the blog. If someone knows how to help, it would be appreciated.

Beatle Bailey, eat your heart out!

Crushed - Again

2007-05-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but every time I receive an actual rejection letter, it crushes my heart beneath a jackbooted heal. Not one of the form letters that I could almost, but not quite, wallpaper a room with.

Those are easy.

Those mean that no one actually read my brilliant opus. It is, of course, brilliant, in the same way that every parent's child is beautiful, talented, gifted and of above-average intelligence. Those rejections are a simple cog in the wheel of the machine for writers who don't have an agent or have never before been published. An automated car wash has more personal attention than these rejections do to actual efforts and I treat them as such:

A necessary evil that uses up a precious resource in order to not offend others with too much grime and dirt.

But personal rejections - that's a different Balrog altogether. That stands on the Bridge of Khazad Dum and screams, "You shall not pass!"

Alright, that allusion is all wrong, but I'm a rejected author and now you can see why!

Perhaps it's a mark that my skills as a storyteller are growing to the point that I am now actually receiving rejections on the basis of my work, rather than as just a matter of course for some kid no one has ever heard of. Or perhaps, as I've always suspected, I'm more of a one-note one-line writer, rather than someone who has the talent and ability to maintain a reader beyond the second page. Someone who can come up with an interesting opening, like, "People think they want to meet an angel, but they really don't." But then blathers on and on about nothing in general for another 70,000 words.

Stephen King, in a recent Entertainment Weekly article mentioned, only in passing, that he has mediocre talent which he parlayed into piles of cash. I agree completely with him. That gives me hope, since I've always considered him something of a kindred soul, if only from the view point that we both write words and mostly use English. (Try reading King's book 7 The Dark Tower without reading any of the previous books, and see if you can wade through his crafted slang and terminology. Go ahead, I'll wait here.) I've always considered him in the ranks of David Gemmell (RIP) and Michael Crichton: second-rate talents with the first-rate gift of gab. But to have him actually state it, and in print no less, gives me hope. You know what you're getting when you pick up a King, Gemmell or Crichton book, and you have this unsigned contract that he will provide a modicum of action and thrills that will entertain for a good eight to ten hours of sustained reading without actually causing you to think or react too much.

I'm all for that kind of escapism writing. So much so that I fancy myself a teller of those kinds of tales. Like King, I am totally willing to sell out my mediocre-talent for a little of the green stuff and the thrill of seeing my name underneath my title with an actual publisher (no vanity publishing, thanks).

Alas, again, this is not to be.

But this is not an attempt to gain pity. I just found it remarkable that after twenty some years of submitting admittedly immature and sophmoric works, that one more rejection still had the power to stomp my hope into bantha fodder.

The upstroke of this, though, was that when I did the "thank you so much for your effort" response and requested a little feedback, the agent insisted she had no time for a critique.

With a wolfish grin, that suggests she didn't even read it, and I'm back on the cog of the machine. I don't know why that pleases me no end, but it certainly does.

We writers would prefer a rejection without having been read, than a rejection based on the work itself. Yes, we're that weird.

A Womb with a View

2007-05-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's supposed to be a joke, but as with most jokes, it's the painful reality of the situation that makes us laugh.

Yesterday, we went in for our ultrasound. If you want to know the result without trying to read through all the lame jokes, well, too damn bad. I've hidden the answer as an acrostic somewhere within the text of my writing, using a random numbering code based on a Ceaser cipher. So ha!

Lil's orders were simple: drink 32 ounces of water about an hour before her scheduled appointment and then don't go to the bathroom.

Sounds simple enough . . . if you've never been a pregnant woman or a small child. Constant vigilance for bathrooms, akin to marines looking for snipers, is the only correlation. Thus it was that my wife turned to me while we're waiting and said:

"This is sheer torture."

Thinking she was referencing being pregnant, I offered my, "Well, it's only until September."

It was at this point I was very grateful that we were only 100 yards from the emergency room. I woke up missing several teeth and unable to see through either eye.

"Cut me, Mick" I groaned at Burgess Meredith.

Apparently, my wife wasn't bemoaning her pregnant state, but rather the forced forstalling of her bathroom break. You see, keeping clear fluid in the bladded allows a window into the womb. This gives you a clear-er view of the child inside, and let's you know that you're having a boy, or a girl.

Ha!

Now you know how the audiences at Patriot Games felt. I'll never forgive Phillip Noyce for that peice of editing. That and Blind Freedom, although Rutger Hauer always rocks!

Announcement

2007-04-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard . . . or in case you've only heard two or three times . . . we're pregnant.

By we, of course, I mean Lil, as I have neither the capacity nor the desire to go through the last-stage ritual of procreation. But Lil is up for it, and so I said God bless and I support you. And I do.

No, we don't know the sex yet. Yes, we are going to find out. No I will not name the baby after you, or, if I do, it will simply be a coincidence. No, we haven't finalized names yet. Yes, we are registered (and online too), but I've recently discovered that while not above most things, I am above pimping my blog-readers out. So you're all off the hook. Perhaps, as the time grows closer, the funding becomes short and I become desperate . . . well, more desperate, I'll put up a link and beg your indulgence.

If you're impatient, drop me a line, and I'll give you the site.

The highlight of this for me has been, of course, shopping. Somehow in my genetic makeup I have the canny ability to shop not only with an eye for the most expensive items, but also along aesthetic lines that make it twice as costly. It's an impressive skill, one that I haven't had to hone to any great degree. By contrast, my wife's desire and patience for shopping is similar to that of a Navy SEAL team: she goes in, makes a surgical strike, and is out with a minimum of effort and time involved.

So, it was no real shock when Lil asked me what kind of stroller I thought we should buy. I already had one in mind. It would be black, with big wheels, and a lift kit. It would also have a Blaupunkt DAB 54 with 15 inch Pyle Driver speakers and a Rockford Fosgate T10001BD amplifier.

I don't know exactly what all that means, but I want it.

I also want a 9-ton winch on the front, and shift-on-the-fly four-wheel drive. I'm considering a four-bottle 450-kilogram thrust/per JATO system.

Is it a bit much? Maybe. It's hard to say what kind of alien-invasion/zombie-attack situations I might find myself and my child in while out for a simple stroll. I was a Boy Scout, once upon a time, and so I take seriously the motto: Be Prepared.

If someone can forward me the mounting specifications for a Quad Fifty, I'd be deeply appreciative.

Staring at the Sun

2007-04-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

Recently, Gawker, who writes the blog A Goose Egg (I've linked him over on the right), posted a story about trying to purchase Irish whiskey. Gawker and I aren't necessarily friends, having never met and never interacted except via our respective blogs and comments. Also, I'm not nearly as funny as Gawker, and so I must remain jealously in his shadow, cursing his very existence and wondering why God has granted me just a fraction of his talent.

It's a complicated melodrama . . . mostly on my end.

But back to the Irish whiskey. As I informed Gawker, Irish whiskey was invented by a little old lady who lived outside of Edinburgh to replace harsh Scottish tea for sickly children. There is only one, true whisky to be drunk and that is Scotch.

And no, I didn't spell "whisky" wrong. If you see an "e" in whisky when referencing Scotch, then it's not Scotch. You're being treated to a knock-off in the finest carmel-colored wood alcohols that will make you go blind and result in tragedy for the rest of your family and friend. Hence Irish whiskEy.

Of course, when drinking Scotch you should always drink responsibly. This means, never drink Scotch that is less than twelve years old, only drink single-malt Scotch, and only drink from the glens: Glenlivet, Glenmorangie or Glenfiddich.

Oh, and it's not Glenfidd-ish. The Scots are a hard people, they live in a hard land, and like to end their words with hard syllables. Glennfiddich, my preferred Scotch, should be pronounced correctly as Glenfidd-ICK, and if possible a little spray should come out, and you should chop someone's head off with an ax.

I told you they hard. It's part of why Scotland never managed to take over the world. Well, that and the Scotch they always drink. True Scotch is never less than 40% alcohol by volume (80 proof for you drunks at home).

Gawker, seeing the err of his ways in consuming Irish whiskey, consulted me further on Scotch as a proper, ethical, spiritual and moral replacement and asked if he could mix in Diet Pepsi. I advised that while the Scots aren't nearly as violent as his people, the Indians . . . from India (reference Gawker's response to me in his comments), we can become unruly as it pertains to drinking Scotch. Unruly to a Scot means that we'll invade your nation, raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer our hearts out and all this while wearing a kilt!

If you're going to mix Scotch and Diet Pepsi (or any other liquid substance) you should first make certain there are no Scots within hearing distance. You can usually tell, as they have their faces painted blue, carry cumbersome swords and answer most questions by yelling, "FREEEEEEEEDOMMMMMM!" They also end everything they say with "ya bastard."

Which brings me to my conclusion: There were three men, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scot sitting around a table drinking their Scotch when a fly breezed in. The fly landed first in the Englishman's glass, who being English pushed the glass away and refused to drink. The fly then landed in the Irishman's glass, who shrugged and drank anyhow. Who cares about a fly? Finally, the fly landed in the Scot's glass. The Scot lashed out, grabbed the fly by his wings and shouted, "Spit it out, ya bastard!"

Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence

2007-04-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

The missus and I have a running bet to see which of us can come up with the most practical, the most necessary and the most costly home improvement project.

We had to add "practical" to the mix because I came up with bronzing all the bedding and linens, then having the bronze covered in gold, because, ya know, if you're going to turn your linens into metal, might as well be gold. And then I decided that we'd want to protect the gold with a nice titanium-alloy, so that they could conceivably last forever and double as high-altitude airplane parts. I was informed that sleeping under sheets of metal is not very comfortable, and I'm a man who loves his comfort.

I own a double-pillow top, Serta king-size matress, with cashmere on one side for the winter and silk on the other for summer.

Yeah, it's that important.

Currently, neither of us is winning this little contest, since we both agreed to remodel the kitchen countertops, and then agreed to replace all the base cabinets at the same time. This effectively doubled our little project, and forced us to declare ourselves an independent country to avoid paying Home Depot. Robtonia has declared Home Depot a rogue nation and placed them on the top of our Axis of Near-Evil nations.

Robtonia is now in the market for building an L-shaped wall in the master bedroom which will become our new walk-in closet. This seemed a perfectly logical step, since we've been making due with the IKEA purchased standing closets that we got about two years ago. That's about the life-cycle of a fully mature IKEA furniture product, after which point it rapidly bio-degrades to rejoin the soil.

It's the IKEA Circle of Life.

It's the wheel of furniture fortune.

But I digress. The point here is that we needed a contractor to build our little dream wall. A simple matter, I figured, since contractors are always eager for building things ever since they wrapped their mitts around their first Fischer Price "I Can Build or Destroy It" playset. I right-clicked through the Yahoo Yellow Pages and pulled up any number of contractors that serve our area. I rattled off a list to the missus, who then promptly called them all. One was able to set up an appointment to give us a quote, the others promised to call back.

Oh woe. Oh sadness!

No one called back. The appointment rescheduled for Friday and then failed to show up. I called, left him a voice mail and have never heard back.

One "handyman" agreed to come that day and said he would call when he could swing in and give us a quote, but he mumbled heavily and made me think of Steve Buscemi from Billy Madison. I can't say that I was sorry when he never called and never showed up. I'm all out of rouge lipstick anyhow.

So here I sit, sad, forlorn, unloved by the general contractor community who are probably all sitting at Dunkin' Donuts having a laugh at my lack of experience with their ilk. It must be a right of initiation into the realm of contractor-dealing.

Pod People

2007-03-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Every day I drive to my train station for the 90 minute journey to my home. I drive past the backside of Disney's California Adventure and as backside's go, this one is quite nice. It's also fun to say that I drive past Disneyland every day.

Ahhh, California.

Yesterday, a bumpersticker struck me as odd, and it took me some time to figure out why.

The slogan read: Is that how they drive on your planet?

I finally figured out why it bothered me. Since the question is being posed to me, and presumably to all my fellow drivers around me, and since I know that my planet is this lovely marble called Earth, that can only mean that the drivers of said vehicle were aliens!

Illegal aliens!!

While George W. Bush was gallavanting about on his food-tasting mission through Mexico and South American, the problem of illegal aliens still plague us. They're so invasive that they flaunt their status in our faces, and lord over our driving skills from their high horses . . . err, pickup trucks. Just because they've mastered inter-stellar travel doesn't make them any better at lane changes and parallel parking.

And what about anal probing?

Sure, I'm all for advancing science, but how many sphincters must you review before you've seen all there is to see? How many cows must you turn inside out before you've established that neither the humans nor the cows find this humerous anymore? How many crop circles must you create before Mel Gibson gets another drunk-driving ticket?

In short, I'm against illegal aliens. Earth for Earth-men . . . and women.

Making Diamonds

2007-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

It's been suggested that I am somewhat anal.

Not that I'm gay.

Nor that there's anything wrong with being gay.

I'm just not gay.

But I digress. The point here is that unlike most mortals of the male persuasion (gay or not) I tend to like everything to have a place, and all places to have their thing. I also like them reasonably well dusted and somewhat backlit to show them off at their best angle to the casual observer.

Sunday, Lil, Justice and I sat down to play a new game we'd picked up called Munchkin. Lil's sister, Isabella, brought it with her on a visit a few years back and we quite liked it. One of the aspects of the game requires for markers or counters of some kind that aren't included with the game (cheep bastards). Fortunately, this is hardly a problem for us, since I maintain a couple of bookends that were in a past life Paul Mason wine carafes. I used spare change from my pockets to fill these carafes, in one I put my silver coins and in the other the copper pennies. The finished product looks, at least to me, quite nice.

So, to play Munchkin, I grabbed my penny bookend, and poured out enough for each of us to have the requisite ten markers. I set the carafe down, then glanced at it, and something caught my eye.

There were two silver coins in with the the pennies.

I almost poured out the entire contents to remove the offending denominations. Almost.

Then I realized that was a bit too anal and tried to play off my momentary panic as a stretch. Lil apparently has wisdom beyond her years.

"I probably put them in there," she soothed. "Sorry."

"No, no," I replied. "It's ok. It's not a big deal, and it was probably my fault."

Seriously, we were discussing whose "fault" it was that two or three silver coins got into the penny carafe.

I think I need help. Some kind of twelve-step program that involves heavy doses of gin. If you find that retreat, kindly send it my way.

On Your Marks . . .

2007-02-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

Actually, I never got to hear the above phrase.

I've been running for years. Sometimes toward things, sometimes away from them, sometimes just aimlessly meandering with no real goal in mind or sight. But usually, at the begining of a race-type event, I hear more than just the signal horn.

Not that it matters. In a 5k (3.11 miles) or a 10k (6.2 miles) you don't exactly need starting blocks to get going. For the Riverside Raincross 5k Race/Walk, about 500 people participated. The first instructions we were given by race officials was as follows:

"Runners to the front. Walkers to the back. Anyone with a stroller also needs to be in the back."

Immediately, all the walkers and stroller-runners found someone who's pace was several minutes faster than their own, and got in front of them. I noticed many had opted to wear mirrors so as to maintain their slower-paced lead and increase the frustration by an order of magnitude. There were even a few who had binocular watchers relaying information so that they could bunch together and cause large log-jam type occurances.

Modern technology rocks.

This is why I bring a large stick to beat people out of my path. I call it my Beater Stick. Beater and I have run many races together. Recently, I replaced the old bent nails with new, rusty bent nails for that extra potential dose of tetnus.

Once Beater and I had cleared a fairly good path, we set out at a pace that, for me, defied mortal strength. I cleaned the first mile far, far too fast with a 7:37. I felt good though, and I knew the route from the map, so I wasn't overly concerned. So what if I was running a whole two minutes faster than my trained negative split pace!

That was when we hit the hills.

I say hills because that's what I was told. A series of two, gentley slopping hills, that were followed by nice downgrades and level runs.

May all race-course setters die a horrible and painful death in the Hell of the Upside Down Sinner.

There were not two hills. There was one Mt. Everest sized mountain, replete with large, iced boulders, angry native hunter-gather types, and treacherous water-station volunteers. The Israeli government was also on hand, looking for something a little more difficult for their Mossad candidates.

I couldn't quite maintain pace after the second hill. I caught a half-dozen poisoned arrows in the back. This is something that Indiana Jones won't teach you. Natives, whose entire livelihood and existence is dependant on their abilities with projectile weaponry tend to be fairly good shots.

At the last half mile, I forewent the water station and life-saving antidote, and instead tried to rev up my world-famous thousand-yard kick. I managed something close to a snail's sprint, and managed to catch the guy who had been in slowly drawing nearer during the race.

The result isn't important. The fact that I stared him down like Clint Eastwood's older, meaner brother doesn't really matter. Nor the fact that the trail of flames I left behind me singed him as she crossed the finish line tenths of a second behind me.

No, to runners, the running of the race is what's important, not who beats whom.

No, the resounding theme for any runner must come from Ecclesiastes (9:11), "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but it sure helps."

For those who are interested, I placed 60th overall and 5th in my age group with a time of 24:14.

The Devil IS in the Details

2007-02-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is the email I received from Amy Cohen, who does something for Gather.com:

Hi RobRoy,

Since your story was posted on 1/16, it was removed on 1/30, after 14 days, per the contest guidelines.

Best,

Amy

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn,

Damn.

Here I was feeling all self-righteous and holier-than-thou when my first chapter of Tears of Heaven "disappeared" from the contest.

So here were my final results:

Votes - 31 people read (or claimed to) my first chapter

Comments - 15 people felt compelled to give me feedback, most were positive, some ecstatic (thanks friends and family), one was just odd

Score - 6.1 out of 10. That's not a great score by any measure, it means some people threw 1's in there just because.

Overall, this was billed as a American Idol for Writers, and I can certainly see the parallels. I'm almost certainly not going to the next round, but that's alright. If i'd paid more attention to the rules, I would have pushed more people to vote sooner.

It turns out I am an above-average writer with some general appeal.

That's not a bad thing to learn.

Second Appeal

2007-01-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

Either there are fewer of you out there then I at first believed, or more of you hate me than I thought I deserved.

Fortunately, I've come up with a third option: poor communication.

Having my degree in communications makes this all the more embarassing, but if Dr. Ashmore taught me anything, it was to learn from my mistakes . . . or was it that a cheese-log is a great holiday present?

But I digress.

The point here is that my novel, Tears of Heaven, is in a competition and needs your votes!

That's right, instead of me entertaining (or boring) you with the banality of my life, I can now entertain (or bore) you with the banality of a life I made up, in my book Tears of Heaven. The best part of my book, Tears of Heaven, is that you don't even have to read it! That's right, I've reduced your input into my potential future to a minimal effort at best. Simple click anywhere in this blog where it says Tears of Heaven, and you will be transported to my mental efforts. Then scroll to the bottom and click whatever you feel like giving me. Nine or ten stars seems to be the going, but just for fun you can throw a one star my way out of spite or scorn.

So, act now! Tears of Heaven is not available in stores and maybe not even through this special offer.

Did I mention it five times? I'm told that's the key. One, two, three . . . yeah, looks like five. Now if I don't get your votes, I'll know it's because you hate me. Oh, the guilt!

And We're Off

2007-01-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

Besides being just another jock, I aspire and attempt to actually write stories. Sometimes funny stories, sometimes meaningful stories, sometimes stories that make you laugh or make you cry. I write because I love to read. In reading, you and the author form a symbiotic relationship akin to a short-term marriage. Initially, you're excited by the hand-holding of a new book, the first words spoken seem fresh, and the touch of page-turning is stimulating. As the relationship goes on, you might have your fights, your differences, but ultimately you persevere because you're invested in the concepts, the characters, the prose or the plot.

Sometimes, those differences are too many, and you throw the book down in disgust, stomp on it as it stomped on your heart and then launch it into the fiery center of a thousand burning suns to carve its very essence from reality.

Or else you donate it to a library.

Whichever.

Having been enamoured by a master story-teller at an early age, I had the naive belief that all authors subscribed to such high-minded and in-depth story-telling. Alas, this was not the case. Some authors were redundant, foolish, some down right boring. Floundering in this sea, awash with need for a decent story, I took on the role of story-teller myself.

Flash forward two decades, and I've only managed to truly complete one story in novel form. During those long, cold, despondant years of hope I have learned that wanting is by far easier than having.

For example, I want to be a world class runner, make money from my looks and live in quiet semi-seclusion near a lake appearing at regular intervals on talk shows to share the secrets of my success.

What I have is some vague hope to actually finish a 10K, about $28 in my savings account, and a nice house with electrical issues and a tendency to pass all earthly heat into the brittle winter night.

Still, I aspire to become better than I am. I run reguarly, work semi-hard, and try to mend my house into the semblance of modern architectural genuis that it can be. I also write on a regular basis, trying to tell my stories in a way that is compelling, interesting and above all sellable.

To that end, recently I stumbled upon an American Idol-type contest sponsored by Simon & Schuster publishing and an online writer's forum. The contest is called First Chapters and gives unpublished authors a chance to be read, critiqued and voted upon. The site puts up your first chapter, and people vote on it. If you get enough votes, you go to the second round and then the third round and perhaps the Winner's Circle of a publishing contract and book promotion. This seemed to me like an interesting opportunity and so I submitted my Tears of Heaven for consideration.

I am pleased to say that it was accepted to the contest and is now up for the first round which you can now read, critique and grant 10 stars to as the best work of fiction you've laid eyes upon in your entire life.

Or, you know, 9 stars if you're feeling conservative.

If you're not familiar with the premise of my story, here's a short synopsis:

Nephilim are the half-angels that have lived among mortals for centuries doomed to serve or die. Their service includes the fighting of demons, stronger, faster and able to channel dark powers. Del is one of the best at this work, and yet even she has failed from time to time. Centuries before now, she found love. Centuries later, she has only pain, anger and despair. Now, with the lives and souls of children on the line, as well as her own, she must overcome her own doubts on the most dangerous mission of her life.

Hope that's something that you would enjoy reading.

The Resolution Will Be Short

2007-01-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

Sherman, set the Way Back Machine for 1953, Harry Truman was the President, High Noon was playing in the theaters, and a young William Holden taught us to laugh. It was the year that I was to make my last, my final, my ultimate New Year’s Resolution that I would keep, like a cheap set of luggage, from that day onward.

What was that resolution, you might ask?

I’m glad you did, otherwise, this would be a short article with only the first paragraph for you to read.

Of course, if you want a short article, then by all means, ignore the question asked, stop at “onward” (excelsior for you Latin buffs), and go ahead and leave your comments in the comments section.

But for those of you for whom curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, but broke its legs, burned its ashes and then scattered them to the four winds, please read on.

Cat lovers may also wish to stop here and comment here on my lack of love for the friendly feline.

My resolution that year, the second in the history of New Year’s Resolutions that has been kept so faithfully, was to not make New Year’s Resolutions henceforth. I have been diligent, like the Maginot Line, in keeping safe and secure this sacred duty. Unlike some, nay most, I have peered prophetically into the future and seen it lines with broken promises, shattered hopes and crushed dreams.

This seemed a loathsome and terrible burden to hoist upon posterity, and not willing to be part of the problem, I opted to be part of the solution. A solution that has so far proved as in vain in its hope as the War on Drugs or Hip Hop music.

This has caused me no end of pain and long-suffering head shaking as I watch while so many others fall where I have succeeded.

You may recall that back in October I joined some unnamed gym mostly to get on their monopoly of treadmills. My record was near spotless, as unblemished as an unblemishless thing that suffers no blemishes and would never be blemished by them. Yet, sadly, I must admit to watching the hordes descend from their Holiday gorging and tromp like cattle through the doors of my gym where, like locusts, they devoured every aerobic machine and workout device.

No treadmill for the Rob was to be found when I sojourned there on a merry January 2nd, 2007. No rowing machine, Stair Master, stationary bike, free weights, lease weights, or rent-to-own weights. No lifting machines for arms, legs, neck, inner thighs, outer thighs or even fingers. Even the cleaning supplies were being used by people who just wanted something, anything to burn calories.

At first, I was put off, even angry by this intrusion into my house, my place of fitness. Yet, as each day passes, more and more machines, once happy to give of themselves exclusively to hungry Resolutionites. Now, many are abandoned once more, while those who worked their Zyphoid Processes to feel the burn have abandoned them once more until the next year when a new horse will descend, eager to make this year different.

And I, meanwhile, smile happily, as they trudge, beaten and defeated, into the oblivion that is the number ten 2007 broken New Year’s Resolution. And here are the other nine for your viewing pleasure:

9. Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnel: Keep a lower profile.

8. Steve Jobs: Rest on my laurells and not invent new stuff for Apple.

7. Britney Spears and Paris Hilton: Be named the Best Dressed.

6. George Bush: Never admit I'm wrong.

5. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: Institute sound fiscal policies.

4. Smokers: Breathe that magic flavor in the last bastion of true democracy!

3. MySpace: Increase standards.

2. French Louvre: Foster worldwide peace through art.

And the number one broken New Year's Resolution for 2007:

1. United Nations: Keep the United States in line.

For Shem

2007-01-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

There are a few things that go toward marking yourself as a "true writer". First, you need to have suffered (relatively speaking) heartache, disappointment, failure and pain. All of that occured to me back in third grade when Jill Baker broke up with me and dashed all my hopes of a perfect life.

Second, you need to acquire some kind of strange ailment that critiques and college English Lit. students can ponder and postulate into the "meaning" of your writing. I lost my appendix at 22, and now have a mild form of carpel tunnel syndrome. That's pretty much the Red Badge of Courage for writers everywhere.

Third, every true, struggling "writer" must have compiled lists of authors and agents that he/she can place rejection letters next to prior to wall-papering the house with them. Since I'm lazy by nature, I opted to not compile my own list, but rather found a list that someone else had compiled and rode those coat-tails to my current level of writing success. Go ahead, look up my latest opus, I'll wait here.

The list that I use is Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents. Mr. Herman comes out with a new list every year, which is a marketing strategy that has only been eclipsed by bottled water and soap on the scale of money-making schemes. After all, there are no fewer than ten-billion would be authors, playwrites, poets, and nome de plumes just itching to become the next Dan Brown or John Grisham.

Yours-truly is certainly among those.

I like Jeff Herman's Guide because it breaks out the publishers and agents seperately, and provides responses to surveys he sends out to each of them, so you can read exactly what they want to see, in what format, with how many pages, and what kind of SASE (self-adressed stamped envelope) so that you get your rejections in the swiftest possible manner. If I sound bitter at all, just refer to paragraph one of this article.

I'm nothing if not dedicated to the cause of being a "true writer".

The reason for this is that Shem or his wife, asked what I used to send out my feeble efforts into the realm of publishers and agents in order to give them the side-splitting laughter they deserve before they buckle down and read those truly gifted with the ability to write. So, there it is. Jeff Herman's Guide is what I use, and I'm sure I've aided Mr. Herman to take that fifth trip around the world as he's always wanted.

So, if anyone was torn on what to get me for Christmas, New Years, or Gerald Ford's funeral, please, feel free to provide me with the latest version of Mr. Herman's helpful little guide for a "true writer."

Rejection from Econo Lube N Tune

2006-11-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

I forgot to put lotion on my legs this morning. I could almost hear Buffalo Bill Gumb in my head:

It puts the lotion on its legs!

It puts the lotion on its legs or it gets static cling!

It’s annoying, but not the end of the world. I only mention this to tell you what kind of day it started out to be. Twice, once while driving to the train station and then again driving from the station to work, other drivers thought I was racing them. They must have, otherwise their sudden lane shifts, speeding up or down to keep me out of their lane, and swerving can only be interpreted as rudeness bordering on road rage.

I’m also taking an off day from running, so I have no endorphin high on which to stave off the general apathy and depression from this morning. I did this with the intent to get my truck lubed. I’m somewhat religious, though not in a praying at the alter, lighting candles and virgin sacrifes way, in lubing my truck. Virgins are hard to come by these days anyhow. I’ve had too many vehicles go out on me for lack of lube simply because I wanted to jam another dozen McDonald’s double cheeseburgers and accompanying fries down my gullet.

Mmmmmm cheeseburgers.

But I digress.

The old lube place I used to go to closed. Probably because their prices were ridiculously low, which is why I kept going. They closed without informing me, which, as their single most important customer, I found extremely unprofessional. Fortunately, as I was driving to the post office near my work, I found an even closer lube place, so all was forgiven.

Today, I jumped in my truck, eager to exchange my hard-won cash for their excellent service. My truck fairly roared to life even before I put the key in the ignition and turned. It lovingly, but in a non-gay way, caressed my buttocks as I slid into the driver’s seat. We were both very excited.

I pulled in to the lube place, saw that only one other car was being serviced, and smiled at my good fortune. Clearly, they knew that I would be coming today, and cleared their schedule in order to provide their utmost top quality to one who would join the ranks of their happily satisfied customers.

But what was this? As I pulled up, an attendant walked out of the main office and looked in my direction. I waved, and gave him a thumbs up, expressing my gratitude for all this company had done to make my first visit an experience to remember.

The attendant ignored me, looked around the parking lot for a moment, then sauntered (yes, he sauntered, it’s slightly more arrogant than sashaying) back into the office.

Perhaps he hadn’t seen my hearty wave hello. Perhaps my chummy thumbs-up was an insult in his country. He appeared caucasion, American, perhaps even from California.

I was baffled.

I pulled slowly toward one of the stalls, and waited a moment, peering hopefully out toward the office. I tried to see if the grease-jockeys were performing some kind of song-dance number that required their immediate attention before going back to their wonderful and fulfilling jobs of changing oil and lubing chassis.

Nothing.

My heart sunk to the floor, my truck felt deflated. The engine coughed, once, in a sulky way.

Then, behold, an attendant came forth. The same attendant who had earlier rejected my friendly tokens of goodwill. He came out, but did not open the chain that covered the entrance so that I might proceed in. He yelled something that I could not hear because the windows were up.

I smiled, rolled down the window and he repeated his question:

“What do you want?”

I looked around for hidden cameras, looked carefully at the signs that read “Econo Lube n Tune”, looked at the quarts of oil carefully and lovingly stacked against the walls, looked at the air-filters and grease-guns all in their assigned slots.

I looked back at the attendant.

“An oil change?”

Yes, I asked it as a question. Clearly, I was befuddled. Perhaps I has misinterpreted the signs and the advertisements, one of which stood directly in front of the attendant and read, “OIL CHANGE: $17.95”.

“Why do you yell at me?”

“What?”

“Why are you yelling?”

“Sorry, the engines on.”

“No. Why are you so mad? What do you want here?”

"An oil change?"

"What's all the yelling for?"

It was then my truck, thoroughly insulted, put itself into reverse gear and drove itself off the premises. I waved, kindly, to the attendant who continued to yell at me, and chased me to the corner why my truck’s superior speed and handling lost him in a crowd of pigeons.

Was he trying to not lose my business? Was he sad that my truck had left? Unusually embarrassed by his lack of understanding as to the needs that drove automobiles and drivers to his doorstop?

I will never know the truth, as my truck now refuses to go near the place.

But tomorrow, I will definitely use lotion.

No, Seriously . . .

2006-11-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

Dateline November 20th, 2006 . . . a date that will live in infamy . . .

The above should be said in a Darth Vader-esque voice with sufficient omnipresent surround sound and appropriate god-like reverb.

So, I jumped on the treadmill, punched in my coordinates and took off. The first mile was the hardest. It wasn't physically challenging, per se, it was just that I wanted to run faster than the pace I was holding to: 10 minute miles.

If pressed, my 30-something body could probably clean a mile in under six and half minutes. The pressure would have to take the form of some sort of threat of physical harm coupled with some kind of time machine that would allow me to retrieve and use by 20-something body, but it could be done.

Once.

I would then die.

Painfully.

So starting out on a 6 mile tour, my body longed to kick it into high gear and go for the gold. That's the nice thing about a treadmill, no matter what your body thinks the ideal pace should be, the machine just ignores that and happily chugs along where it was set. I get the feeling that the tread would merrily go through the motions even if I wasn't standing ontop, running my little baboon heart out.

What a jerk.

But I digress. I started on my 6 mile adventure yesterday and moved through the motions nicely. My iPod sang sweetly in my ear (Killer Cuts from the old Killer Instinct videogame Eric and I used to play in college), my new running shoes cushioned my feet and I was off and running . . .

I hestitated above because I felt a semi-serious urge to add a "literally" after my statement. Generally, I abhor the use of that term as with exclamations points it is massively misused. However, the truth is that I was not metaphorically running. I might have been spiritually running, or even ethically running, but those were secondary to the actual, literal running I was doing.

So there, I said it.

As I was running, I thought over my previous post. It was more of a blog than the normal articles I prefer to write. An update on my otherwise boring and mundane, even pedantic life regarding an aspect that most people will either not care about or will care about only in relation to the periphery of thier own lives, giving thought only while the seconds tick down on their microwave toward the sweet satisfaction of industrial strength popcorn in a bag.

But I did think about it, because one of the concerns I have, asside from being more athletically capable, is my knees. Two knee surgeries and plenty of pain while moving (walking, biking, eating) will do that to a runner. So, having easily made it through my fourth mile and heading quickly to my fifth, I made a decision.

I haven't cleaned a full six miles in a single stretch in (yes, literally) years. My knees only recently became accessible again, and amiable to running any distance, let alone that of a 10K, even at sub-race pace. Further, I'm aware that my Johnny-cum-lately competitive streak often has me pushing my body when I should just work into the pace that I want. I'd like to think that's something I have in common with the legendary great Steve Prefontaine, but given that the guy once ran the 1500 meters in 3:38, asside from a love of the run, the drive to push a body beyond realistic limits is the only thing we would have in common.

So, there I was, coming up on mile five and thinking very hard about how doubling my normal workout distance, even at the sedate 10 minutes per, might actually be pushing my body too far again. My decision was to not push quite so hard. Six miles is six miles, and it will still be there tomorrow. In my mind I knew I could do it, and my body said it could do it too. The concern was that if I did it today, would I be able to do it tomorrow?

I strode up to the five mile mark, and then, began my cool down walk.

Today, my both my calves and my right leg are a little sore. It's a good sore. The kind of sore you know you earned and deserve. I could have gone the distance, and probably would have been just fine. I'd like to run 10Ks again, and be somewhat competitive in my age group. I'd like to set personal goals and beat my PRs race over race.

That's not going to happen with just three or four weeks of treadmill training. I've trained up to race paces in the past, and been competitive, even with knee injuries and whatnot. I know what it takes and I know there is some pushing that needs to occur. I also know, that I need to be mindful of my knees.

But sitting on my shoulder, swinging his cleated feet, my own personal Pref is whispering, "The best pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die."

Yuck, Sweat

2006-11-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

I've been cleaning three to three and a half miles every day since I joined my gym. I call it mine because it's the one I go to. If I called it yours, it would likely be a lie because most of you either live outside of California or don't own a gym.

So that would be silly.

Anyhow, three and a half miles, and generally I push to keep my splits below nine minutes each, which means I have a 27 minute run and then about 13 minutes of cool down.

It's still not enough. I get off the treadmill and look like an extra from the second half of Titanic. Not one of those that made it to a life boat either. After that I stand in a reasonably cool shower for another five minutes, and still, as I trudge across the tile floor, I'm sweating.

Not certain if that's a good thing or not, but there it is. I spend the next hour at work with extremely good posture so that I'm not leaning against the back of my chair. Fortunately, my office is run by penguins, so it's always just slightly above absolute zero.

Anyhow, I think part of the problem is that as a former competitor, I like to push. If someone next to me is running their treadmill faster than mine, I feel the need to push mine faster than their's.

It's silly, and worse, it's likely to reinjure my knees.

Of course, now I might be able to get my bionic knees like I always wanted, and then I won't have to go, "Dunnnnuhhhuuunnnnuuhhhhh!" while I'm running.

But I digress. I think today I'm just going to run out at 10 minute miles the entire time and try to clean five miles today. It's short of my immediate goal, which is to get back in shape to clean a 10k (6.2 miles . . . yes, the .2 matters). But it will be a decent test and since nothing is going on at work anyhow . . .

Addicted

2006-11-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

Endorphins baby, yeah!

Since I’m a runner I’m aware of the “runner’s high”. While it can’t be compared with, say, cocaine or black tar heroine, it has none of those pesky side effects like emaciated weight-loss, lengthy prison sentences or death.

Last week, while I did some mega-running (literal not actual) around and time away from work, I was able to pick up a new set of running shoes. The irony was so palpable that I bottled the extra and sold it to people who lack a sense of humor.

Mostly Republicans and those living in Michigan.

My old shoes had protested their abuse, which can be read in the novel they released “I Left My Heart on the Treadmill” and they are now out on a book tour. Their replacements are some kind of New Balance running show that I’m quite impressed with. I’m not enough of a runner to warrant a set of Nike supreme-blessed-by-God-Himself shoes that run close to $200, although I wish I was. Instead, I went to our local Shoe Central, a warehouse type affair that operates under the prevailing philosophy of: You’re lucky you got through the door for free.

Their prices are reasonable, but their selection is pretty hit or miss. Indeed, at times their selection is akin to that of the Good Will. You might find the shoe you’re looking for, but it won’t be in your size or the condition that you would prefer.

Anyhow, Friday I had off, so Lil and I went running, but I hadn’t been able to run the two days before that, or the two days since.

Today, my body is going into a kind of drug-addicts withdrawal. I can’t think of anything but scoring 30 minutes on the tread mill. My hands shake except when I tie my shoe laces. Some guy saw me sweating and offered me a pair of Adidas that had “fallen off a truck”.

He seemed like a nice guy, which is probably why the police wanted to shake his hands. Both of them. Behind his back.

So today, I’m ready to run. My train-friend, Tim, asked me what I was running for? I related the stand-by runner’s joke:

Two guys were walking in the woods when a bear jumped out at them and began to chase them. Suddenly, one of the men stopped and started to tie his shoe lace.

“Dude! What are you doing?” cried his friend who also stopped.

“I don’t have to outrun the bear,” the friend replied. “I just have to outrun you!”

That’s me, baby! Yeah!

Jim Morrison Would Be Proud

2006-11-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

You know, the day destroys the night.

The night divides the day.

Try to run, try to hide.

Break on through to the other side.

Break on through to the other side!

The Doors "Break on Through"

For some reason, and I can't say why, recently Morrison-twanging lyrics from The Doors have been running through my head. I have no idea why this is occuring. Could it be that Jim Morrison's spirit has visited me every night in an attempt for me to promote a really big rock-n-roll show? Is it the fact that my homage-poster/shrine to the fallen poet-cum-pop star is now complete with an original lock of each band member's hair? Or is it perhaps the new tattoo that I recently obtained on my chest of the L.A. Woman album cover?

No, it is none of these things, because those are all lies.

However, it might be because on Friday, when I mounted up on the treadmill, everything in my body functioned properly and without pain. Better than that, it functioned as The Flying Spaghettie Monster originally intended. Even better still was the fact that two weeks ago, I could barely clean 2 miles in my 35 minutes workout. But last Friday, I cleaned 3.25 miles without nearly the same exhaustion and paramedic-calling that previously occured.

Yeah, sure, I'm not the Olympic hopeful that I might once have been, but I'm bringing my negative-splits back down to where I can actually run with my head held high. This is also a good thing because running with your head down will guarentee a sudden and unexpected end to your daily run with a tree, lampost or Mack truck.

Boy was that driver surprised.

But I'm not plugging my gym for this because, for me, fitness just is. I haven't seen anything in any of the many gyms I've belonged to, to indicate that the pressence of equipment, trainers or even monthly fees/dues/membership-priviledge-tokens induces anyone to work harder.

The opposite is also true.

Lack of such does not a fat, slob, twelve-sandwich eating, couch-potato make. For example, I read a blog, every now and then, called Fat Girl to Triathlete. Reading through, though, I can't recall ever seeing her mention a particular health club that she has attested her new, trim, sensual-self to. Her trick? Her secret to a slimmer, younger-looking you?

Ok, come close.

No, no, closer.

Here it is: She reduced caloric intake. Right, got that? And, ok, she increased caloric output.

No, seriously. That's what it is. She tracks her intake and exercises. It's a pain, I understand, but there it is.

Now, I've never been fat, and I'm not likely to become the traditional sense of the term "fat". In part, this is because my damaged body won't let me. My metabolism has remained at a constant Furnace of Hell calorie-buring level, and even if I eat less, because I'm full faster, I would actually have to work at it, Homer Simpson-style, to achieve any size of any proportion that would begin to label me as "fat". So, to that end, I can't really empathize with folk who have a lower metabolism or who's bodies naturally store fat better than mine.

On any given pioneer trail, I would have died first, quickly and not had anything worthwhile to throw in the pot for the others.

But I can certainly share in that triumphant moment when a traitorous body acquiesces to the demands of a mind that no longer wants to be out of shape.

The Third Day is the Worst

2006-10-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

“What happened?”

“Why are you limping?”

“Did someone hit you in the knees with a sledgehammer?”

Given my current state of motion as a hurky-jerky Night of the Living Dead extra, the last one seems the mostly likely. In fact, my legs, and specifically my calves, feel as if they’re made of painful lead weights. Weights that stretch and stab you with little knives of shooting agony at every step.

I’ve started running again.

Thanks to the magical wonder of glucosamine ,which a few studies have found assist people with moderate to severe painful joint problems to get out and exercise again, I’ve found that I can actually run and skip and jump and prance with the fairies again.

I haven’t found any fairies yet, but when I do I’m gonna prance them to death!

That will teach those fairies.

Still, all good things come with a price.

I signed up at a local gym at a huge discount through my office. I’ve never really subscribed to any one gym as being superior to any other, mostly because I’ve trained enough to not need any hand-holding for my workouts. Others may find a motivational “coach” a big boon, but most of my coaches just said, “Run that way . . . really fast. If anything gets in your way . . . turn.” It’s advice that has served me well.

So now, instead of eating lunch and adding to my ever-expanding waist-line, I go run a couple of miles. Back in the day, a couple of miles was anywhere between five and fifteen. Now, a couple of miles means just that.

Two.

Sometimes a third mile will try to sneak in there, but I’m generally pretty watchful and shut that third mile down, kicking it repeatedly until it limps away, beaten and rejected.

Starting Wednesday, I did my first run, set a pace at about 10 minutes per mile, and set out. Just for comparison, in college I would run a 10k (6.2 miles, and yes the point-two is important) pace under 7 minute miles. If you think that’s fast, the winners usually came in with paces of 5 to 6 minutes per mile. By the time I crossed the finish line, they had already accepted their medals, completed their cool-downs and were loading the bus to go eat.

The first day is always the easiest. You haven’t run in some time. You forget how grueling covering the miles can actually be, especially the tedium of being on a treadmill without any decent music to listen to. While you’re certainly out of shape, you find that the old habits die hard, muscles still function, and given even half a chance you could probably outrun most of the residents as Shady Oaks Retirement Facility. The first day was great.

You even have the delusion that since this run is so easy you could work up to your former Olympic-hopeful level when you were sixteen.

The first day is always great.

Thursday, the second day, the muscles have had time to analyze and discuss what you’ve just put them through, and traditionally their response is akin to a raging wildfire of seething agony and joint fatigue. The muscles go on a protest march, demanding a return to the status quo of lazy desk work, and nothing more taxing than setting the cruise-control.

It’s important that you do not give into their demands, even if their bargaining becomes violent.

Which is exactly what will happen on the third day.

The third day, which happens to be today, is the worst. The muscles are now a raging inferno, a runaway train of fury and molten steel. Going up stairs is not nearly as hard as going down them. You equate to Frankenstein’s Monster, with dead tissue brought back to life and forced to obey a mind with a will toward motion. You have some sense of what one day on the Bataan Death March may have felt like.

Except with out all that pesky hunger, dehydration, heat exhaustion and beatings with rifle-butts.

So today is the third day, and the third day is always the worst. Your body reflect that you chance of ever even showing up to watch the Olympics ended while Ronald Reagan was still in office. You’ve been kidding yourself that you can even walk competitively, much less run. Pain increases by orders of magnitude the older you get, which I should know by now. You either run, or you don’t run. But you don’t run then stop for three years then pick it up again.

There should be a law.

Yet, running is my addiction. It’s like cocaine, except there’s no illegality to it, and the side effects don’t include emaciation, impotence and death. Glucosamine may not be the cure for the common cold, and I still feel a little discomfort in my knees, but I can get up on the treadmill, which is much more forgiving to knees than pounding the pavement, and I can clean a couple of miles on my lunch break.

Because

2006-10-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

Age equates erroneously in most people's minds with maturity, experience and, ultimately, equality.

To wit, we do not give children under a certain age the right to sit behind a two-ton death ram with impunity. We force onerous premiums for insurance on their parents, and if the parents are smart, pass that inconvenience on to them. We give them double and triple points on their licenses when they do wrong, and jerk those laminated freedom-passes the moment they cross the line once too often. We scare them with films like “The Blood on the Bricks Flows Red” and "He Smoked, He Drank, He Beheaded His Girlfriend."

Or, at least, we should.

We do not trust them, because they are not old enough.

Once they turn 18, they can die for their country. At 19 they can pollute their lungs and risk tongue, lip and cheek cancer with tobacco products. At 21 they can pickle their livers with alcohol and be jailed for bedding their high school girlfriends.

But until they’re 25, they can not rent a car.

They can’t even attempt to run the country, as they certainly know what’s best, until they turn 35, by which time we’ve safely, carefully, precisely enchanted them to the “way things are” and franchised them to “how they will always be.”

Because they are not yet old enough.

Apparently, on certain anniversaries of the day we came screaming, yelling and crying our way into this world, a hormonal-chemical-biological change occurs, and our maturity level increases above that from the previous day. This is readily apparent in parents who, at little league games, never resort to violence. Soccer-moms who refrain from punching the coach when the game appeared to be too physical.

Clearly, an Intelligent Design.

But what does this have to do with me and mine? Allow me to illucidate:

So it was that Lil (31) and I (33) celebrated out third wedding anniversary (leather) out of town in the wonderful tourist trap land of Big Bear Lake, California.

After a night of PG-13 rated action in which we both enjoyed about five minutes of television, and then become incredibly annoyed by all the advertisements, we awoke and went in search of vittles. The first destination choice was an IHOP, for which I have never turned a thumb up or down. However, because Lil’s flights of fancy when it comes to food generally depend on whatever fills her vision at that moment, we ended up at a Denny’s.

Or, perhaps, it was a Dee’s.

I can never remember which is which, except that one serves chili on food and the other doesn’t.

I always manage to end up in the one that doesn’t, and kick myself for not remembering because, along with movies and decent sushi, I also love chili.

Chili and cheese.

Chili and cheese with onions.

Chili-cheese burgers.

Chili-cheese omelets.

Chili-cheese dogs.

Chili and rice.

Chili and rice and hotdogs in an omlete.

Chili is what the gods of Olympia had wanted when they had to settle for ambrosia. Chili is what the Israelites were after when they were stuck with simple manna from heaven.

Is there anything chili can't do?

Chili is proof that there is a God, that He does love us and He wants us to be happy.

On this particular chilly and pun-intended morning, as I entered the non-chili-vending Denny’s (may they burn in the Hell of the Upside Down Sinner), we waited patiently, slightly longer than I would normally wait, but this was our anniversary celebration, so I was also slightly more than usually happy with life, the world and everything. Even Keanu Reeves seemed slightly less annoying as he joined us at the “Please Wait” counter, with a thumbs-up and a “Whoa” for greeting. I ignored him, as usual, but without my standard air of embarassed chagrin.

Finally, this older lady finally came to take us to our table by first saying, "C'mon kids."

Kids.

Not, youngins.

Not children.

Not thirty-somethings.

Kids.

Since she had us by at least twenty years (it's apparently not polite to ask, as my ice-water covered head will note) and clearly equated herself above us, regardless of our net household average income, because of her age in comparison with ours. When we were born, she was already saving for a mortgage, a car payment, or perhaps a Victrola phonograph. Clearly, she had, years before, reviewed the marketplace and found the food-service industry to be the one with the most potential for growth. I would wager it still has the most potential, and it will remain so in the years, decades and centuries to come.

I’m going to put it down to the fact that my wife still looks twenty.

Because she does.

Temper, Temper

2006-10-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hi.

My name is RobRoy McCandless, and I have a temper.

I’m proud to say that it’s been . . . ummm, let’s see . . . thirty-six hours since I last had an extreme outburst of anger, and that was totally and completely justified because the guy was trying to ram me in his mini-van filled with old people.

Seriously.

But this morning, I am proud to say, that although the opportunity presented itself, I remained calm, cool and collected under extreme pressure.

“You don’t need to go touching people!”

I looked up from my book, and over at Kathy, who is part of my train family. The lady behind us had just yelled. I generally attempt to reject my more base instincts to rubberneck, but the lady (and I use the term very, very loosely) behind us had not only raised her voice, she was yelling, loudly and with a full furor or righteous vigor.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to let you know . . .”

“Well, you don’t need to go touching people!”

"I'm really sorry . . ."

"I don't give a good goddamn what you are or aren't, you shouldn't be touching my personal person or anyone else with your grubby, insensitive . . ."

It went on like this for some time.

The woman would not be placated, not by admissions of guilt, fervent and heart-felt apologies, or mustard gas.

What?

It’s for medicinal purposes.

My morning commute reading had been interrupted, and clearly this tirade wasn’t going to end any time soon. Since it seemed like so much fun, I decided to join in. Perhaps this is some new game the peasant people play on the train? I was willing to join in the fun and festivities.

“Ma’am,” I said, and should have regretted it when she turned her fiery fury upon me, “maybe you should calm down.”

No, really, that’s what I said. That was all I said. Her response evoked some impressive and colorful uses of language. A couple of the truck drivers in the car blushed. Flames erupted from her eyes and singed the seat covers.

I smiled.

“Ma’am, you really need to sit down. If you still have a problem, we can call the conductor and he can help you out, but please, you should sit down.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“No one, but you should sit down.”

“That’s right! YOU ARE NO ONE! DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN WHEN SOMEONE PUTS THEIR HANDS ON ME!”

“And she apologized for it, so please, you should sit down.”

“WHO MADE YOU HER ATTORNEY?”

Again, I smiled, and this time, interestingly enough, I could see her doubt the position of righteous indignation.

“Please, ma’am, it's time to sit down.”

It was then that a SWAT team broke through one of the windows, piled on top of the woman and wrested control of the bomb from her.

Well, that’s what would have happened if we’d been in L.A.

But this was the Orange County line, and we just don’t do things like that.

Instead, as something of a letdown, the woman just fumed, sat down, and muttered under her breath for the remainder of the ride.

I didn’t stand up, I didn’t get angry, and I didn’t lose my temper.

Perhaps I’m growing?

Good for more than Porn

2006-09-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to report that after years of hard, dedicated and deliberate research, my theory that the internet is good for more than bitching about movies, writing your own boring autobiography, and exchanging porn has been proven true.

What prompted this breakthrough?

Nothing short of pure, utter and deliberate genuis.

Ladies and gentlement, I give you How Star Wars: A New Hope Should Have Ended.

My work here is done.

Commonwealth of Euphoria

2006-09-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

Recently (in 2004) I had the opportunity to read the following posting on SF-FANDOM.com:

does ne 1 else wanna b an actress/actor so badley??? i do!! n big actors like jhonny depp n orlando bloom r such an inspiration!!! but i dno weatha i can make it bein an actress coz i live no where near an actin skool!! so if ne 1 rly thinks dis is interestin *** write bk! i wanna b ur m8s!!!!!!

l8rs xxx

Many forum members had a tough time figuring out exactly what this young, and clearly excitable, lady was trying to communicate to the other forum members. The importance of her notice was heightened by the use of multiple question-marks which denote magnitudes of confusion (in this case to the third power) and no less than six exclamation points at the end of her statement. If we all pull out our slide-rules, we can note that she is eighteen times more excited than a cocker-spaniel puppy seeing her master.

Metaphorically speaking, that’s a wave of puppy-pee.

How she ever managed to finish and hit the ‘post’ button without falling into a euphoric coma requiring permanent hospitalization is only a testament to her personal will power.

I, however, applaud her well thought out, and well articulated contentions. She had to have spent hours and hours purposefully mangling and destroying the English language just to be able to, at a whim, draft such a spectacularly chaotic set of statements requiring more, not less, time for the casual reader to decode. The dedication to corrupting her native language to the point that other native speakers cannot and will not be able to understand her denies the blasphemous rumors that this latest generation is filled with slackers and lazy wannabes.

Indeed, even as I draft this, I am simultaneously preparing to send my boss the following memorandum:

Hey boss!!! How R U 2day? Ima gr8! ‘Da rprts U wntd R bein dun, and any1 dat wnts dem can get dem!!! Der rly, rly coo1!!!!!!!!!!!!! K, i gots ta go now. B coo. L8R!!!!!!!!!!!

I expect that my dedication to this same cause will result in a dramatic shift in my employment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For Whom Does the Bell Toll?

2006-08-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday night I had a rather strange dream about Justice. Lil and I, along with a few other foster parents, were taken to a kind of children's resort for foster kids. As we were walking in, we observed a young girl on horse back navigating her way up a steep incline. My thought was, "Wow, she's an excellent equestrian. They must have a great program here."

Apparently, even in my dreams, I try to impress myself with use of obscure and overly big words.

The house itself was more like a modern ski lodge. It was set on the side of the mountain and had a commanding view of the valley below it. Partially, it was set on stilts so that every level had windows that opened outward. The yard was immaculate and impressive, but the inside was somewhat cluttered. It appeared to be like a home where the daytime child-care parent (mother or father, how's that for PC from the 90s?) was just too tired to pick up after the rampage of toddlers and pre-kindergarten children.

That's not to say that the place wasn't clean, just untidy as any house can get with the addition of a child of any age. The matron of the house, which is the only word I can think of that describes her, was an older lady with a pressence of authority and capability. She clearly knew what she was about and how to go about it.

After a quick tour, which showed cubicles for all of the children where they could keep toys and whatnot, she said, "Alright, you just leave Justice here. She'll be well taken care of."

Initially, I was a little taken aback. But then a calm came over me, and I knew that everything would be alright.

I have no idea if the looming of the 16th is impacting me or not. I might just be preparing myself mentally to let go of Justice. I know that Lil is going through a tough time as well. We're balanced between making a life with this child, and getting ready to cut ourselves out of her day-to-day life.

The disonnance is palpable.

Stop The Flood Now!

2006-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

The rising costs of gas.

The increase in inflation.

Exorbitant housing prices and housing shortages.

Aliens that are flooding our borders are obviously to blame. We know there are 12 million of them, and yet the government does nothing!

I don’t understand why people don’t see the truth of this matter. For decades that we’re aware of, perhaps even centuries, aliens have been landing their spaceships covertly, taking over all the good custodial and fast-food service jobs, mutilating our cattle and abducting upstanding, God-fearing militia members.

I spoke about this matter to my God-fearing, Christian-friendly, and Earth-loving friend Eric today. His idea is to get the TSA involved on the ground level. We know that FEMA can’t handle this crisis, since control of that organization is clearly under alien-sway. But the TSA, who operate independent of any regulatory body as shown by their ability to hassle, harass, profile anyone and everyone reflects their free-from-fear capability. Only via an organization that has no concerns about stealing from people’s luggage can we once again find safety within our terrestrial borders!

Imma Peppa'

2006-06-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

I get headaches from time to time.

Massive, Earth-shattering, eye ball-popping, teeth grinding, hot-poker-through-the-temples headaches. Headaches that make a fifteen week-bender on nothing grain alcohol and black tar heroine followed by rehab where your family visits and tells you that sober and clean, you’re just not as funny as you used to be, so you throw yourself in front of a Mack truck, only to be flipped over into road construction where a steam roller smashes you into part of the new pavement of I-91 look like a ride in Mickey’s Toontown compared to my headaches.

Those headaches are nothing compared to my migraines.

Dresden after the bombing, raised by an order of magnitude.

My mother states that I’ve actually had headaches my entire life. Even as a I child I would come to her, concerned over the current status of shipping safety, or some issue of world deforestation and the loss of potential life-saving drugs being hidden away from the pharmaceutical conspiracy.

Headache inducing fodder even for the most capricious 3 year-old.

Today, I come fully loaded. I have a whole drawer of medication. I can sing, not name, but sing the four major types of over-the-counter pain-relievers by their chemical names to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”:

Acetaminophen, ibuprofen
Naproxen sodium,
And acetylsalicylic acid
Will make me pain free.

See, just like Emily Dickinson!

I even maintain a small supply of hydrocodone both at the office and at the house, just in case a real five alarm headache hits me. I understand that I can get five bucks a pill on the open market . . . but that’s illegal and I would never condone the selling of prescription medication for a profit.

Black tar heroine, on the other hand, has no medicinal value whatsoever, and so my sale of that fits well with my morale code.

I have to admit, though, that I’m not a big fan of pills. I’ve never wanted to be tied to a medication, and since God has a sense of humor, he gave me Crohn’s disease with a nice attachment to all kinds of fun medications. So I attempt, most of the time, to throw off the shackles of my headaches through other means. On most mornings, Fall, Winter and Spring, I will have a nice relaxing cup of peppermint herbal tea. Yeah, yeah, it sounds poncy, but a day without a headache is like a day hitting the lotto, not, yah know, the multi-million lotto, but a few extra hundred dollars lotto. So if some poncy herbal tea will help keep that at bay, then I’ll live with being called a poncy.

I’ll even live with being called a pommy git, although I’m not certain what that means.

It’s not meant kindly though, I know that.

When the tea fails, and I can feel something of a pain coming on, before I have to bust out the pharmaceuticals, I attempt to use caffeine. And not just any caffeine, but the pure, artistic and luxurious caffeine that can only be found in Dr Pepper. Yes, that’s spelled right, there is no period in the Dr’s name.

Today, however, marked a black day in the history books. Dr Pepper, not to be confused with Mr. Pibb, Pibb Xtra, Dr. Thunder, or Dr. Smooth, is actually hard to come by in most vending machines and fast food restaurants. I can understand this, since the caramel-colored drink of the gods would rightly be well and truly sought after, rendering it a precious American commodity like platinum or good sense. But at my office building, they generally stock more Dr Pepper and Diet Dr Pepper than any other soft drink in the building. Rows and rows of gloriously chilled perfection sit and await the music of quarters, nickels and dimes that precede a purchase. As I trundled up to acquire my confection of joy and happiness, I was stunned to see that all five rows where normally nestled the goodness that is the good Dr were vacant.

Vacant. Absent. Missing in action. AWOL.

I screamed a cry that could be heard around the world like that of Captain Kirk from deep inside the Regula planetoid.

How could this be? Have they no mercy? Have they no shame!?

I immediately went to the internet to see if some tragedy had befallen the good people of Plano, Texas where Dr Pepper originated and is lovingly bottled by folk who know what a soft drink should taste like. After much confusion, I was finally transferred to the National Security Agency, who, understanding the concerns I was raising, asked me to terminate the connection so they could get FEMA properly mobilized.

"Sir, this line is for emergencies only."
"I understand your concerns."
"Sir, it's a Federal offense to call in a false national emergency."
"As well it should be. Otherwise I would never have gottent through! So how soon will Plano be safe? Are you sending the big planes in? What about sandbags, have you thought about those? And guards for the factory? We don't want any looting!"

In the meantime, I've been escorted to a waiting area where I'm being kept safe behind thick concrete and steel bars from over-zelous reporters eager to question me about my quick thinking and lightening reflexes under such a stressful situation. Due to this tragic turn of events, I’ve been reduced to drinking . . . Pepsi. I can hardly make my hand lift the cup that holds the black vileness passed off as a drink.

Misery, thy name is an empty Dr Pepper.

But as I sit, being kept company by a large and heavily tatooed body guard named Bubba who has given me the manly nickname, "Whitebread beyotch," as a sign of appreciation, I am content to know that I have done my bit to preserve the American way.

Toyota Ain't Kosha' - Part 2

2006-06-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

Page 2.

Since we ended with a Paul Harvey-esque quote last week, I thought it only apropos that we open with one this week. Then, the circle will be complete. When I left you last week, I was but the learner.

Now I am the master.

But my master-hood pales like a 60’s Native American movie-extra, and one of the poorly paid movie-extras at that, next to the horrors that I have witnessed at the marketing hands of Toyota.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Toyota, and who can blame you, they were a small upstart Japanese car manufacturer. In the 70s and the 80s their smaller, more fuel-efficient, economical and longer-lasting cars were viewed as a minor threat by the Big Three in Detroit. But Americans, sensing that if they didn’t act in chorus would have most of their industry shifted off shore which would prompt a growing trade-deficit with other counties and a reliance on foriegn oil that might necessitate military intervention in the Middle East to protect our economic interests, banded together, and bought only products Made in the U.S.A. Fortunately, all those worries were for naught, and peace in the Middle East has reigned supreme.

Today, it’s hard to find a label or stamp that isn’t domestically produced.

But Toyota, with pluck and moxy that would impress even Charlton Heston, has launched a new add campaign. The question I have, though, is exactly what are they trying to say. For example, a few weeks ago, I was at my parents house and was able to actually watch cable television. One of the commercials I saw was this one from Toyota.

Now, I’ve been in marketing in one fashion or another for the past ten years. As I watched the aforementioned commercial, I was certain I knew what would occur. The hapless and helpless, clearly innocent of any wrong-doing piggy bank would triumph over the Toyota car, much as American altruism triumphed over foreign market self-interest pushes so many decades ago. The tag-line, when all was said and done, would read: “Toyota: Won’t break the piggy bank.”

But no!

Imagine my horror as the nearly defeated cabalistic cretin of a car (alliteration rules!) pulls out at miniature hammer!

As we all know, miniature hammers have been the bane of ungulates down through the ages. Many a bitter war has been fought, with the loss of life amongst Sus scrofa domesticus and Malleus sapien.

Oh, the foolishness.

And so I screamed at my parents’ television much the same way that Anakin Skywalker screamed upon learning that all the script-writing budget went for CGI, and Keanu Reeves would be writing dialogue as a favor to Lucas. You can see his reaction caught on film at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

No, seriously. That's all Reeves, baby.

But, as so often is the case with my articles, I digress.

Within Totyota's commercial, not only does the inevitable happen, and sweet, innocent life is lost once more as the piggy banks falls before its fatal foe (mmmm, more alliteration) but the tagline made no sense whatsoever.

And so I must call upon loyal, patriotic, God-fearing and George W. Bush supporting Americans everywhere to stop the madness. Stop the horror. Stop Toyota.

Toyota ain’t Kosha will become our battle-cry.

Toyota Ain't Kosha' - Part 1

2006-06-08T10:28:00.001-07:00

The other day a guy came to my door at about 7:30 in the evening. I had just finished prayers with Justice, and tucked her into bed, whereupon she extolled my virtues as her surrogate father and promised that any fame and fortune that ever came her way, she would see to it that I took the largest part.

Unlike my parents, I now know that my future as a retiree and convalescent octogenarian is now secure.

But I digress.

The gentleman at my door was a complete stranger. This is hardly news, since I maintain a strict isolationist policy when it comes to my neighbors. This way, they will never bother to ask me to borrow a cup of milk, sugar or an egg. That last time I let a neighbor borrow something, I never saw my pet Cairn Terrier again.

So the fact that someone had actually penetrated the laser security system, traversed the mine field and survived the anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery trained along all entrances to my abode was indeed impressive.

“Good evening sir,” the chipper young man said as he brushed dirt and debris from his singed uniform. I could still make out his name scrawled on the uniform’s nametag as ‘Joe”. “We were just setting up some of your neighbors with DirectTV (all rights reserved, not available in all areas, call for an authorized dealer to harass you for the next two years) Satellite television and they were telling us how high their cable rates are around here. I was wondering if you would be interested in lower your own price for high quality television?”

I was impressed.

Not only had this young man, Joe, been assisting my neighbors with his Can-Do attitude, golden locks of lightly curled hair, jaw line that you could crack walnuts on and humble sense of civic duty, but here he had heard the moaning of my fellow citizens about the cut-throat cable industry and their onerous usage charges, and had taken it upon himself to afford me the opportunity to partake of his benevolence and that of his company with clearly no benefit to himself or any stockholders.

I felt good. I felt joyous.

“I’m sorry. We don’t have cable.”

“You don’t have cable?” Joe asked, clearly shocked and appalled. “How do you watch television then?”

“We don’t watch television,” I replied. I felt a little guilty. Here Joe was trying to save me some of my hard-earned money, and I had stolen his thunder. It was like he had offered me a hand into the last emergency boat aboard the Titanic, and I had taken his hand, then plunged a large and atypically brutal looking knife into his back while cackling evil at his naiveté.

“You don’t own a TV set?” Joe asked. He had gone ghostly pale, and looked faint.

Here, I rallied to save poor Joe from the shock and awe I had just laid on him, “No. We own two. We just don’t have cable.”

“An antenna then?” Joe asked, his eyes pleading to make it so.

I tried to lie. Honest I did. But those pleading cocker spaniel-eyes had torn away every last shred of duplicity and obfuscation.

“No, no antenna,” I said, the truth falling from my lips as if someone else was saying the words.

“Oh,” Joe replied. “Well then . . .”

An uneasy silence fell upon both of us. Joe looked at his clipboard, as if to be certain that this was still the United States of America, and I looked at Joe, wondering if was about to run screaming straight back into the slings and arrows of the mine field, and by so doing, end it all.

Then, a light, as if heaven itself has opened a single ray of hope down on Joe’s immaculately conceived head.

“You just watch movies, right?”

I smiled both inwardly and outwardly, feeling my deceptive nature returning like a comfortable pair of combat boots.

“Yes, that’s right. Just movies.”

Joe smiled, as if all was right again with the world, and his place in that world was completely secure. He nodded to me, knowingly, and I nodded back, not willing to destroy the last bastion of Joe’s rose-tinted world. I flipped the switch that disabled most of the surveillance and anti-personnel equipment, and bid Joe a good night. He skipped off the porch, and since no one has come to claim the body, I assume he made it safely out.

Now, what does this have to do with the car manufacturer Toyota or how it isn’t kosher? Well, for that, you’ll have to come back tomorrow . . . or the next day. Perhaps next week when I, like Paul Harvey, can tell you . . . The Rest of the Story.

Good day.

And Here's Why I Believe in Horoscopes

2006-06-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

I am a Leo. (Also known as "Lion")

My Horroscope starts like this:
" From the early age, Leos are inclined towards drunkennes and extortion. When it comes to anything else, they show a remarkable degree of laziness. As a child, a Leo will typically demand a lot of money from parents, then from friends and even casual aquaintances.

His overly developed pride and narcissism can ruin the life of anyone who he has come into even passing contact with, while his gluttony is capable of bankrupting even the deepest set of pockets. Amazingly, even though Leos eat a lot and without stop, they never gain any weight.

They like to have the world revolve around them, which is why they strive to be the best at anything they do. If they are not successful at this, they will languish and lose weight.

A Leo's dominant character traits are usually an unshakable delusion of grandure and an elevated feeling of self-importance.

Find yours

We're Walking, We're Walking

2006-05-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

From time to time, say between 8 am and 5 pm, I like to surf through other people’s blogs and see if there’s anything worthwhile. You’d be surprised the number of gems that I’ve managed to turn up! Here’s a rundown of just a few diamonds in the rough that I’d like to share with you.

First, let’s all take a trip down blogger lane with theperfectpunk101. This characteristic pink and pink site with pink highlights showcases the very best of “punk” poetry (especially if you’re into pink):

sometimes i feel i just want to be wanted
like i thirst for the attention
but i don't even know why
then other times
i don't want to be bothered
it's not that i'm depressive
i think i'm a lot of fun

If it’s not the punctuation that gets you, it’s the way the lines meld together to touch you. The Smith's "Girlfriend in a Coma" has nothing on this site! She doesn't touch your heart, certainly. Nor, would I say, your mind. But there’s something there. It’s like perfectpunk (who, let's face it, is perfect and modest; two qualities every good punk should have) is trying to speak to me, directly to me. She’s just dialing with her angst.

Pink angst.

Now, moving through our tour, I came across another sapphire in the sea of blue funk: indians problems for white people

One post and one post only is necessary for this blog: “hi we have had to deal with dirty lazy indians who wont work my taxes pay for them to stay home. So tired of seeing the police afraid of these crazy people”

Clearly, marysue has all the integrity of Clarence Darrow, all the eloquence of a young Henry David Thoreau, and all the compassion of an energetic Martin Luther King, Jr. The next time I see a "dirty lazy indian" I certainly won't be afraid.

You shouldn't either.

Unless you're not white, in which case you'd best get to being dirty and lazy as soon as possible!

I'll save that lauravieirafotos. There are no words, but the pictures say it all!

Be annoyed. Be very annoyed.

Of course, after you've gone through your pink angst, your indian problems you probably want to relax! Well, if you live in London then bellyjustrelax is for you.

C'mon now, she has four years of experience!

Looking for an outsider’s view of the United States? Try One Hundred Years Of Solitude:

“BUT, I've been in Italy for a while and I've noticed that something bizarre happens when you step beyond the borders of the US (and its puppet-government in the UK): you (occasionally) get news that hasnt been filtered by goverment-backed scare mongering in media outlets. How many times must we hear on CNN that a carbomb killed 20-30 or more Iraqi workers in Baghdad while they waited to be picked up to go to work? And yet why is it never reported where it was they were working? Slave labour for the vile Halliburton or some other nefarious US corporation exploiting the disintegrating situation there? Attacks like this are always described and couched in the most neutral language possible, but I assure you these attacks are anything but neutrally motivated... but you'll never know otherwise. Big Brother just isnt a wretched TV show - it's evolving into a way of life in your country.”

Didn't we see this guy in a movie?

And here I had doubts.

If you’re like me, and wondering who those 30% . . . sorry, 29% . . . sorry 28% still approving Bush's efforts are, let me refer you to: Macsmind - News, Conservative Commentary and Common Sense

“While not always agreeing on everything [George Bush] presents, one think I admire about him is that he does stand behind what he presents and believes passionately in what he is doing and believes it to be in the best interests of the country.

That's called "Character".”

Actually, character is the combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one person, group, or thing from another. "Believ[ing] passionately" in what you’re doing and that it’s “in the best interests” of everyone involved is called fanaticism. But since Mac told us that his blog was about common sense, then I suppose he's right. "These are the times that try men's souls."

Finally, but certainly not the least in our tour of bloggers, their blogs and blogging gems throughout the works, is Siolis: Vanguard:

“If you stumbled across this page, I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time. Ill just take my sheep and go…”

But if you’re here, and we’re here, isn’t it really our sheep? Our pink sheep?

Rubber Pants in Our Size

2006-05-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

In my youth, World Domination as an Evil Overlord was on my “Things To Do” list.

It’s still there, but it’s slipped down past the century marks, right next to “Run for Pope” and “Teach our Nation’s Children to Read.”

That’s right, I do dream the impossible dream.

I also think I would look smashing in a papal miter.

But that’s just for the chicks. Chicks dig a guy in stole and vestments!

Things inside my head function on a different plane of reality. That’s not to say a higher plane, but it’s also not to say a lower plane or a plain plane. It’s more to the side, or slightly angled. Like a fine Scottish rain.

For example, I have found that when I’m walking, Darth Vader’s Theme Song plays in my head. This could potentially be a throwback to my goal of world domination, but it might just as well be that the cadence of the song matches my normal gait. I don’t generally wear a lot of black, and I haven’t owned a cape since I was in high school . . . I mean college . . . I mean.

D’oh.

The point being, that I don’t really see myself as an asthmatic with a penchant for asphyxiating my victims while talking in a normal, clear and menacing voice. Although, the ability to Force Choke someone, while I’m on a conference call does have its appeal.

Coworker: Ok, so let’s move on to point 3, subpoint A. As you can all see . . .
Me: Boy this is boring.
Coworker: . . . and we need to all be familiar with, achhh, . . . eepp . . .
Me: And that’s lunch!

But aside from phenomenal cosmic powers, there are certain drawbacks to being an Evil Overlord. You have to have a lair and all the best volcanoes are already taken. You have to have a goodie-two-shoes nemesis, who is not only stronger, faster and smarter than you, but also better looking. Theme music and cool costumes aside, there isn’t much else that Evil Overlords have going for them in this section. You also need not one, and not two, but fifteen or twenty diabolical schemes for national, international, global, or universal domination. And if you get picked up for a third season, you’re just doomed to rehash some of those previous plans with typical outcomes.

Of course, I have learned some things over the years about being an Evil Overlord from watching the trials and tribulations of other attempted and established Evil Overlords. For instance:

All of my ventilation shafts will be too small to crawl through.
When my nemesis, captured and completely within my power, asks me, “Since I’m going to die anyway, why not reveal your plan?” I’ll shoot him, in the head, then say, “No thanks.”

I will also never challenge said rival to any form of one-on-one combat. My Army of the Undead will simply fill his body with bullets, change clips and repeat.

I will always have triple-redundancy in my systems, and no single switch will be able to shut down my computer program, death machine, or cosmic ray-gun. Alternately, I will have copies of all spells and incantations

Upon hearing of the downfall of my throne via prophecy, I will never seek out the reckless youth, burn his village and slay his people. Nor will I send death squads out to try to stop his onward march toward my capital city. I will simply abdicate the throne and move my operation, army, bank accounts, weaponry, etc., to a neighboring country.

Then I’ll nuke him on coronation day, and march my Army of the Undead through the streets.

Finally, if my plan for world domination fails due to a clever combination of skills, unlikely alliances, unforeseen forces and most of all luck, I’LL JUST TRY THE PLAN AGAIN. Annoyingly repetitive for the viewers at home, but Edison didn’t build his lightbulb on the first try either. World domination takes dedication to the cause. If you’re just going to say, “Oh well, let’s move on to a new and even more intricate plan with an even higher probability of failure,” then why are you in the game at all? Move over, Bucky, there's a new Evil Overlord in town!

Here are more helpful hints on how to become an Evil Overlord. My own were inspired by this list . . . except for the Darth Vader Theme Song thing. That's all Rob, baby!

A Lighthouse for Your Soul

2006-04-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I receive emails asking questions about history, culture and life in general. Recently, I receive the following:

“What’s the point of lighthouses in our modern world? Are they just to give photographers something to point their cameras at, or do they still serve a purpose?”

In order to understand this, we need to go back to ancient times: the 1950s.

In the 1950s, man had a dream.

Women didn’t have the dream because men felt that women were only good for cleaning out the cave and caring for the children. We now know that those men were “chauvinists” and “sexists” and “pigs”. In their minds the only thing worse than a male chauvinist pig was a broad who doesn’t do what she’s told.

But at the time they were all we had, having killed off any feminist males, and so they had a dream.

Their dream started simple: to walk across the vast sea.

You see, if they couldn’t walk across it, then they had to walk around, which took a lot of time, and they had to stop for bathroom breaks. Bathrooms weren’t invented yet, and so you can imagine how hard traveling was in the 1950s era station wagon with ancient men holding it until the invention was created.

This is why the average male life expectancy was around 25 years.

Seriously, you try to hold it for twenty years while someone figures out how to build a flush toilet!

But I digress.

1950s man’s dream, which remains the male dream still today, was to shatter last year’s record travel time for the journey to the in-laws during the holiday season. Walking on water would make the dream a reality. Unfortunately, early experiments resulted in a confirmation that the density of water to male foot ratio only resulted in soaked loincloths. An uncomfortable sensation, especially during the monsoon season.

Then one day, likely while drowning witches (from Webster’s II, witch: n. an uppity woman who fails to clean and should be drowned), he realized that certain things would float. Wood and sheep’s bladders were especially good at this, but also getting really drunk and being hit on the head by another man also worked. Of course, it’s hard to navigate when drunk and hit on the head, so this mode of travel was quickly abandoned.

Instead, men found that they could fashion crafts, which they would call bobs, since that’s exactly what it would do when it was placed in the water. The Anglo-Saxon corruption of the word ‘bob’, was first written down by in Ye Very Olde Englysh by Venerable Bede around 1951:

To the most glorious King Ceolwulph, Bede, the servant of Christ and Priest
Of the situation of Britain and Ireland, and of their ancient inhabitants
Caius Julius Caesar, the first Roman that came into Britain
The invention and creation of the first wondrous and wooden Boebbs . . .
(Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum)

The only problem with these bobs (or boats for you land-lubbing cretins) was that in the dark, near rocky shores or dangerous shoals they would suddenly and mysteriously, lose their ability to float and disappear. Pirates also lodged complaints that they couldn’t stay close to land in their pursuit of treasure-laden booty at night. No one was certain how or why this was happening. This was especially prevalent in the city of Alexandria, Virgiana, where they built one of the Six Wonders of the World (the Seventh Wonder, a giant cigarette at Marlboro, Virginia, having been smoked): Pharos of Alexandria.

This made clear to all the vessels as they came closer to land that they were about to dash themselves against rocks, coral reefs, other ships, or whales (blubberous maximus). Bobbers, or sailors as they’re now erroneously called, knew exactly when to scream their last as they plunged against sharp and unforgiving terra firm.

And so, dear reader, you can see that even today, the lighthouses that once illuminated the deaths of thousands of innocent, pious and charity-driven men is still as important today as it was fifty years ago.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

2006-04-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

There’s a cancer among us.

An evil not seen since the Fall of Lucifer, or perhaps the birth of Keanu Reeves.

Evil, I tell you, most foul and unnatural.

It is called: the forwarded email.

Long, long ago, annoying snippets of useless wisdom and semi-humorous anecdotes were the bastion of the family reunion, the wedding reception, and Bob Saget. There, they safely dwelt, at times railing against the confines of their imprisonment, bashing slavering mandibles against cold steel bars, but mostly content to remain, sulking in the dark and feeding off skateboarders who strayed too near.

But no more.

With the advent of the internet and email for the masses, now the ability to annoy hundreds if not thousands is no longer the exclusive realm of Pat Buchanan. Aspiring jokesters, urban legend creators, and wannabe inspirational speakers can spread their vile mutterings with a few key strokes and the click of a mouse. There is no insidious genius behind this mad plot, other than the well-wishers, “close” friends and dear relatives who think it their duty to try to bring a little cheer or provide a little down-home wisdom to their address book.

It is fascinating to note that these same individuals, who will send en masse a slew of no less than a baker’s dozen of forty-two-times-forwarded emails, can’t seem to take the time, effort or bother to let you know how they and their family are doing, or inquire about your health and the well-being of your loved ones. While they seem capable of using email, they apparently can do nothing more than read their own mail, and then forward it to you, with little or no consideration as to whether the forty-two emails they’re sending might not stuff your in-box, and cause the emails that really matter to bounce back like so many unwanted copies of Eregon.

Like how to get a larger penis in just six days, hot and horny women in your area, and nutritional supplements at rock-bottom prices.

After all, if you do improve your penis length, you’re going to want to take it out for a test spin, and what better way to stave off the near-certain infections from said partners then a healthy dose of vitamins and miracle-cure shark cartilage.

But bigger versus better arguments aside (for the record: size does matter; anyone who tells you differently is savings your feelings), the evil that is the forwarded email is one that the Vatican is now considering amending their list of Seven Mortal Sins for, and placing it right between murder and voting Republican.

A more deserving action I can’t think of.

Consider, for a moment, the emails that suggest the way in which you currently live your life, as compared to someone with infinitely higher hurdles such as having their arms, legs, torso and most of their head amputated, and how your current attitude should somehow be adjusted so that your world-view will be witty and pretty and gay. No offense, but this didn’t exactly work for the British and the French when Hitler was expressing his need for additional elbow room. Rose colored glasses didn’t stop Panzers at the border, and they’re not going make your mortgage, your bills, or that bulge around your waist go away either.

On the other hand, slightly less useful, are the forwarded-to-the-nth-degree emails which provide some kind of useless, blathering, heart-n-flowers dross of a poem stating the “true” definition of friendship, love, and/or family, and then blithely advising you that you (and the five-hundred-forty-two other recipients in said sender’s address book) are part of the sender’s general circle of love, life and well-being. Never mind the fact that a simple, “Hi. How’re things? I miss you!” would at least have a personalized touch, without relying on the recycled ramblings of some half-wit who was moved by an urban legend involving two wide-eyed Dickens-type orphans in search of ballet shoes for their dying mother that’s been floating around since the Reagan era.

My friends, the orphans are now on Wall Street, having cashed in their story to Reader’s Digest, and are living like kings while you sob at your outdated $2,042 computer screen.

Finally, we come to the most banal and yet the most evil of all the evil of forwarded emails yet brought in to date: the self test.

Most of these seemingly innocuous, yet devilishly clever tests, start out asking you who sent it, and finish up with a question that would put a Jewish mother to shame: Who is most likely to NOT respond to this email? We don’t fill these out to get to know our friends and relations better. If that were out goal we could use our cell phones on nights and weekends to . . . shock of shocks . . . talk to them personally and compare notes on favorite ice-creams and colors.

No.

We fill these out and forward them to illicit a response from those friends/acquaintances that we would most likely want to grab, shake furiously and yell, “IT’S AN EMAIL, DAMNIT. I TOOK THE TIME TO SEE HOW YOU WERE DOING. STOP BEING A STUPID-HEAD AND HIT ‘REPLY’ INSTEAD OF ‘FORWARD’! MY PENIS ADVERTISEMENTS AREN’T COMING THROUGH!”

My fellow Americans and Citizens of the World in general, stop the madness.

Stop all the pandering to the writers of these urban legends, half-truths, and heart-wrenching tear-jerkers who have you believing that by forwarding this email to forty-two people in the next twelve seconds you can earn a hundred-bazillion pounds of Nazi-Aztec-Nigerian gold; and that if you don’t forward it you will cursed by having your ears removed and replaced with two yapping Chihuahuas.

Because, and this comes from the bottom of my heart, the more often you forward these puerile excuses for wit and/or wisdom, the lower on my Christmas card list you go.

DST - I Hate . . . zzzzzz

2006-04-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s happened again.

Daylight Stupid Time.

This year we’ll be extending it.

Whoopie.

If anyone is awake enough to read this, congratulations. I’m sleep-writing.

Ursine Philosophy

2006-03-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

A while back, I was asked what my “personal philosophy” was. My initial reaction was to say, “Go to hell, you saprophyte Nazi swine!”

But my mom hates when I talk back to her like that, so I refrained.

The question, however, is valid.

In college, I maintained a philosophy consistent with Ayn Rand’s writing: the greatest good for the greatest me. This generally involved long hours of alcoholic and nicotine induced meditation, and watching utopian and dystopian documentaries along the lines of Tombstone (and eye for an eye), Mortal Kombat (an eye for an eye), The Crow (an eye for an eye) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (revenge is bad). At the time this seemed preeminently logical.

But logic, we know, is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

Other, more sanguine sources of deeper thought must be delved to arrive at a true basis for the living of life, and Forest Gump’s box of chocolates just won’t cut it, since the bum ate most of them before he even arrived at Jen-Nay’s doorstop.

Greedy bastard.

To that end, I have turned to the venerable sagacity of the three ultimate, though often over-looked, Ursine Philosophers: Winnie-the-Pooh, Smokey the Bear, and Baloo.

From Winnie-the-Pooh we learn that the simplest answer is often the right one. He's very Thoreau in his attitude, but without all the complex introspection and pedantic psycho-babble that is Thoreau: “Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known . . . Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” Socrates once stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and Pooh has certainly taken the old Greek’s thought to heart. When confronted by Rabbit, who kindly quips, “Pooh, you haven’t any brain,” Pooh immediately, but humbly, responds, “I know.” He states in many different places that he is a “Bear of no Brain at All.” Pooh has learned enough to know that even all his combined knowledge of hefflelumps and his beloved hunny amounts to very little in the great scheme of things. But in recognizing this, he also recognized a fundamental understanding that many of us can miss altogether. We may not be able to “know” much of anything, but we can certainly feel plenty; friendship and love being the foremost to the Silly Ole Bear, “If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.”

From Smokey the Bear we learn that if we want something done, then we must take the burden first upon ourselves, rather than shucking it to someone else. We also learn that being proactive is much, much better than being reactive. Finally, we learn that our actions can have vast reaching implications for others, so we must be cautious against carelessness. Smokey has never been a bear of many words. His mottos are simple, slogans, almost marketing jingles. And yet, the concept that, “Only you can prevent wildfires,” is as true today as it was in 1944. This can be cross-applied to many different aspects of our own lives, “Only you can prevent a seven-car pile up on the freeway by turning off the cell-phone, and using your damn blinker.” Rather than telling others what they should do, according to our own moral or socio-ethical models, we should turn within, and understand that we are responsible for our own independent destiny, but at the same time this world is what we choose to make of it. If we choose to drive really slow in the ultra-fast lane that has repercussions on everyone else. They are not necessarily forced to think evil, nasty and vile thoughts about us, our parents, and our sexual preferences, but the path is certainly much more brightly lit because of our choice.

Finally, from Baloo (not the Kipling creation, but the Disney derivative) we learn that happiness comes first from the basics:

Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities,
Are Mother Nature's recipes
That bring the bare necessities of life
Wherever I wander
Wherever I roam
I couldn't be fonder
Of my big home

Baloo teaches that when we look to the complex for our joys, we often overlook that which is more easily and more readily available. We also learn that life shouldn't be taken nearly as seriously as most of us take it. If we have a roof over our heads for those rainy days, food in our stomachs when we’re hungry, a car as a means to go where we will, and defeat the plans of Captain Kirk, well, so much the better.

So that it then, the Ursine Philosophers. Much more, I’m sure, can be dug from their simple musings and meanderings than I have laid down here for you; but this is the key to what makes these simple bears such excellent role-models.

New Math - Iraq, Terrorism, al-Qaeda and Computers

2006-03-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

An interesting bit of math occurred to me today during a discussion regarding Big Brother, the Orwellian name for a government who watche sand attempts to control actions and even thoughts.

By typing in any or all of the words in my tagline title into a search, or into an email, or into a discussion forum, or even a blog you might trigger a government computer to log it into the memory. But there's a problem with the paranoia regarding this. While I won't suggest that they're aren't such computers; there are, and they should be there. What I do suggest is that a simple search of this nature will likely not land you in Room 101.

Let me explain.

No, wait, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Worldwide there are over 1 billion internet users daily. I, personally, will run four or five searches each day, with any number of refinements or sub-searches just to find the information or item I'm looking for (usually jewelry for my wife). For the sake of simplicity, let's say that half the people on the internet are actively searching for something via a Google or similar search (I guess the other half are looking at porn/myspace or blogging).

So 500 million people logging in each day to use it for something other than blasting movies.

From that, let's say that they run, as I do, an average of 4 major searches each day (we'll reject any refinements or subsequent searches for the sake of brevity). That's about 20 billion-with-a-B searches. Now, my searches are generally for topics I'm writing about, or interests that I have. For instance, on Monday, I spent an hour searching for the second edition (I already own the original release) of The Crow graphic novels released by Tundra. I used words like "death", "tundra", "crow" "pain & fear" "irony & dispair", etc. These were parts of the titles of the graphic novels. However, some of these words are likely on so-called "watch lists". That's one out of four of my searches.

But again, for the sake of brevity, let's consider that our 500 million people who are not looking for Jenna Jameson, run their 20 billion daily searches and only hit some of these "watch list" words one time in 100.

One percent of the time, an individual hits one of those words on the watch list.

That's 200 million searches that are now logged away by some vast government computer.

Daily.

Now then, we have 200 million searches that may or may not have anything to do with terrorism, national security or, alternately, pornography (bang, explosion, and penetration being part of favorite search/site names all over).

Further consider, now, a computer program can probably sort through the majority of these and discard, let's say, 90 percent of the more mundane. Leaving a mere 20 million user searches.

Daily.

I'm not going to go into inter-agency or multi-national information sharing and whatnot to complicate things. Suffice to say say that we have 20 million daily searches that would like have to be gone through by a dedicated staff. Of our figure of 20 million, we could probably again say that 90 percent could be rejected out of hand, at a first glance, leaving a mere 2 million user searches that might need some follow up work done.

Now the FBI employs about 30,000 men and women, half of which are support personnel. If all 15,000 of these individuals were given the task of reviewing the 2 million user searches each day that required follow up, that would mean each employee of the FBI would have to review 133 searches each and every day.

Including weekends, and we know the government pays overtime.

Our poor FBI folk would have to review one search roughly every four minutes to get through their assigned 133. That means that the other 15,000 field agents, the ones who get to carry guns, would have absolutely no support, backup, paper-pushing, lab or forensic, or the guys ordering bullets for their guns being done while they're trying to do theirs.

It's one thing to pull a gun, it's another to fire and remember that the bullet order didn't quite get through because of all those pesky emails that Agent Clarice Starling is sorting back at HQ.

And that's without the fava beans and a nice chianti.

Now, I'm not saying that they, the various world governments, don't have computers looking for specific words and phrases. They do. They should. Terrorists and the like are bad people.

But something as mundane as looking up "terrorist explosions in Iraq related to al-Qaeda" will probably not trigger a red flag on your personal J. Edgar Hoover file. It would require daily and repeated searches along the same lines as a terrorist seaking a target, a means and/or like-minded individuals in order for you to start showing up in a database. Even then, the federal government generally frowns on tracking you without a warrant.

Goerge Orwell may be alive and well in 2006, but he has infinately less funding and requires infinately more precise techniques than 1984 would suggest. After all, sometimes Big Brother feels the need to go down the street and beat up some of the other kids who claim to be as tough, and spend $250 billion doing it.

And on that note, tell Mom and Dad that I want my $1,000 bucks back!

What's Up Doc?

2006-03-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that many of you are unaware that doctors are essentially big, fat liar-faces.

Liar-faces burn in Hell, you know.

Given the hundreds of thousands of emails that I've received on basic health and exercise question, I've put together the following FAQ of essential information that every educated American should know.

Q: Is running good for me?
A: Consider the marathon: 26.2 miles. The longest single-day running race based on the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier who ran from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon, and died shortly after.

In honor of this noble runner, marathons held the world over maintain oxygen tents and have medics standing by with a good supply of body bags.

Does that sound good to you?

Q: Can cardiovascular exercise extend my life?
A: Your heart has a warranty for only so many beats. After that, time is up and you have to cash in your chips and head for the exits. You may be helped out by friendly civil servants called coroners. Speeding up your heart is like driving your car faster and hoping it lasts longer.

Prolong entropy by taking a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: Five words: logistical efficiencies. Riddle me this: What does a cow eat? Hay, corn, and grasses; sometimes other cows. But essentially vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grains? Drink beer.

Beef, chicken and pork can easily give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Simple: If you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

In the event that you have no fat, then you don’t need to bother.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Sometimes cute girls wear tight and revealing clothing.

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: When you exercise a muscle, the muscle will grow larger. So exercising your abs will increase your middle, not decrease.

By contrast, muscles grow smaller from lack of use.

I see another nap coming on!

Q: Is swimming good for my figure?
A: Explain whales to me. Maybe they do a lot of sit-ups, but that seems to only make the more attractive to those harpoon wielding one-legged captains.

Whale-blubber isn’t just a clever euphemism.

Mos Eisley's Got Nothin'!

2006-03-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

My office.

There has never been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Last Thursday, I was feeling rather chipper. I was mostly over my illness, which had cost me the first two days of the week in sickness, and I was in an interesting, and for once, useful training. Plus, in the training, we were given handi-wipes and chocolate truffles.

Non sequitar, I’ll admit, but there it is.

What’s integral to the story is that I had my big, purple plastic cup with me. This is the cup that I use for my water. I like my water cold and my tea hot, and I prefer to keep my two cups separate from each other so that they don’t cause inter-drink-holder civil war.

Detente at its most tenuous.

Now, silly me, after the training session, I clean up my laptop, my training materials and my handi-wipes, but fail to pick up my purple plastic water cup. I leave it sitting there, in the conference room, in a secured building.

The next day, first thing at 7:45 a.m., realizing my mistake, I rush to the room only to see it is completely devoid of anything resembling a plastic purple water cup. It’s not in the trash, and the trash is still there.

Now, forgive me if this seems overly Wagnarian, but . . . WHO THE HELL STEALS A PLASTIC PURPLE WATER CUP?

I mean honestly, what kind of degraded individual wanders into a conference room after 5 p.m., sees an abandoned and helpless water cup and thinks to themselves, “Yes, that’s right. I’ll just be taking you my pretty!”

Do they then adjust the angle of their wide-brimmed pointy hat, jump on their Numbuss 2000 and cackle as they smash through the glass windows of the conference room? And who cleans that glass up, but doesn’t report a stolen water cup?

MY water cup!

Upon phoning the police I found that some kind of officer morale day was going on which included a stand-up comedian. Most of the officers I spoke with were paying more attention to the comedian than to taking my report. I can’t fault them. The comedian was apparently good.

He also had incredible timing.

Whenever I reached the part about what exactly had been stolen, he apparently cracked a funny, and the officers would laugh so hard they couldn’t be trusted to take my report.

Oddly, Human Resources also seemed to have a similar comedian in-office when I called them.

So, sadly, mourning the loss of a cup whose time came too soon, who gave its life defending those principals, I went back to work, poorer and less hydrated, but wiser for the experience.

Speak of the Devil . . .

2006-03-15T13:33:00.000-08:00

. . . . And he appears.

Most people don’t know that’s how the whole saying goes.

Of course, most people have better things in their minds than the interesting but useless bits of trivia that I keep in mine. For example, despite my general dislike of all professional sports great and small, I know that the Lakers got their name because the team was originally based in Minnesota. I also know that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

You woulda’ thought he’d have seen that one coming!

But I digress.

If you scroll down a bit, you will see that I provided an interesting, if somewhat high-handed and generally humorous take on the subject of coffee; that foul and most loathsome of drinks. No sooner had the ink dried on the page . . . or rather my hand had finished clicking on the mouse key, than the Devil, Lucifer himself, the Morning Star and First of the Fallen Angels, must have known that I was on his track. His little helpers, the eight-legged-freaks of myth, lore, legend and detox hallucination, scurried to do his bidding.

In Southern California, it grew cold.

Not just a little cold.

Damn, damn cold.

So suddenly had this cold hit that I was not prepared. I happened to be at a high school debate tournament, helping to coach and judge the talented youngsters from Diamond Ranch High School in their regional qualifying rounds. Cold, I tell you! Bitter, bitter cold. The kind of cold that can kill a man and strip his flesh from his bones in 18 seconds. Apparently, Damien High School, where the tournament was held, doesn’t believe in listening to the weather reports OR in turning on the heat.

Damn Catholics anyhow.

I know, I know what you’re thinking. But honestly, where was I going to find rubber pants in my size at that hour?

So there I was, there I was, there I was, in the cold. My hands had lost all sensation earlier, and all attempts to keep my scarf secure enough about my neck so as to warm the rest of me had failed utterly and miserably. Burning my team’s briefs was out of the question, and the smaller freshmen had formed some kind of mutual non-aggression treaty, preventing us from sacrificing them to the sun gods.

And then, salvation.

That’s right loyal readers, it was coffee.

Liquid evil.

Made by a cut-rate teacher’s lounge coffee-maker in a stained generic pot, smelling of forgotten and moldy grounds, un-distilled water and bargain-basement ground coffee that had gone stale. I’ll admit, I probably don’t know a good coffee from a great one, or an expensive coffee from really expensive coffee, but I do know what good coffee should taste like, even if I have to suppress the urge to run to the nearest confessional and beg forgiveness for drinking it.

This was not good coffee.

This was just short of nuclear waste spillage.

Foul, disgusting, murky black water with the taint of madness and grief.

Coffee, most foul and unnatural.

But warm, and a man will sell his soul for a little warmth in that bleak, bleak Southern California cold.

Maybe I’m getting acclimated too much.

Juan Valdez Spells Satan

2006-03-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

There are many things in this life which we simply will never understand. No matter how fast and how far science takes us, certain elements of our culture, current or historical, will always result in head-scratching, a shrug of the shoulders an a clichéd, ‘Whaddya gonna do?”

The sound of one hand clapping.

The true nature of God.

Paris Hilton.

All are things that we cannot now, and perhaps never will, grasp in there entirety. Of course, as Robert Browning wrote: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” According to Browning, this head-scratching and grasp-achievement is simply something we have to put aside and move on with ours lives.

But one such cultural/historical concept I feel should be reviewed with all due haste.

Coffee.

Coffee may smell good, and I won’t dispute that in any form. But it tastes like someone burnt something. Why anyone who isn’t Klingon and feeling the need to prove their manly-worth would want to drink something so foul truly boggles the mind. But further, how the concept of coffee as a beverage in general was arrived at is further cause for consternation.

Consider exactly how coffee beans must be fussed and bothered with in order to achieve your regular cup of joe. Laborers must pick baskets of coffee beans by hand. By HAND people. Like with fingers and sore backs and such. They can’t even use a machine to handle these oh-so-delicate beans. The cost per human-laborer’s basket is something around $2 to $10 depending on how many pairs of silk gloves the workers have to wear, and how long they have to apologize to the bush before plucking the bean.

Now, after all that is accomplished, a task that can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few days, the beans must then be “defruited”. I am not making this up. Defruiting, despite not being a real word, requires the outer skin of the bean to be removed, either by washing, soaking, scrubbing, scouring, or promising the beans a movie career and plying them with appletinis.

After this, the beans must be dried. Here is where coffee is actually treated in the manner which I feel this soul-sucking commodity deserves. The beans are poured onto flat cement or hard rocks and repeatedly racked into piles, and then pushed back out until they every last drop of life-giving moisture has been allowed to depart from their black hearts.

After this phase, the beans are sorted. Apparently, like American Idol contestants, just don’t make the “coffee” cut, and must be thrown back into the sea of semi-talented, but mostly annoying divas and hacks. I understand Simon Cowell has had his fill of bashing the wannabe grinders, the beans are then allowed to age somewhere between one and eight years.

Eight years, folks.

This is how long it takes a doctor to complete college AND medical school.

Finally, we come to my three favorite parts of this process: roasting, grinding and brewing. In the 19th century, beans would be thrown into an open pan must as Christians were thrown to lions and punk-rock mutant frogs . Now, we mass torture the beans at 400 degrees for a few hours before grinding the hell out of them and passing the bags on to fools who actually think this is a good thing.

Interestingly enough, even after roasting, this Spawn of the Overfiend will continue to emit CO2. Yes, that’s the byproduct that humans expiate, and causes bad side-effects if we breathe too much.

Once all this has been accomplished, those drinkers of this Beverage of Doom will then pour boiling, steaming hot water over the concoction and serve it as some kind of daily ritual.

To boil it down, if you will allow the pun, the coffee bean takes more time, effort, energy and money to process for mass consumption than 747 Boeing does.

Of course, now, in my wee little mind, comes the question of just exactly how this process came to be. Some one stumbled upon these bitter, untasty seeds and said, “Hey, I know, let’s pick, shuck, dry, age, roast, grind, run hot water over these things, and drink it for fun!”

At what point did all this start making sense to someone?

I suppose I should just scratch my head, shrug my shoulders and say, “Whaddya gonna do?”

The Absence of Presence

2006-03-03T15:09:00.000-08:00

There is a theory rolling around called “Absent Presence” fostered by Kenneth Gergen, and it goes a little something like this: because communication technology is so widely available, and so widely used, individuals who are standing, sitting, kneeling, walking, running, etc. right next to you are not aware of their surroundings or even you.

To put it more simply, when you’re on the cell, you don’t hear the bell.

Mobile technology including iPods, cell phones, Blackberry, laptops, personal DVD players, internet, pod-casting and wrist-televisions have moved the potato’s couch out of the house and into the real world. No longer are we required to be bored by the general tedium of waiting that surrounded out patient, but pathetic forebears. Now, we can tune in, or tune out, of the general noise, chaos and conversation that surround us.

But at what cost, I ask?

AT WHAT COST?

Perhaps that’s a little more vehement than is required.

OR IS IT?

Sorry.

Still, the cost is there. Gone are the days when you might have had to spend a grueling hour of tedium on the train to work and back, trying to tune out the various “train friends” who would talk, laugh, sing, or yodel so loudly that you couldn’t even read your latest George R.R. Martin book (excellent, by the way). Here are the days of hearing someone, who is not psychotic or possessed by demons, talking to themselves; laughing at the ether, arguing with the air.

Yes, children, a time actually existed when something called a PUBLIC TELEPHONE BOOTH was not only practical, it was economical too. There was a time when computers the size of a briefcase were only found in science fiction. When only Dick Tracy had a wrist-watch sized communicator, and only George Jetson has a flying car.

Oh, you think there’s no such thing as a flying car?

http://www.viewaskew.com/tv/leno/flyingcar.html

DOOM ON YOU!

But the coupe de ville of this entire Absent Presence phenomenon, aside from the evil, soul-sucking demons who insist on leaving their cells phone on during a movie for fear they will miss THE MOST IMPORTANT CALL OF THE LIFE, was made painfully clear to me yesterday. Minding my own business, and quite unprepared for the horrors I was about to witness, horrors that would cause Poe, Lovecraft and Christina Aguilera to lose their lunches, I went into the bathroom at work.

Now ladies, you may not know this, but there are rules in the men’s bathrooms. Generally speaking, and unless someone is dying, on fire, or selling a winning lottery ticket for pocket lint, there should be NO TALKING. This is not strongly enforced, but most men know that they will lose their Man Card if they insist on discussing relationships, make-up strategies or the latest on That-Bitch-Paris-Hilton.

Yet, yesterday, not only was someone talking in the bathroom while standing at the urinal. Loss of Man Card Factor: 12.5 on a scale of 10.

Not only was said genius talking at the urinal, he was apparently talking to someone on the other end of his cell phone wireless headset while making his deposit.

No, seriously.

And thus I give you the Eighth Sign of the Apocralypse*. Lo, did the leviathan stir, and lo did ten-thousand sushi dinners cry out for vengeance. Soggy potato chips rained from a clear sky, and the land did cry out for cumquats.

I really don’t think theirs is much more that I can add at this point. I’m just going to find a corner and shudder at the horror.

*The Apocralypse is the end of the world, so named because it is an apocryphal apocalypse, nobody is sure when it will happen, how it will happen, and whether it will happen in the here-and-now sense. It is the Tea-Time of the Gods, when the Ice Giants will march against them for the last time, probably without even giving them the lawnmower back first.

Four Things

2006-03-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

I saw this on someone else's Blog (yes, sometimes I'm bored at work . . . like when I get to my desk) and thought it would be fun to update this site today.

Four Jobs I've Had
Skeet/clay pigeon loader at a gun club - you heard me right, when the guy says "PULL!" it's my job to put another clay disk on the machine so he can blast it to hell

Peice worker at a farm - they pay you pennies for every bushel or bunch

Lifeguard - I'm not kidding, saved some 8 year old's life

Collections Agent for credit card company

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over (series is one entry)
"Shogun" - Eight hours of culturally and historically simple Japan
"The Lord of the Rings" - Nine hours of culturally and factually simple Middle Earth
"Scrubs" - Hours and hours of factually and culturally correct hopsital internships
"Serenity" / "Firefly" - Science Fiction cowboys

Four Books I Could Read Over and Over (series is one entry)
"The Lord of the Rings" - I read and loved it before the movies, thankyouverymuch
"A Different Light" - Elizabeth Lynn - Science Fiction with prose of the highest kind
"The Chronicles of Westmark" - Lloyd Alexander's amazing triple crown
"Against the Horde" - David Gemmell's 2nd rate hack-n-slash . . . but no one does hack-n-slach better

Four Places I Have Lived
Battle Mountain, Nevada - Officially the Armpit of America as rated by the New York Times
Portales, New Mexico - Flat, lots of sand . . . flat
Pontiac, Michigan - Note to self: Do not live in a city named after a car, or vice versa
Salt Lake City, Utah - Mormons, Rocky Mountains, the Great Salt Lake . . . must be heaven

Four TV Shows I Watch
I don't watch television. I rent a series I like from Netflix.

"Scrubs" - See above
"House" - It's like a mix between "Scubs" Dr. Cox and "CSI"'s Gil Grissom
"CSI" - Gotta love the Grissom
"The Simpsons" - D'oh

Four Places I Have Been On Vacation
New Orleans, Louisiana
Denver, Colorado
Seattle, Washington
Riverside, California - before I moved here

Four Websites I Visit Daily
DMS - internal site
Kiagi Swordscat - http://acceleratedculture.blogspot.com/
SF-FANDOM - http://www.sf-fandom.com/vbulletin/index.php
Neko the Kitty - http://www.nekothekitty.net

Four Favorite Foods
Bean, rice and cheese burritos - WET!
My own spaggheti sauce - I won't eat spaggheti anywhere else now
Sushi - good, bad, indifferent, I can't tell the difference
Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganof - nothing like real beef stroganof but that's the way I like it!

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
Eric and Amy aren't bloggers, but I follow their site.
I recently started watching another old friend's site.

That's all.