The items auctioned off at the annual fundraising auction for Daisy's school can generally be classified into one of three buckets: products and services donated by local businesses, art made by the students, and whatever crap or abilities parents have in excess.

For example, the skills that Hank and I have available are the abilities to deal cards and serve drinks. Other more respectable families offer to host gourmet dinners. Among the parent community at Daisy's school are skilled Korean chefs, brew masters with chef friends, sushi chefs, and people who can just plain cook.

This Saturday night the Psychologersons invited us along to the gourmet dinner that they had bid on and won at the auction. What was the theme of this dinner? Raw.

I know. Jesus salmonella Christ, I know how ridiculous that sounds, but they had purchased a gourmet raw dinner and invited us to attend. Equally ridiculous is that Hank accepted the invitation on our behalf. It seemed pretty obvious to me that the Psychologersons were using us as test subjects for one of their psychological studies, but I gotta write about something in this blog, right?

I discussed the theory of raw food with Larry the night before the dinner. We agreed that the notion of raw food was not intuitive. Fire was discovered a long freaking time ago. It's a fairly proven technology at this point. Trying to prepare dinner without heat would be like trying to eat without using your teeth. You COULD, but why?

And as for auctioning off a raw dinner, I'm not gourmet chef, but I'm pretty sure that one of the hard parts of cooking is the actual COOKING of the food. I can grab a bunch of ingredients and serve them raw too, but that doesn't make it dinner. I mean, a raw dinner seemed just a smidge more effort than handing your guests a gift card for the local grocery store.

Some people would probably prepare for attending a raw dinner by studying the cuisine or boning up on the theory. I decided to just eat a gut-busting unch. I ate a big burrito and then part of Daisy's burrito. An hour later I snacked on Hank's massive meatball sub. Then, an hour before we left for dinner, I ate a tamale and a handful of tortilla chips. I was NOT going to show up to a raw dinner hungry. I considered whether it was rude to bring beef jerky or maybe a small cooked steak to a raw dinner.

We left Daisy with the babysitter and headed over to the dinner. We were, of course, the first guests to arrive (sorry, Hank, that's just how I'm built). So, we chatted with the hosts while they performed some last minute preparations. I expertly delivered the jokes I had saving up all weekend. After one too many of my comments about looking forward to the pork course, the hostess smiled at me and asked if Hank and I got to spend much time without our kid.

"No, not too often," we replied.

"Well, then feel free to go hang out in the living room while we finish up in here," she offered.

And thus we were banished from the kitchen.

So, how was the actual dinner? It was really freaking weird! We sat at a table in the host's backyard, amidst his impressive vegetable garden while a handful of chickens ran underfoot. Every once in a while during dinner, the host would pop up, disappear into the garden, and return with some fresh ingredient to chop and add to the dish.

We had coconut ceviche, some crazy soup that I can't explain or remember, a portobello rectangular prism, a salad that had nary a single kind of leaf, and an "ice cream" dessert that was made of pureed fruit and nut creams. Every course was unlike anything I had ever eaten in my life. We drank coconut water and many bottles of red wine (fermentation doesn't count as cooking).

I love spicy food, but these flavors were intense in a way that was unfamiliar to me. I wouldn't be able to describe a single one of the courses because my food vocabulary is limited to words like "salty", "yummy" or "venti".

Was it good? I'm told it was.
- posted by Mike @ 8:45 PM (0) comments

 
It's hard to write a blog post after having been whisked away to Vegas for a surprise party. What am I going to write about after that? The answer: work. Sorry.

Work has been unintentionally hilarious this week. Not hilarious in the knee-slapping way, more in the face-slapping way.

For the last couple months we've had a Very Angry Customer in Singapore. Somebody gave them some bad advice a year ago, and since then it's spiraled completely out of the land of sanity and reason. Management keeps making ominous noises that someone is going to be sent to Singapore to sit next to the customer for a while. Now, don't get me wrong, I'd love to visit Singapore, I just wouldn't want to spend my trip sitting in a computer server room with an angry customer glaring at me and tapping their cane of punishment in anticipation of my failure.

My boss, Scott, sat on a teleconference earlier this week with multiple levels of management. Scott stayed quiet through most of the call, listening to various smart people say ridiculous things in the name of pleasing the Very Angry Customer, who was apparently demanding that we make our software run 5 times faster. After 30 minutes of this Scott finally spoke up, explaining that we couldn't possibily begin to make our software run faster without knowing why it was running slowly in the first place. He explained the technique our team typically uses in these situations.

There was silence for a few moments until the Executive Vice President spoke.

"Scott, that's the first smart thing I've heard anyone say about the Very Angry Customer. We need you on the ground in Singapore now."

And so the back-pedaling began. Scott wove a tale of remote-access-this and tele-that. Eventually the executive VP relented and offered to send one of the field engineers to Singapore instead of someone from our team.

"For how long?" the field engineer's manager tentatively asked

"Forever!" the VP replied.

So, now, some poor sap is being sent indefinitely to sit in a server room in Singapore while my team thinks of smart things for him to do, say, click, and maybe pantomime. Then, each night, he'll attempt to circumvent the Very Angry Customer's security so that he can send us the data files that we'll need to remotely solve the problem.

Poor bastard. I can only hope that the USB drive he uses is smooth and smaller than his sphincter.
- posted by Mike @ 8:30 PM (4) comments

 
Random memories of my surprise party in Vegas:

1) The LOVE Cirque du Soleil show was really enjoyable. I don't think it was a typical Cirque show in that the music was showcased more than the usual contortions and acrobatics, but if you love the Beatles (and if don't, you should get that checked by a physician) then you'll have a great time. Just hearing the Beatles songs on such a great sound system was worth a couple digits of the price of admission.

2) We flew to Vegas on Virgin America and mmmm mmmm mmmmm, that is one sexy virgin Actually aside from the one girl I lost my virginity too, I've never pursued having sex with a virgin. What's the appeal? I don't want to play tennis with someone who has never held a racket, and I don't want to eat fried chicken made by a non-cook, and I sure as hell don't want to entrust my penis to someone unversed in the sexy sexy. Anyway, Virgin America Airlines rocks. They've got a new-fangled in-seat entertainment system that lets you watch videos, chat with people in other seats, and play video games. The system is still a little buggy, but I got to play Doom while flying to Vegas and drinking a cocktail. My all-time favorite video game! Killing monsters! While going to Vegas! And drinking a screw-driver! That's a slice of pinch-me right there.

3) Even being in the land of Vegas, whose motto is "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", could not persuade my rule-following eight year-old daughter to let loose. At one point while we stood in the lobby of our hotel, we saw a couple walk through a door labeled as the "Emergency Exit" to take a shortcut to the pool. No alarm sounded. Nothing bad happened. I then offered to pay Daisy a dollar to also walk out that door. You'd have thought I asked her to slaughter puppies. She was aghast. The next day when we strolled around the Venetian to show Daisy the indoor canals, she nearly whimpered with fear that we'd get kicked out because we weren't guests of that hotel. Oh, baby, live it up a little. When she does finally snap and rebel, it will be a sight to see.

4) Being dealt blackjack by the Treasure Island casino dealers was like sitting in a personality deprivation tank. Special mention to Minh The Humorless. I did my best to fill the void.
- posted by Mike @ 8:31 PM (4) comments

 
A few years ago Hank turned 40. It was an occasion that compelled me to throw the only surprise party that I've ever had to organize.

This week I turned 40. Months ago my wife and I discussed what would be an appropriate celebration. She understood that I had no desire for a big party or a surprise of any kind. Instead, I wanted to gather my close local friends and go out for a nice dinner at one of my old favorite restaurants here in SF. Hank volunteered to undertake the organization of this event. The dinner was planned for this weekend.

Hank, of course, completely disregarded my wishes. Behind my back she planned a surprise. She contacted our friends months ago, hid credit card charges, faked confirmation calls from restaurants, and spent countless hours planning my surprise birthday.

The final bit of deception was to get me at the right location at the right time. What made this difficult was that the events began on Saturday morning and I ALWAYS go running on Saturday mornings. Hank crafted the solution with Pablo. So, a couple of weeks ago Pablo informed me that our friend Leonarda was going to have her photographs displayed in an art show. Pablo gave me a fake brochure about the art show and explained that the show, which was listed as occurring on May 17th, was in an unusual location. I realized that I needed to move my Saturday run and go support Leonarda.

So, that's why on Saturday morning this weekend, I was wandering around the San Francisco airport with my family in tow, looking for Leonarda's art show. Various friends of mine watched me from hidden locations, as I "helped" Hank and Daisy scour the airport for the mythical art exhibit. We asked the guy at the information booth, peered into the closed museum, and generally scratched our heads.

After about 10 minutes of this, Hank took pity on me. She asked Daisy if she had anything to say to me.

"Uh, daddy, there's, um, kind of no art show here," Daisy began, clearing her throat and stammering so as to extend my confusion, "Instead, we're going to Vegas."

I'm not sure exactly how many seconds it took me to figure out that Daisy was saying something significant and not speaking the potential nonsense of an eight year-old. Someone handed me a boarding pass. I was stunned.

There was, of course, no art show. Hank had packed our bags earlier in the week and given them to Liz and Larry to check in for us. Our flight to Vegas was leaving in about an hour. Liz and Larry were coming along and were bringing their nanny to help watch the kids.

Pablo appeared soon thereafter, along with Jay and Laila. Leonarda wasn't far behind and even Scott made his way to Vegas to help me celebrate my 40th year.

We spent about 24 hours in Vegas and I had a tremendous time. We stayed at Treasure Island, had a delicious meal at Japonais, saw the immensely enjoyable Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show, and hunkered down at the blackjack table for several hours of cards, banter, and booze. It was awesome.

I can't believe Hank (with the help of many others) pulled this off. Several times during the last few weeks I sat down and contemplated whether Hank was trying to hide some sort of surprise. Each time I reviewed the evidence and concluded with certainty that there was no surprise. There was no way. I thought that MAYBE she invited more people to the dinner than I had specified, but I knew that she knew that I had hated the logistics of large groups. It didn't occur to me that she'd take my invite list and just move the party to Vegas.

I'm still a little stunned, but I'm grateful for my creative, thoughtful, and generous family and friends. I've never been so pleased to have my wishes ignored.
- posted by Mike @ 8:24 PM (12) comments

 
For many people running is a meditative experience. It clears their mind. Others use the time to wrestle with mental issues, perhaps a thorny relationship issue or maybe a problem at work.

Those people are freaks.

Have you ever gone running? It's exhausting! And painful! Trying to solve mental problems while running is like trying to perform calculus while being stabbed in the eye. I suppose it's possible, but doesn't it seem likely that you'd get distracted by the blood spurting out of your retina?

Actually I do perform some simple calculations while I run. At any point during one of my runs I can tell you, with reasonable accuracy, how many miles I've run and how many miles I've got left. I'm constantly calculating and recalculating what percentage of my run is behind me. I guess this is analogous to informing the stabber, "My eyeball is only 62% demolished! 38 to go!"

My current favorite game to play while running is a little bit of excitement I call: Guess How Many Seconds Have Elapsed Since I Last Looked At My Watch. I can say with a great deal of certainty that this is pretty much the most fun I can have while pounding out the miles. Sometimes I let 8 or 9 seconds go by before guessing, other times as much as 90 seconds will elapse before I breathlessly (literally) check my watch to see how good my guess is.

The real fun comes in when I then calculate what percent I'm off by. Then, over the course of the run, I average out those percentages. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Typically my guesses are off by around 14%. Awesome!

Honest to god, this is the most fun thing I can think of while running.
- posted by Mike @ 7:25 PM (8) comments

 
If I were to make a short list of the times in recent years when I firmly inserted my foot into my mouth and then kind of deep-throated it a bit, that list would include:

1. When I discovered that the Mute button on my work phone is really just a Muffle button.
2. When I mistakenly asked the PTA President if she was inviting me to a sex party.
3. When I mistook someone's mom for a transvestite.

I'm now ready to add one more to that list. On Saturday night we went over to visit our friends Maggie and Malcolm. I've known Maggie for about 15 years. She has a quick wit and a sharp tongue, but it occurred to me as I sat there on Saturday that Malcolm was probably the funnier of the two. Because I spend most of my waking hours in front of computers and not people, I decided to share my insight with them.

Me: I think Malcolm is the funny one.
Maggie: What did you say?
Me: Malcolm. Out of you two, Malcolm is The Funny One.
Maggie: Oh, look at the time.

It occurred to me at this moment that I was an idiot. I looked for the backspace key.

Me: I mean, he's funny, right?
Maggie: Whatever, Mike.
Me: Dammit. I totally forgot how you hold grudges. You're going to be mad at me... forever, huh?
Maggie: I officially reserve the right to speak at your funeral.
Me: Malcolm, help me out here. Who's funnier, you or Maggie?
Malcolm: I can't believe you did this to me.

Eh, who needs friends.
- posted by Mike @ 8:31 PM (5) comments

 
Hank and I host a poker game for our friends every month or so. It's a pretty fun evening between the game-playing, the boozing, and the joking around. Although there's plenty of games based on mathematical constants, pot odds calculations, jokes about which players at the table are really Cylons, and other geek humor, it's a genuinely amusing crowd. Most of us may make our living by sitting on front of computers, but we're generally a pretty outgoing bunch.

And, of course, after about one drink, I launch into a litany of dick jokes. I'm classy that way.

Earlier this year, however, we had offered to host a poker night for the highest bidder at the annual fundraising auction for Daisy's school. It was bought for $450 by a group of parents, some of whom I had never met before. We held the game last night.

Logistics-wise, we were all set. We stocked the booze cabinet, snack trays, and even provided a few cigars. Hank produced a poker-themed cocktail menu and set herself up as bartender. I donned a white shirt and black vest and pronounced myself dealer for the evening. Really, the only thing that concerned me was making sure that everyone was going to have a good time.

Given that this was kind of a staid PTA-crowd, I realized the burden would fall upon me to goose the conversation and interject the humor. I contemplated whether ribald humor would be appreciated or offend. I doubted this group was a bunch of drinkers, so I couldn't count on booze to lubricate the laughing muscles. In the hours leading up to the event, I internally wrestled with how to bring these people out of their shells.

When the magic hour rolled around, the guests arrived and immediately launched into the cocktails. By the time I started dealing, about an hour later, some of them were already drunk. Hank was taking drink orders and pouring non-stop.

We finished the first tournament in a couple of hours. By that time the party was in full swing, and it was becoming apparent that this was not the staid crowd I had anticipated. It was at this point that one of the guests screamed "DANCE PARTY!" and cranked the music. Suddenly, for the first time since I was in my 20's, people started dancing in my living room.

There were men grinding on women, men grinding on men, one dude dancing with a pineapple on his head, and someone with unpleasant stubble who kept nuzzling me while I was trying to deal. The yelled-above-the-music conversation seemed to center around questions about my sex life with Hank. It occurred to me then, that my previous worries about offending these people with penis references were a tad unfounded. I was the quiet conservative one in this group.

I stood to the side at one point, with the one other quiet guy, watching the coordinated people dance. Suddenly, the other quiet guy got pulled onto the dancing fray, leaving me as the sole undancing dork. I made myself as busy as I could be, given that we were in a poker-break, but was finally forced the acknowledge the awkwardness of being the one person not dancing in a party I was hosting. So, I scooted onto the "dance floor" and did my usual awkward Mike jig.

Eventually we agreed to play another tournament. A couple people dropped out. One guy stood up abruptly to go stagger into the walls in our hallway. Another woman disappeared presumably to go puke in the bathroom. Their more-sober spouses took over their hands for them when they weren't busy dancing in the kitchen. I deftly managed to deal the tournament given that at any point in time, at least one person was wandering off to dance, drink, or just wander aimlessly.

When the last person left, at around 1:15am, after we scoured the house for any stragglers who may have passed out, I turned to Hank and said, "HOLY CRAP! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"

Is this what non computer programmers do on Friday nights? Jesus puking Christ, I had no idea.
- posted by Mike @ 4:47 PM (5) comments

 
A few weeks ago our general contractor basically finished the work on the room we had added to our house (and, yes, Liz your algorithm for assuming one month of real time for each week the contractor estimated was pretty accurate). Now, in the evenings, we retire to the new room, which is pretty nice looking.

When I sit in the new room, I think "Hey, it's nice here!"

When Hank sits in the new room she thinks, "Man, the rest of the house is a dump."

So, for the last several months, Hank has been poring over color charts. Paint is the next great frontier. She stares at online virtual rooms, color wheels, redecorating books, something called a color triad and other people's houses. Mostly she stares right through me, but that's understandable. I'm usually babbling about my jogging pace or maybe boobs.

Hank was tormented by the color choices. I offered to step in and assist a while back.

Hank: Really? You want to help?
Me: Sure.
Hank: What color palette were you thinking about?
Me: White
Hank: (exasperated) We can't pick white.
Me: Duh! I know we can't pick white. I just like the white palette. How about antique white or eggshell white?
Hank: NEVERMIND!

You'd think I'd suggested that we paint the house with the blood of our daughter. White is apparently the most absurd color you'd ever want to paint a hallway. It would be so... crap, I can't even finish that sentence. I have no idea what's wrong with white. Before we moved into this house, every single place I ever lived (with the exception of Barrington Hall) had white walls. They didn't clash with furniture or art or cause people to spend man-months staring at color triads.

Anyway, Hank found a painter she liked who had some availability this week, so that forced her to pick a color palette. Today the painting began. What colors did she pick? They are:

Midsummer Gold
Butterfly Wing
Peruvian Evening Lily

I know! I KNOW! Those aren't even colors! I mean, at least "Midsummer Gold" has a color in the title, but the other two are as likely to be yoga stretches as wall colors.

The midsummer gold went up on the walls today. It's kind of brownish gold. I haven't seen the Butterfly Wing yet, but I've been informed it's kind of yellow. And the Peruvian Evening Lily? Red, obviously.

I'm beginning to fear that this process of "fixing" the design of our house is a process that will never end. On the plus side, however, as long as Hank is distracted with replacing colors, she won't have time to think about replacing her husband. I am pretty white, I'm told.
- posted by Mike @ 8:20 PM (5) comments

 
When Monday mornings roll around, I kick the wife and the kid out the door, I sit my candy ass down into my "office" chair and I make my "Monday morning" noise. It sounds like this:

Ahhhhhhh

That's because Mondays mean that I get to spend nearly 8 consecutive hours sitting on my butt. This activity is in stark contrast to how I often spend my weekends, which sadly, generally consist of keeping my butt in the air. My butt HATES the air.

On Saturday morning, for example, I ran about 16 miles, which is further than I've run in 3 years. Then I walked around the neighborhood with the kid, handling various errands. Afterwards, she wanted to go on a bike ride, and due to logistical difficulties, this basically required me to roller-blade alongside her for about 5 miles. I finished up Saturday, with an exciting evening trip to the damn supermarket.

Today, I took Daisy, along with another 8 year-old girl, to the Maker Faire. It's a great event (although REALLY crowded this year), but limiting yourself to the booths that 8 year-olds find exciting is probably not the most satisfying way to experience it. More to the point, wandering around an event center for 6 hours makes for another tiring day.

I know, bitch bitch bitch, poor Mike was forced to go jogging one day and then was dragged to the pinnacle of fun geek events, but it really was a tiring weekend!

I can't wait for tomorrow's "ahhhhhh". TGIM, baby.
- posted by Mike @ 8:37 PM (7) comments

 
On Sunday morning, as we slowly stirred awake, my wife turned to me and romantically said, "I smell something burning."

Sadly, she was not referring to her loins, or my loins, or some hot chick's loins that she might have stashed in the closet for a surprise Sunday Brunch threesome. No, she just smelled something in the house that was burning. Awesome.

After a few panicked minutes of running around and checking all our laptop batteries, I eventually figured out that it was our furnace. It had burned out somehow. Awesome.

Ok, I'm being sarcastic with all the "awesome" comments. Do you know what really is awesome though? The furnace is going to be broken for a few more days while the repairman gets the necessary parts, so today when the weather cooled, I made fire appear!

I didn't just make fire, I made fire from logs that I saved from when I removed nearly every bit of plant life from our backyard last year. I had squirreled away the logs that were too big to fit into my little chipper for just such an occasion. SO I MADE FIRE WITH LOGS THAT I HAD SAWED FROM REAL PLANTS. I AM HEATING MY HOME WITH THE FRUITS OF MY LAND-TENDING!

Goddamn, pinch me. I am all man.
- posted by Mike @ 8:41 PM (4) comments

 
I recall one afternoon when I was in high school and was chatting with a very nice girl who was a year or two older than me. I don't remember exactly what prompted her to say this, but she said something to me that has stuck with me to this very day.

"Mike," she said, "You're going to be a handsome man when you're older."

She really was a sweetheart of a girl, so I never doubted that she intended it as a compliment, but the unsaid truth behind the comment was that clearly I was not a handsome boy. Of course, this wasn't big news to me given that I was a big-nosed stick-thin teenager. The end result of her comment, amazingly, was that I did mange to eke out some hope that one day I'd be a chick magnet, swimming in perfumed heaving bosoms.

That day eluded me.

I did have some girlfriends along the way, and Daisy's vague resemblance to me is near-proof that I tricked at least one woman into allowing my sperm into her vagina one time, but the chick magnet thing never happened. (Obviously I'm joking about the "one time" thing. I'm having sex with my wife RIGHT NOW.)

Back when I was single, I heard tales that having a wedding ring was the REAL way to get women to notice you. The theory was that once you were taken, and had visual proof on your finger that some woman found you worthy enough to marry, then other women would find that irresistable and would offer their naughty bits to you. Either I'm totally oblivious (possible) or I can say with complete certainty that I have completely debunked that theory in a mere 11+ years of marriage.

Really, the only time in my life that I felt the merest hint that I had something that another woman might find chick-magnetty was when I owned a motorcycle. Motorcycles, as it turns out, are sexy. Computer programmers on motorcyles are less so, but still.

The motorcycle is long gone, but these days I have something else to feed my ego. I strolled into our local nice restaurant last week to grab some take-out. It wasn't ready yet, so I stood to the side and made idle chit chat with the wait staff. After a minute the bartender ducked under the bar and came up to me.

He stood a little closer than was comfortable, put his hand on my shoulder and quietly said, "Mike, I have to tell you, if you're going to come into a place like this, you're going to have to zip up your fly."

Doh! These stupid pants!

When he referred to "a place like this", what he meant was "a place staffed mostly by gay men." The restaurant is owned by a gay couple, and plenty of the staff is gay. While I was fumbling with my pants, one of the owners walked by and spotted me.

"Why didn't you tell me his fly was down!" the owner mock-yelled to the bartender.

I did the closest thing to blushing that I do, which is sort of an awkward embarrassed smile.

"Well, at least I still get to watch you jog by at lunch sometimes," he said, clucking in approval.

I made some sort of sheepish comment about my arms-a-flailing running style.

"Oh," he said looking at me over the rims of his glasses, "It's not your arms I'm looking at."

He handed me my take-out and as I walked out, he yelled, "And be sure to wear those jeans again!"

And THAT is why San Francisco is a great place to live if you're a guy. Where else am I going to get this kind of positive feedback? It's not that I'm going to go cheat on my wife, but it's nice to pretend that I at least have the option.
- posted by Mike @ 8:55 PM (4) comments

 
We went to go visit my family last weekend for a mishmash of birthday and Passover celebration.

Passover, like many Jewish holidays, is the celebration of one of those rare days in history when Jews weren't being killed. It's a lot of fun. Thankfully, my family is kind of post-Judaism so all we really did to celebrate was eat some latkes (potato pancakes). It could have been a lot worse.

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law entertained us with the story of how he led a troop of Brownie Scouts (9 year-old girls) on a four hour hike the previous day. Did the girls complain about the length of the hike? Did they whine that they were tired 5 minutes into it. They did not, my bro-in-law explained. Why not? Because they weren't just hiking; they were geocaching.*

Geocaching, for those of you unfamiliar with this new activity is kind of like a combination between hiking and a treasure hunt. Breaking the word down into its Latin roots may be informative here.

Geo means earth. So, you know that you don't have to hike in outer space. That's a pretty handy starting point.

Cache means that you shouldn't expect to find any cash. It's not that kind of treasure.

These caches are small containers that various geocachers have hidden all over the world. Some contain nothing but a log book while others contain a variety of knickknacks. The idea is that when you find a cache, you sign the log book, and perhaps take something from the container, replacing it with something of your own.

You find the locations of the caches by going to the geocaching web site and entering a zip code or city. It then shows you all the caches in that area and you download the coordinates to a GPS device, along with some clues in case you get stuck. With this information, you then embark upon your quest. Or maybe you set up your own cache and upload that information to the web site, to wait and see who finds your cache and what they leave behind.

I'm not exactly sure which way to mock geocaching. Do I mock it for taking a pure activity like hiking and sullying it with technology and goals? Or should I instead mock the hippie-like concept of taking something while leaving something behind? I mean, really, was hiking not hippie enough? Would anyone be surprised if we found some granola and a joint in one of these caches?

So, it seems that geocaching is the perfect activity for your standard techno hippie geeks. And, apparently, that's what my family is filled with. My brother-in-law led us on a short geocaching expedition and Daisy was in hippie-heaven. She's a big fan of treasure hunts and the fact that you get to log your accomplishment is the cherry on the icing on the cake.

Geocaching, my friends, is in my future.


* That sentence contains my annual attempt to use a semi-colon.
- posted by Mike @ 4:21 PM (6) comments

 
In my last post, I showed the world the awkwardness, skill, and smarminess that characterized my appearance on Family Feud's first ever College Week as a member of UC Berkeley's team. In this post, I'll cover UC Berkeley's second episode, which, in a dramatic departure from the first episode.... is more of the same.

So, let's play The Feud! I've edited down the 22 minutes of inanity into a crisp 7 or 8 minutes of inanity.

First up, the dreaded "pose", where I get a second chance to show off my rhythm and cheering skills...


Ok, 0 for 2 on that whole cheering thing. Let's see how the team leader introduces me this time. Am I still a "computer whiz" like last time?


No! I'm Albert's life long buddy! How very tragic then that I haven't seen or spoken to Albert since the day this show was tapes. Love you, man!

Anyway, let's get on to the game! First question, Ray...


Blah blah blah. Berkeley comes through and leads 89 to 0. Next question, please...


Did you see that?!?! I'm a Family Feud savant! Was it not obvious to everyone else on the panel that when the judges asked the USC guy to be more specific on his "remote control vehicle" answer that's because there were more than one remote control vehicles on the list? This is the same thing that happened the last episode when a Stanford person said "hair" and they wanted a more specific answer so I followed his "pet hair" with my "human hair". At least America got to see my indignation.

Anyway, Berkeley leads 89 to 88 and I'm back up at the podium for the next face off. On the last episode I won the face-off by answering the question "Name a place to find young people" with a brilliant answer of "school". Let's see how I do this time...


I'm 2 for 2 with "school" answers! I'm also the only member of the Berkeley team who got a correct answer. That makes winning hard. USC leads 156 to 89...


That was it. Albert, finally recognizing that I was the brains of the Berkeley team finally chose my answer, and we lost the game. Doh! One round too late, ol' buddy. In my defense, however, "get married"??? Was this show taped in the '50s?

What's left? Time to dance. I'm the swaying-guy on the right, holding hands with my then-girlfriend. Goodbye, America.


Anyway, the UC Berkeley team, having gone 0 for 2, ended their stint on College Week. Stanford went on to beat USC in the final game, while we went home with a bunch of really crappy consolation prizes that I never ever used with nary a box of rice-a-roni nor the home version of the game. Woe is me.

There you have it. The full extent of my television career. My blog has now filled the glaring hole that IMDB has stubbornly ignored.
- posted by Mike @ 7:30 PM (7) comments

 
Without further ado, I Am Prepared to Give Up at Any Time embarrassedly presents UC Berkeley's first episode ever on Family Feud's College Week. I've chopped the 22 minute episode down into about 9 or 10 minutes of YouTube footage below. It's still painful, but any less and you'd risk losing the multi-threaded complex narrative that is Family Feud.

For a description of Family Feud or how I got there, I'd encourage you to read the introduction I wrote a couple years ago.

Ok, here goes. (Apologies for including the same bit of footage from my last post.)

The first part of Family Feud is the corny "family picture" pose. I'm the awkward rhythmless guy on the left. Cheering is not my forte.



Then, the teams get introduced. Here's Albert introducing me to host Ray Combs, and the rest of the world.



"Computer whiz"? Thanks, Albert. I'll be sure to include this footage on my next resume.

Anyway, the game finally begins. Each team sends a person to the podium to quickly come up with the most popular answers to...



Since Stanford struck out before getting all the right answers, Berkeley has a chance to steal their points by getting one right answer...



"Getting walked to her front door" !! Am I a sweetheart or what? Can you believe I didn't date much? Me either. Anyway, regardless of my inability to woo the average American woman, we won that round.

Next question, Ray...



Okok, sure "Queen Elizabeth" was the bottom answer, but at least it was on the board, which is more than I can say for the two players at the podium, ONE OF WHOM KEPT LAUGHING AT ALL MY ANSWERS! I'm still bitter. Anyway, Berkeley is winning, 118 to 0.

Next up...ME!



THREE IN A ROW! Behind my brilliant answers, Berkeley is winning 266 to 0! The game ends at 300 points, so all we need is just...one...more...

Well, Stanford runs the table on the next question, which was worth triple value, bring their score up near ours. It all comes down to the final question....



Crap. Cornbreaded crap on a stick. So we lose to our rival school. Big deal. Thankfully, there's an ENTIRE OTHER EPISODE where we play a much stupider school, USC. Stay tuned for more footage of Brett lamenting my usually-correct answers....
- posted by Mike @ 9:02 PM (8) comments