Let's pretend it's Memorial Day Weekend.
Now, let's mix things up a little bit and pretend that you've invited some people over.
Hell, let's go totally nuts. We'll pretend that we're having a Memorial Day barbecue. I know, I know. Ludicrous. Bear with me.
Now, pretend that you don't have a big enough barbecue grill to cook all the food you need.
Hey, you're me! That was MY weekend!
So, what do you do? How do you fix this quandry? What sort of magic potion makes for a bigger barbecue?
Good question. You'd think the answer would be to buy a bigger grill. Easy, no? No.
All I needed was a simple charcoal grill, a big one, but a simple one. Stores should be JAM packed with these grills on Memorial Day weekend. Jam freakin' packed!
Store one, Target, had no such grill. Small grills? Yes. Gas grills galore? Yes.
Store two, Home Depot had no such grills.
Store three, Sears, had no such grills.
What the hell?! I know that Sunday night was a little late to be shopping for a Monday barbecue, but how could corporate America have sold completely out of large charcoal grills? Isn't their job to have the items that America wants in stock? Don't they stock lots of Christmas trees around Winter Present Tree Day? Around Halloween, stores are filled with costumes and candy! And on Labor Day you can't crap without seeing migrant-worker-filled window displays!
So, I bought a small grill to augment the medium-sized one that I already owned and I hoped that would be adequate. I also bought one of them fancy charcoal chimney things. Getting the coals heated is not one of my barbecuing strengths. I suppose barbecuing food is not something I'm so good at either, but I'm getting ahead of myself there.
Using the chimney starter seemed easy enough. You stick some newspaper in the bottom, charcoal in the top, fire it up and wait. Easy, no? No.
Actually, the first few steps went well. The briquettes got nice and toasty and per the chimney instructions, I had some hot pads ready so that I could grasp the chimney safely. I grabbed it and poured the briquettes safely onto the grill. I stood back to admire my work and a little metal handle on the grill flipped down onto my wrist.
This could have caused a serious burn. I say "could have" because, technically speaking, the metal handle was not actually hot. However, it COULD HAVE been! Just to be safe, I emitted a manly squeal and performed an even manlier hopping motion while violently shaking my wrist to get the not-hot handle to flip back up. Although this technique was not specifically recommended by the chimney instructions, it's a pretty classic emergency response maneuver for me. (It also works when squishing spiders!)
Anyway, as it turns out, ha ha, not all of the red-hot charcoal briquettes had been poured onto the grill. One of them was still lurking inside the chimney that I was now flinging around in an unnecessary panic. Naturally the briquette took this particular moment to fly out of the chimney and onto a nice pile of dead weeds and wood chips.
Excellent.
Wisely, I threw the chimney down onto another pile of wood chips, and grabbed our nearby garden hose. I blasted the briquette with many gallons of water, impressed that I had somehow smoothly recovered from the near-deadly inferno. Also, it didn't take me too long to realize that the damn chimney was about to start another fire. I handled that one too.
Zog smart!
Then, I burned the crap out of nearly all the food!
Fire hard.
That was my Memorial Day. I had a nice big cocktail afterwards though.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
Yesterday I went to my first baseball game of the year. I brought along the wife, daughter, and our friend, Larry.
Daisy isn't a big baseball fan, but the enthusiasm of fans in the ballpark is infectious, so there are always moments where she's screaming happily with all the might her six year-old body can muster. One such screampportunity occurred in the fourth inning.
Barry Bonds stepped to the plate for the second time in the game. Every single one of the 42,935 ticket holders got up out of their seats and stood to watch the man bat, just as they had in the 1st inning and all season long. It's always exciting watching Barry bat, but it's especially good when he's on the verge of hitting some milestone home run.
A few days earlier Barry had hit his 714th home run, tying Babe Ruth on the all-time career home run list for 2nd place. One more home run would leave Barry in sole possession of 2nd place (although still 40 behind Hank Aaron). The fans in the ballpark knew that they had a chance to see a little bit of baseball history.
The opposing pitcher, Byung-Hyun Kim throws with a wicked sidearmed motion that makes it look like the ball is rising as it approaches home plate. It's an uncommon approach, but he has had mixed results with it. His most famous moments as a pitcher were probably the game-losing home runs he gave up against the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. I still recall him squatting on the mound, after giving up the lead for the 2nd day in a row, with his head buried in his hands.
So, yesterday he faced Barry Bonds and again made history. Barry slammed his 715th home run deep past the center field fence, and the crowd went nuts. Tens of thousands of people screamed while Daisy accompanied them by squealing at a nearly inhuman frequency. Fireworks exploded while black and orange streamers fell from the upper deck.
It was quite a moment.
My feelings about Barry Bonds are mostly negative, but it was great to be at the ballpark at that moment. Watching his 715th home run was a little slice of baseball history. It was kind of like watching the odometer on your car hit 100,000 or maybe 100,715. It's meaningful if you believe in the power of numbers, and I'm a fairly numbers-oriented guy.
The Giants lost, 6-3, but I had a great time.
Daisy isn't a big baseball fan, but the enthusiasm of fans in the ballpark is infectious, so there are always moments where she's screaming happily with all the might her six year-old body can muster. One such screampportunity occurred in the fourth inning.
Barry Bonds stepped to the plate for the second time in the game. Every single one of the 42,935 ticket holders got up out of their seats and stood to watch the man bat, just as they had in the 1st inning and all season long. It's always exciting watching Barry bat, but it's especially good when he's on the verge of hitting some milestone home run.
A few days earlier Barry had hit his 714th home run, tying Babe Ruth on the all-time career home run list for 2nd place. One more home run would leave Barry in sole possession of 2nd place (although still 40 behind Hank Aaron). The fans in the ballpark knew that they had a chance to see a little bit of baseball history.
The opposing pitcher, Byung-Hyun Kim throws with a wicked sidearmed motion that makes it look like the ball is rising as it approaches home plate. It's an uncommon approach, but he has had mixed results with it. His most famous moments as a pitcher were probably the game-losing home runs he gave up against the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. I still recall him squatting on the mound, after giving up the lead for the 2nd day in a row, with his head buried in his hands.
So, yesterday he faced Barry Bonds and again made history. Barry slammed his 715th home run deep past the center field fence, and the crowd went nuts. Tens of thousands of people screamed while Daisy accompanied them by squealing at a nearly inhuman frequency. Fireworks exploded while black and orange streamers fell from the upper deck.
It was quite a moment.
My feelings about Barry Bonds are mostly negative, but it was great to be at the ballpark at that moment. Watching his 715th home run was a little slice of baseball history. It was kind of like watching the odometer on your car hit 100,000 or maybe 100,715. It's meaningful if you believe in the power of numbers, and I'm a fairly numbers-oriented guy.
The Giants lost, 6-3, but I had a great time.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
I went for a trail run with my running club on Saturday. The coach gathered us in a group and discussed the various trails and distances that were available. He turned to me, mid-lecture, and asked which trails I'd be running, hoping that perhaps I could lead some novices through the trails.
"Coach, I'm going to do what I always do on trail runs. I'm going to get lost almost immediately, run aimlessly until I feel half-exhausted, and then turn around and try to find my way back."
Everyone laughed as though I were joking. Ha ha ha.
Shortly thereafter we launched out on our run. We were all going to run the same trail on the first leg of the run, so each time I got to an intersection, I just waited for the group so that I wouldn't get lost. When the group reached the split-up point, I latched on to another runner in the group. He seemed like a good choice because he was about the same speed as me, and he worked for Google. Let's call him Jeeves.
"Jeeves! I'm going to follow you." I exclaimed.
"Ok."
"You won't get lost, right? You Google people know everything, right?"
"Yeah."
"Don't you have like Google Earth built into your sunglasses? Can you see us on the satellite images right now?". I waved to the sky.
"Yes. Shhhh!" Jeeves whispered, holding his right hand up to his temple, "I'm getting the signal right now."
I let Jeeves run in peace for a while, figuring that I didn't need to overwhelm him with my neediness or Google fanboydom. I didn't want him to flip some switch somewhere, breaking my access to Google.com. I followed him silently, confident in his trail-choosing skills. Meanwhile a few other runners were following behind us.
I'd say it took about 4 minutes before we knew we were lost. We somehow ended outside of the trail system, on a residential street in San Rafael.
"I don't think this is right." one of the other brilliant runners announced. She suggested that we backtrack and try to figure out where we had made our mistake. That sounded good, and we launched back in the opposite direction, but I was concerned that more drastic measures might be required.
I manuevered my way into the middle of the pack and spoke up, "Folks, now that we're lost, I think we should figure out who we're going to kill and eat first."
This comment was met with total silence. I'm not good with pregnant pauses.
"Well, in the absence of any better ideas, I'm going to suggest that we kill the youngest. I think we can all agree that tender meat is the best. Like veal."
The older woman in front of me finally spoke up. "That sounds good." There was a murmur of agreement from one or two others.
I looked around and spotted one guy in the group who appeared to be around 22. He was clearly the youngest. I smirked at him. "Sorry, dude. It's been decided."
He grimaced. "You know, I'm quite muscular. I don't think I'd make good eating. Too sinewy."
I debated his over-inflated body image, and my looming hunger, just as we arrived at a fork in the trail. One direction was the original trail we had come in on. The other direction was a tiny trail going straight up a nearby hill. This seemed like an easy choice to me.
Suddenly, the young guy's friend sprinted to the front of the group. "Let's go up! This is what cavemen did when they were lost! They'd go to the highest peak." He began ascending the hill.
This was maybe the worst idea yet. It was clearly not a main trail. It went STRAIGHT UP, and the only reason to go up it was based on caveman reasoning. I looked over at Jeeves and he shrugged helplessly. Apparently his satellite link wasn't online.
Like sheep, we all followed the guy up the hill, and back down the treacherous other side. After this 5 minute exercise, we were about 100 yards from where we were when we had made the crappy caveman decision.
I took the lead at this point, picking a trail that just happened to lead us unintentionally back to the original starting point. I guess at that point we weren't technically lost, but we were back at the beginning when I was still hoping to log another five miles or so. Doh! I hate inadvertent circles.
I think the young guy was secretly relieved, but I was forced to relaunch out for another 40 minutes of running. I prevented myself from going the wrong way by not actually having a destination in mind. I just alternated turns, first going right and then left. After 20 minutes, I turned around and did the opposite. Astonishingly, this worked. I returned back to the starting point about 39 minutes after I had left.
The moral of the story is that you can't get lost if you don't care where you go, and that you should always keep in mind who you're going to kill and eat.
"Coach, I'm going to do what I always do on trail runs. I'm going to get lost almost immediately, run aimlessly until I feel half-exhausted, and then turn around and try to find my way back."
Everyone laughed as though I were joking. Ha ha ha.
Shortly thereafter we launched out on our run. We were all going to run the same trail on the first leg of the run, so each time I got to an intersection, I just waited for the group so that I wouldn't get lost. When the group reached the split-up point, I latched on to another runner in the group. He seemed like a good choice because he was about the same speed as me, and he worked for Google. Let's call him Jeeves.
"Jeeves! I'm going to follow you." I exclaimed.
"Ok."
"You won't get lost, right? You Google people know everything, right?"
"Yeah."
"Don't you have like Google Earth built into your sunglasses? Can you see us on the satellite images right now?". I waved to the sky.
"Yes. Shhhh!" Jeeves whispered, holding his right hand up to his temple, "I'm getting the signal right now."
I let Jeeves run in peace for a while, figuring that I didn't need to overwhelm him with my neediness or Google fanboydom. I didn't want him to flip some switch somewhere, breaking my access to Google.com. I followed him silently, confident in his trail-choosing skills. Meanwhile a few other runners were following behind us.
I'd say it took about 4 minutes before we knew we were lost. We somehow ended outside of the trail system, on a residential street in San Rafael.
"I don't think this is right." one of the other brilliant runners announced. She suggested that we backtrack and try to figure out where we had made our mistake. That sounded good, and we launched back in the opposite direction, but I was concerned that more drastic measures might be required.
I manuevered my way into the middle of the pack and spoke up, "Folks, now that we're lost, I think we should figure out who we're going to kill and eat first."
This comment was met with total silence. I'm not good with pregnant pauses.
"Well, in the absence of any better ideas, I'm going to suggest that we kill the youngest. I think we can all agree that tender meat is the best. Like veal."
The older woman in front of me finally spoke up. "That sounds good." There was a murmur of agreement from one or two others.
I looked around and spotted one guy in the group who appeared to be around 22. He was clearly the youngest. I smirked at him. "Sorry, dude. It's been decided."
He grimaced. "You know, I'm quite muscular. I don't think I'd make good eating. Too sinewy."
I debated his over-inflated body image, and my looming hunger, just as we arrived at a fork in the trail. One direction was the original trail we had come in on. The other direction was a tiny trail going straight up a nearby hill. This seemed like an easy choice to me.
Suddenly, the young guy's friend sprinted to the front of the group. "Let's go up! This is what cavemen did when they were lost! They'd go to the highest peak." He began ascending the hill.
This was maybe the worst idea yet. It was clearly not a main trail. It went STRAIGHT UP, and the only reason to go up it was based on caveman reasoning. I looked over at Jeeves and he shrugged helplessly. Apparently his satellite link wasn't online.
Like sheep, we all followed the guy up the hill, and back down the treacherous other side. After this 5 minute exercise, we were about 100 yards from where we were when we had made the crappy caveman decision.
I took the lead at this point, picking a trail that just happened to lead us unintentionally back to the original starting point. I guess at that point we weren't technically lost, but we were back at the beginning when I was still hoping to log another five miles or so. Doh! I hate inadvertent circles.
I think the young guy was secretly relieved, but I was forced to relaunch out for another 40 minutes of running. I prevented myself from going the wrong way by not actually having a destination in mind. I just alternated turns, first going right and then left. After 20 minutes, I turned around and did the opposite. Astonishingly, this worked. I returned back to the starting point about 39 minutes after I had left.
The moral of the story is that you can't get lost if you don't care where you go, and that you should always keep in mind who you're going to kill and eat.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Parenting is hard in many ways. It's hard in so many ways that to count them would require irrational or imaginary numbers (Note to self, check math before submitting blog post).
First, there was the conversation I had with Daisy last week. Part of her homework was to take a practice spelling test. If she spelled any words wrong, she was supposed to practice writing those words two extra times. This is a weekly homework task, but the difference was that this week she believed that the practice tests were going to be posted on her classroom wall for the upcoming Open House night at her school.
Hank administered the practice test and soon afterwards I heard Daisy crying her head off and stumbling into her room. I checked in to see what was wrong.
Me: Hey baby. What's the matter?
Daisy: I *sob* missed *sob* two words *sob* on my *sob* practice teeeeeeeeest waaaaaaah!
Since I'm usually incapable of understanding normal human emotions, I typically respond to these situations by either trying to "fix" the situation or by trying to cheer up the sad person. This technique can be effective with babies but gets less and less successful as they get older (for confirmation, ask my wife how well this approach works on her!)
Me: Two words? That's not so bad!
Daisy: It's *sob* horrible! Everyone is going *sob* to see!
Me: Who cares what they think. You're a great speller!
Daisy: Noooooo! Everyone *sob* will see my mistaaaaaaaaakes!
Me: Baby, I don't think anyone cares what you get on your spelling test except you, and your parents.
Daisy: I don't want *sob* anyone to seeeeeeeeeee!
Me: If you saw Morgan's spelling test and he had mistakes on it, would you think he's a dummy or a bad speller?
Daisy: No *sniff*
Me: Then why do you think that people will think that about you?
Daisy: Beeeeecauuuuuuuuse waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
We went around in this circle for a couple minutes until she just asked if she could be alone. Having been entirely unsuccessful at "fixing" her mood or problem, I let her be. I don't know how I should have approached that particular situation and even if I did know, I doubt the answer would be the same the next time she's troubled by a bewildering emotional issue.
Bleh.
Other problems are alarming in a totally different way.
Me: That was a fun sleepover you had with Sally, huh?
Daisy: Yeah! I can't wait for my next one!
Me: With Sally?
Daisy: No, I think I want to have a sleepover with a different friend.
Me: (blissfully unaware of the ominously looming answer) Who should we invite next?
Daisy: James.
Me: *cough* James! Right, James. James James James. Well, we'll have to set something u....LOOK! A MONKEY!
(Note: Daisy knows that there's no monkey when I say this, but she's still totally unable to prevent herself from stealing a look.)
Gah! Sleepovers with boys! Although I'm pretty sure that she's not going to get pregnant at the tender age of 6, the idea kind of gives me the willies, or at least the heebie jeebies. So far, we've entirely avoided the birds and the bees talk and any related issues. I don't know how long that can last though, which brings me to my final Daisy conversational snippet. This one is from a few months ago while we were driving in the car.
Me: Daisy! I just heard that Liz had her baby yesterday!
Daisy: Yay! That's so exciting.
Me: Yeah! They've got a little baby at home now.
Daisy: And poor Liz has a big cut in her stomach.
The only birth story that Daisy was familiar with was the story of her own birth, which was via a Cesarian section.
Me: Well, actually, they didn't cut a hole in Liz's tummy.
Daisy: They didn't?
Me: No. (Aware of ominously looming issue. Squirming.)
Daisy: Sooooo, how did the baby get out?
Me: Well, the baby came out her vagina.
Daisy: HER VAGINA?!?!?!?!
Me: Yes.
Daisy: Are you sure?
Me: Yes.
Daisy: ....
Me: (please don't ask any more questions, please please please)
Daisy: .....
Me: How about some music!
I narrowly escaped. So far Daisy has never asked how a baby gets INTO the mommy, but I suppose it could happen any day now.
Parenting is hard.
First, there was the conversation I had with Daisy last week. Part of her homework was to take a practice spelling test. If she spelled any words wrong, she was supposed to practice writing those words two extra times. This is a weekly homework task, but the difference was that this week she believed that the practice tests were going to be posted on her classroom wall for the upcoming Open House night at her school.
Hank administered the practice test and soon afterwards I heard Daisy crying her head off and stumbling into her room. I checked in to see what was wrong.
Me: Hey baby. What's the matter?
Daisy: I *sob* missed *sob* two words *sob* on my *sob* practice teeeeeeeeest waaaaaaah!
Since I'm usually incapable of understanding normal human emotions, I typically respond to these situations by either trying to "fix" the situation or by trying to cheer up the sad person. This technique can be effective with babies but gets less and less successful as they get older (for confirmation, ask my wife how well this approach works on her!)
Me: Two words? That's not so bad!
Daisy: It's *sob* horrible! Everyone is going *sob* to see!
Me: Who cares what they think. You're a great speller!
Daisy: Noooooo! Everyone *sob* will see my mistaaaaaaaaakes!
Me: Baby, I don't think anyone cares what you get on your spelling test except you, and your parents.
Daisy: I don't want *sob* anyone to seeeeeeeeeee!
Me: If you saw Morgan's spelling test and he had mistakes on it, would you think he's a dummy or a bad speller?
Daisy: No *sniff*
Me: Then why do you think that people will think that about you?
Daisy: Beeeeecauuuuuuuuse waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
We went around in this circle for a couple minutes until she just asked if she could be alone. Having been entirely unsuccessful at "fixing" her mood or problem, I let her be. I don't know how I should have approached that particular situation and even if I did know, I doubt the answer would be the same the next time she's troubled by a bewildering emotional issue.
Bleh.
Other problems are alarming in a totally different way.
Me: That was a fun sleepover you had with Sally, huh?
Daisy: Yeah! I can't wait for my next one!
Me: With Sally?
Daisy: No, I think I want to have a sleepover with a different friend.
Me: (blissfully unaware of the ominously looming answer) Who should we invite next?
Daisy: James.
Me: *cough* James! Right, James. James James James. Well, we'll have to set something u....LOOK! A MONKEY!
(Note: Daisy knows that there's no monkey when I say this, but she's still totally unable to prevent herself from stealing a look.)
Gah! Sleepovers with boys! Although I'm pretty sure that she's not going to get pregnant at the tender age of 6, the idea kind of gives me the willies, or at least the heebie jeebies. So far, we've entirely avoided the birds and the bees talk and any related issues. I don't know how long that can last though, which brings me to my final Daisy conversational snippet. This one is from a few months ago while we were driving in the car.
Me: Daisy! I just heard that Liz had her baby yesterday!
Daisy: Yay! That's so exciting.
Me: Yeah! They've got a little baby at home now.
Daisy: And poor Liz has a big cut in her stomach.
The only birth story that Daisy was familiar with was the story of her own birth, which was via a Cesarian section.
Me: Well, actually, they didn't cut a hole in Liz's tummy.
Daisy: They didn't?
Me: No. (Aware of ominously looming issue. Squirming.)
Daisy: Sooooo, how did the baby get out?
Me: Well, the baby came out her vagina.
Daisy: HER VAGINA?!?!?!?!
Me: Yes.
Daisy: Are you sure?
Me: Yes.
Daisy: ....
Me: (please don't ask any more questions, please please please)
Daisy: .....
Me: How about some music!
I narrowly escaped. So far Daisy has never asked how a baby gets INTO the mommy, but I suppose it could happen any day now.
Parenting is hard.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
First, off, let me say how very helpful you all are. I start off by writing a post about how I always make stupid mistakes when working with one particular individual, and I close the post by throwing in a joke that Pablo made about me having a crush on the guy. Har har har. Then, the entire blogosphere, or at least my .0000002% of it rises up and unanimously claims that I am indeed very very gay.
On the bright side, at least I heard it from you guys and not some hairy, ultra-endowed, and frisky suitor.
Totally unrelated, apparently today was awkward conversation day.
First example
The doorbell rang just before lunch today. A vaguely familiar woman was there. I stepped out in my socks and workout clothes to have this conversation with her:
Woman: Hi, I'm your neighbor from Roosevelt St and I'm taking care of your next door neighbor's yard for her and....hey, you look familiar. Do I know you?
Me: (not able to place her yet either) I'm not sure
Woman: Oh! I got it! I've seen you walking your dog.
Me: I don't have a dog.
Woman: Hmmmm. Ok. Anyway....oh....geez, are you ok? (peering down at my feet)
Me: Uh, yeah.
Woman: Oh, I see. You're just standing funny to keep your socks clean. Like this.... (demonstrates by contorting her lower body into an unnatural pigeon-toed stance)
Me: I guess I just stand that way normally. I'm naturally awkward.
Woman: Ah. Anyway, I'm cutting some vines in your neighbor's yard and...
Me: Oh! I recognize you now. You're Jackie. We chatted a long time ago about having you do some landscaping for us, but you didn't have time.
Woman: Really?
Me: Yeah! And also, once when I was walking with my daughter looking for snails for a school project, you helped us find some.
Woman: Oh. So, it wasn't your dog then.
Me: No. That was my daughter.
Second example
I needed to chat with one of my remote coworkers. I didn't have him on my Instant Messenger buddy list, but I had his boss listed. I asked his boss to cough up some contact information and he gave me Rick's Instant Messenger id and his phone number. Rick and I then had this chat:
Me: Hey, Rick. I've got you on my IM buddy list now! Expect me to be contacting you, oh, every 20 minutes or so, for the rest of your life.
Rick: Oh, I should add you to my list too. How do I add you as a buddy?
Me: Well, first we actually have to become buddies in real life.
Rick: Uhh....
Me: We'll need to hang out, get drinks, or maybe catch a ballgame.
Rick: .....
Me: Whooo! Lunches with Rick! We'll be best friends forever!
Rick: Oh, here it is. I found the "Add Buddy" button.
Me: That works too.
Third example
I went on a lunchtime run and jogged down a semi-busy street. I ran past a couple of gentlemen sitting on their front steps.
Gentleman 1: Hey, keep running, dude!
Gentleman 2: Ha ha!
Me: (running)
Gentleman 1: Run, Forrest, Run!
Gentleman 2: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Me: (running)
On the bright side, at least I heard it from you guys and not some hairy, ultra-endowed, and frisky suitor.
Totally unrelated, apparently today was awkward conversation day.
First example
The doorbell rang just before lunch today. A vaguely familiar woman was there. I stepped out in my socks and workout clothes to have this conversation with her:
Woman: Hi, I'm your neighbor from Roosevelt St and I'm taking care of your next door neighbor's yard for her and....hey, you look familiar. Do I know you?
Me: (not able to place her yet either) I'm not sure
Woman: Oh! I got it! I've seen you walking your dog.
Me: I don't have a dog.
Woman: Hmmmm. Ok. Anyway....oh....geez, are you ok? (peering down at my feet)
Me: Uh, yeah.
Woman: Oh, I see. You're just standing funny to keep your socks clean. Like this.... (demonstrates by contorting her lower body into an unnatural pigeon-toed stance)
Me: I guess I just stand that way normally. I'm naturally awkward.
Woman: Ah. Anyway, I'm cutting some vines in your neighbor's yard and...
Me: Oh! I recognize you now. You're Jackie. We chatted a long time ago about having you do some landscaping for us, but you didn't have time.
Woman: Really?
Me: Yeah! And also, once when I was walking with my daughter looking for snails for a school project, you helped us find some.
Woman: Oh. So, it wasn't your dog then.
Me: No. That was my daughter.
Second example
I needed to chat with one of my remote coworkers. I didn't have him on my Instant Messenger buddy list, but I had his boss listed. I asked his boss to cough up some contact information and he gave me Rick's Instant Messenger id and his phone number. Rick and I then had this chat:
Me: Hey, Rick. I've got you on my IM buddy list now! Expect me to be contacting you, oh, every 20 minutes or so, for the rest of your life.
Rick: Oh, I should add you to my list too. How do I add you as a buddy?
Me: Well, first we actually have to become buddies in real life.
Rick: Uhh....
Me: We'll need to hang out, get drinks, or maybe catch a ballgame.
Rick: .....
Me: Whooo! Lunches with Rick! We'll be best friends forever!
Rick: Oh, here it is. I found the "Add Buddy" button.
Me: That works too.
Third example
I went on a lunchtime run and jogged down a semi-busy street. I ran past a couple of gentlemen sitting on their front steps.
Gentleman 1: Hey, keep running, dude!
Gentleman 2: Ha ha!
Me: (running)
Gentleman 1: Run, Forrest, Run!
Gentleman 2: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Me: (running)
Monday, May 22, 2006
Oh, enough about you. Let's talk about me. How was my weekend?
It was busy. Families, as it turns out, are a real time sink. Let's review the highlights, er, bloglights.
On Friday night we did our usual. For years now our Friday nights have been reserved for our good friends, Larry and Liz (or LizLarry as we affectionately call them). Foolishly they went and had a baby a few months ago, so now much of our social time is spent dealing either with our kid or their kid. This Friday their infant was being especially cranky.
In baseball, some players are referred to as "5 tools" players. These are players that can run fast, throw well, catch well, and hit often and hard. In parenting, I'm known as a "1 tool" guy. If a baby is crying, I only have one trick up my sleeve, so I whipped it out for LizLarry's kid.
I stood in front of them, and slowly spun in a circle, alternately raising my right arm and then my left. Meanwhile, I "sang" this circus tune. Within seconds, their baby was mesmerized. She stopped screaming and stared at me. You would have been hard-pressed to describe her as happy, but she was clearly on the non-screamy side of befuddled, which was a marked improvement. I kept this up for several minutes. I was kind of out of shape, so it was tiring. These arms don't lift themselves, you know.
On Saturday night we went to go see a play put on by a program at Daisy's school. I couldn't decide what was cuter, seeing the kindergartners bust out their hip hop moves to the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" or watching the first graders strum their air guitars to Guns and Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle". Elementary school sure has gotten a lot hipper since I was a kid. (Or maybe I was just the one tragically unhip kid.)
My favorite moment of the weekend was discussing the train wreck of a reality show called "American Inventor". This show seemingly held much promise for geeks such as myself who can enjoy the occasional reality show. In the end, they had about 2 hours of content spread over an entire season of television.
My father, who recently purchased a Tivo (after years of me urging him to buy one), convinced me to start watching the show, so I discussed the finale with him last night:
Me: Man, that last episode was just a bunch of filler. I fast-forwarded through like 45 minutes of it. I'm pretty sure I watched it in less than 20 minutes.
Dad: Oh, I only watched 5 minutes of it. Just the end.
Mike: Well, shows like that are perfect for Tivo. Just zip right through it.
Dad: Yeah, I Tivo'ed the shit out of it.
I sat there for a second, wondering if I had mis-heard my father. Although he does swear on occasion, coining a new obscenity-laden expression is not really his style. I decided to let it stand as-is because it pleased me.
Finally, throughout the weekend, I wrestled with this zit. I lost.
It was busy. Families, as it turns out, are a real time sink. Let's review the highlights, er, bloglights.
On Friday night we did our usual. For years now our Friday nights have been reserved for our good friends, Larry and Liz (or LizLarry as we affectionately call them). Foolishly they went and had a baby a few months ago, so now much of our social time is spent dealing either with our kid or their kid. This Friday their infant was being especially cranky.
In baseball, some players are referred to as "5 tools" players. These are players that can run fast, throw well, catch well, and hit often and hard. In parenting, I'm known as a "1 tool" guy. If a baby is crying, I only have one trick up my sleeve, so I whipped it out for LizLarry's kid.
I stood in front of them, and slowly spun in a circle, alternately raising my right arm and then my left. Meanwhile, I "sang" this circus tune. Within seconds, their baby was mesmerized. She stopped screaming and stared at me. You would have been hard-pressed to describe her as happy, but she was clearly on the non-screamy side of befuddled, which was a marked improvement. I kept this up for several minutes. I was kind of out of shape, so it was tiring. These arms don't lift themselves, you know.
On Saturday night we went to go see a play put on by a program at Daisy's school. I couldn't decide what was cuter, seeing the kindergartners bust out their hip hop moves to the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" or watching the first graders strum their air guitars to Guns and Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle". Elementary school sure has gotten a lot hipper since I was a kid. (Or maybe I was just the one tragically unhip kid.)
My favorite moment of the weekend was discussing the train wreck of a reality show called "American Inventor". This show seemingly held much promise for geeks such as myself who can enjoy the occasional reality show. In the end, they had about 2 hours of content spread over an entire season of television.
My father, who recently purchased a Tivo (after years of me urging him to buy one), convinced me to start watching the show, so I discussed the finale with him last night:
Me: Man, that last episode was just a bunch of filler. I fast-forwarded through like 45 minutes of it. I'm pretty sure I watched it in less than 20 minutes.
Dad: Oh, I only watched 5 minutes of it. Just the end.
Mike: Well, shows like that are perfect for Tivo. Just zip right through it.
Dad: Yeah, I Tivo'ed the shit out of it.
I sat there for a second, wondering if I had mis-heard my father. Although he does swear on occasion, coining a new obscenity-laden expression is not really his style. I decided to let it stand as-is because it pleased me.
Finally, throughout the weekend, I wrestled with this zit. I lost.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
It's not always easy to know what other people think of me. Some people think I'm clever, others think I'm annoying, and nearly one of you is willing to have sex with me. As far as I know, however, no one thinks I'm a complete idiot. Except one guy. Let's call him Brian.
Brian and I work for the same company and he's been a technical resource for me on a few projects over the last couple years. I've never met him in person, but we've chatted on the phone dozens of times and exchanged many emails. He seems like a heck of a nice guy and he does good work.
For some inexplicable reason, however, I always make really stupid mistakes every time I work with him. These are the types of mistakes that I RARELY make, but when I'm teamed with Brian, I make them almost every time. For example, I routinely leave out some crucial step when I'm following his instructions. Then, we get to spend an hour figuring out why my computer is broken while I sheepishly apologize in advance, in anticipation of him finding my stupid error. It's time well-spent.
One time, I had two windows open, one accessing a computer that my team owned and another accessing a computer that his teamed owned. I was moving a bunch of files around and cleaning things up, occasionally using one of the most dangerous commands in Unix, 'rm -rf'. This command basically deletes all the files it can find without popping up any of those pesky warnings. Using this command is like saying, "Trust me, Unix, I know what I'm doing here."
Naturally I was typing in the wrong window when I did this, and I blew away hundreds of Brian's files. Whoops! That sure was a fun phone call. Brian, however, was understanding and gracious about my error.
On my most recent project, I needed some information from Brian's team, so he assigned an engineer to be my contact. Of course, I failed to note when the engineer was going on vacation and I missed my opportunity to pick his brain. I emailed Brian on Friday, asking for a new contact, and he replied that he'd be my contact.
Poor guy. I can't imagine the expression on his face when he realized that he'd have to work with me again.. Actually, I can imagine the expression, but I prefer not to keep such images of pain in my mind. As usual, he was outwardly pleasant and calm.
He kicked off our effort by suggesting that we open up a WebEx session. This is a website that allows one person to watch another person's compuer desktop remotely. We often use it when two people who work in different offices need to collaborate on a task, or for demonstrations. In this case we were using it so that Brian could watch every keystroke I made and ensure that I didn't pull a "Mike" on him.
As it turns out, my remarkable ability to screw up Brian's stuff exceeds his ability to police me over a semi-slow Net connection. I slipped an error past his watchful eye and then later we spent some quality time debugging my environment.
I am unable to determine why my usual computer competence fails me each time I work with Brian. His communication style is probably better than most engineers' and he's a fairly pleasant guy.
Pablo's theory is that I have some sort of man-crush on Brian and that I get all nervous and lovestruck each time we chat. I'm hoping that's not the case because that would be kind of.... well.... gay. I can't even imagine how much effort it would take to replace all my porn bookmarks with gay ones. I simply don't have time for that sort of sexuality switch. Besides, I've never even seen a picture of Brian, nor is his voice particularly sexy, so I doubt Pablo's theory.
So, I'm stuck with having one guy who thinks I'm a half-wit. Nah, probably more of a femto-wit. Unfortunately, since he's good friends with my boss's boss, it's unlikely that I can somehow get him fired.
Oh well.
Brian and I work for the same company and he's been a technical resource for me on a few projects over the last couple years. I've never met him in person, but we've chatted on the phone dozens of times and exchanged many emails. He seems like a heck of a nice guy and he does good work.
For some inexplicable reason, however, I always make really stupid mistakes every time I work with him. These are the types of mistakes that I RARELY make, but when I'm teamed with Brian, I make them almost every time. For example, I routinely leave out some crucial step when I'm following his instructions. Then, we get to spend an hour figuring out why my computer is broken while I sheepishly apologize in advance, in anticipation of him finding my stupid error. It's time well-spent.
One time, I had two windows open, one accessing a computer that my team owned and another accessing a computer that his teamed owned. I was moving a bunch of files around and cleaning things up, occasionally using one of the most dangerous commands in Unix, 'rm -rf'. This command basically deletes all the files it can find without popping up any of those pesky warnings. Using this command is like saying, "Trust me, Unix, I know what I'm doing here."
Naturally I was typing in the wrong window when I did this, and I blew away hundreds of Brian's files. Whoops! That sure was a fun phone call. Brian, however, was understanding and gracious about my error.
On my most recent project, I needed some information from Brian's team, so he assigned an engineer to be my contact. Of course, I failed to note when the engineer was going on vacation and I missed my opportunity to pick his brain. I emailed Brian on Friday, asking for a new contact, and he replied that he'd be my contact.
Poor guy. I can't imagine the expression on his face when he realized that he'd have to work with me again.. Actually, I can imagine the expression, but I prefer not to keep such images of pain in my mind. As usual, he was outwardly pleasant and calm.
He kicked off our effort by suggesting that we open up a WebEx session. This is a website that allows one person to watch another person's compuer desktop remotely. We often use it when two people who work in different offices need to collaborate on a task, or for demonstrations. In this case we were using it so that Brian could watch every keystroke I made and ensure that I didn't pull a "Mike" on him.
As it turns out, my remarkable ability to screw up Brian's stuff exceeds his ability to police me over a semi-slow Net connection. I slipped an error past his watchful eye and then later we spent some quality time debugging my environment.
I am unable to determine why my usual computer competence fails me each time I work with Brian. His communication style is probably better than most engineers' and he's a fairly pleasant guy.
Pablo's theory is that I have some sort of man-crush on Brian and that I get all nervous and lovestruck each time we chat. I'm hoping that's not the case because that would be kind of.... well.... gay. I can't even imagine how much effort it would take to replace all my porn bookmarks with gay ones. I simply don't have time for that sort of sexuality switch. Besides, I've never even seen a picture of Brian, nor is his voice particularly sexy, so I doubt Pablo's theory.
So, I'm stuck with having one guy who thinks I'm a half-wit. Nah, probably more of a femto-wit. Unfortunately, since he's good friends with my boss's boss, it's unlikely that I can somehow get him fired.
Oh well.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Bit by bit, I am becoming integrated into the parent community around Daisy's school. Resistance is futile!
When I wrote that I had become the PTA Board Secretary, that wasn't technically true. Although the only other candidate for the position had backed out (despite my pleading for him to save me from the job), no one can ascend to the Board without an official vote by the PTA membership. Last night that meeting occurred.
I demonstrated my commitment to the PTA by missing the meeting. I felt it was important to set the bar nice and low. There's no point in having them believe that I'm some sort of Super Secretary, heroically performing all required duties. I hate being the victim of high expectations.
My better half, Hank, attended the meeting on my behalf. She gave them a little Mike flava by making a smart aleck remark when it was time for comments on my candidacy. Soon the votes were tallied, and I'm proud to announce that I trounced my nonexistent competition. I am now OFFICIALLY the Secretary of the Board of the Parent Teacher Association for Daisy's school.
Then, this weekend, the wife and I attended a party celebrating the success of the annual school auction. They raised something like $160,000, so they threw themselves a party to celebrate.
I'm not a big party guy, or a big celebration guy, or one of those I-like-people guys, so I wasn't particularly excited about the party from the get-go. Then, Hank explained that the party was being held in a church.
Yeah, a party in a church.
Most of you would probably concede that a party being held in a church is at a pretty big disadvantage, fun-wise. For me it's extra troubling. I'm not a big church guy. Maybe it's because I fear organized religion, or perhaps it's due to my complete lack of spirituality, or maybe I just spent too many childhood hours in a synagogue to ever feel comfortable in a church. Regardless, I'm one of those people who walks into a church and says, "Do you smell flesh burning? Is that me again?"
But, I sucked it up, wore my least flammable clothing, and accompanied my wife to the church party. When we walked in, I noticed several things. First, there were more couches than pews. Yeah, bright whorehouse-red couches liberally sprinkled amongst the pews. In front of the couches, instead of finding some sort of pulpit, there were a few guitars, a drum kit, a keyboard, and some bongos.
Second, we were only at the party for about a minute when one of the party organizers rushed over to see if we wanted a cocktail. Why, yes! If I had to make a list of my favorite activities to perform in a house of worship, drinking cocktails would be damn near the top.
Speaking of perform, midway through the party, several parents started jamming on the instruments, while another parent manned the church mixing board. They weren't half bad either. It made me wish that I had some sort of party skill other than getting drunk. I offered to do a little jazz-style improvisational computer programming (structures be damned!), but the other party-goers were strangely uninterested. Weirdos.
The best part of the evening, of course, was that I did not combust.
When I wrote that I had become the PTA Board Secretary, that wasn't technically true. Although the only other candidate for the position had backed out (despite my pleading for him to save me from the job), no one can ascend to the Board without an official vote by the PTA membership. Last night that meeting occurred.
I demonstrated my commitment to the PTA by missing the meeting. I felt it was important to set the bar nice and low. There's no point in having them believe that I'm some sort of Super Secretary, heroically performing all required duties. I hate being the victim of high expectations.
My better half, Hank, attended the meeting on my behalf. She gave them a little Mike flava by making a smart aleck remark when it was time for comments on my candidacy. Soon the votes were tallied, and I'm proud to announce that I trounced my nonexistent competition. I am now OFFICIALLY the Secretary of the Board of the Parent Teacher Association for Daisy's school.
Then, this weekend, the wife and I attended a party celebrating the success of the annual school auction. They raised something like $160,000, so they threw themselves a party to celebrate.
I'm not a big party guy, or a big celebration guy, or one of those I-like-people guys, so I wasn't particularly excited about the party from the get-go. Then, Hank explained that the party was being held in a church.
Yeah, a party in a church.
Most of you would probably concede that a party being held in a church is at a pretty big disadvantage, fun-wise. For me it's extra troubling. I'm not a big church guy. Maybe it's because I fear organized religion, or perhaps it's due to my complete lack of spirituality, or maybe I just spent too many childhood hours in a synagogue to ever feel comfortable in a church. Regardless, I'm one of those people who walks into a church and says, "Do you smell flesh burning? Is that me again?"
But, I sucked it up, wore my least flammable clothing, and accompanied my wife to the church party. When we walked in, I noticed several things. First, there were more couches than pews. Yeah, bright whorehouse-red couches liberally sprinkled amongst the pews. In front of the couches, instead of finding some sort of pulpit, there were a few guitars, a drum kit, a keyboard, and some bongos.
Second, we were only at the party for about a minute when one of the party organizers rushed over to see if we wanted a cocktail. Why, yes! If I had to make a list of my favorite activities to perform in a house of worship, drinking cocktails would be damn near the top.
Speaking of perform, midway through the party, several parents started jamming on the instruments, while another parent manned the church mixing board. They weren't half bad either. It made me wish that I had some sort of party skill other than getting drunk. I offered to do a little jazz-style improvisational computer programming (structures be damned!), but the other party-goers were strangely uninterested. Weirdos.
The best part of the evening, of course, was that I did not combust.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
So far no one has asked what I think about Barry Bonds.
When I am ignored, do you know who pays the price? You do. In lieu of some witty anecdote about my exciting weekend, all you're getting is a boring ass post about Barry Bonds. It's a shame, a shame for us all.
Anyway.
For those of you who live under a gigantic rock, Barry Bonds was the best player in baseball BY A WIDE MARGIN from the years 2000 to 2004. He set a number of records, some of which had stood since the 1920s. For a while he made everone else on the baseball field look like little leaguers.
However, his accomplishments have come under a cloud in recent years as speculation has grown that Barry used steroids. Although steroids were not always explicitly disallowed by Major League Baseball, they were illegal and generally considered to be cheating. Barry is still playing, but he missed almost all of 2005 recovering from an injury and still doesn't look 100% this year.
Now, before I answer your questions, let me make a few disclaimers. First, I'm a fan of the San Francisco Giants, the team for which Barry has played for the last 12+ years. Second, I've never met Barry Bonds nor have I ever met anyone who really knows anything about Barry, or steroids. I have, however, read a bit on the topic and that seemingly makes me qualified to give a fair and balanced assessment.
I think there are several questions that can be asked about Barry Bonds
1) Has he been using steroids?
The conventional wisdom is that he has. Barry got much more muscular around 2000 and out of nowhere suddenly set the season record for home runs.
That's a pretty superficial way of looking at things though. Overall, homeruns were up in baseball during Barry's amazing seasons. Also, it's not unusual for players to get bigger in their later years. How many of us have lost weight since our 20s?
So, do I think he was on steroids? Oh, god, yes. The man must have been juiced to the gills.
Baseball player performance has been studied extensively and statisticians are damn good at predicting player performance based on age and past performance. Hitters typically peak in their late 20's and generally have a slow, sometimes faster, decline throughout their 30's.
Barry, like 99% of all other hitters in history followed this curve exactly. His stats hit a peak in 1993, at age 29, and then slowly began to fall a bit. Then, dramatically in 2000, at age 36, he improved significantly. In 2001, his stats flew off the charts, having the greatest offensive season in the history of baseball. He hit double the number of home runs he normally used to hit in a season. It was unreal.
He continued performing at an absurdly high level for the next several years, setting more offensive records even at age 40 in 2004.
Suddenly, when steroid testing in baseball got more serious, and more attention was being paid, Barry was unable to recover from injuries and only played a few games in 2005. So far in 2006, he looks mortal.
This pattern of performance, combined with the mountain of circumstantial evidence laid out in the book Game of Shadows (which I have not read!), makes a pretty damn compelling case. He must have been on steroids. I'd bet my ass on it.
2) Were steroids responsible for his amazing performance over the last several years?
Yeah. His numbers were just ridiculous. Some people think his best season was at age 40. That's unthinkable in baseball. I know I've generally improved with age, but I'd bet that even my anemic baseball skills have declined since my 20s.
Someone might hit more than 73 home runs one year. Albert Pujols has 19 so far this year in 38 games. So, he's on pace for 81. Now, something will happen and he'll slow down. It almost always happens that way, but if he does break the record, it won't be at age 40. Pujols (pronounced, amusingly, as poo-holes) is 26.
3) Is he done?
He's been looking old and gimpy this year, but he's not done. Barry was a great player even before he started "allegedly" taking steroids. He's a big strong guy with a good eye and quick hands. He's smart and knows the game well. He should continue to be a productive player for another year or two if his knees don't implode.
He'll never hit more than 40 home runs in a season again, but he can still hit.
4) Should his records count?
Yes! Baseball records are what they sound like. They are a record of what happened in baseball. He was never caught breaking the rules. His hits stand.
No one took away Babe Ruth's records even though he never had to play against African Americans?
No one took away records from players who were hopped up on amphetamines in the 1970s?
No is taking away any hitting records even though stadiums are smaller and the pitching talent is diluted by expansion teams.
Barry hit those home runs by whatever means he did and they count in the record books. There are no asterisks. No one has to vote the guy into the Hall of Fame, but his records stand.
5) Is Barry a big jerk?
He seems like one, but we all have our days.
I'll keep my weekend stories to myself.
When I am ignored, do you know who pays the price? You do. In lieu of some witty anecdote about my exciting weekend, all you're getting is a boring ass post about Barry Bonds. It's a shame, a shame for us all.
Anyway.
For those of you who live under a gigantic rock, Barry Bonds was the best player in baseball BY A WIDE MARGIN from the years 2000 to 2004. He set a number of records, some of which had stood since the 1920s. For a while he made everone else on the baseball field look like little leaguers.
However, his accomplishments have come under a cloud in recent years as speculation has grown that Barry used steroids. Although steroids were not always explicitly disallowed by Major League Baseball, they were illegal and generally considered to be cheating. Barry is still playing, but he missed almost all of 2005 recovering from an injury and still doesn't look 100% this year.
Now, before I answer your questions, let me make a few disclaimers. First, I'm a fan of the San Francisco Giants, the team for which Barry has played for the last 12+ years. Second, I've never met Barry Bonds nor have I ever met anyone who really knows anything about Barry, or steroids. I have, however, read a bit on the topic and that seemingly makes me qualified to give a fair and balanced assessment.
I think there are several questions that can be asked about Barry Bonds
1) Has he been using steroids?
The conventional wisdom is that he has. Barry got much more muscular around 2000 and out of nowhere suddenly set the season record for home runs.
That's a pretty superficial way of looking at things though. Overall, homeruns were up in baseball during Barry's amazing seasons. Also, it's not unusual for players to get bigger in their later years. How many of us have lost weight since our 20s?
So, do I think he was on steroids? Oh, god, yes. The man must have been juiced to the gills.
Baseball player performance has been studied extensively and statisticians are damn good at predicting player performance based on age and past performance. Hitters typically peak in their late 20's and generally have a slow, sometimes faster, decline throughout their 30's.
Barry, like 99% of all other hitters in history followed this curve exactly. His stats hit a peak in 1993, at age 29, and then slowly began to fall a bit. Then, dramatically in 2000, at age 36, he improved significantly. In 2001, his stats flew off the charts, having the greatest offensive season in the history of baseball. He hit double the number of home runs he normally used to hit in a season. It was unreal.
He continued performing at an absurdly high level for the next several years, setting more offensive records even at age 40 in 2004.
Suddenly, when steroid testing in baseball got more serious, and more attention was being paid, Barry was unable to recover from injuries and only played a few games in 2005. So far in 2006, he looks mortal.
This pattern of performance, combined with the mountain of circumstantial evidence laid out in the book Game of Shadows (which I have not read!), makes a pretty damn compelling case. He must have been on steroids. I'd bet my ass on it.
2) Were steroids responsible for his amazing performance over the last several years?
Yeah. His numbers were just ridiculous. Some people think his best season was at age 40. That's unthinkable in baseball. I know I've generally improved with age, but I'd bet that even my anemic baseball skills have declined since my 20s.
Someone might hit more than 73 home runs one year. Albert Pujols has 19 so far this year in 38 games. So, he's on pace for 81. Now, something will happen and he'll slow down. It almost always happens that way, but if he does break the record, it won't be at age 40. Pujols (pronounced, amusingly, as poo-holes) is 26.
3) Is he done?
He's been looking old and gimpy this year, but he's not done. Barry was a great player even before he started "allegedly" taking steroids. He's a big strong guy with a good eye and quick hands. He's smart and knows the game well. He should continue to be a productive player for another year or two if his knees don't implode.
He'll never hit more than 40 home runs in a season again, but he can still hit.
4) Should his records count?
Yes! Baseball records are what they sound like. They are a record of what happened in baseball. He was never caught breaking the rules. His hits stand.
No one took away Babe Ruth's records even though he never had to play against African Americans?
No one took away records from players who were hopped up on amphetamines in the 1970s?
No is taking away any hitting records even though stadiums are smaller and the pitching talent is diluted by expansion teams.
Barry hit those home runs by whatever means he did and they count in the record books. There are no asterisks. No one has to vote the guy into the Hall of Fame, but his records stand.
5) Is Barry a big jerk?
He seems like one, but we all have our days.
I'll keep my weekend stories to myself.
Monday, May 15, 2006
I suck at Mother's Day.
Well, that's not entirely true. I successfully fumbled my way through the process that turned my wife into a mother, and, hey, I played no small role in helping my mom cement her motherhood, but that's really where my expertise ends. I'm not so good at the present-buying part of it, which appears to be a primary component of the holiday.
Not only am I on the hook to find presents for my mom, and my wife, but somehow that obligation has expanded to buying presents for any mother within present-handing range. Did you raise a kid? Do you lack a Y chromosome? Then come on by and get your gift!
The wife and I went to the mall last week to do our Mother's Day shopping. Since I hadn't yet purchased anything for Hank, I decided that this would be a good time to subtlely pick her brain. I would make up for 364 days of inattention with some clever questions and astute observations.
Me: Hey, what are you looking at there?
Hank: These earrings here. For Liz.
Me: Oh, those are nice.... (mustering all my subtlety) Would you like earrings like that?
Hank: No.
We played this game a few times.
Me: What's that?
Hank: It's a little pill case. I can't decide if your sister would like it.
Me: I don't know. Would YOU like such a thing?
Hank: No.
Doh! This was hard.
(On a semi-related note, we didn't end up buying the pill case for my sister, because we had no idea if she takes any pills. We thought it might be nice to buy her one pre-filled though. Each day she'd get to take a mystery pill. One day it's Zoloft, the next it's Viagra. Day 3 is ecstasy. Fun! This would be a good gift idea for a more adventurous mom.)
A few days later I pinged my buddy, Pablo. I lamented my inability to purchase good Mother's Day gifts. He did some quick typey-typey and found Hank's Amazon wishlist. There was only one item in it, a Simon and Garfunkel album. Since Hank had never mentioned this wishlist to me, or her appreciation of Simon and Garfunkel, this was a pretty good gift idea. It was nice to get her something that she clearly wanted, but had not explicitly asked me for. Score!
It wasn't very romantic though, so I needed something else. I cruised back to the mall by myself and forced myself into Brighton, a store that I detest, but Hank seems to like. Most of their jewelry is ornate, or flowery, or faux antiquey. This is not stuff that I would buy for myself.
If I were a cross dresser, I'd buy very simple jewelry. No hearts or flowers or frilly designs, just clean and simple lines. I guess I'd be a very mannish kind of cross dresser rather than the flamboyant queeny type. I think this means that I'm probably not a woman trapped in a man's body. Really, I'm more of a wuss trapped in a man's body. Well, not exactly a "man's body", but a close approximation. Ok, "close" is a relative term.
But, I digress.
So, I perused all their crazy jewelry with the sales people following behind me asking incomprehensible questions like, "Does she like dangly?" and "What do you really know about this woman?". Eventually they suggested a set that I didn't hate, and that had at least a 10% chance of Hank not hating. I liked them odds!
In the end the jewelry was a success, but the Simon and Garfunkel was a big loser. She stared it at blankly and said, "Oh. Simon....and.....Garfunkel. Ok."
"I found it on your wishlist!" I blurted out defensively.
"I don't recall ever putting that on my wishlist or even making a wishlist, but, thanks."
"It's Pablo's fault!"
In my defense, I'd like to say that at least I wasn't a month late this year, even if my success average was worse. Happy Mother's Day, y'all!
Well, that's not entirely true. I successfully fumbled my way through the process that turned my wife into a mother, and, hey, I played no small role in helping my mom cement her motherhood, but that's really where my expertise ends. I'm not so good at the present-buying part of it, which appears to be a primary component of the holiday.
Not only am I on the hook to find presents for my mom, and my wife, but somehow that obligation has expanded to buying presents for any mother within present-handing range. Did you raise a kid? Do you lack a Y chromosome? Then come on by and get your gift!
The wife and I went to the mall last week to do our Mother's Day shopping. Since I hadn't yet purchased anything for Hank, I decided that this would be a good time to subtlely pick her brain. I would make up for 364 days of inattention with some clever questions and astute observations.
Me: Hey, what are you looking at there?
Hank: These earrings here. For Liz.
Me: Oh, those are nice.... (mustering all my subtlety) Would you like earrings like that?
Hank: No.
We played this game a few times.
Me: What's that?
Hank: It's a little pill case. I can't decide if your sister would like it.
Me: I don't know. Would YOU like such a thing?
Hank: No.
Doh! This was hard.
(On a semi-related note, we didn't end up buying the pill case for my sister, because we had no idea if she takes any pills. We thought it might be nice to buy her one pre-filled though. Each day she'd get to take a mystery pill. One day it's Zoloft, the next it's Viagra. Day 3 is ecstasy. Fun! This would be a good gift idea for a more adventurous mom.)
A few days later I pinged my buddy, Pablo. I lamented my inability to purchase good Mother's Day gifts. He did some quick typey-typey and found Hank's Amazon wishlist. There was only one item in it, a Simon and Garfunkel album. Since Hank had never mentioned this wishlist to me, or her appreciation of Simon and Garfunkel, this was a pretty good gift idea. It was nice to get her something that she clearly wanted, but had not explicitly asked me for. Score!
It wasn't very romantic though, so I needed something else. I cruised back to the mall by myself and forced myself into Brighton, a store that I detest, but Hank seems to like. Most of their jewelry is ornate, or flowery, or faux antiquey. This is not stuff that I would buy for myself.
If I were a cross dresser, I'd buy very simple jewelry. No hearts or flowers or frilly designs, just clean and simple lines. I guess I'd be a very mannish kind of cross dresser rather than the flamboyant queeny type. I think this means that I'm probably not a woman trapped in a man's body. Really, I'm more of a wuss trapped in a man's body. Well, not exactly a "man's body", but a close approximation. Ok, "close" is a relative term.
But, I digress.
So, I perused all their crazy jewelry with the sales people following behind me asking incomprehensible questions like, "Does she like dangly?" and "What do you really know about this woman?". Eventually they suggested a set that I didn't hate, and that had at least a 10% chance of Hank not hating. I liked them odds!
In the end the jewelry was a success, but the Simon and Garfunkel was a big loser. She stared it at blankly and said, "Oh. Simon....and.....Garfunkel. Ok."
"I found it on your wishlist!" I blurted out defensively.
"I don't recall ever putting that on my wishlist or even making a wishlist, but, thanks."
"It's Pablo's fault!"
In my defense, I'd like to say that at least I wasn't a month late this year, even if my success average was worse. Happy Mother's Day, y'all!
Thursday, May 11, 2006
I rode my bike a lot when I was a kid. I rode it to school, to friends' houses, and just to play around. Do you know how many times I broke my head doing that? Zero. I fell off that bike a few times, but I never ever ever broke my head. Structurally speaking, I have a totally unbroken head, despite years of helmetless wheeled activity.
The only kids that wore helmets in those days were the kids in "special education". They had to wear their helmets all day at school. Even though it was a required part of school culture to make fun of the special ed kids, I still felt sorry for them. It must have been a hard life falling on your head all the time.
Today, all kids wear helmets each time they ride some sort of self-propelled wheeled vehicle. Bikes, tricycles, scooters, and roller skates/blades are all deemed to be head smashers. The fact that Daisy has NEVER fallen off her scooter, or was incapable of riding her trike more than 1 mph, was irrelevant. Nevermind that she was more likely to injure herself putting the helmet on than flying off her tricycle. Frankly, Daisy got off easy. Other kids are virtually swaddled in elbow pads, knee pads, and self-esteem pads.
Still, despite the prevalence of the helmeted children today, every once in a while, when I see some kid standing next to a bike and wearing a helmet, I still think, "Look! A special ed kid!"
Meanwhile, I took Daisy to Tae Kwon Do class again today (it's three freakin' times a week!!). I'm constantly astonished by how disobedient and borderline brain-damaged these kids are. Many are incapable of paying attention for even a micro second and others just flop randomly around the room. Granted, some of them are only four, but still, Daisy stands out like a Rhodes Scholar.
At one point the kids were working their way down the room, doing knife-hand chops as they went. One little girl stopped between each knife-hand motion, picked her nose, and ate it. She had a rhythm going.
Between the obsessive-compulsive booger eating, the total inability to pay attention, and the general idiocy, I'm beginning to think that maybe all these kids SHOULD be wearing helmets. Maybe it's just a special ed generation.
The only kids that wore helmets in those days were the kids in "special education". They had to wear their helmets all day at school. Even though it was a required part of school culture to make fun of the special ed kids, I still felt sorry for them. It must have been a hard life falling on your head all the time.
Today, all kids wear helmets each time they ride some sort of self-propelled wheeled vehicle. Bikes, tricycles, scooters, and roller skates/blades are all deemed to be head smashers. The fact that Daisy has NEVER fallen off her scooter, or was incapable of riding her trike more than 1 mph, was irrelevant. Nevermind that she was more likely to injure herself putting the helmet on than flying off her tricycle. Frankly, Daisy got off easy. Other kids are virtually swaddled in elbow pads, knee pads, and self-esteem pads.
Still, despite the prevalence of the helmeted children today, every once in a while, when I see some kid standing next to a bike and wearing a helmet, I still think, "Look! A special ed kid!"
Meanwhile, I took Daisy to Tae Kwon Do class again today (it's three freakin' times a week!!). I'm constantly astonished by how disobedient and borderline brain-damaged these kids are. Many are incapable of paying attention for even a micro second and others just flop randomly around the room. Granted, some of them are only four, but still, Daisy stands out like a Rhodes Scholar.
At one point the kids were working their way down the room, doing knife-hand chops as they went. One little girl stopped between each knife-hand motion, picked her nose, and ate it. She had a rhythm going.
Between the obsessive-compulsive booger eating, the total inability to pay attention, and the general idiocy, I'm beginning to think that maybe all these kids SHOULD be wearing helmets. Maybe it's just a special ed generation.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Remember that interesting picture of Rosa Parks that Daisy drew? I know some of you remember it. It haunts you in your dreams!
Daisy had created that poster for a class contest. Each kid drew some sort of biographical poster. Although Daisy had added some artistic flourishes and a few sentences of biographical text about Rosa to the poster after I took the picture, my photo did capture the poster's essence. Hell, let's show it again.
Anyway, the results of the contest were decided and Daisy's poster came in 2nd place! I can only assume that the first place poster was an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. that was burned in effigy.
Daisy had created that poster for a class contest. Each kid drew some sort of biographical poster. Although Daisy had added some artistic flourishes and a few sentences of biographical text about Rosa to the poster after I took the picture, my photo did capture the poster's essence. Hell, let's show it again.
Anyway, the results of the contest were decided and Daisy's poster came in 2nd place! I can only assume that the first place poster was an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. that was burned in effigy.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
On Sunday I brought Daisy to an art studio here in San Francisco. They have an array of pre-made unfinished pottery pieces and a large selection of paints and brushes. The idea is that you spend some time (and money) painting the pieces and then they'll fire it and glaze it for you. Daisy loves it there. This was probably her third visit, but it was my first.
Daisy carefully perused the shelves of white pottery looking for the perfect canvas.
"Daddy, what are you going to paint?"
"Oh, I think I'll just watch you. I'm not much of a painter."
"Are you sure? Look at all these cute things!"
I looked around. I saw plates, bowls, mugs, platters, kitties, puppies, bunnies, skulls....
"Skulls? That seems out of place, " I said to myself. "Hey, I SPECIALIZE in out of place! Maybe I'll paint me a skull!"
They had a sample finished skull on the shelf. It was painted black with flames licking the cheek bones. I snorted in derision. How cliche! Besides, good flames are way hard to paint. My Art Fu is weak. I quickly ran down my mental checklist of things I was actually capable of painting:
- Smiley faces
- Rainbows
- Flowers
- Squiggles
I worked carefully for the next hour, choosing the happiest paint colors and decorating my skull carefully. I pushed the envelope of my abilities by adding a heart, a lady bug, and a pretty blue spiral. I also gave "A Skull Out Of Water" a nice smile and some googly eyes. I like him. He's the nicest skull ever.
Daisy also painted a bunch of stuff.
Monday, May 08, 2006
I'm a pretty horrible leader. I'm not good at making decisions and my people-skills are suspect. If you were, for example, putting together a Board of Directors for something, I'm the last person you'd want to invite.
That being said, I just got placed on the Board of Directors for the Parent Teacher Assocation for Daisy's school. Hah! Joke's on them!
You see, a couple weeks ago a woman from the PTA, whom I've spoken to in the past for about 30 seconds, called. Sadly, I answered the phone.
PTA Person: Hi Mike. I'm calling because we have an opening on the PTA Board that we're trying to fill and we were thinking that Hank...or you, would be a great fit.
Me: Ha ha. I know you guys just want Hank. I'm not offended.
PTA Person: No. That's not true. Someone had suggested Hank and then...uh, I said that you would be good too.
Me: That's very kind. *coughbullshit* We'll get back to you.
I discussed the phone call with Hank later that evening. We both agreed that her plate was full and that she already did a lot of volunteering for Daisy's school. The lack of fullness on my plate, however, was conspicuous. Hank gently suggested that I should feel free to take on this job.
Note that this flies in the face of the unwritten teamwork and division-of-labor codes in our relationship. Some aspects of division are explicit. For example, Hank does the cooking and I do the dishes. Other aspects aren't spelled out quite so clearly. Chief among those more subtle areas are the charity-giving and the time-volunteering.
One could argue that if the Christian notion of Heaven and Hell is correct, that Hank has smoothed her path upwards whereas my lazy ass will drag me down to a fiery eternity. I prefer the interpretation where our Goodness coefficient is pooled, like our finances, and I can ride her coattails to the pearly gates.
Thankfully, I'm an agnostic Jew, so I can sleep well either way. That's handy for getting me a good night's rest, but it doesn't make me feel any better about being a selfish and lazy bastard. So, after much thoughtful coin-flipping, I called back the PTA lady and agreed to join the Board.
Ladies and germs, I proudly present the next Secretary of the Board of the Parent Teacher's Association: Me! I'm the Secretary, biatch! (Note the comma)
That's Lord Secretary to you peons! BOW BEFORE MY GREAT SECRETARINESS!
This is all going to end very poorly.
That being said, I just got placed on the Board of Directors for the Parent Teacher Assocation for Daisy's school. Hah! Joke's on them!
You see, a couple weeks ago a woman from the PTA, whom I've spoken to in the past for about 30 seconds, called. Sadly, I answered the phone.
PTA Person: Hi Mike. I'm calling because we have an opening on the PTA Board that we're trying to fill and we were thinking that Hank...or you, would be a great fit.
Me: Ha ha. I know you guys just want Hank. I'm not offended.
PTA Person: No. That's not true. Someone had suggested Hank and then...uh, I said that you would be good too.
Me: That's very kind. *coughbullshit* We'll get back to you.
I discussed the phone call with Hank later that evening. We both agreed that her plate was full and that she already did a lot of volunteering for Daisy's school. The lack of fullness on my plate, however, was conspicuous. Hank gently suggested that I should feel free to take on this job.
Note that this flies in the face of the unwritten teamwork and division-of-labor codes in our relationship. Some aspects of division are explicit. For example, Hank does the cooking and I do the dishes. Other aspects aren't spelled out quite so clearly. Chief among those more subtle areas are the charity-giving and the time-volunteering.
One could argue that if the Christian notion of Heaven and Hell is correct, that Hank has smoothed her path upwards whereas my lazy ass will drag me down to a fiery eternity. I prefer the interpretation where our Goodness coefficient is pooled, like our finances, and I can ride her coattails to the pearly gates.
Thankfully, I'm an agnostic Jew, so I can sleep well either way. That's handy for getting me a good night's rest, but it doesn't make me feel any better about being a selfish and lazy bastard. So, after much thoughtful coin-flipping, I called back the PTA lady and agreed to join the Board.
Ladies and germs, I proudly present the next Secretary of the Board of the Parent Teacher's Association: Me! I'm the Secretary, biatch! (Note the comma)
That's Lord Secretary to you peons! BOW BEFORE MY GREAT SECRETARINESS!
This is all going to end very poorly.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
I brought Daisy to her Tae Kwon Do class this weekend. For some reason the Saturday class is always poorly attended. Yesterday Daisy was the only student. Being an only child and a natural teacher's pet, this is a comfortable scenario for her.
The class was taught by a substitute instructor that I had never seen before. He led Daisy through several of her Tae Kwon Do forms for a few minutes, then looked down at his watch and soon realized that class with one student can cover a lot more ground than class with a dozen. He needed filler and fast.
"So, Daisy, you feel like doing something..... uh.... new?"
"Sure"
"Ok, we're going to use something that your other classmates haven't tried yet."
With that ominous warning, the instructor disappeared into the supply room for a minute and then returned with....NUNCHUCKS!
Ah, of course. Nunchucks. I guess they had run out of throwing stars, machetes, and dynamite. These are all very useful skills for six year-olds.
I was sitting about 20 yards away, so I couldn't see what the nunchucks were made out of. For the sake of my parental sanity, I'm going to assume they were made out of something soft like foam and not wood. I'm sure a better parent would have at least asked a question about them, but I was too busy laughing and wishing that I had brought a real camera. I snapped this picture with my crappy cell phone camera.
(Daisy is the little one. You can see a blue smudge behind her back. That's the weapon!)
Daisy was unaware that she was being schooled on a weapon so dangerous that it would be illegal for her to own them. She learned a few basic maneuvers and managed to escape without injuring herself or the instructor. Similarly, I emerged without giving myself a hernia from laughing. Safety first!
On a totally unrelated note, here's my recent favorite search that brought someone to my blog. The words they search on tell a story. It's a story that starts out innocent, romantic and sweet. By the time they had finished typing in their search criteria, their true nature had been revealed:
story romantic sexy honeymoon Surprise BLOWJOB
(Capitalization added)
The class was taught by a substitute instructor that I had never seen before. He led Daisy through several of her Tae Kwon Do forms for a few minutes, then looked down at his watch and soon realized that class with one student can cover a lot more ground than class with a dozen. He needed filler and fast.
"So, Daisy, you feel like doing something..... uh.... new?"
"Sure"
"Ok, we're going to use something that your other classmates haven't tried yet."
With that ominous warning, the instructor disappeared into the supply room for a minute and then returned with....NUNCHUCKS!
Ah, of course. Nunchucks. I guess they had run out of throwing stars, machetes, and dynamite. These are all very useful skills for six year-olds.
I was sitting about 20 yards away, so I couldn't see what the nunchucks were made out of. For the sake of my parental sanity, I'm going to assume they were made out of something soft like foam and not wood. I'm sure a better parent would have at least asked a question about them, but I was too busy laughing and wishing that I had brought a real camera. I snapped this picture with my crappy cell phone camera.
(Daisy is the little one. You can see a blue smudge behind her back. That's the weapon!)
Daisy was unaware that she was being schooled on a weapon so dangerous that it would be illegal for her to own them. She learned a few basic maneuvers and managed to escape without injuring herself or the instructor. Similarly, I emerged without giving myself a hernia from laughing. Safety first!
On a totally unrelated note, here's my recent favorite search that brought someone to my blog. The words they search on tell a story. It's a story that starts out innocent, romantic and sweet. By the time they had finished typing in their search criteria, their true nature had been revealed:
story romantic sexy honeymoon Surprise BLOWJOB
(Capitalization added)
Thursday, May 04, 2006
I'm in the supermarket the other day and I spied these babies on the right. They're Grapples, which are, apparently, apples that taste like grapes.
I know what you're thinking. You're saying, "Don't we already have a food that tastes like grapes? Like, maybe, grapes?"
That's why YOU are not a marketing genius. Sure, you could just eat grapes, but wouldn't you rather have someone take an apple, and apply a grape flavor to it via a mysterious and patented chemical process? Mmmmm, sounds good when I put it that way, doesn't it? I love the flavor of mysterious. And grapes!
We can only assume that this is merely Phase One of their genius flavor switching campaign. Phase Two will make EVERYTHING taste like grapes. For breakfast I'll have a delicious helping of grape toast (Groast!), a side of grape bacon (Gracon!) and two Greggs, over easy. Yum!
Phase Three will just generally swap all flavors. Burgers will taste like Mountain Dew, salt will taste like pepper, and chocolate will have the delectable flavor (and odor!) of liver and onions. Every meal will be a complete surprise. Think you ordered cherry pie for dessert? Mmmm, sushi!
Folks, this is why we haven't cured cancer yet. People are spending their time "inventing" dumbass crap like this. Even worse, other people are wasting their time blogging about it. It's a vicious cycle.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Have you ever been to one of the Dollar stores? It's a place where every product is sold for the price of $1.00. Aisles are filled with candies, crappy toys, and packs of 99 pennies. No need to ask how much something costs. It's all a dollar.
Going to my mechanic is a lot like that, except that instead of things costing one dollar, the total is always one thousand dollars. Pablo, whose car has over 250,000 miles on it and goes to the same mechanic, first noticed this phenomenon. You could bring your car in for an oil change and our mechanic will notice a few other things that need fixing. Grand total? $1000.
(Kaiser Permanente, my favorite HMO, employs a similar pricing strategy. All doctor visits are $10.00. Got some sniffles? $10.00. Need a brain transplant? $10.00.)
As I mentioned yesterday, I brought my car in because the ABS/Brake dashboard light was intermittently flashing. The mechanic spent a couple hours trying to trace down the source of the indicator lights but couldn't find anything wrong. Being resourceful billers, they identified some other maintenance issues.
"Oh, and your engine mount needs to be replaced," the mechanic's assistant informed me.
"My, uh, engine... mount?" I asked knowledgeably.
"Certainly. The mechanic took your car for a drive while investigating the brake issue, then came back and immediately said, 'That engine mount is broken!' You never noticed?"
"Oh, well, ummm, it kind of.... you know, my wife mostly drives this car."
So, they fixed the engine mounty thing, replaced some tires, did an oil change and rejiggered the jiggermafier. I spoke with the assistant this afternoon when I picked up the car.
"We completed all the work including the engine mount replacement. It drives really smooth now. You're going to be very pleased with it. Very smooth."
Although I didn't notice much of a difference in how the car drove, it might have been a little smoother than before. That's good, I guess. It's hard to put a price tag on subjective qualities like "smooth", but my mechanic did it. It's $1000.
Going to my mechanic is a lot like that, except that instead of things costing one dollar, the total is always one thousand dollars. Pablo, whose car has over 250,000 miles on it and goes to the same mechanic, first noticed this phenomenon. You could bring your car in for an oil change and our mechanic will notice a few other things that need fixing. Grand total? $1000.
(Kaiser Permanente, my favorite HMO, employs a similar pricing strategy. All doctor visits are $10.00. Got some sniffles? $10.00. Need a brain transplant? $10.00.)
As I mentioned yesterday, I brought my car in because the ABS/Brake dashboard light was intermittently flashing. The mechanic spent a couple hours trying to trace down the source of the indicator lights but couldn't find anything wrong. Being resourceful billers, they identified some other maintenance issues.
"Oh, and your engine mount needs to be replaced," the mechanic's assistant informed me.
"My, uh, engine... mount?" I asked knowledgeably.
"Certainly. The mechanic took your car for a drive while investigating the brake issue, then came back and immediately said, 'That engine mount is broken!' You never noticed?"
"Oh, well, ummm, it kind of.... you know, my wife mostly drives this car."
So, they fixed the engine mounty thing, replaced some tires, did an oil change and rejiggered the jiggermafier. I spoke with the assistant this afternoon when I picked up the car.
"We completed all the work including the engine mount replacement. It drives really smooth now. You're going to be very pleased with it. Very smooth."
Although I didn't notice much of a difference in how the car drove, it might have been a little smoother than before. That's good, I guess. It's hard to put a price tag on subjective qualities like "smooth", but my mechanic did it. It's $1000.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Of course, everything beeps in my life. The dishwasher beeps annoyedly when we interrupt it's precious little wash cycle, the coffee maker beeps pompously at each inconsequential stage of the coffee making lifecycle, and my daughter has been known to try and communicate via a mysterious beep/bloop language on occasion. I've gotten good at ignoring all these pesky noises.
What all these appliances/children fail to realize is that they more often they beep, the less I'll pay attention. There's no need for me to leap out of my chair when the coffee warming mechanism shuts off, despite the fact that I'm usually fully caffeinated and eager to exercise my jumping muscles by that time. Less is more when it comes to notification beeps.
The car mostly gets it. The car doesn't beep very often, so when it does beep, I want to know what it's saying. "What's that, Car-y? You say that Timmy fell down a well? And you need gas?!?!" Ok!
(Note that I have anthropormophized most of the objects in the house, like the car. The official story is that I do this for the entertainment of my daughter, and I'm sticking to that story. You'd like Car-y. He's really nice.)
Even though I pay attention to Car-y's beeps, they don't all require immediate action. If I have to go a few days without refilling the windshield wiper fluid, it'll be ok. There's little need for the car to have better hygiene than I do.
Some of the beeps are accompanied by ominous indicator lights on the dash. That Check Engine light is a bastard. What the hell does that mean, "Check Engine"? Ok, bub, the engine is still there. We good now?
The last time the Check Engine light came on, we dutifully took the car to our mechanic, he hooked up an expensive computer to the car, and determined that our gas cap wasn't screwed in all the way. For a mere $60, he gave that baby a good twist. I guess Volkswagon didn't feel the need to install a Check Gas Cap light. Too bad for me.
I've never actually seen the Check Engine light mean anything important. I'd happily ignore that bastard until something actually stopped working on the car, but my wife is not so daring. She robotically (but sexily) looks in the Troubleshooting section of the VW manual each time and informs me that it says to immediately take the car to the dealer.
This weekend the ABS/Brakes light came on, accompanied by three shrill important-sounding beeps. Then, the light turned off. This happened a couple of times, and each time the light turned off.
"Looks like the problem fixed itself!" I announced hopefully, watching my wife out of the corner of my eye.
"No."
"You know what that light means, don't you, Hank? It means that they want us to give more money to the mechanic. That's all it means."
"No."
"It's probably not even the brakes. It's probably time to get the fuel gauge recalibrated, or the flux capacitor waxed."
"No."
We got home and Hank looked in the manual. It said to take the car immediately to the dealer. This is the car that Hank drives Miss Daisy around in. This is not an argument that I can or should win.
So, I took Car-y to the mechanic today. They haven't figured out exactly why the ABS/Brake light went on, but they've found a half dozen other things that need fixing.
I hate the beeps.
What all these appliances/children fail to realize is that they more often they beep, the less I'll pay attention. There's no need for me to leap out of my chair when the coffee warming mechanism shuts off, despite the fact that I'm usually fully caffeinated and eager to exercise my jumping muscles by that time. Less is more when it comes to notification beeps.
The car mostly gets it. The car doesn't beep very often, so when it does beep, I want to know what it's saying. "What's that, Car-y? You say that Timmy fell down a well? And you need gas?!?!" Ok!
(Note that I have anthropormophized most of the objects in the house, like the car. The official story is that I do this for the entertainment of my daughter, and I'm sticking to that story. You'd like Car-y. He's really nice.)
Even though I pay attention to Car-y's beeps, they don't all require immediate action. If I have to go a few days without refilling the windshield wiper fluid, it'll be ok. There's little need for the car to have better hygiene than I do.
Some of the beeps are accompanied by ominous indicator lights on the dash. That Check Engine light is a bastard. What the hell does that mean, "Check Engine"? Ok, bub, the engine is still there. We good now?
The last time the Check Engine light came on, we dutifully took the car to our mechanic, he hooked up an expensive computer to the car, and determined that our gas cap wasn't screwed in all the way. For a mere $60, he gave that baby a good twist. I guess Volkswagon didn't feel the need to install a Check Gas Cap light. Too bad for me.
I've never actually seen the Check Engine light mean anything important. I'd happily ignore that bastard until something actually stopped working on the car, but my wife is not so daring. She robotically (but sexily) looks in the Troubleshooting section of the VW manual each time and informs me that it says to immediately take the car to the dealer.
This weekend the ABS/Brakes light came on, accompanied by three shrill important-sounding beeps. Then, the light turned off. This happened a couple of times, and each time the light turned off.
"Looks like the problem fixed itself!" I announced hopefully, watching my wife out of the corner of my eye.
"No."
"You know what that light means, don't you, Hank? It means that they want us to give more money to the mechanic. That's all it means."
"No."
"It's probably not even the brakes. It's probably time to get the fuel gauge recalibrated, or the flux capacitor waxed."
"No."
We got home and Hank looked in the manual. It said to take the car immediately to the dealer. This is the car that Hank drives Miss Daisy around in. This is not an argument that I can or should win.
So, I took Car-y to the mechanic today. They haven't figured out exactly why the ABS/Brake light went on, but they've found a half dozen other things that need fixing.
I hate the beeps.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Today was going to be a pretty good day.
First, we've got a fantastic couple that comes over every Monday morning to clean our house. Yay, stink-free house! Then, we were scheduled to bring super delicious tacos from our favorite taqueria over to our friends' house for dinner. It's a happy monthly event.
None of those things happened because it was "A Day Without Clean Houses Or Tacos". I think America learned a valuable lesson today, or at least the part of America that's forced to smell my house. Meanwhile, Hank whipped up an alternate dinner for us to eat. She called it "Immigrant Surprise". (The secret ingredient is Ecuadorans. Shhhh!)
Anyway, in honor of immigrants, I will now post an important conversation I recently had with one of my favorite immigrants, my good friend Pablo. We often debate the important issues of our time:
Me: Hank and Daisy went out for manicures and pedicures this morning. Or "manis and pedis" as they say.
Pablo: Sounds fun.
Me: I suppose. I was hoping to postpone this event in Daisy's development for another decade, but, oh well. At least I don't have to clip her nails this week now.
Pablo: You usually do that with clippers, I imagine. Nail scissors are horrible.
Me: What? You've got to be joking. Clippers are an abomination
Pablo: You are so wrong.
Me: Clippers would be good if I had 20 of them, each exactly fitted to one nail. However, since each of my nails is a slightly different size or shape, there's no one nail clipper that does the job.
Pablo: No.
Me: Yes! The problem with nail clippers is that with every cut, you leave some sharp point. You're constantly recutting, replacing one pointy part with another. It's like you can asymptotically approach a correctly cut nail, but you never make it there. You're always getting halfway closer.
Pablo: That's absurd. Scissors are horrendously hard to use. Clippers are much easier!
Me: No!
Pablo: I don't even know you.
So, as you can see, immigrants and native-born Americans still have a long way to go to find common ground. Hopefully this blog post brings us all a little closer. I'm the uniter.
First, we've got a fantastic couple that comes over every Monday morning to clean our house. Yay, stink-free house! Then, we were scheduled to bring super delicious tacos from our favorite taqueria over to our friends' house for dinner. It's a happy monthly event.
None of those things happened because it was "A Day Without Clean Houses Or Tacos". I think America learned a valuable lesson today, or at least the part of America that's forced to smell my house. Meanwhile, Hank whipped up an alternate dinner for us to eat. She called it "Immigrant Surprise". (The secret ingredient is Ecuadorans. Shhhh!)
Anyway, in honor of immigrants, I will now post an important conversation I recently had with one of my favorite immigrants, my good friend Pablo. We often debate the important issues of our time:
Me: Hank and Daisy went out for manicures and pedicures this morning. Or "manis and pedis" as they say.
Pablo: Sounds fun.
Me: I suppose. I was hoping to postpone this event in Daisy's development for another decade, but, oh well. At least I don't have to clip her nails this week now.
Pablo: You usually do that with clippers, I imagine. Nail scissors are horrible.
Me: What? You've got to be joking. Clippers are an abomination
Pablo: You are so wrong.
Me: Clippers would be good if I had 20 of them, each exactly fitted to one nail. However, since each of my nails is a slightly different size or shape, there's no one nail clipper that does the job.
Pablo: No.
Me: Yes! The problem with nail clippers is that with every cut, you leave some sharp point. You're constantly recutting, replacing one pointy part with another. It's like you can asymptotically approach a correctly cut nail, but you never make it there. You're always getting halfway closer.
Pablo: That's absurd. Scissors are horrendously hard to use. Clippers are much easier!
Me: No!
Pablo: I don't even know you.
So, as you can see, immigrants and native-born Americans still have a long way to go to find common ground. Hopefully this blog post brings us all a little closer. I'm the uniter.
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