The Whimsey of Wildcard

I came, I saw, I trolled

2009-07-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have many friends on Steam. The two concerned here are [Naked]Double and Chicago Ted. Ted and Double were also friends, but Ted got a little strange on Double and he deleted Ted from his list. Shortly thereafter, Chicago Ted sent me several minutes' worth of ranting and raving that he'd been deleted. A few days passed and I decided to drop ol' Ted a line and see how things were going. (has been slightly edited for explicit content)

G: It doesn't look like Naked Double wants to be friends at all
Ted: QQ
G: He was put off by you asking me to get his mailing address...
Ted: what?
Ted: wtf?
Ted: i never asked you to get his mailing adress
G: He gave me a PO box
Ted: and what
Ted: O.O
Ted: O.O i'm confizzled
G: I don't think they can fit candies and flowers in a PO box.
G: I guess you could always wait by that box for him to show up
Ted: O.O
G: Do you want me to ask him what time he gets his mail?
Ted: what the hell T_T im confused
G: PO box = Post Office box. It doesn't mean "Pissed Off" He's not MAD, he's just getting his mail..and a little wary of the possibility of stalkers.
Ted: O.O
G: I think your keyboard might be broken. O.O Say, I have him in voice chat right now and he sounds pretty miserable. I'm not sure how to console him.
Ted: O.O
Ted: ummm we can 3 way chat
Your chat with Ted is now a multi-user chat.
Ted: give me a sec
Ted: hes joining
G: Well, he's been mumbling about microwave popcorn, hot dogs and Cindy Lauper. It's also very hot at my house today, so I might be thinking about Andre the Giant instead.
Ted: U INTO WWE TOO?
G: No, I'm too small. You must work out.
G: I had this dog that had muscles once, but it bit my friend and the police came and got him. Not my friend. The dog.
G: Double hasn't joined us yet. He's still distraught over girls that just wanna have fun. Did you invite him?
G: He said that you showed up in one of his games after he deleted you as a friend. It apparently freaked him out, coming so soon after the breakup. He's concerned that you keylogged his IP and might be dousing his Firewall with AntiNorton.
G: I had a clanmate that tried that on this guy and he actually was able to take control of him as Bill AND check out his latest stock trades.
G: Ted, are you still there?
Ted: yeah
G: I was hoping to resolve this.
Ted: O.O
G: What is that? Hacker code?
Ted: im not a stalker tho
Ted: O.O
Ted: no
G: I'm not going to get hacked through Steam Chat.
G: I have McAfee's Steam Chat Hack Wall v 3.1.3 up, so forget it.
G: Did you get a hold of Double yet?
G: He hasn't left voice chat with me. Are you in his game again?
G: That might violate the no-contact order he filed with Valve. He also had to register with Mashoon, Snayke and Badger, LLC. I heard that gets repetitive. Are you still there?
Ted: he left
Ted: he had to go
Ted: dude
G: Hmm?
Ted: its not hacking if u follow somebody games
G: Well, it's not an Aimbot, but I'm a little creeped out by the hacker code you keep typing.
Ted: WAT HACKER CODE
G: I looked it up on Wikipedia, but they didn't have it
Ted: dude, no hacker code..
Ted: what makes u think im a hacker
Ted: srsly
G: You can't fool me into typing it and being a hacker.
Ted: dude
Ted: holy crap, its easy to join people games when they're not in your friends list
G: I have a clean machine, except for uTorrent, Daemon Tools Lite and the Dutch Rudder. warning: explicit content
Ted: u want me to teach u how i followed double?
G: That kind of stuff leads to hanging out at PO boxes. Did you read about the Korean kid that waited for an online buddy at a coffee shop?
Ted: DU8DE
Ted: OMG
Ted: LOOK ITS NOT HARD, WATCH ILL TEACH U RIGHT NOW
G: Apparently, when the other guy showed up, it was his dad and they fell in love.
Ted: O.O
Ted: look
G: shit
G: I got my firewall up.
Ted: you had double on his friends
Ted: i rightclick your name
Ted: and clicked view steam page
Ted: then i was searching people who were playing L4D to play w/ to
Ted: i came across double's
Ted: and i clicked JOINED
Ted: easy as shit
Ted: dam i aint no crazy bitch ass stalker
G: You're getting into things that cross the line between reality and playing L4D2.
Ted: omg, yeah i dont get this
Ted: i dont get whats going on!
Ted: tell me
Ted: please
Ted: im confused
G: I just want you to not hack me. I feel like a teenage girl in a Friday the 13th movie. One with a low budget.
Ted: IM NOT A HACKER
Ted: DUDE, HOW DO I HACK
Ted: T_T
G: I got hacked on once when i was in Kuwait. It's a sign of disrespect.
Ted: how do i hack
G: I assume by constricting your throat and compressing your diaphragm. You may even hunch your back. I think Double was scared and logged to get the police.
Ted: what?
Ted: dude wtf
G: He told me that someone was "breaking in and stealing his identity" whatever that means
Ted: dude wtf
G: Do you think if I started hacking, I could find out how he's doing?
G: o.O
G: Is that right?
Ted: i dont know, i dont fucking hack
G: My cat does. Double also said he was taking a break from l4D until he had something to protect himself
G: What did you say to him in that game?
Ted: i just said hey
G: O.o.O
Ted: O.O
G: Hacker code! I get it now.
Ted: what
Ted: DUDE WTF
Ted: VITAMIN
Ted: STFU
G: It's like an owl with a small beak
Ted: I DONT HACK
G: I'm starting to pick it up, I think. I should right click when I do it, right?
Ted: RIGHTCLICK WHAT T_T
G: The owl with the small beak. Should I hunch my back?
Ted: O.O
Ted: what?
Ted: what youtube video am i watching
G: Rickroll.
Ted: no
G: Double just showed up here. He's a RL friend here in Tacoma. You want me to put him on?
Ted: no dude
Ted: i dont get wtf is going on
Ted: jesus christ
G: hey ted
G: look i had to get away from my computer cuz my gf gets real odd about this kinda thing
Ted: dude, i dont hack yo
G: she's really into goth and lesbianism and totally against computers and is scared that they will take over
Ted: but i dont get it, why are u guys calling me a hacker
G: so when you follow me to my games, she gets real odd. last time, she threatened me with our old can opener. that shit gets old.
Ted: dude, i just went to view profile in vitamin G's friendslist, and clicked JOIN
Ted: easy as shit....
Ted: and your in the clan
G: when you call me a '(string of horrid curse words - edited)' she thinks that you're stealing our bank info bcuz that don't make sense
Ted: O.O
Ted: wtf
Ted: its just random words
Ted: dude, i swear
G: ok, she just called me and is pretty pissed. i need to get back over there.
Ted: but dude, i dont hack
Ted: T_T
Ted: i just put random words
G: All right, dude. He jetted. I can't believe that crazy bitch. Can you?
G: I mean...it's ELEVEN OCLOCK and she's calling for him.
Ted: idk man their life but still dude, i didnt do shit
G: Other than that, she's a sweet girl.
G: You should see her with her girlfriend, too. HAWT. I wish Double'd tape that shit and let me fap to it.
Ted: ....
G: Ah well. So, can the feds track what you do?
Ted: DUDE I DONT HACK
Ted: HOLY SHIT
Ted: jesus christ ya'll pissing me off
G: wht the fuck is wrong with my computer now? the key doesn't work nymore.
Ted: I DIDNT DO SHIT
Ted: GOD DANG
Ted: JESUS CHRIST MAN
Ted: EVERYBODY ALWAYS BLAMING ME ON SHIT
G: oh, but YOU cn type them just fine
Ted: I DIDNT DO SHIT
Ted: ....
G: i think tht i might hve virus
G: why?
Ted: omfg
Ted: screw this, im out
Ted: pissing me off
G: why dd you do ths t m? wht dd do to you?
Ted: I DIDNT DO SHIT
Ted: OMFG
Ted: SRSLY STFU
Ted: GOD DANG IM GETTING PISSED
G: m losng more letters nw sht cnt typ
G: wtf?
G: ... --- ...
G: O.O

It's Been Almost a Year...

2007-11-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

since I last posted. My wife asked me to make a cameo appearance on her blog, Down on the Farm with ChiknGirl, and hinted with emphasis that I should resume composing on a weekly basis. We'll see. I have two wonderful children that demand every scrap of attention I can spare when I'm home. On top of that, I am also Cheydinelle, the "Lore Master" of the guild "Tales of Ribaldry." It's a guild on the Horde side of the Darkspear server on World of Warcraft. If you have even the slightest inclination to being an addictive person, please, for the love of all that's holy, please don't start an account and play.

I still check Homestar and News of the Weird every week for updates. I still go to work as a millwright. I'm about halfway through my apprenticeship. I suspect that most of the folks that read my blog aren't from the same social circle as the folks I work with. Most of my coworkers would think that a "Blog" is someone's last name.

We actually have a guy that works with us whose last name is Blagg. It's really hard to describe him. He's rough, but likable. He's proficient, but prone to attract strange circumstances. It's told half-jokingly that "OW OW OW" is Blagg for "Stop!"

I haven't had much time to think about worldly things, with the exception of my recent bacon experience.

There IS a mouse running loose in our house, though. We never really saw him, we just started noticing small objects around the house that greatly resembled what I used to clean out of our hamster's cage. He's been around for a while, too. Sometime around April, my wife moved all of our foodstuffs to a different location, hoping it would keep the rodent out of it. We stopped seeing telltale turds and assumed that the bugger was gone.

Why would he just vacate? My two children drop enough food on the carpet to feed a third-world country. It was foolish for me to believe that a mouse would turn down a virtual cornucopia. It surely was.

Most nights, I am ensconced in the office, playing my games while my wife is downstairs knitting and listening to evening shows. A few months ago, I was alarmed by a scream from her. I ran downstairs to discover that she had seen the mouse. Over the course of a month or two, she continued to see it occasionally. I never did. She began asking me if I thought she was crazy and if I was humoring her by tearing the house apart when she saw it. I was convinced that she was convinced that she was seeing a mouse. But where were the leavings? Where was the nest?

When our movies arrive in the mail, I will sometimes join my wife for the evening and watch those films that are of interest to me. A few weeks ago, I was doing just that when I finally saw it. Skipping and jumping along the baseboard of our living room between the television cabinet and the old trunk in the corner. So!

I found some turds under the stereo cabinet. I put tape over a small hole in the wall nearby. I slashed the bottom of our couches to look for the nest...to no avail.

A week ago, I purchased a live-capture trap. A figured a pear would attract our guest, but after a week there was no caught mouse. So last night I switched to a garlic-flavored Triscuit cracker.

Well, this morning at breakfast, my daughter yells, "There's the mouse! He ran under the fridge!" Isn't it strange how "fridge" is the slang for "refrigerator?" There's no letter "d" in "refrigerator." Shouldn't it just be "frige?" I think most people would pronounce that with a long "i" sound.

I built a barrier of boxes to hem it in. I removed everything from the top of the frige...oops...fridge and moved it. I had to remove the back cover (unplugging it first, of course) and use a flashlight to search the electronics for its hiding place. I now know that all of the turds have migrated to underneath our fridge.

Aha! I spotted him with my flashlight! Well, I had to move my barrier a little in order to try and remove him from our fridge and, ultimately, our abode. Off and away he ran, right by me as I lept to my feet. He skidded to a halt to try and squeeze through the child-gate we have on our kitchen door and I took a wild stomp in his direction. I missed. Then I lost him.

I stood there, mystified on how that damn rodent had managed to disappear so quickly. I had kept an eye on him when I stomped, but he got to the other side of that gate and just vanished. I stood there with my flashlight scanning the area fruitlessly for a minute or two...and then I saw his skinny little tail poking out from under the pile of aprons I had placed in our short hallway. I placed myself in a position to cover him with a large plastic bowl and quickly lifted the aprons.

As big and strong and smart as we are compared to a mouse, they still have ONE good thing going for them; speed.

I'll get him. It's just a matter of time and patience.

Swabs of Death

2006-12-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

In a fit of hyper-cleanliness, I tasked myself with the complete cleaning of two of my kids' straw cups. Normally, I run them through hot water and soap after each usage, which I once assumed killed off anything that my children might find objectionable. My sense of security regarding that matter has been demolished. I'm not saying it was "Man, I really demolished that plate of turkey leftovers" demolished. It's more like "and after that, it was dropped from an airplane tied to an M1 tank."

Let us view the culprits behind this filthy charade:

They appear to the mortal eye as fairly innocuous, don't they? Even when taken apart into their components, there is nothing to fear:

I spent about 20 minutes on these two cups, using only a touch of hot water when needed and a host of cotton swabs. The results were enough to ensure that I would quite staunchly refuse to drink from one of these contraptions unless it was either brand new or cleaned by yours truly.

Just in case your morbid sense of curiosity has not yet been satisfied, I did you the favor of selecting only the highest quality yuck-swabs and grouping them in one photograph. If these had been created as a by-product of ear cleaning...or in fact from the cleaning of ANY bodily orifice...I would have gone straight to a doctor and demanded an ear flushing/tooth cleaning/enema, etc.

One word: unappetizing. I'm not sure where this stuff came from, really. Is it garbage that I missed when cleaning them with my normal method that has built up? Is it leftover residue from my tap water that had taken up residence in the cups like a filthy family of cockroaches? Is my wife secretly trying to poison my children and drive me insane with disgust by injecting detritus into these drinking vessels?

In any case, these two cups are clean now. For now. I'll keep an eye out for any more buildup and make sure to eradicate it at first sight. In the meantime, I have to leave now and clean the other 465 cups we have in the cupboard, along with sanitizing my hands in a pool of hydrochloric acid. Good day!

Cars and Cribs

2006-11-26T10:58:00.000-08:00

Well, now that my Geo Metro has rendered a less-than-what-we-put-into-it check (see 3 Bad Things), the family is shopping for a new vehicle. We’re hoping to not only replace the Metro, but the two-door Pathfinder that we’ve had since before the Emancipation Proclamation. I’d have to say that the most interesting place to look for cars, in my opinion, is Craig's List. It's a customizable classified advertising website. Most web users know about it and if you don’t, you might want to check it out. In some ways, it is superior to eBay, depending on what you want from it.

I’m hoping the wife will allow us to buy a nicely-running, kid-friendly, semi-gas-efficient vehicle for family use and a nicely-running, Wildcard-friendly, semi-gas-efficient sports car for the guy who always tries to fold his 6’1” 280-pound frame into such breadboxes as Geo Metros and prehistoric Toyota Corollas. I don’t really mind the fact that I tend to attract the attention of smaller vehicles, considering that I don’t think huge trucks and SUVs speak my language.

We did, however, purchase a family-friendly Dodge Caravan for an outstanding price (thanks, Craig’s List). We’ll be taking it in for some minor work on Monday, but this will allow us to possibly sell the SUV and snag a decent car for me.

It’s rather fun traveling as a family. Maybe not quite as much as National Lampoon's Vacation fun, but it nevertheless has its shining moments.

During one of our recent quests to diminish the volumes of baby clothes that our children have outgrown, our family arrived at a certain shop that dealt not only in secondhand clothing, but also other items for smaller children. It’s a nice store. There’s a huge selection of clothing to choose from. It’s located only a sort distance from a state highway and the front of the building is all plate glass, allowing the proprietors to display all manner of rug-rat paraphernalia.

As our vehicle pulled neatly into the parking space, my daughter piped up from the back seat, “Poppy, I want to go in and see the animals.”

At first, I glanced around at the various other shops located next door and nearby. None of them were pets shops, nor were any animals apparent. Confused, I turned in my seat and asked her what she meant. She pointed directly at the store in front of us, the children’s store, and restated that she wanted “to go in and see the animals” and added “in their cages.” I turned back to look at the shop and saw what she did through her eyes. You see, our children co-sleep. It’s a healthy, natural process that involves loving your children more than desiring to lock them away in a dark and lonely room for 10 hours.

“Oh my,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit sad for all of those children that have been stored in one of these, “Those aren’t cages for animals, honey, they are cribs.”

“Cribs?”

I found it difficult to explain to her that they were, in fact, beds for small children. She didn’t understand why they looked like cages. Unfortunately, I do. It’s because they are.

Three Bad Things in a tree? How can THAT be?

2006-11-19T00:13:00.000-08:00

Do “bad things” happen “in threes?”

I can vouch for the fact that at least minor “bad things” can happen in any damn number they want to. I can burn my mouth, overdraw my checking, miss a bus, drop my milkshake, forget to do a household chore, stub my toe and bump my elbow (simultaneously) all in one relatively short period of time. Then, for no apparent reason, I can go weeks without any minor bad things happening and then BAM! I leave my ID badge at home and have to go through the trouble of getting a temporary badge.

You can say that having a temporary badge isn’t really a “bad thing” but I’m here to say that, where I work, it is. Anyone with a temporary badge must make sure that someone that has an issued badge has the temp’s paperwork and the two cannot get more than 10 feet away from each other. Imagine entering an area where you suddenly have a ten-foot leash attached to you. It’s bad enough having to go to the bathroom in a pair, at least as a grown man, but its even worse if only one of you is a smoker. You have to either beg or follow your host to go outside whilst either he or you chuffs down a Camel.

Okay…chuffing down a Camel really sounds like an Enumclaw term. While my apologies go out to those Enumclawians (?) that were in no way connected to the horrid incident that took place out there, the fact remains that Enumclaw is now infamous for that reason. After all, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say “Chernobyl?” I’ll bet you a buttered biscuit that you didn’t answer “Home of the 1996 Summer Olympics.” Not that Chernobyl ever hosted ANY Olympics. Not that anyone wants to be his or her own nightlight, but it’s a safe bet that you mentioned something about a nuclear power plant. You see what I mean?

I’m starting to get a little suspicious about the major bad things, however. My wife contracted Pertussis, cut and broke her finger at a restaurant, and then proceeded to throw her back out. So, every time she coughs, her finger throbs and her back muscles try to murder her. Slowly. With a red-hot poker and a pair of long-handled pinchy things. Not only THAT, but she can’t knit until her finger heals, damn it all.

Now we take my example. I’m not entirely sure that I had Pertussis, but I do know that I’ve been hacking up lung-fulls of stuff that could hold bricks together. Coughing over a period of time makes my temples try and escape from under my skin. This is really bad news for my brain and it knows that, so it convinces my skin to keep my skull intact, against my somewhat addled wishes.

Earlier this week, my car was rear-ended with me in it. He hit me hard enough to throw my already-stopped car into the car in front of me. Strangely enough, the car in front of me (a nice maroon mini-SUV) actually drove off when the light changed moments later. Luckily, the car behind me didn’t take off, too. That might have had something to do with the fact that his radiator had just about become his dashboard. Don’t ask me how a 2-door hatchback Geo Metro manages to completely destroy the front end of an 80’s le Baron. I could actually drive my vehicle to the side of the road and indeed 20 miles more to get home. I also drove it another 35 miles to a rebuild shop to get it checked out. HIS car, however, barely managed to get to the side of the road and had to be towed away. I completely thought that the only damage to my car was a bent hood from the car in front of me.

The rebuild shop proved me wrong.

They lifted up the floorboards in the back and showed me where the frame had buckled about 3 inches. My little economically sound car is totaled. Not only that, but a side effect to getting rear-ended that hard is a little-known debilitating injury commonly referred to as “whiplash.” I steadfastly refused to see a doctor knowing that, because I am so laid back that La-Z-Boy chairs recline on ME, my injury was minor. I turned out to be correct. Luckily.

So, I ended up with (1) a head-rupturing cough extravaganza and (2) an accordion-shaped car. What is the third thing? It hasn’t really come my way yet. I’m looking over my shoulder and under the bed for it, trust me. I can’t really count the fact that a semi truck took out our cable and Internet for a day because that mostly impacted my kids and wife. I can’t count getting laid off because in my line of work it’s part of how things run. I get laid off after every job I do. Help me out here, folks. What terrible thing do you think would fit in nicely with the predecessors that I have talked about?

Side note: Looking up Chernobyl and finding a story about someone that took a motorcycle trip through the area and took pictures shocked me. It’s awesome to try and comprehend the damage that incident caused for that region for CENTURIES to come. Check it out: Chernobyl.

Childhood dreams +bonus!

2006-11-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

When I was in elementary school, it was rather fashionable to declare which line of employment is going to appeal to you. At the age of 10 years, I couldn’t imagine any job being more desirable than the President of the United States, an astronaut or a fireman. All three of these are professions that we have been taught to believe are high profile and much sought after.

Time, reality and experience have eroded my interest in the Presidency and astronautics. Unless, of course we could combine the two, firing our current President into orbit permanently. That would be interesting and humorous. Unfortunately, that would simply allow our Vice President to become the President while simultaneously filling another astronaut job, neither of which assist me in accomplishing my childhood goals.

I briefly pursued employment with the firefighters. Several obstacles prevented me from serving with them. Tacoma proper does not accept applications for volunteer firefighters and I live too far away from outlying coverage areas to serve as an “on call.” That and the fact that I absolutely refuse to shave my goatee as an employment prerequisite.

So, we’re 0 for 3 here in present day. I’ve been in the Army. You can bet that THEY made me shave that goatee. Of course, this was before I’d grown fond of it. Perhaps my attachment to facial hair derived from that circumstance. If you get told throughout your childhood “You cannot have caramel apples,” what’s the first food you’re going to eat when you are out from under your parents’ thumb? I’ll bet you a caramel apple that it’s a…um…caramel apple.

I was a security officer for a brief period of time. For some deranged reason, I thought this might be the civilian equivalent of a soldier - what with the uniforms, time schedules and possible sidearm (I never got to carry one). Let me tell you, folks, that even though I met a lot of ex-military security officers at the buildings I guarded, comparing Army life to private security is like saying to your wife “I cooked a full turkey supper for you” and handing her a thawed-out TV dinner. Not only are they dissimilar but also you end up paying alimony from your basement apartment and riding the city bus.

So my childhood dreams have been dispelled. I’m currently hoping the post office will call me soon so I can deliver mail to peoples’ houses. I think I’d like that. Leave a comment and tell me: What did you want to be as a kid? And is it anything like what you are today?

Side note: Once again my wife feeds me something blog-worthy. I’m not sure whether this is an honest “Jesus sighting” or if it’s poking fun at them, but it sure made me laugh.

The First Week of November, 2006

2006-11-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

Have you ever just plain forgotten what day it is? Not as in, “Oh! It’s our 5th anniversary and I don’t have any flowers!” but more like “Saturday? What are you talking about?” It’s a rare time when I forget what day of the week it is and this isn’t one of them. I actually just chose to do something else last night instead of posting.

You have my apologies, readers.

My family has been sick with Pertussis (whooping cough) for a few weeks. I’m starting to feel bad, because I haven’t contracted it from them. At the same time, I’m grateful that I’m not coughing until I vomit. The good with the bad, you know. My daughter says, “My cough is following me.” I expect her to start running around the house trying to outpace it.

They cough all day and night. It’s almost like I’m living in an alien home where there is a language that I don’t understand being used.

Cough cough cough cough = “Is the human ready for consumption yet, Mommy?”
Hack cough cough cough hack = “No, darling. He’s fat, but we have to wait another week”
Blech cough hack yark yark blech coff = “But I’m hungry now, Mommy!”
Cougha blech hack hack…uhhhh….uhhh…BLEH = Cougha blech hack hack…uhhhh…uhhh…BLEH

We watched X3: The Last Stand this weekend and, although the plot had more holes than my work clothes, it was pretty good for (A) a superhero movie and (B) a second sequel. Why have Rogue but not Gambit, folks? That’s like seeing a steak and cat food meal on the menu and ordering it without the steak. Want a side order of Jubilee with that? Geeks.

Besides that, there hasn’t really been a whole lot of anything going on around here. It rains. It’s getting colder. My son continues to slide down the stairs on his belly faster than I can go down them.

Uh oh. I hear a distinctive cough hack blech coming up the stairs. They know I’m on to them…

Some of the things I enjoy on the web:

Homestar
Ask A Ninja
News of the Weird
The Whimsey of Wildcard

Name Calling

2006-10-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

Parents can be so cruel. It seems that some folks are just genetically inclined to serve an “all you can eat and then some” banquet of humiliation to their kids and then pretend that its cute. I know a guy named Jacob Jacobs. Why would you do that? As a parent, you would think that you would want your kid to succeed in life and give him or her any possible advantage available. A good name can actually change someone’s first impression of you.

Think about it. Would you, as a man, be more inclined to go to a brand new band performance if the band was named “Overkill” instead of “Goody Gosh?” Not that “Goody Gosh” is a bad band, mind you. The lead singer’s name is Luger Stonecock, which kind of makes up for their band’s name. In fact, they should just change their name to “Stonecock” or some derivative of it. Without knowing about Luger, though, I’d be heading to an evening performance of “Overkill,” which proves my point.

Even if you have a cool name, your parents can easily bung it up by labeling you with a ridiculous nickname. I have proved myself to be no exception to the propensity towards this particular brand of sadism. My son’s name is Trevor Micah. Even without the surname, you have to agree that it’s a good name. If you don’t then you’re wrong. A recent governmental survey brought to you by The Letters “A” and “R” and The Number “6” showed that 98% of the people polled agreed that “Trevor Micah” was a formula for success. The other 2% were unable to respond due to illness, incarceration and, in one case, because the person in question was dead.

My daughter was completely uninterested in self-manufactured waste products. She trained for the toilet fairly early in life, but when in diapers she would do her business and then go about her day. Not so with my son. Trevor delights in working his Houdini-emulating skills to the effect of removing his diaper and then playing Mr. Wizard with whatever he finds therein. I once found him with a fist-sized ball of poo. We’re not talking Trevor’s fist, we talking Andre the Giant with elephantiasis of the hand size. He had broken parts of it off and managed to get it between his toes, leaving an Oregon Trail of feces across our front room carpet.

Stupefied by simultaneously being appallingly disgusted and incredulously exasperated (a state that only parents of a poop-infatuated child can comprehend), I blurted out, “AH! Yucky! You’re getting a bath, Mr. Turds.”

Like the clinging remnants of a fully digested dinner on my offspring’s foot, the name stuck. Even my wife has been caught quite unabashedly calling our son “Mr. Turds.” It has a certain ring to it, you see. Sure, it’s funny. Go ahead and laugh at Mr. Turds. I even like typing it, but now it’s his, you see. 14 years from now when I drop him off at his first school dance with his first date, imagine the horror he’ll feel when I say, “Cut a rug, Mr. Turds!” Not a very good situation for him, is it?

Okay, so I most likely won’t refer to him as that name in a few years or even months from now, but some names stick for life. We called Kenneth Smith “Ox” all through high school because when he fell down the stairs into the kitchen, his mother told him to “be careful, you great ox.” Of course, his older brother called him many other things, but “Ox” might as well have been Kenny’s legal name. Remind me to tell you about Kenny and the trumpet some day.

In any case, I’m sure you can see what I mean about labels. No one is going to eat a can of “Campbell’s Machine-Squared Farm Leftovers,” they’re going to eat “Chunky Soup.” So be nice to your kids (and others’ kids for that matter) and give them good names at birth and keep the nicknames fairly unobtrusive.

Rocket shoes?

2006-10-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have seen this posted on my wife's blog when I replaced her for a day. I wanted to include it here, so here it is:

I have contemplated on the quadrality of leather sandals that cover a portion of the toes. While I'm not completely certain that quadrailty is supported by Webster's, I figured that "du-duality" sounds entirely like something that is not discussed in genteel company. In any case, what I want to say is that there are four sides to this discussion.

The primary observation is a positive one: leather sandals that cover a portion of the toes actually cover a portion of my toes. This, in my opinion, tends to be a deciding factor when I am choosing which sandals to purchase. Those leather sandals that do not cover a portion of the toes are usually left on the shelf in favor of a pair of sandals that do. Multiple factors attribute to this, in that I habitually find myself neglecting to make my toenails socially acceptable and the fact that I just don't like the way my toes look anyways.

To balance this positive note, I'll present a detracting characteristic. Leather sandals are made of leather. Most of you will not be surprised by this fact, unless you happen to be one of those people that, for some reason, are under the impression that tin cans are made out of aluminum these days. They aren't. Tin cans are still made of tin. Aluminum cans are constructed from aluminum. Leather sandals are much the same way, except that they are made of leather. The reason this is counted among those items that are held in a negative light lies in the fact that leather sandals are often worn without a buffeting layer (socks). This tends, over time, to make one's feet take on a peculiar odor. In the highly descriptive and mostly accurate wording used by my 3 year old daughter, "Poppy, your feet are stinky." As you can see, that can be a problem. While I realize that leather sandals are generally constructed so that there is a greater amount of air circulation available than what you'll find in your run-of-the-mill, whole-foot-encompasing tennis/track/sport/trendy shoe/boot/galoshes/whatever, the very fact that I prefer leather sandals that cover a portion of the toes presents an opportunity for said odor to accumulate, which renders my daughter unable to express herself other than honestly...shorty before she then slumps to the ground, senses reeling.

Well, I can see that I have already covered the third portion of my reflections; that of the fact that sandals provide ventilation in greater abundance that most other varieties of footwear barring flip-flops, which are just silly sandals anyways, and tube-tops, which aren't even footwear except perhaps in remote villages of tropical locations. Nevertheless, additional ventilation to my feet is always a bonus, neglecting the fact that when fresh air finds its way in, it very often then becomes nauseated by the relationship between my foot and the leather of my sandal.

Lastly (unless I choose to violate my self-imposed quadrality) is a balancing negative characteristic related to the property of sandals to provide ventilation. Unfortunately, this same property provides a perfect opportunity for foreign objects to make their way into my footwear and irritate the bejesus out of me. I cannot properly both wear leather sandals (even those that cover a portion of the toes) AND participate in any activity that is located in any of the areas that have the following types of ground: gravel, sand, woodchips, leaves, sticks, freshly-turned earth, low-lying thorns, biting insects, mud or industrial pollution. There are other examples, of course, but most of them are places that I am less likely to visit than any area that would require footgear that protects me from the aforementioned "industrial pollution" and the others have all slipped my mind.

Overall, I prefer my leather sandals over almost any other type of footwear currently available on the open market. They're light, easy to don and undon, and relatively inexpensive. If, in my future, rocket shoes become readily available (and reasonably priced), I may stow my sandals permanently. Until then, my money's on what I've already got.

Roots, the 1st Installment

2006-10-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

I find it to be frustrating that, while I am tilling my backyard or maneuvering my vehicle along the Interstate, I can reflect on experiences and philosophical ideas that would reside quite comfortably here amongst my ramblings but am sadly unable to recall said ideas once I am seated at my keyboard.

I had a friend in high school that was afflicted with Parkinson’s. My brother, after several pitchers of beer, once took it upon himself to convince my friend that the disease was “all in his head.” His cure was fairly straightforward and typical of the aggressive and drunken male: he would command my friend in a stern (and rather loud even for a bar) voice to stop shaking. This, of course, only served to exacerbate my friend’s condition, which, in turn, caused my brother to command even more sternly (and loudly). I was privately wondering which would occur first: my friend having a nervous breakdown, or other bar patrons wondering why they were being yelled at to “STOP SHAKING!!”

I was also rather embarrassed. My friend (Eric), at the time, was a 20-something year old kid, kind of quiet and shy. That is, unless he was acting out his main character in AD&D, at which point he presented himself as more daring and confident. It’s kind of like the difference between watching Martha Stewart decorate a mantel with laurels and watching Martha Stewart tear her shirt off, beat her chest and then tackle Steve from the Jerry Springer Show. It was a bit of a change.

Now, take Eric in his non-fantasy manner and sit him at a table in a public location across from my brother Mike. Mike is 6 foot 4 and weighed better than 275 back then. Apparently Fate decided to be cruel to the rest of us and endow Mike with several characteristics that make him most desirable to the women of my home state. Even fully clothed, sober and silent, he’s an imposing figure. Imagine him intoxicated (yet mercifully still fully clothed) and yelling at my already nervously-inclined friend.

I’m certain that Eric could easily identify with the figure of David facing a severely agitated Goliath; not a Goliath that is laughing at David, but one that thinks he’s helping to cure David’s medical condition by yelling at him in a bar. It’s also kind of like a kumquat screaming at an acorn to “stop being such a nut” in front of the other produce.

Did I mention that I joined the Army to get away from home?

Are you Inappropriate?

2006-10-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

In the course of the travels throughout my life, I’ve come across quite a variety of collective social mindsets. Not only have I witnessed cultures completely foreign to most Americans, I’ve been exposed to some that are quite similar to the standard American principles and even subcultures within America itself. Wow. I put 3 “Americas” in that statement, which isn’t something I normally subscribe to. I’d like to think that I’m slightly more inclined to creative expression than resorting to repeating a word in triplicate, but there really isn’t any other way to say “American” without sounding pompous or ridiculous. I’m open to suggestions, though.

Stop trying to change the subject. The point is: Even within these cultures, there are generally very basic actions and responses to situations that are considered to be socially acceptable and appropriate. Granted, when dealing with a group of people with specific special interests, the definition of the appropriateness of an action will be tailored, but there are basically only two ways to interact with your fellow Homo sapiens and I shall categorize them as “Appropriate” and “Inappropriate.”

The following is a test devised mainly for the purpose of determining whether or not you would be able to behave in a manner that wouldn’t result in you being shunned by your peers and mocked in the street by orphan beggar children – the kind that like to throw rocks. I suppose it really wouldn’t matter on the grand scale of thing if the kids were actually orphans or not, but simply saying “beggar children” sounds rather crass. On a positive note, since you obviously live in a place that has computers with internet access, you aren’t likely to be harassed by any of the following: orphan children, beggar children or orphan beggar children. You MIGHT, however, be subject to encounter orphan beggars or even just plain beggars, especially while you wait for your traffic light to turn green.

In any case, answer the following multiple choice questions as honestly as you can and we’ll see if your situational adaptability, creativity and social skills are up to snuff.

Question #1

You are required to attend a weeklong session of schooling in order to maintain your position in your present choice of employment. It isn’t your favorite activity, but it will allow you to progress to a higher pay grade in addition to preventing your removal from your job. Unfortunately, you find yourself drifting off shortly after the instructor has left the room. Suddenly, you are awakened by the instructor’s return. In fact, he has come in through the secondary door, which just happens to be right behind your seat. He knows that you’ve been asleep. YOU know that he knows that you’ve been asleep. You decide to:

(A) Attempt to play it off by lifting your head ever so slightly and quietly intoning, “In your name I pray. Amen,” and proceed to open your eyes.

(B) Open your eyes, grab your pencil and start filling in an answer or two on your worksheet.

(C) Rub your face with one hand and make smacking sounds with your lips for about half a minute and then get out of your chair, look out the window and make an asinine comment about the number of vehicles in the parking lot.

Question #2

You have somehow survived irritating your instructor from Question #1 and it is the final day of your schooling. This is a perfect opportunity to:

(A) Miraculously present your completed assignments and inform the class that your poor performance was simply a gag and that you’ve been secretly doing your work on your own time.

(B) Show up on time, sit quietly and wait for the day to end.

(C) Not show up at all. In fact, the other students in the class begin a betting pool based on what hour you will appear, even though your hotel room (that the school is paying for you) is a mere 10 minutes away. About mid afternoon, the instructor becomes so concerned about your whereabouts and well-being that he actually telephones the hotel, finds out that you are still checked in and asks if the manager would be willing to knock on your door. When they receive no answer, they decide to contact their security and have them open the door only to find that you have the shades drawn and are dead asleep on the bed.

Question #3

You are no longer attending school. Based on your answers above, you might also find yourself no longer attending your job, but that’s irrelevant. It’s Friday night, the bar is full of people your age and you’ve had a few drinks. Suddenly you notice a person that you were somewhat familiar with in high school. She (you are a male) is sitting alone and you decide to strike up a conversation. She’s obviously had a number of drinks as well and seems amiable with your company. Alas! You simply must:

(A) Impress her by showing her the single most impressive card trick you know. You almost always have a preset deck of cards on your person whenever there is a chance that you will be attending a social function such as this.

(B) Engage in light conversation, perhaps reminiscing about your high school days.

(C) Attempt to light a match from a book of them using only one hand. This involves bending the match out of the book until the tip of it reaches the flint striking surface and snapping your fingers so that the match lights. Usually, it might just burn the pad of your thumb a bit, but since you are slightly intoxicated, you put too much strength into the motion and end up popping the still-igniting head off of the match, sending a blazing inferno directly into her lap.

Question #4

Your current job is quite simple: you are in charge of ordering, maintaining and inventorying a trailer full of tools. Generally, the only time you are disturbed is when someone requires a tool ordered, repaired, replaced, signed in or signed out. It’s hot outside most days and though you have an AC unit to help cool you off, things can get fairly boring during the course of a normal eight-hour day. The most appropriate way to pass the time is:

(A) Purchase any number of handheld electronic devices that provide entertainment, such as a DVD player, gaming system, CD player, iPod, etc.

(B) To keep in mind that you are at your place of employment and maintain a vigilance over your assigned dominion.

(C) Lock the only door to the trailer and not answer when your co-workers attempt to retrieve you for lunch break. They can see that you haven’t left already, because there is no padlock on the outside of the door. Repeated calling and knocking receives no response, so they become concerned and jimmy the door open. Inside, they discover that you had procured a canister of industrial-strength glue and had been apparently inhaling the fumes (inside a closed trailer) until they overcame your senses. While that is clearly an unfortunate situation, it becomes slightly more complicated by the fact that, when you did indeed pass out, you managed to knock over and spill the glue across your workstation, firmly bonding the right side of your face to the surface. It takes almost all lunch hour for your co-workers to free you from your predicament.

Now, let’s see how you did. If you answered (A) to any of the questions, give yourself 5 points. For each answer (B), score 3 points. Each (C) garners 1 point. Total them up and check against the ratings below.

For those of you who scored 18 to 20 points, beware! While not totally inappropriate, your creative responses to situations could actually backfire in some cases.

If you totaled from 15 to 17, you have a knack for reacting in socially acceptable ways that can smooth over even serious social gaffes.

Did you come up with something in the 10 to 14 point range? Congratulations, you’re normal. Maybe you’re a bit boring and predictable, but certainly within the acceptable parameters of your society.

Are your responses scoring you from 7 to 9 points? Hmmm. You might want to reflect on your behaviors, champ. You are a borderline social blunder posing as a human being.

Please tell me that you didn’t get 6 points or less. If so, then I’m afraid that “orphan beggar children” are too good for you. Have you ever been to a zoo and seen an animal in its very own cage? More than likely, that animal is unable to cope with the company of its peers. Unfortunately, that same service isn’t available to relieve us of your exceptionally dismal social skills.

Overall, this test isn’t meant to accurately judge your personality. The truth is, these are incidents that I’ve borne witness to that have stuck out in my mind as being good examples of poor choices, especially since the real life answers in all four cases were C. Whether or not I was directly involved in making any of those choices is an entirely different matter…one that I refuse to elaborate on.

Like a Shuffled Deck of Cards...

2006-09-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

...the selection from the top of the deck is completely random, unless you believe in fate, destiny or that I tend to cheat at cards. So shall this first entry be.

Flipping randomly through my desktop companion, Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Tenth Edition), I came upon the word hypersthene.

Hy-per-sthene \`hi-pers-theen\ n: an orthorhombic grayish or greenish black or dark brown pyroxene.

Now, I consider myself to be somewhat possessed of a varied vocabulary, but I really don’t consider it to be fair to use a definition for a word that requires you to look up more words to understand it, medical entries notwithstanding. It’s akin to explaining a multiplication equation with a quadratic formula, eating meatballs through a straw, or when some elderly woman gives you 35 pennies on Halloween so you can go buy your own candy with it.

Even if I knew the definitions for orthorhombic and pyroxene, I really cannot imagine trying to lay down such a clumsy word in any normal conversation. At this point, though, I’m willing to try. Utilizing my super-power of understanding context, I am going to conclude that hypersthene is a color; one that is either orthorhombic in nature or is simply a pyroxene from the get-go.

He: “Oh, hey ‘Card, what’s up?”
Me: “Not a whole lot, man. Whoa! Who the hell beat YOU up?”
He: “Aww, I just got into a scrap with some jerk at the bar last night. You should see HIM, though. My eye really isn’t all that bad.”
Me: “Well, your sclera is rather bloodshot and the flesh surrounding it is a magnificent shade of hypersthene.”
He: “Jesus, I’m still hung over and you’re obviously still drunk. I’m going home.”

Okay, my wife just told me that it’s a rock. Not only does that completely disperse any confidence in my super-power, but my spell-checker keeps telling me that it isn’t a word at all, even though orthorhombic and pyroxene are recognized. I'm going home.