Bitterly Indifferent

A Brief History of Secrets

2011-06-22T22:17:00.002-05:00

Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" is anything but. The Law of Attraction principles on which her book is based have been widely published for over a century. Right now, Amazon has over 3,000 books on the "Law of Attraction." More than 2,000 of them have been around before Byrne's Secret.

Law of Attraction proponents are not unlike faith healers, only without the added bother of having to worship God. Be happy, and you attract happiness into your life. If it doesn't work for you, then you must subconsiously be sending out negative energy, the same way that some Christians will spend the rest of their lives in that wheelchair, because they don't truly believe.

Here are a few books from the genre:

Ask and it is Given, A New Beginning (I & II), The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham, etc.
Written by: Jerry & Esther Hicks, a pair of Hicks with an imaginary friend.
Admittedly influenced by:Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (1937)¹.
Noteworthy because: Abraham, the spirit guide for Jerry and Esther Hicks is not one person, but a collection of entities that speak through Esther. Originally, he/they started talking through Esther by making her write with her nose, which was done out of love, not some malicious impulse to make her look silly. Honest. Now you can attend workshops to hear Abraham actually speak through Esther, for a modest fee.

Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting
Written by: Lynne Grabhorn, a quitter.
Admittedly influenced by: While she viewed the Abraham-Hicks books as "new but provincial teachings from [an] unlettered, unscientific family of teachers"(p.ix), she still admits that she's "reissued... the profoundly simple teachings from the Hicks family in Texas"(p.x).
Noteworthy because: After contracting a terminal illness, allegedly gaining a grotesque amount of weight, and living in constant pain, she committed suicide². Detractors say that if she was so great at "manifesting," she should have used her power to heal herself. However, the truly faithful know that this is undeniable proof that she had become so powerful at turning her thoughts into reality that a moment's inattention manifested something incurable.

The Cosmic Ordering Service
Written by: Barbel Mohr, a boy-crazy German.
Admittedly influenced by: A "friend," who "had read a book about positive thinking and suggested that [Mohr] imagine the perfect man [...] and just ask the universe to send him"(p.1).
Noteworthy because: After losing his wife and his job, British "celebrity" Noel Edmonds read Barbel's book and wished for a new hit show³. He was later picked to host the UK's "Deal or no Deal," which means that Mohr's book resurrected 2 careers, Edmonds' and Howie Mandel's. However, Mandel has refused to recognize the book as being influential for his career, and without celebrity endorsements to cement it firmly in the minds of the American public, the book has not sold nearly as well in the US.

The Secret
Written by: Rhonda Byrne, the Australian who secretly hates us all.
Admittedly influenced by: The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. (1910)⁴
Noteworthy because: It's the perfect storm of marketing techniques. It's packaged to look suitably old and obscure, like it really is a secret. It's well titled. "Think Your Way Rich" or "Visualize Your Dreams" can turn people off as too new-age, but everyone wants to know a secret. Plus, there's a handy DVD available, so sub-literate mouth-breathers never have to bother with the printed word. Once Oprah gave it her stamp of approval, the amount of money it made increased exponentially from obscene like a back issue of Hustler to obscene like retarded siblings fucking in costumes on stage at a NAMBLA convention.
A cynic might suggest that these were all calculated moves designed to make the book a bestseller, but the counter-argument is that Rhonda just used the law to attract savvy marketers who helped promote her book.

_{1 Discussed here, in an article that also describes the nose writing.

2 She even left a note.

3 Seriously.

4 Mentioned in both the linked article, and here.}

I read all 10 books of the Mission: Earth series

2011-06-22T22:05:00.002-05:00

That’s not meant to be boastful. I wouldn’t tell anyone else to try it, and in fact I am making this post as a cautionary statement intended to help others.^*

I found nothing objectionable with the premise. A superadvanced alien civilization has established a timetable for the conquest of the universe. A routine scouting mission has realized that Earth civilization is so insane and backwards that by the time the aliens arrive to conquer it, humans will have consumed, misused, and/or destroyed anything worth claiming (I think that this was a problem for the aliens because they needed the planet in good shape to use it as a refueling base, or something). Without alerting Earth to their presence, the aliens have to keep us alive long enough to enslave us. Oh, it also won’t be too tough for them to walk among us since we’re visually identical, thanks to some throwaway sideplot about how life on earth was actually started by rebels fleeing the alien empire.

At first, the narrative device seemed innovative. The books start off as the transcription of a confession, and the primary narrator^** is revealed to be a selfish, greedy, depraved wretch who worked for the “Coordinated Information Apparatus,” a government organization that covertly employs bribery, torture, and assassination nominally to protect the government, but actually to consolidate its own power (and its initials are CIA. Get it?). The CIA wants to maintain the status quo for their own nefarious ends, so the books are a first-person account their efforts to stop the hero who has been appointed to fix things.

From the point of view of the narrator, the graft, extortion, imprisonment, fraud, psychosis, and widespread corruption encountered in the alien society are unremarkable; it is then supposed to be funny when he is shocked to encounter extreme versions of the same on earth, as if we have let things get so bad that even an amoral psychopath thinks we’ve gone too far. Larded throughout are also grade-school crudities and efforts at toilet humor, like the two nymphomaniac circus performers named “Cun” and “Twa,” or the cross-dressing homosexual Russian “Colonel Gaylov.”

Observing the hero through the eyes of someone on the villain’s side is an interesting idea, and has been done before with positive results (see also: Black Company). The problem with the Mission Earth books is that both its narrators are completely devoid of any sympathetic characteristics, and both of them believe in relating the action by way of the “tell, don’t show” school of writing^***. Conflicts and plot points are rushed and one-sided. The work’s flaws turn out to be an inadvertent blessing as readers are forced to endure:

-A rogue alien geneticist, who is sadistic and depraved (and we know this because we are point-blank told it by the narrator) is regarded as a leading light in earth psychiatry because he preaches that sex is evil, electroshock and lobotomies should be routine medical procedures, and pregnant women are so morally corrupt that they can only be redeemed by death.

-The narrator rapes two lesbians straight (only after being driven to it because they withheld his salary, and they bound him and tortured him extensively). These ex-lesbians love straight sex so much that they keep the narrator hostage in their home, insisting that he rape all their friends.

-One of the ex-lesbians “recruits” an underage girl who propels herself headlong into full depravity, eventually traveling from earth to the alien homeworld to turn all the children of the alien nobles and government officials into bisexual catamite thralls.

-The narrator is dazzled by a mysterious concubine who remains sexually distant and insists on making love with the lights off, and who is later revealed to be a man.

Every one of these sequences was a chore to read^****. There are aliens, necrophilia, spaceships, bestiality, faster-than-light travel, sodomy, and erotic mutilation, all relayed in the most tedious fashion possible by a contrived narrator whose unconscious attempts to be funny are all too clearly conscious efforts on the author’s behalf.

While I am unable to discern the fine nuances differentiating satire and parody, I know that neither term apply to these books. I would instead describe them as a gross burlesque that thinks itself a madcap send-up of everything it perceives to be wrong with contemporary society. Big oil has a stranglehold on the planet. The wealthy have more power than governments. The public is gullible and willing to follow anyone with a slick message. When you include the book’s depiction of psychiatry as subverting the natural order of things to pursue a secret agenda, it begins to look less like a work of fiction and more like an extended soapbox rant.

Avoid this series, especially if you’re someone who can’t quit reading something until it’s finished.

_{*Specifically, others who need written warnings to keep them from doing things like giving the finger to a gang of bikers, selling drugs to grade schoolers, or licking electrical sockets.

**He changes to a secondary narrator for the last few books, for reasons that aren’t worth bothering to explain.

***My argument would be strengthened by actual quotes from the books, but I just can’t do it. I wouldn’t turn back through those pages for all the tea in China, black-market snack cakes in fat camp, booze at an Elks club meeting, etc.

****While it is fair to note that I have only chosen to highlight the most deviant sexual practices contained within the series, my counterpoint would be that there is little else in them that is memorable. All of the physical problems on Earth are solved by superadvanced alien techno-magic, leaving the hero and the narrator to grapple with Earth’s backwards cultural attitudes for the majority of the books.}

Worst Book Misconception Ever: MAMista

2011-06-22T22:00:00.000-05:00

PROTIP FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT SPEAK SPANISH: "Mamacita" and "Mamista" are two completely different terms, even though moderately filtered Google Image Search will deliver cheesecake photo results on the first page of the search results for both of them. The first is Spanish for "little mama," and the second is a shitty thriller by Len Deighton set in South America.

After misreading the title, I dug myself into a deeper hole by barely skimming the jacket copy, which mentioned Graham Greene. I always get Graham Green confused with Evelyn Waugh (don't ask), so I expected something like Scoop crossed with Our Man in Havana. The garish cover didn't help. It made me think of South American hijinks on par with a novelization of Club Paradise, where a plucky band of misfits topple a corrupt government and free a country from the yoke of big business, with wacky adventures and possible comedic subplots involving fake pregnancies, subverted gender roles, and mistaken identity.

I was very, very wrong. By the time I figured it out, it was easier just to finish the book. SPOILER ALERT Here's what happened:

The male lead? Dead.

The love interest? Dead.

The guerillas? Ultimately losing a war of attrition on two fronts against the government and the untreated afflictions of the pestilential rainforest, presumed dead.

The two Americans abducted in a guerilla raid? The civilian grinds up his eyeglasses and swallows the shards, dying a slow, agonizing death from internal bleeding. The other one, an undercover CIA agent, also ends up dead.

The idealistic college student who traveled to the country with dreams of helping the marxist revolution? Dead.

The enterprising South American who uses the student's ID to return to the states? Tracked down and killed in the hospital by mobsters because the student skipped town while owing huge debts to a loan shark.

I think the only people who don't die are the President of the United States and his aide, who are spliced into the end of the story to make some point about politics ignoring human suffering and developed nations exploiting the life-and-death struggles of the third world for their own gain.

This was, hands down, the worst comedy about sassy latinas turning society upside down in a tinpot South American dictatorship that I have ever read.

LJ: A Crystal Healer Hit Me in the Groin

2011-06-22T20:45:00.002-05:00

Energy healers are not all tie-dye and hemp stink; some of them have elegant, professional operations rivaling high-end psychiatrists' offices. I visited one in Germany. It figures that the analytical, mechanically-adept minds behind Krupp, Braun, and the Luftwaffe would come up with a way to engineer new age mysticism for wire-rimmed glasses and expensive leather.

A friend took me to see the healer because I had a substance¹ abuse problem. Everyone should visit an energy healer at least once, especially if the consultation is in a language you don't speak. It's a lot easier to keep from giggling in the face of the more... exotic claims when you can tell yourself it's just a bad translation. This healer owned a spa shop (think "Teutonic Bath and Body Works³") and ran her practice from a private office decorated in earth tones and stainless steel.

I didn't pay attention during the boring parts and just focused on the pretty colors. Did you know that you can buy a bottle of oil and water⁴ that will attune itself to your energy field? Not only will it help you bring your elemental vibrations into balance, but once it synchs up with you it will display any health problems you're experiencing as impurities within its liquid. It's presumably cleaner and more accurate than filling a lava lamp with your own pee. As an added bonus, the crystal liquid can be drank, or rubbed into the skin, I think. (The translation wasn't too clear on those points, and I didn't press the issue.)

Another valuable diagnostic tool, I learned, is the Polaroid photograph. The visual image of you remains frozen in time, but your photographic aura keeps pace with your real-world aura, showing any changes in your condition. Why shouldn't it? It did steal a piece of your soul, after all. (Don't worry, It'll grow back.) This means that a skilled healer can diagnose your ailments (and take your money) without having you visit their office. The diagnostic accuracy of a disposable photo combined with the fees of a CAT scan means that everyone wins.

I knew that smiling during all of this would lead to uncontrollable giggling, so I just tightened up my jaw from time to time in an effort to keep a straight face. Occasionally I would add a thoughtful stroke of the chin, to take a moment to grapple with the profound universal truth that had just been revealed to me. Then we got to the diagnostic wand.

The wand is sensitive to the most minute disturbances, moving in response to aura disruptions/vital energy imbalances/gewurztraminertrinkeneffekts. Just like dowsing for gout⁵ or tapeworms instead of water or gold. Rather than a forked stick, we were going to be using a small knot of crystal girdled by a steel band the diameter of a Pepsi can, wobbling at the end of a long, narrow stalk.

Looking at the wand, I tried to appear calm, relaxed, and serious all at the same time. I sat in the diagnostic chair⁶ and braced myself for awesome.

None of us were surprised by the initial wobbling. I assumed that it was because my degenerate lifestyle had already done its damage to my energy field. As the scan progressed up my legs, the healer and I noticed a consistent pattern of disturbance, and probably both began to expect that the general level of disruption would remain constant across my entire person. That's when the business end of the wand, which packs a surprising amount of mass, whipped upwards and slammed down on my inner thigh, about half an inch shy of pulverizing my junk. I curled into the fetal position while a flurry of discussion broke out between the healer and my translator.

In a conversation between two Germans, I can't tell which one is apologizing and which one is issuing orders to invade Belgium, but I'm pretty sure that the strike was accidental. How can your clients balance their auras and tune their vibrations if you strap them into a chair and pound on their nutsack, right?

Things wrapped up pretty quickly after that. I left with a fistful of prescriptions and instructions to get the monkey off my back. I didn't really have the money to keep up with the full course of treatment over the long term, but I have gotten better at moderation⁷.

_{1. Sugar}²

_{2. No, seriously, I was told I drank too much soda, so we were Doing Something about it.

3. BrodelnundQuälen GmbH.

4. With crystals mixed in.

5. Caused by urine crystals in the bloodstream, I might add.

6. Not unlike a dentist's chair, but I'm sure crystals were involved somewhere.

7. I'd love to shoehorn in some kind of punchline here about a single-payer healthcare system and how socialized medicine still lets the rich buy the treatments they deserve, but frankly, I'm just too lazy.}

Tamquest Softcorp Games Reviews

2011-05-16T15:17:00.000-05:00

You really should go and read this post at its original home at The Imaginary Review, but it has since stopped posting new material, and Bad Things can happen on the Internet. I'm re-posting it here in case anything happens to the original.

Tamquest Softcorp’s latest string of releases has hit the market, and I tore into their video games with a wild abandon not seen since Lindsay Lohan gave up drugs (wink, wink). Here are my first impressions of the new titles:

Grand Theft Ovary
In this sandbox-style game, players use their controller as a versatile suite of medical tools to perform surprise appendectomies, involuntary liposuction, and stealth bowel removal. Technically, it's well-executed. The sound effects have a certain squishy realism to them, while the graphics are well-rendered (I found myself liverjacking over and over just to see the animation one more time). Unfortunately, the gameplay is a little unbalanced--no matter how many malpractice alerts are outstanding against your character, abducting a single street urchin and selling his organs on the black market will earn more than enough money to bribe the medical board to return your doctor's license back to "untarnished" status. Some people might also see the game's freeform, sandbox style of play as lacking in plot.

Gordon Crampton's Chefwar 2KBwelve
For a fighting game that requires fast reflexes, the controls are disappointingly laggy. It took me several tries to get the timing down for the combo attack to julienne string beans, I can only mince chives about half the time, and I swear that you can only peel onions properly if you're double jointed. However, Chefwar 2KBwelve has a surprisingly detailed plot for a fighter, and the game has a certain flair that makes it unexpectedly enjoyable to clothesline the snooty maitre d' and bodyslam the overzealous health inspector. You should probably rent this game to see if your enjoyment of its varied arenas and fighting styles can overcome your frustration with its execution.

Barge Commander: Bonded Owner/Operator
In the tradition of Sid Meier’s Pirates and Port Royale, Tamquest has created a seaborne trading game that thrillingly combines bargain hunting at the dollar store on payday with a ten-hour drive across Nevada in a car with no air conditioning. As a Norwegian Sea Captain in 1932, Barge Commander has you choose the cargo, select the port of call, plan the crew roster, and stand watch in the most accurate, real-time depiction of steam-powered sea travel on the market. While it doesn’t have the same attention to detail as the EuropeanSimulators line of computer programs from Chipfat, it still shows a lot of attention to detail. Unfortunately, a graphics bug present in my copy made everything the color of creamed spinach until I could download a patch that restored the game’s full color palette--composed of nuanced shades of steel gray, overcast gray, slate gray, and slate grey that really made 20th century shipping lanes come alive.

VirtualSweatshop
In VirtualSweatshop, you run an American clothing factory in the legal grey zone of a U.S. protectorate. Players can choose whether to give their indentured "employees" a decent living wage and exert control over other factors in their lives including the frequency and duration of breaks during their 14-hour workday. It turns out that you actually can put a price on human misery, along with a "Made in the USA" label. This game has a pretty steep learning curve; although I quickly earned a production bonus by placing the machines for maximum efficiency, I kept killing my workers by subjecting them to heat stroke and not ventilating the building properly. The number of variables that have to be tracked in this game are staggering, including a separate exposure bar each one of over 30 different types of diseases and parasites, not counting workplace-induced health afflictions like "fluff lung" and "stitcher's finger." I found the game to be a little too complicated for my tastes, but this may appeal to more detail-oriented gamers, sim enthusiasts, and actuaries.

Grandma Dream Day
I’ll admit that at first I was skeptical about this response to the growing number of dating simulators out there. After all, it’s kind of a creepy premise, showering your grandchildren with gifts and taking them out to places like the zoo in a desperate attempt to gain their affection, but it won me over in spite of itself. The cute graphics did a lot to offset the weirdness factor of playing as an old person taking an almost unhealthy interest in children, and the end goal is to have them keep their parents (your children) from sending you to the "bad" nursing home, so it's for a good cause. There's a variety of trip destinations including movies, malls, and the circus (including an unlockable bonus trip to the World Extreme Competitive Still-Life Painting Finals), and all of the items you can buy have unique effects and influences. The game's special "randomizer" feature changes your grandchildrens' preferences so that it's never the same game twice (which proves to be just as well, since I had to play through to the ending 3 times before I ended up somewhere other than the home where orderlies duct tape you into bed and spray you with a garden hose).

Wall Street Wizard
Not much documentation came with Wall Street Wizard. After the installation completed and I opened the program, my boss called to tell me I was fired, the bank foreclosed on my house, and all my money burst into flames. I give this game points for realism, but question its play value.

The Hungriest Games Journalist

2011-05-04T23:42:00.001-05:00

You really should go and read this post at its original home at Eegra.com, but Bad Things can happen on the Internet, and I'm re-posting it here in case anything happens to the original.

Kevin VanOrd is an editor at Gamespot and syndicated videogame journalist, but he’s also a pretty hungry guy. That’s got to be the case, right? Because I can’t think of any other reason why someone would describe a game as "chewy." And yet he chews through three different games, telling readers about Opoona (a tale that "is a sweet, chewy morsel"), Eternal Sonata (describing the "soft, chewy center of the story"), and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (lauding the game's "warm, chewy center that's tough to resist").
VanOrd has been writing game reviews for several years now, and even Noah Webster is allowed a little repetition from time to time. As a journalist, VanOrd should also be given some artistic license to work a few metaphors into his columns when developing an overarching theme. That’s why he should be commended in his ability to turn a phrase and a stomach with this opening paragraph for his review of The Sims Carnival: SnapCity:

Sometimes, two unique flavors belong together, like peanut butter and bananas, or bacon and anything. Other flavors, like pickles and chocolate, are best left separated. And so we have The Sims Carnival: SnapCity, a little title that combines Tetris and SimCity into a weird casserole of boring, half-baked gameplay mechanics that will disappoint fans of either of those classics. Like a horseradish milkshake or herring cream pie, it's a curiosity you should leave others to experience.

What’s unique is the way that he can work food into even the most inedible concepts, like his discussion of Too Human, a cybernetic re-imagining of Norse myths. "The game does offer a few meaty moments," although it "drops a juicy plot development at the most inopportune time." It’s a shame that the designers didn’t realize that "a good narrative doesn't need to spoon-feed plot points to you," but fortunately "you'll still sometimes find morsels of that smooth groove so important to action RPGs."
He also finds NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams to be "deliciously vibrant" even if "some of the dialogue is simply cheesy." While he enjoys the game’s previously mentioned warm, chewy center, it appears to have been a little draining. All that chewing left him little energy to cope with some particularly bothersome level mechanics, although if they "were the exception rather than the rule, they would be easier to swallow."
VanOrd is no glutton. When it comes to Opoona, his appetite is quite limited. "The candy coating goes only so far, and tedious side missions and other frustrating elements sprinkle too much salt onto the sweetness. The first few bites of Opoona are scrumptious, but you'll be full in no time." And it’s snackably awful that "the in-game map (called a GPS here, which is as accurate as calling a fast-food burger patty a filet mignon) is no help at all." Fortunately for anyone interested in playing Opoona, "like that spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down, the game's adorable presentation makes it easier to stomach the bitter shortcomings."
His skill at merging the electronic and the edible may be most visible in his discussion of Eternal Sonata, where he discusses the "French Impressionist color palate and gorgeous lighting." His intentional misspelling of palette reminds us that the French are noted for both their painting and their cuisine, showing that Eternal Sonata is a feast for the eyes, even if the color saturation is "sometimes a little too Candy Land for its own good" and some of the voice actors "get too syrupy after a while."
VanOrd’s willful "palate swap" also occurs in his review of The Maw, where he notes that "like most sweet morsels, the pleasant feeling dissipates when the sugar leaves your system, and you’ll find your palette struggling to remembering [sic] the taste." Here we are taken in the other direction to see how a game that does not seize our imagination with arresting visuals can be as bland and flavorless as gum that has been chewed for a little too long. And with a game like The Maw, about a giant alien mouth with a voracious appetite, who could resist noting that "the gameplay doesn't have much bite"?
Unfortunately, I sometimes feel like VanOrd's writing is just a little too sophisticated for me, and his jokes go over my head. For example, when he discusses the function of a bon-bon in Opoona, he notes that "it's a floating ball that each sibling possesses (though in an ironic twist, sister Poleena has two of them)." Is the irony to be found in the stererotypical image of a fat housewife sitting on the couch eating bon-bons, suggesting that this game both employs and subverts that stereotype by showing a strong, confident woman using her bon-bons as tools of empowerment? Or is he talking about breasts?
Wait, I get it! It's a dick joke! The girl is the only character in the game with two balls! Well played, Mr. VanOrd, well played.
And with all this discussion of the many mouth-watering images that VanOrd brings to bear, I haven’t even touched on his repeated use of the phrase “half-baked,” a term that is practically industry shorthand. Which brings us back to chewy. VanOrd’s repeated use of the term from September 2007 to April 2008 suggests that it was part of a personal crusade to make it a new journalistic standard, but it never seemed to catch on. Perhaps describing games as chewy was kind of like The Sims Carnival: SnapCity. In VanOrd’s own words, "like an anchovy enchilada, it's an interesting idea that just didn't work out."
Luckily, VanOrd appears to be far from running out of other food-based metaphors to draw on. If they want this quality of work to continue into the foreseeable future, all Gamespot management needs to do is to keep him hungry.

For the record, Kevin responded quite graciously to this article, and I'm grateful for his ability to take a joke.

Christmas Cards

2010-12-05T21:47:00.000-05:00

So, these two have continued to embark on photogenic adventures, but I've kept quiet about it because I don't like to broadcast my business across the internet.

However, Shutterfly is running a promotion, and they'll give me a discount code if I show you our latest Christmas card project, so here you go:

Dear Santa Christmas Card

Get custom photo Christmas cards online at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Hey, look! Jenny McCarthy's on Sesame Street!

2009-10-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

It's nice to see she's doing something besides that Autism activism.

What's this? She has a whole series of books about being a mother. I wonder what they're like.

Jenny, what do you have to say about marital relations during pregnancy in your book, Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth?

PIG IN THE PASTURE (SEX IN THE NINTH MONTH)

I don't think pigs graze in pastures, but I just figured it sounded better than "pig in the mud." Any way you phrase it, this is exactly how I felt the one and only time my husband and I had sex in the ninth month. All the books tell you about "comfortable positions," and the one they really zero in on is the "doggy-style" position. Sure, it's great at an ideal weight, but when you're close to two hundred pounds, you aren't thinking dog...you're thinking pig. And I'm sure I sounded like one because my cries (of joy and desire, of course) sounded more like squeals than oohs and ahs. It was clear to me that my poor husband was concentrating hard on his Rolodex of fantasies because I sure as hell wasn't one for him anymore. I just wanted that piggy sex to end, but I hung in there like a good wife because I wanted to take care of my man. (Full disclosure: I was really "bad" the whole pregnancy. I never really "took care of him." I should have offered a couple of blow jobs here and there, but the way I felt every day, you couldn't have paid me enough.) [pp.147-148]

Um, okay. But what about-

Now, let me give you a better visual. My husband is very lean. Sexy as hell. But very lean. Most women would kill for his metabolism. As I propped myself into position and we began to get down, I could feel that his entire lean body was half the size of my ass. No joke. I couldn't stop thinking that his skinny frame was going to get stuck between my ass cheeks. So every time I felt him pump, I would clench my cheeks to keep from swallowing him up. All the while, I couldn't stop thinking how just plain wrong this was. This was not a high-self-esteem moment for a pregnant woman in desperate need of some. My advice: If you're not feeling it, don't try this one. Leave it to some lonely farmer. [p.148]

I... I see.

Hey, look! Ice-T is on Sesame Street!

Independence Day!

2009-07-04T18:23:00.002-05:00

Happy 4th of July.

I went to my town's Independence Day parade, and it was completely fucking awesome. The highlights:

Our town's mayor was at the beginning of the parade. He works in the shipping center (read: mail room) of the company I work at.

The Grand Marshall drove past in the back of a convertible. He's 99.

My boss, who was one of the 4 people marching in the Republican Party delegation, waved at me.

The NRA gun safety float had a guy in an Eddie Eagle costume. A pleasant wave of nostalgia washed over me as I recalled his acting debut with Jason Priestly.

An old-fashioned pickup truck died in the middle of the parade, and had to be pushed out of the way. I felt bad for the people riding in the back; they looked like they didn't know if they were supposed to keep waving as they were pushed into a parking lot.

The beauty pageant winners: Tiny Miss Smalltown looked happy. Teen Miss Smalltown looked surly, blowing air through her lips in an irritated gesture. Regular Miss Smalltown just looked bored.

A row of Confederate soldiers in period costume. They paused to fire their rifles, and were followed by an enormous fat man, also in costume, without a rifle but carrying a book.

The town's fire department had all of its vehicles in the parade, and emergency vehicles from nearby counties were also present. I hoped that no one had an emergency while the vehicles were stuck in the parade.

There was a float for Boston Red Sox fans. I did not expect to see one south of the Mason Dixon line.

6-8 Shriners were present, wearing their fezzes, zipping around in tiny cars. It was difficult to count them all because they were wheeling around in synchronized formations, giving hand signals to each other to coordinate their movements. There were more Shriners in the parade than Republican Party marchers.

A group handed out freeze pops, which were eagerly accepted along the hot parade route. As an added bonus, they were attached to Jack Chick Tracts. Sadly, we got 3 copies of the same tract ("Party Girl").

I also met an old man who introduced himself by poking me in the ass with his cane and telling me not to move. He was going to sit in my shadow to stay cool, which was a sound theory but lacking in execution because I have seen lampposts and stop signs with more burly silhouettes. We helped him move his chair into the shade of a nearby sapling, and he talked with us through the rest of the parade. He wondered how the fire company could afford so many big vehicles with the current state of the economy, and noted that you don't see many niggers in these parts ("You probably call them black people," he said, "but I call still call them niggers"), and that it's horrifying how many obese women can be seen in the area (said while looking at an enormous, 300+ lb woman in a wheelchair who was sitting within earshot).

The obese woman held an infant that looked less than a year old. The infant was drinking diet Dr. Pepper, straight out of the can, and ignoring its nearby bottle.

Best parade ever.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNITED STATES!

Sound Parenting Decisions

2009-04-25T10:30:00.000-05:00

Sending our daughter to daycare was an unavoidable necessity, so we spent a lot of time considering our options and carefully evaluating the places in town:

Sister Knucklecracker's Purgatorial Childcare
Typhoid Mary's Germ Nursery (Free Blankets!)
Li'l' Axefighters Infant Dojo
That Van Lurking by the Playground Fun Time Center
Bob's Alligator Pit

In the end, we chose one for its friendly staff, clean facilities, and convenient location:

That's right. After a rigorous examination of childcare centers in our area, we went and chose the one by the porn store.

Decay of our society's moral fiber: 1
Responsible parenting: 0

I'm still not sure how it happened.

Well, I have an idea. We were so worried about the kind of people that our daughter would be exposed to inside of the daycare that we didn't pay enough attention to the kind of people that would be outside of it.

Why didn't I notice this earlier? The porn store is screened by the fried chicken restaurant, so by the time your brain is done saying "mmm, fried chicken," you've pulled into the daycare's driveway, handed over your check, dropped of your daughter, and are ready for something to eat.

I'm thinking I should get a coffee mug or something emblazoned with my new motto, "I routinely make poor decisions."

Guest Posted II: The Guest Postening

2009-04-24T10:02:00.004-05:00

I did another thing this time, over at Eegra about writing video game reviews. Actually, it was about making fun of a specific game reviewer, but he was incredibly good-natured about it.

Guest Posted

2009-04-08T09:20:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that the Imaginary Reviewer was kind enough to let me do a guest post over at his blog.

The post is about video games, a subject near and dear to my heart.

The Most Least Caring Dog

2009-03-11T14:38:00.005-05:00

So, our daughter turns one year old this month, and I thought I'd share some of these pictures that show how well our dog has taken to her.

Oh, you look cold. Here, let me bring you this blanket.

There you go, all nice and warm. Just let me tuck it in for you.

All better? Sweet dreams!

Touching, isn't it?

Well, it would be until you learn that I posted these pictures in reverse chronological order. That's right, the dog is stealing the blanket from the baby.

Go back and look at picture one again. Yes, he's backing away carefully so that he doesn't accidentally wake her.

Intelligent Financial Planning

2009-02-07T08:47:00.003-05:00

As worried as I am about the economy now, I'm even more worried about what I'm going to live on in the future. So I'm contributing more actively to my 401(k), but two questions are bothering me. Why is it plan number 401? What does the (k) stand for?

I tracked down some financial experts and posed these questions to them. Well, to their secretaries, anyway, and their voice mails, and in some cases the door to the bathroom stall they were using at the time. I got a variety of answers, “He’s not in at the moment,” “Leave a message at the tone,” and “Get the hell away from me!” respectively. But I refused to be deterred in my quest for the Truth! Finally, I found someone who could explain it all to me. He smelled terrible, and rolled back and forth muttering to himself, and I think he lives in the subway station, but here’s how he explained it to me.

The 401 comes from the number of gallons of Scotch it took for congress to agree on a comprehensive plan where taxpayers willingly put aside a portion of their money without paying taxes on it now, hoping vainly that it will be enough to keep them ahead of inflation, taxes, nuclear holocausts, locust plagues, and housing market collapses later. Apparently, during the planning process, they sealed the building and refused to let any legislator leave until everyone was in agreement, and victuals were airlifted in each day to keep them focused on the task at hand. Unfortunately, with all they could drink and free food shipped in daily on the taxpayers dime, it was several conga lines around the rotunda before they remembered they had a job to do, and several hangover cures were necessary before they even remembered what the word “law” meant.

Having given their proposition a number, they sat down to figure out what should be done with the money. Unfortunately, a number of schools of thought developed, and so 25 separate proposals were made. Each one was assigned a letter of the alphabet.

401(a) This proposal was named after representative Aaron A. Altamount, (R-IA) who spent three hours each day trying to convince Congress that the money should be invested into a pyramid scheme. His logic was that everyone benefits once they’re all members, and then we could help developing nations by getting them to join. The letter “a” was assigned as a joke, as representative Wayne Karrigan (D-VT) said “Let’s call it A not because it’s [Altamount’s] initial, but because he has a big, fat ass!”

401(b)itchslap All of your money is spent paying Mr. T. to personally bitchslap banking managers until they agree to raise the interest rates for savings accounts, and give free toasters to the masses.

401(c)rack All of your money is given to the CIA, who then buys all of the crack cocaine available on the streets. After it is held in their impound building for a few weeks, demand will skyrocket, allowing them to earn large returns on your investment by putting it back on the streets at higher prices.

401(d)ance, slave monkey, DANCE! Your money is spent on training a personal slave monkey to dance on your command. Not very practical, but a lot of fun.

401(e)rotic All of your money is invested in the adult entertainment industry, because hey, that’s one area of the economy that’s guaranteed to do well no matter what the NASDAQ says. Plus, the quarterly reports are a LOT more interesting.

401(f) All of your money is systematically put in brown paper bags, and then buried in a government artillery range, and any maps leading to it are discarded. If you can find it without getting shelled, it's yours tax-free. Otherwise, you're fucked.

401(g)ummy All of your money is spent on gummy bears, which are then consumed by one sixth grader. The insulin generated in his body is painfully harvested and sold to pharmaceutical companies for a return on your investment.

401(h)ormone Your money is spent on the hormone therapy, radical reconstructive surgery, and mascara necessary to give you a complete sex change. Then, you can earn twice what you had been saving for years in a matter of hours as you turn to a life of specialty prostitution.

401(i)nvasion Your money is used to finance the U.S. military’s invasion of Canada. Then, depending on the particular amount of contribution, you will be assigned seized lands, personal property, and actual Canadians who must spend the rest of their lives in servitude to you.

401(j) Your money is spent on securing a command performance of J.J. Russell in your home (“Dyn-o-mite!”), because the man who has laughter is very rich indeed.

401(k) Named after Senator Charles “Special K” MacStevenson, (R-MA) who said, “Hey, it’s their fucking money. Why don’t we let THEM decide what they want to do with it? Am I right, people?” Congress left it in for laughs, and had no idea how popular it would later become.

401(l)egal fees Your money is used to keep a lawyer on retainer, because by the time you’ve retired, at least one person will have tried to sue you for money because of something you’ve done. Or didn’t do. Or said. Or didn’t say. Or thought. Or implied.

401(m)armosets Because everyone loves marmosets. Especially when you pay them to frolic.

401(n)uclear deterrent All of your money is used to further develop America’s nuclear arsenal. By the time you’re ready to retire, the radiation leaking from the warheads has either killed you or mutated you into something tough enough to hold your job until you die.

401(o) was never made into an actual plan as far as anyone knows. Congress couldn’t get their mind out of the gutter for the five minutes it would take to come up with a viable plan for the letter, they’d just snicker and make dirty jokes. Finally, when asked to put something on paper, Senator Mark Herrickton (D-AZ) said, “Hey, we’ve got something planned for the money.” Then, before collapsing into guffaws, he squealed, “DON’T BLOW AN O-RING!”

401(p)resident All of your money is placed in the private bank account of a bank president, who then spends it all on booze, drugs, and expensive mistresses. Hell, you’ll never save up enough money to live that kind of lifestyle, so won’t you sleep easier knowing that someone will?

401(q)uality financial planning Ultimately, this plan was rejected as being more than you deserve.

401(r)obot butlers Your money is used to develop the automatic robot butler, with a power source that doesn’t need recharging. He’ll cook, clean, and even iron your shorts as you life the life of tomorrow’s retired millionaire, TODAY!

401(s)hakespeare All of your money is invested in Hollywood productions of modern-day adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays. The logic behind this was, “Sure, everything before now was a bomb, but that just means that their time is due!” Most of this money will be paid to Julia Styles.

401(t)urner and hooch Besides being a great movie, it hasn’t reached total global market saturation yet. That’s why under this plan, your money is used on a showy marketing blitz, to bring this heartwarming comedy of canine films and mismatched police partners to nations like Paraguay, Uzbekistan, and the former territories of Yugoslavia. Because once they get a taste, they’ll be screaming for more.

401(u)nderground bunkers This was offered as a bit of a compromise between 401(n) and 401(i). Your money is spent on an enormous series of underground bunkers that span the entire country. Then, our weapons of mass destruction are used to sterilize the entire planet. The looting and pillaging in the aftermath will allow you to live in the comfort you so richly deserve, you warmongering bastard.

401(v)iolent combat All of the money you save is put into a pool with all of the money that everyone else your age is saving. Then, you all retire at the same time, and have to engage in a violent, winner-take-all deathmatch. There can be only one. Per age group.

401(w)et tee-shirt contests All of your money is spent by members of congress on travel, entertainment, fancy shoes, and haircuts. With the remaining $20 left in the fund by the time your retirement rolls around, they pay a bunch of homeless people to enter a wet tee-shirt contest in the hopes that it will distract you. And hey, a little water never hurt the homeless, did it?

401e(x)ploration Your money is spent on space exploration, in the hopes that mankind can contact an intelligent alien race who can show us an economic model which allows honest people to keep their money, and gives scheming hucksters a swift boot to the groin.

401(y)outh Your money is spent on the research and development of a serum which reverses the effect of aging. This way you can make yourself young again and start your career a little farther up the ladder, repeating as necessary until you can save up enough for a comfortable old age, somewhere around three thousand years from now.

401Free(z)e Your money is put into a bank account, and then you are cryogenically frozen on the day you retire. At a predetermined date, you will be thawed, and can live comfortably off of the billions of dollars that your account has earned in compound interest.

Backing into your dreams

2009-02-01T16:39:00.001-05:00

The most effective goal setting happens in reverse, when you pick what you want and work backwards to see how you can get there. It's easiest to tackle your biggest goals in baby steps, and working back from the finish line helps you step in the right direction. I map things out in writing.

For example, it has been a lifelong dream of mine to meet Bruce Campbell, so I can start by writing that down ("MEET BRUCE CAMPBELL"). I can meet him by luring him out of his palatial Hollywood mansion with the smell of a delicious, fresh-baked pie, so I would write "BAKE A PIE" under "MEET BRUCE CAMPBELL." The logically preceding step would be "LEARN HOW TO BAKE," although I shouldn't forget to include "LEARN BRUCE CAMPBELL'S FAVORITE TYPE OF PIE," and "FIND OUT WHERE BRUCE CAMPBELL LIVES," which should all be listed as steps towards our eventual meeting. I'm done once I have worked my way back to the point I'm at now, which is ignorant of Bruce's address (and pie preferences) and unable to bake (but full of ambition). Then I have a roadmap that I can follow upwards to realize my dreams.

This method also works to encourage parallel thinking and to recognize more than one way to reach a goal. For example, I don't need to bake a pie, as long as I have something that looks like a pie ("BUILD FAKE PIE") along with a way to simulate that new-pie smell ("GENERATE EXCITING SMELLS"). This is great because once I have laid out all of my options I can choose which ones will take the least amount of work for maximum efficiency. I can also work on multiple strategies so that I have backup plans if something doesn't turn out the way it's supposed to (~~"RENT PIE COSTUME"~~).

However, problems arise at the two extremes of the creativity spectrum: the unimaginative and the insane. Unimaginative people may scoff at my goal of bringing the dead back to life, calling it a crime against God and nature. However, neither of these obstacles are insurmountable. A figurative definition of “dead” allows me to work miracles (CONVINCE NETWORK TO RESUME “ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY JR” SERIES) or facsimiles thereof (BUY “ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY JR” DVDS). A little imagination makes it easy to publish that memoir by your cat, as long as you're flexible on the definitions of "memoir," "cat," and "publish."

Far more challenging are the goals that can not (or should not) be attempted. People could waste their entire lives trying to eat braised leprechaun calves, and that's not even a goal that wastes the lives of others. All it takes is one person going about the courtship of Jodie Foster the wrong way to ruin things for everyone.

That's why there is something to be said for having your plans reviewed by a third party. The internet, the yellow pages, or even the line at the unemployment office are all excellent places to find one of the hundreds of thousands of professional coaches out there who will help you develop a plan of action in exchange for money (or in some cases, a hot meal). A coach can align your goals with more realistic and achievable expectations, like helping you realize that turning milk into yogurt can be as personally rewarding as converting mass into energy.

Whether you are working backwards on your own or with assistance, the method helps not only to reach your goal, but for seeing if your goal is worth reaching. Why spend 12 years teaching a cat to play the banjo when it won't even put you on the cover of Cat Fancy magazine? After a thorough examination of your objectives and priorities, you may find that you can set the bar for your goals so low that you accomplish something by doing almost nothing at all ("MEET SOMEONE ~~NAMED BRUCE~~").

What couldn't go wrong?

2008-10-29T12:30:00.002-05:00

My high school English teacher once told me that nothing is ever as bad as we expect it to be, because there is no force on earth as powerful as the human imagination. That was a load of shit. However, I wanted to give my imagination a break from worrying about everything in my life that is on the brink of catastrophe (read: everything), so I thought I'd start wondering what couldn't go wrong.

No matter how horrifying things get, at least I can be relieved that:

I will not be humiliated on national television by losing a breakdance competition to George Takei.

The CEO of my company is not going to get drunk, "borrow" my car, and wrap it around a tree.

I will not be entrusted with a sacred relic that has been passed down through generations, putting me in terrible danger as it is hunted by the powerful, relentless forces that would do anything to possess it.

Henry Paulson is not going to ask me to oversee the distribution of a massive economic relief package (read: pile of cash) designed to shore up America's ailing strip club industry, forcing me to choose between my family's respect and the welfare of hundreds of thousands of exotic dancers across the country.

I will not be sucked into an alternate dimension run by talking cats where I have to amuse them by running in a hamster wheel for hours at a time.

My old company from Boston is not going to keep me awake and annoy my neighbors by sending their head of HR to my house at 3:00 AM, by alternately screaming and crying about how they can't live without me and how they'll give me double what I'm earning now just for sitting at a desk and surfing the internet all day in a futile effort to try and win me back.

I will not have two Hollywood producers/literary agents/talent scouts/philanthropic trillionaires simultaneously discover my writing online and get into a bidding war with each other in an attempt to win my affection that leaves me paralyzed with indecision.

An outer space virus will not infect me with an insatiable hunger for cardboard and old gym shoes, contaminating the entire state and requiring the mobilization of the national guard to control.

I will not bring about the end of civilization all by myself, even if I DO go and vote next week.

So I guess I've got all that going for me, even if I can't look forward to developing some sort of mutant superpower.

Don't Drink That, You Fool!

2008-10-14T18:00:00.000-05:00

I follow a strict set of rules in bathrooms both public and private. For example, I don't use the public urinal for short people and young boys that is set closer to the floor, because I have a moral objection to getting pee on my ankles. Similarly, I don't talk to other people while I'm using the toilet, washing my hands, or entering or exiting the bathroom because I'm attending to a biological necessity, not mingling at a social event.

I recognize that some of my ideas may seem a little extreme, but for the love of god, NO ONE should EVER bring a beverage into the bathroom. That's not just some crazy tinfoil hattery I'm spouting, but an honest-to-god safety issue. When you bring your morning coffee into the bathroom with you at work, you're inviting your coworkers to go to the bathroom in your mouth.

I'm serious. Dr. Charles Gerba studied the effects of flushing toilets and found that not only is a germ-and-virus aerosol spray ejected from the toilet every time you flush, but that water droplets from the toilet can remain suspended in the air for up to two hours after the flush. That means that your steaming cup of coffee is sitting there collecting aerosolized water droplets from the leavings of everyone who has gone through that bathroom before you. How well do you know your coworkers? Do you really want to get to know them that much more intimately?

You'd have to some kind of lunatic to drink morning coffee that you've carried into the office toilet, and yet some of my coworkers regularly carry drinks of all kinds into the bathroom with wild abandon. It just makes my skin crawl.

I Resolve to Be Awesome

2008-10-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

Okay. 2008 has less than three months left in it, and I don't have a prayer of completing any of my New Year's resolutions in time. So, it's time to achieve excellence by lowering the bar, scrapping the old resolutions and establishing this new set of goals to achieve before 2009:

Don't wear white pants after labor day. Tricky, but not impossible. I expect this to be helped by the fact that I don't own any white pants.

Don't sell national secrets to foreign powers. Luckily, I don't actually have any security clearance, even if those guys from Burkina Faso have been trying to get pretty chummy with me lately.

Don't get addicted to crack. Winners don't use drugs. Losers don't have to use drugs, either, so I've got my bases covered either way.

~~Don't drink alcohol before sundown~~. Woah, back up. We're trying to list goals that we actually have a chance of accomplishing here. At the rate things are going, I'll have broken this one by the end of the week.

Don't get humiliated on national television. It's a gamble, but one I'm willing to make. I'm not going to be at the American Idol tryouts, but you never know when you'll be the star attraction on an episode of Cops. Let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.

Don't make any Nobel-prize-winning breakthroughs in science, health, peacemaking, etc. Because I shouldn't be hogging all the credit for myself. It's time for someone else to be in the spotlight.

Don't get stabbed in a bar fight with Charles S. Dutton. Because only a fool gets into a bar fight with Charles S. Dutton.

If this goes well, I might actually make up some more goals and retroactively apply them to 2007. Self-improvement isn't so hard after all.

An Open Letter to My Grocery Store

2008-09-30T23:52:00.002-05:00

Hey there,

I hate you. I hate how you never stock the items I'm looking for and reorganize your shelves every three months. And I can tell that you feel the same way, based on how you have huge numbers of registers near the entrance and only one employee manning them. Let's just recognize that we need each other to survive, and focus on getting our business done as quickly as possible.

That's why we need a grocery store GPS. Handheld units, available to shoppers, that will lead people to the items they need. People could upload their whole grocery list and have the system give them the fastest route through the store. You could even have people e-mail the list ahead of time so their route was already planned for them by the time they got there (yes, you can currently order groceries online at some stores to have people actually shop for you, but that costs more and I'm cheap).

Back to this route planning thing. They do it for cars. UPS programmed their guidance systems to completely eliminate left turns from their truck routes in order to save gas, so I'm sure you can make something that tells me to pick up the eggs right near me before I have to walk across the entire store and look up at the top shelf before I can figure out where you're hiding the bacon.

It's brilliant, right? Well, I'm sure that someone else thought of it first, or is working on it at Microsoft, or whatever. Still, I want it implemented immediately, so that we don't spend any more time together than we have to. But here's how you, terrible example of mismanagement and customer abuse that you are, will manage to fuck it up:

You'll order 15 units. 10 of them will break immediately and never be replaced. 2 will get stolen by punks and disgruntled stockboys. The remaining three units will all have their own signature defects (like sticking keys, unreadable displays, etc.).

Despite advances in RFID technology, you won't keep up to date with your inventory, leading customers to the wrong areas of the store, or shelves that are bare because no one brought the last shipment out from the back room.

The wireless signal will interfere with cell phones, blackberrys, and pagers, displaying text messages on the grocery readouts and making all incoming or outgoing phone calls impossible (wait, that last bit doesn't sound so bad). It will also have an effect on pacemakers.

The increased amount of radio waves bouncing around the store (or whatever) will give us all cancer, like how cell phones are supposed to do only a million times more dangerous.

In conclusion, shopping for groceries has been awful, is currently awful, and will forever continue to be awful. If I weren't so lazy, I'd grow my own damn food and avoid them altogether.

So, September.

2008-09-22T17:13:00.003-05:00

September has absolutely been a crap month for me, and I can't even remember half of it. The highlights:

I received my worst performance review of my life, hands down, for any job I have ever held. As a bonus, my efforts went to making others (including my manager) look phenomenal in their own reviews. I have graciously been allowed to keep my job so I can get another sub-par review next year while boosting the performance of my peers.

I tripped over a snake in my yard while taking out the trash. It may or may not be poisonous (I didn't get a good look, but it was totally a copperhead), and I don't know if it is still lurking around or if it hustled off after the indignity of getting brained by a hefty bag full of soiled diapers. Now all outdoor activities (coming home from work, taking out the trash, walking the dog, etc.) have taken on the aspect of a treasure hunt where the treasure may or may not exist but will probably try to put you in excruciating pain if you come close to finding it.

My dog suffered through the worst vacation ever. He was introduced to the concept of swimming by falling into a pool and then developed a nasty but robust colony of intestinal parasites. Not as terrible for me as it has been for him, but he's not the one cleaning up watery stool and dumping bleach over huge swathes of the yard. He probably doesn't mind all of the new smells he's creating as much as I do, either.

My daughter has been dealing with two different kinds of diaper rash. There was a raised, pinkish, hive-y series of welts at first which cleared up before she developed a nasty set of raw-looking friction burns. We are going through a lot of rash cream right at a time when she thinks diaper-change time is squirm-free-and-roam time. Based on where it ends up, we don't need diaper rash cream as much as we need some kind of all in one diaper rash/hair gel/upholstery cleaner/laundry detergent cream.

I have been tantalized by nostalgia that remains unobtainable. The rental house for our family vacation was equipped with an N64 and a Sega Dreamcast that had a bunch of kickass, old-school games. It was not equipped with the AV cables that were needed to actually PLAY those games. Petty? Sure, but after all that other crap, I really needed some escapist diversions to occupy my time that I was completely denied.

As always, my plans to make more/extra/any money through writing just keep getting shut down. The less time spent dwelling on that, the better.

Really, it's been a blur of swearing under my breath at work, jumping at shadows in the yard at home, and trying not to have a total meltdown on vacation to the point where the month is no longer made of discrete memories, and has become a solid blur of unpleasantness. I had forgotten all about the eight-hour power outage I was complaining about earlier, but that might have been in August. I'm so tired of it all that it's impossible for me to review these above points to find a bright side for them. Instead, I made this brief list of things from our vacation I can be thankful for:

-I didn't lose any fingers

-I didn't flip or roll the SUV we rented

-Our vacation didn't get cancelled by the hurricane

-Our vacation was not ruined by arson

-Despite being led widdershins around the Wright brothers monument by the momentum of the crowd and the conniving of the National Park Service, we weren't sucked into the fae realm and trapped there for all eternity

-In that vein, our daughter's eyes are still blue, which means that she probably hasn't been replaced by a changeling

-None of us were torn apart and devoured by bears

So I guess we've got that going for us. And really, with a vacation like that, I should be completely refreshed and recharged for work.

Except I'm totally not.

_Fuck.

Operation: Abandon This Craphole

2008-09-04T23:42:00.004-05:00

So, this house doesn't have water, and it doesn't have electricity for up to eight hours^* after as little as a half-hour thunderstorm, but it does have snakes. Big fucking snakes that loiter on the grass in the dark. It's seriously not cool. They'll fuck your shit up if you give them half a chance.

I had thought that I had seen the worst of the various fauna overrunning the place, but I was wicked wrong. Now we need to sell this house and get ourselves back to civilization.

Of course, to do that, we'll have to start in on a lot of home-improvement projects. That should be fun.

_{*If you're thinking that it's going to be fun to "camp out" with a baby in a house with no electricity (and no water) for 8 hours starting around her bedtime, you're thinking wrong}

At Least It's Not Barney

2008-08-26T17:41:00.004-05:00

There's a song that will entrance our daughter like a chicken immobilized in the hypnotically unwavering gaze of Al Gore. (What? You didn't see him hypnotize a chicken on Letterman? Get out.)

It's not completely bizarre. My wife and I knew that she would recognize music she heard in the womb, it's just unusual that she chose this particular song:

crappy version from youtube because I'm too lazy to find a good one

She heard it once. During the season finale of Dr. Who (don't judge), and yet the opening baseline will completely freeze her mid-tantrum. She has been in the middle of some of her loudest, angriest screaming binges, completely ignoring the rocking, patting, shushing, and cuddling, but voodoo child will stop her in her tracks. And half the time it puts her to sleep.

If only I had known earlier that subwoofers would be an essential nursery component...

The Internet Is So Confusing

2008-08-11T17:29:00.005-05:00

You can't swing a keyboard without accidentally typing the URL of someone's personal blog, and half of them claim to be advice from experts. The blog is the new business card, and everyone is setting up shop in the hopes that it will show potential customers how knowledgeable they are, sometimes with disastrous results.
No proof of skill is required to start handing out advice freely, but it reminds me of the phrase about stock market tips:

"Those who say, don't know, and those who know, don't say."

Anyway, it's time for me to hop on board this expertise train to pull in some of that sweet, sweet consulting money. The trick is to find a niche that's not already been done to death. So, from this day forward, I am an expert on (and will be answering questions about) the following subjects:

Pencil Sharpening: "Almost as important as having the proper sharpener is using the proper grip with your pencil. Softer lead pencils require a firmer hold, while the following illustration shows the best way to..."

Toenail manufacturing: "Common developments are the Irish hook, the Great Plains runway, and the west side split. These will all have a negative effect on your resale value, which is why it's important to..."

Eggplant wrestling: "Try borrowing some strategies from Sun Tzu. Study your opponent carefully in the days leading up to the match. Does he prefer to use his upper-body strength, or does he specialize in holds that leverage his superior leg work? You can adapt your method by..."

Armadillo repair: "It's normal for daily use to inflict signs of wear and tear on your armadillo, but you can fix some of the more common damage with this basic remedy of..."

Moustache fitting: "As you can see in this chart, your ideal style of moustache can vary greatly depending on your facial structure. It's easier to fit the moustache to your face than it is to use prosthetics to accomodate your moustache, but if you absolutely need to, you can..."

Coathanger maintenance: "While usage will soon run them down, your coathangers can be kept in their prime if you are sure to..."

Spitwad design: "Texture is as important as--if not more so--than size, but the true professional focuses on a consistent..."

Alternative energy sources (e.g., orgone, water-fuel technology, perpetual motion, zero-point/free energy): "What distinguishes this from some of the scams out there is my personal guarantee that..."

Sumerian courtship rituals: "The suitor would then stuff the body of the goat with a mixture of wheat and cloves, while using the head to..."

Beet farming: "Your one-stop source for all beet-farming-related content! If your North Atlantic Spotted Beets keep wandering off, they could be responding to their natural migratory instinct that kicks in each spring. If you make sure that your beet pens are surrounded by fences at least eight feet high (they can--and will--jump over anything lower), you shouldn't have any more problems."

While I would also like to claim expertise in the field of applied stupidity, I have to put in a few more semesters before I earn my master's degree. However, from there I am assured that I'll be fast-tracked for the Advanced Stupidity Application PhD program. I'll provide more information on that as it develops.

Why Daddy Blogs Are Awful

2008-07-10T15:37:00.004-05:00

I am fed up with these parenting blogs not offering any material details about their children. Sure, there are photos galore, but can their four-month-old bench press a cinderblock? Does their baby's fastball clock in at 75mph? What about their aptitude for knife throwing?

It's a sad state of affairs when people think that just a few pictures are all you need to really get to know a baby. If they're going to share their children with the world, they need to do it right.

These infants need to be measured and profiled by a baby metricologist--that is, a highly trained expert with a fictitious degree in the pretend science of the metricology of babies, as opposed to a baby who is a practicing metricologist--so that all of the relevant facts are presented. Fortunately, I have obtained the services of the preeminent baby metricologist in North America, and am able to present information that actually MEANS something.

-BEGIN METRICOLOGY REPORT-

Initial observations:
Examination of the subject revealed that structural integrity, tensile strength, and resonant frequency are all within normal parameters.

Does subject possess x-ray vision?
No. The subject becomes agitated when her parents disappear from view.

Does the subject exhibit signs of telepathy?
Yes. The subject can sense when she is no longer the center of attention, and takes immediate corrective action.

Has the subject demonstrated mastery over animals?
While the subject is able to direct the household canine to perform routine cleaning of her hands and feet, she has not been successful at directing animals (domesticated or otherwise) to assume feeding and changing duties currently performed by the parents.

Is the subject a shapeshifter?
Possibly. The subject's current abilities apply mostly to the face, which is able to express both giddy delight and intense discomfort, but the subject has not manifested any radical physical changes elsewhere (e.g., sixth finger, third nipple, tail).

What is the subject's top speed?
The subject's top speed was recorded as significantly less than 25mph.

Does the subject appear to be either an indigo child or a crystal child?
No, the subject appears to be pinkish.

Other noteworthy observations:
The subject is able to eject fluids in open defiance of all known laws of physics.
It should further be noted that the subject's overall cuteness coefficient was measured at 5.8 Geddes Standard Units (GSUs), which is trending towards the higher end of recorded measurements for specimens who have not undergone genetic manipulation, but not so extreme as to damage the very fabric of the universe.

-END METRICOLOGY REPORT

As you can see from this informative and highly scientific assessment, our daughter has a promising future as a mind reader, or possibly a part-time beastmaster or weekend shapeshifter. It's a shame about the x-ray vision, but I'd imagine that it leads to headaches around Christmas.

Ill-Considered Remarks

2008-07-08T09:12:00.001-05:00

I firmly believe that there are faces out there that could benefit from a good punching. That being said, I may have been a little hasty in earlier remarks made here about Alton Brown. I misjudged him based on insufficient information, and I regret that now.

Specifically, after reading an interview about Iron Chef America and its (completely unnecessary) spinoff The Next Iron Chef, I realize that most of our opinions are pretty similar, including the one about a certain judge who is in desperate need of a haircut.

Mr. Brown, if you have let the peevish grumblings of an anonymous internet hack disturb you in any way as you lay down to sleep at night on the pile of crisp, large-denomination bills that were so hard-won through your televised efforts for the food network, you should know now that I am sorry, and that I offer a full retraction.

P.S. Suck it, Andrew Knowlton.

Puppy vs. Kitty

2008-07-02T18:07:00.004-05:00

Our dog isn't the insatiable gourmand that Pilar used to be, but he's a happy-go-lucky bundle of energy with a boundless enthusiasm for life. He gives kisses, he offers his paw, and he is always looking for pets. He's a big puppy.

Our neighbor has a friendly kitty (an oxymoron that is rare, but not completely fictional). Kitty meows hello, Kitty nuzzles affectionately, Kitty asks for belly rubs. Kitty and Puppy should have been friends.

It really looked like it was going to happen. At first, Puppy was excited about a new friend. Puppy and Kitty touched noses. Tails were wagged, butts were sniffed. Then Puppy asked to play.

Puppy play is rowdy. It is chest bumping, grappling, chasing, and full-contact. Puppy jumped around, Puppy thumped the ground with his paws, Puppy raced off and came charging back, doing huge loops around the yard. Kitty didn't know what to make of it at first.

Then, on his last lap around the yard, Puppy was introduced to the concept of Kitty play. Racing heedless and carefree, tongue hanging out and mouth grinning wide, Puppy was ambushed by a gray rocket that launched from the bushes by the back stairs. It was great fun for Kitty, and no one was hurt, but Puppy wasn't very fond of it. Since then, he races for the safety of our house every time Kitty comes over to say hello.

Progress

2008-06-30T11:00:00.004-05:00

I routinely make poor decisions.

Like the time I was uncorking a stubborn bottle of wine, thought to "improve" my grip, and ended up punching myself in the face. Or when I listened to my classmates in eighth grade and ruined the basketball scoreboard. Or the time I thought it would be okay to go on that "marketing job" interview where they told me to show up wearing shoes I could "do a lot of walking in." Or the LARP weekend. And so on.

That's why it makes me happy when I can spot a potential disaster in the works, and make a conscious choice to avoid it.

Yes, our liquor cabinet is understocked, and we are dangerously short on mixers. But as appealing as it seems at first glance, I don't need to actually mix White Russians using baby formula before I realize that it's a Bad Idea.

Can you hear that, world? It's the sound of a little something I like to call progress.

Foreigners Are Trying to Kill My Daughter

2008-06-26T13:39:00.002-05:00

Lousy, stinking crib recall. Although they admitted that they are at fault and issued a voluntary recall, the company that manufactured cribs that were shoddy enough to break apart and strangle babies certainly isn't making it easy to fix the situation. And as the owner of one of these deathtraps from across the pacific, I'm pretty disgruntled about it.

My daughter needs a safe place to sleep tonight, and their recall process is anything but speedy. First I have to register with them to show that my daughter's crib is in fact one of theirs and affected by the recall. Then I wait for them to send me a recall kit. Then I follow the instructions in the kit, taking apart the crib and sending pieces back to the company to prove that I actually owned the crib and that now no one else will be able to use it. Then in a week or more, I get a voucher for the original purchase price of the crib. The voucher is only good at Toys 'r' Us or Babies 'r' Us. It is only applicable towards the purchase of a replacement crib. If I select a crib that costs more than I paid for the childkilling crib, I have to pay the difference. If I buy a crib that is cheaper, I will not be refunded any of the money that I originally ~~wasted~~ paid.

Given that this process is supposed to take at least a week, where am I supposed to put my daughter? Not to mention the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere, and the original purchase of the crib was a Gigantic, Time-Consuming Production. It's an hour drive to the nearest Babies 'r' ~~Killed~~ Us, and they don't keep any cribs in stock beyond the floor models. So that's more time before we can get a replacement crib, and since I don't have any way to get it home, requesting delivery incurs extra costs of money and time.

I blame this recall on the company that made the shoddy cribs in "Vietnam or China," but also on globalization's hypercompetitive drive to offer cheaper and cheaper merchandise, which means outsourcing to sweatshops and sub-par imports from third world countries. We wouldn't have this problem with an American-made crib because it would have been twice as big, three times heavier, and six times as sturdy, possibly made out of solid steel.

Is my righteous blaze of jingoistic fury unwarranted? Can I just leave my daughter in the crib until its replacement arrives, gambling with her very life? No, because every night she spins to the side and starts kicking the defective slats. Either she has a death wish (not likely), or her critical eye had already assessed the structural flaws inherent in her resting place, and was desperately trying to alert us to the danger before it was too late. Per her unspoken demand, we shall not let her lie in that accident-waiting-to-happen for another second!

The whole thing makes me angry. So angry, in fact, that the only remedy is a juicy burger, cooked rare with 100% beef from United Food Group, and topped with fresh sliced tomatoes. In fact, I think I'll go drive out and get one in my Ford explorer, right after I add some air to its Firestone tires.

Iron Chef America

2008-06-20T10:30:00.000-05:00

It's okay. Certainly, it's head and shoulders above the absolutely painful Iron Chef USA, but it's still a mixed bag of entertainment. On the one hand, the guy that they have as the chairman is absolutely hilarious. He manages to be completely over-the-top with his gestures, his dialogue, and his mannerisms, but at the same time he makes you feel like you and he are sharing a private joke. And the little sound effects that they add to his karate moves that introduce the Iron Chefs? Win.

On the other hand, Alton Brown. Sometimes he's on the mark, but as a general rule, I would pay good money to punch Alton Brown in the face. Specifically, he needed a good firm smack (possibly with a rolled-up newspaper, or maybe a brass knuckle) during battle coffee. I get it--you're hyper because it's coffee--but I didn't want it in the first place. And is it just me, or does Kevin Brauch appear to be seething with barely-concealed resentment when Brown condescends to let him give the same explanation of the judging rules every episode?

For the judges, I can understand that the show's producers would want people who think differently because arguments mean drama, and drama means good television. The problem is that some of the judges are insufferable when they get to express their opinion. Andrew Knowlton comes across as prissy and elitist when he disagrees with his peers, quibbling over academic minutiae, picking apart the statements of the other panelists, and always needing to mutter the last word into his food like a spoiled eight-year-old. In contrast, Jeffrey Steingarten does an excellent job of voicing his opinion, frequently failing to agree with the other judges but still managing to sound like he is trying to offer constructive criticism, not just showing off. One is a tough but fair evaluator who is disappointed when chefs fail to meet his high standards, and the other is a petty control freak who throws a fit whenever the world around him refuses to meet his expectations. You never know what you're going to get.

I'll keep watching it (unless they keep adding new Iron Chefs; YOU ARE NOT WANTED, MICHAEL SYMON). In the meantime, I have compiled this list of items that I would like to see used as the central ingredient of future ~~episodes~~ battles:

Tic Tacs
Oatmeal
Jello
Goldfish (the cracker, but the pet might work as well)
butter
hot dogs
salt
scotch
bread
windex

Oh wait, this might actually be my grocery list.

The Bee Gauntlet

2008-06-15T07:36:00.004-05:00

The previous owner of our house was a botanist, and she did a fantastic job planting gardens that always have something in bloom. We did an equally fantastic job of completely neglecting everything outside so that the house looks abandoned, or possibly under attack by some kind of malevolent plant monster.

Our front walk is flanked by lavender plants (bushes? shrubs? Some of the branches have gotten thick enough that I'm thinking about calling them "trees") that have pushed out over the concrete and started getting in the way. I trimmed them back last year, but they have returned in full force. While the plants on either side of the walk don't quite touch each other, there's no way to keep from having them rub up against anyone trying to enter or leave the house.

This isn't a problem. The lazy bees who have nothing better to do besides loiter around my lavender bushes all day like shriners at an open bar are the problem.

That's right, bees. You heard me, Science. All those missing bees that you're looking for? Maybe you should check my front yard, because I can count at least six of them, and sometimes as many as twenty, available at all hours^*.

It's a gauntlet made of bees, and I have to run it any time I want to go to work, get groceries, check the mail, or leave a flaming bag of poo on my neighbor's doorstep. It's at the point where I've got to psych myself up before I can leave the house to do anything.

As always, I recognize the importance of staying positive, and have been trying to tell myself that this is a good thing. After all, if I dont want to run this gauntlet of bees, then it must keep out unwanted guests and/or intruders, too. It was a comforting thought, until the doorbell rang yesterday.

What good is having a bee gauntlet if it won't keep out Jehova's witnesses?

_{*Okay, hold your horses, apiarists both amateur and professional, before you go posting all kinds of scientific mumbo jumbo about how what I've got in my yard are only bumblebees, not honeybees. I'll tell you right now: I don't want to hear it.}

An Open Letter to McDonalds

2008-06-05T22:14:00.002-05:00

Dear McDonalds:

When are you going to get a liquor license? Seriously.

I have heard tell of magical restaurants in Germany that look like regular McDonaldses but offer McBier. And if there's one thing that Germans are known for—besides their childlike sense of wonder and love for all things whimsical—it's their ability to set trends that the rest of the world cannot help but follow without any reservations whatsoever.

So, how long does the U.S. have to wait? Sure, after a tough day I can bury my snout in a brace of cheeseburgers, or drown my sorrows in a trough of french fries, but something is missing. How long must I wait until you can give me what I'm really longing for, the quarter pounder with scotch?

Sincerely,
PMJG

10 Things to Learn on Your First Day at Work

2008-06-02T23:48:00.003-05:00

Despite Mel Gibson’s popularization of the term “sugartits,” it is not considered acceptable language for the workplace.
Referring to copying, typing, filing, and answering phones as “bitch work” will not make you any friends.
Pinching coworkers on the ass is not appropriate, even if they are asking for it.
The phrase, “Do it now, because I said so, shitstain,” is neither motivational nor encouraging.
You will not need to bring an alarm clock with you to work. If you decide to nap on the job, your coworkers or supervisors will be more than happy to wake you. The tricky part is getting them to wake you at a specific time.
Names are not written on the lunches in the refrigerator so that you know who to thank after you eat them.
Pinching managers on the ass is not appropriate, especially when they are asking for it.
Asking if you have to be sober to do your job is bad, but not being sober when you show up to do your job is worse.
Before starting games of tic-tac-toe, or engaging in doodles and/or written speculation regarding the bedroom habits of your coworkers, be absolutely sure that the paper you are using isn’t a document that has been prepared for widespread distribution.
As security personnel escort you off of the premises to the waiting police car, pinching them on the ass is not appropriate. They will never ask for it.

There's a reason for that.

2008-06-01T08:48:00.003-05:00

When I gained a measure of autonomy, I decided that I would test a lot of the practices that my parents tried to instill in me to determine if they were valuable habits to develop, or an unnecessary waste of time. Like pyjamas. Is it really necessary to have a completely separate outfit to sleep in? I decided that it was not, which proved to be a real time-saver in college once I didn't have to worry about bringing my Star Wars PJs to a keg party if I thought I'd end up passing out on the couch.

Now that I have a house, I'm looking into some of the more common home upkeep chores to see if they're important enough to do frequently, or if I can get away with letting them slide for a while. Like mowing the lawn. We're not in an appearance-obsessed suburb, and the dog seems to like stalking through shoulder-high grass from time to time, pretending he's a wolf on the prowl for a squirrel or an unattended baby. Who is it going to hurt?

Me. I found out that it's going to hurt me, and the lawn needs to be mowed on a weekly, if not daily basis. While using the weed whacker (okay, it's technically a "string trimmer," and not actually a branded weed whacker) to clear out a dense clump of vegetation, a rustling in the underbrush (underweeds) made me stop. I watched, horrified, as a spider big enough to take on a rat (and probably win) in a no-holds-barred, bare knuckle brawl staggered out from his hiding place and moved on to more welcoming surroundings.

In addition to mowing the lawn, I am now considering paving the lawn.

Yes, I watch cartoons.

2008-05-29T15:32:00.002-05:00

If you're like me (and if you are, I urge you to have a medical professional take a look at that rash, IT'S NOT GOING TO CLEAR UP ON ITS OWN, PEOPLE) you've been wondering what John DiMaggio has been up to now that voicing that lovable alcoholic robot from Futurama is no longer a steady gig.

Naturally, he's up to something totally awesome. In fact, he's voicing another cartoon character in a show called Chowder, alongside Master Shake, two of the characters from Drawn Together, Frau Farbissina, and Howling Mad Murdock--yes, you may know him as Reginald Barclay, and that would make you a geek.

So far, I am enjoying this show. Partly because of the voice talent, and because it's by a former storyboard artist from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, but mostly because of the way they worked in a joke about Flavor Flav and had DiMaggio relate a completely filthy anecdote using only the word "Radda."

A matter of perspective

2008-05-27T21:57:00.003-05:00

Happiness really is all in your mind. For example, I was stuck behind a logging truck on my way to work last week. I was already late, and now I was stuck going less than the speed limit down a winding, two-lane country road that took half an hour to drive under the best of circumstances. It’s times like that when one is well served by cultivating a near psychotic detachment from reality, so that previously serious problems become trivial, or even helpful.

I realized that the logging truck was actually doing me a favor. After all, I could get in a fatal accident at any speed above 20 MPH, but thanks to his inability to make it up steep hills, there would be no danger of that. And, it gave me time to practice my Queen Elizabeth wave (you know the one, it goes elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, etc.) in case I ever find myself in a parade.

It worked so well that I tried to change my perspective on other issues in my life:

-Our well pump was supposed to break. If we had a reliable source of clean water, I wouldn’t have been forced to meet my next door neighbors, who are really great people (as evidenced by the fact that they ran over 300 feet of hose from their house to ours). It also helped to teach me about the importance of water conservation. It’s NOT a renewable resource, people!

-All these bills help me to “keep it real.” Money would just go to my head. And this way, I can really be sure that I’ve got my priorities in order. Who needs both clean clothes AND a hot meal, right? Because that’s just getting greedy.

-Yeah, our heat pump doesn’t cool our house at all, and may even be broken. But I could stand to sweat off some unwanted pounds; I stopped being able to see my ribs, and it made me feel totally chubby. Also, this solves our problem of not having any hot meals.

-These ants aren’t infesting our house. They’re graciously sacrificing themselves to keep the hordes of spiders around here well fed. As long as there are plenty of ants blundering around and walking into the spider webs hidden in the walls and behind the furniture, the spiders won’t go back to roaming the halls where I can see them.

-And we need a lot of hulking spiders looming in the dark corners of the house. If anything, they have to be BIGGER, because at their current, half-the-size-of-my-fist stature, they can barely hold their own against all the wasps that set up shop outside.

-And those wasps. Thank god the wasps are here because—

You know what? I can’t do this anymore. If I keep this up, I’d have to give myself a wedgie and shove my head in the toilet, because I’d be completely insufferable.

This Will Not Become a Blog of Fear

2008-05-19T18:52:00.002-05:00

I’m undecided as to whether “growing up” is something that happens in one pivotal moment (“Congratulations, today, you have become a man/woman (as applicable)”), or something that happens so gradually that you don’t even notice.

Okay, that’s a lie. Only a complete moron or someone in need of a cheap rhetorical device would think that growing up is anything other than the sum of the hundreds of small moments in our lifetimes that shape who we are and what we value.

Unless you define “growing up” as “being recognized as legally able to drink.” That’s pretty important, but also centered around one specific point in time.

However it happened, I have grown up, and my fears have grown up with me. For example:

Attics. Yes, they still make spooky noises, but I’m not as worried about vampires. Was that thump just the house settling, or a family of squirrels moving in? What if it’s something bigger, like raccoons? Or buffalo?

Faucets. The irregular flow isn’t caused by demonic possession. It’s our well. Is it going to run dry for the fourth time? Are we going to need another new pump? Will we be forced to filter and drink our own pee?

Cars. Evil cars won’t run me down while I cross the street. But is the car I’m driving about to fail? Why hasn’t it shifted to the next gear? Is that smell coming from my car, or the one in front of me? Was that noise always there? Can I fix it by turning up the radio?

Closed doors. My boss isn’t conducting satanic rituals behind her closed office door. And I’m reasonably certain she’s not shedding her human disguise so that her gills can air out properly. But what is she discussing in there? Raising insurance co-pays? Freezing salary increases? Firing me because of that time I wore white pants after labor day?

Coughs. It may have taken me over ten years, but I’m not afraid of Captain Tripps anymore. But does that cough mean a trip to the emergency room? Or billing disputes? Why do all the really scary symptoms develop outside of the doctor’s normal office hours?

Ground cover. The undead hands of the vengeful dead aren’t going to erupt from the ground to rip at my flesh, but what is lurking in those leaves? We picked up six ticks in our backyard last season, how many are waiting for us this summer? Isn’t there an effective lawn treatment that will drive them off? Will napalm work?

Sure, I might have scoffed at this list when I was younger, but that’s because I had some growing up to do.

The Great Interview Experiment

2008-05-10T09:27:00.010-05:00

So, Citizen of the Month is doing a thing called the Great Interview Experiment. It's about bloggers interviewing bloggers to make the world a better place. Or shameless self-promotion. Or both.

I signed up, and interviewed Bzzzzgrrrl, of the blog City Mouse Country. It went something like this:

What’s your story?
I lived in D.C. for a year after college, moved to New Hampshire (which is where I sometimes grew up) for several years, and left in my late twenties because I was bored. I moved back to D.C. because I think it's a fantastic city and because I still have friends there, but after eight years, I was looking for a job and found myself increasingly drawn back north. I don't mind "bored" as much as I mind "shoved," and maybe that is the difference between my twenties and my thirties.

How did you find the Great Interview Experiment?
Through She Just Walks Around With It. She apparently did this experiment a long time ago, but just got around to posting the results.

How did you choose your screen name? How does it fit in with the theme of your blog? Are you using that spelling of "girl" ironically?
Not ironically, but maybe nostalgically. That screenname dates way, way back, to maybe 1997, when I was director of a day camp called Hornets' Nest, which allowed me to simultaneously be a camp director (which I loved) and feel like a badass (which I craved). That wasn't so long after I'd been sort of tangentially into the whole riotgrrl thing in college. I just sort of kept using it. So, you know, hornets, feminism, summer camp, badassery. All of that probably fits in with the theme of the blog, but only because it fits in with the theme of my life.

Why did you decide to start a blog?
The idea for the blog came up when I moved. My D.C. friends got very wide-eyed, asking me about all the things I'd surely miss and how cold it would surely be. I found myself e-mailing mobs of people about what it was actually like once I got here, and a blog seemed easier.

What would you say is the single greatest challenge about moving to the country?
Not knowing anything. It makes for funny stories, which is good for the blog, but the sheer amount of stuff I don't know is overwhelming. I need a roof rake? Really?
Oh, and also the move itself was a tremendous challenge. Because I hired the worst moving company ever, and the owner, who is oldish, and his daughter, who is pregnant, showed up to move me. I am not sure I am ready to blog about that experience, even yet.

How did you get such a hefty blogroll in just six months of posting?
The big honkin' blogroll is largely blogs I was reading before I was blogging (bloggin'?). And now, of course, Google tells me what to read.

How do you feel about Google, and their sinister Google Everything(tm) project?
Now you're gonna get us both killed.
I am, unfortunately, exactly the kind of person Google dreams of (That is not anthropomorphism. I actually believe that Google has a brain, and it frightens me.). I dislike everything this giantness stands for, and yet, it's so eeeeeeeeeeeasy. And yeah, parts of it suck, but, well, I'd rather do something else than think too hard. Do you hear me, overlords? I WELCOME YOUR TELLING ME WHAT TO THINK. Plus, the maps are excellent, I find.

Do you hate technorati nearly as much as I hate technorati?
I do.
As do all right-thinking folk.

Between your posts and your links to sites like the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks, you appear to be a fan of punctuation and correctly written words. Do you have a literary background?
"Literary" may be pushing it. I am a writer and editor, and I'm a former copy editor. I like my language and communication fairly precise.

Are emoticons in fact ruining America?
I think it is both lazy and useful to have something to indicate, in writing, that you're kidding. I have little use for emoticons with devil horns and sunglasses, but I use smileys probably too much. Actually, now that I think about it, it strikes me that smileys are OK, but probably winks are ridiculously lazy. How little game do you have if you need a symbol to say "I'm flirting with you"?

What do you miss most about moving to the city (besides the May Day dancing)?
Specific people. I was there eight years, I made friends, and I miss them, often. But really, that's about it. Also, this is where I totally reveal my blog for the sham that it is, but country folks know that there are lots and lots of degrees of country-ness, and I am in one of the easier types to move to: the college town. So there are still lectures and sports and arts, just in a town of many fewer people (about 23,000). So that eases the transition some.

Would you describe your neighbors as hicks, hillbillies, hayseeds, or bumpkins?
Mostly, I would describe them as "professors." I might also describe them as "uninterested in meeting me."

Did it turn out that those were mice making noise in your house, or were the Agatha Christie books actually preparing you to deal with a real, honest-to-god serial killer who happened to be lurking around your house?
Oh, the mice are real, which does not mean the serial killer isn't. The problem with Agatha Christie is that all she really prepares you for is solving the murder after it happens. If you're a victim, you're doomed, and nothing can prevent that. All I can hope for is that the serial killer waits until after The Wedding.

[As bzzzzgrrrl is still alive, and The Wedding concluded successfully, we can assume that the killer is either nonexistent, or very considerate.]

Pimp your blog in 25 words or less.
Mostly, I tell stories at my own expense. Also, I'm hilarious. And in general, things are spelled right.

No, I mean really pimp your blog. Pretend you have a gold tooth, and a diamond-headed cane, if it helps. Right now that description could apply just as easily to She Just Walks Around With It as it could to yours. Make me want to pay money to sleep with your blog.
OK, first of all, I would pay money to sleep with Kristy's blog, if it wouldn't create complications with my existing relationships, so if I've given the impression that my little fish-in-different-water story is anything like that, I'm good with it.

But I'll try again, anyway:
• Hot lettuce
• David Gregory
• Cheap drinks
• Pregnant movers
• Hippie Birkenstock Silver Jewelry Guy
• Squirrel-wrangling
• Candidate spouses
• Contra dancing
• Explosive dust evaluation
• and very many bulleted lists.
Better?

Yes.

Yes, it could be called P-Control.

2008-04-24T18:14:00.004-05:00

MTV's Parental Control is everything that is wrong--not only with television, but with America as a whole--and I love it. Not just because I'm looking for tips on how to deal with what happens when I let my daughter start dating (twenty-five years from now), but mostly because the combination of reality show staging, empty posturing, and simulated teenage heartbreak is nothing short of magical. I shouldn't love a television show this much, and yet here I am writing about it.

The premise is that there is a set of parents who disapprove of their child's significant other. They explain to the camera why their daughter (or son!) is dating a shiftless layabout in confessional style, intercut with said layabout hamming it up in staged reenactments. Then the parents start interviewing replacements.

The interview sequence is all the earnest desire to please of American Idol tryouts combined with the sketchy meat-market shenanigans of Flavor of/Rock of/Shot at Love. The potential for hilarity here is maximized by the potential "dates" who seem to forget that they are not talking to the person that they are going to be dating, they are talking to that person's parents.

There's a fun mix of people who don't know what they're talking about (like the contestant who said that one of her hobbies was Argentinian Tango, and demonstrated a few steps by bending her knees in a half crouch, keeping her feet planted firmly on the floor, and thrashing her arms and shoulders like a go-go dancer with a freshly broken back) and people who shouldn't be allowed out in public (like the guy who said that if he was a carnival ride, he'd be "the one trick pony!" A pronouncement that was accompanied by pelvic thrusts while his right hand pantomimed hair-pulling and his left hand smacked his imaginary partner on the ass). Usually, one parent selects a new date based on personality, while the other goes for looks.

Here would be a good time to ask ourselves some questions about relationships and the people who want them filmed even while they rip them apart. Pretend that you are in a committed relationship, and your significant other's parents told both of you that they think you're an unworthy loser, and they are actively trying to end this relationship by sending their child out on two blind dates.

1) Wouldn't it be a huge red flag if the person that you thought was committed to you is suddenly willing to date other people because their parents said so?

2) Would you be able to sit next to those parents watching footage of the dates? Would you be able to make wisecracks and talk trash for the cameras trained on the three of you while you watch?

Some of the exchanges here HAVE to be scripted, but at the same time there's genuine fear in the eyes of some of these people; if they're only acting like they're trying to use sarcasm and jokes to cover up the fear that they might be single at the end of the day, they're doing a damn good job of it.

And then there's the final choosing, the whole show's raison d'etre. It's filmed for maximum tension, complete with dramatic music, and the two challengers stand with the contentious current sweetheart to find out who will remain. That's when things get real. Some of these contestants are mouthy. Sure, the people who have just had their long-standing relationship ripped apart on reality television have the right to blow off some steam. I'm talking about the newcomers, the are people who just came from a free date paid for by MTV, who were actively trying to steal someone from an existing relationship, and they suddenly get it into their heads that they've been slighted. The bitter comments of these losers have ranged from "go fuck yourself," "it's just as well you didn't pick me, because I'd never have picked you," and my personal favorite, "that's okay, I would rather have dated your mom."

Parental Control. It's good T.V. (that you'll feel like a bad person for enjoying)

A dog with a pacifier.

2008-04-04T12:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not lazy, I swear!

2008-01-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

Hi to everyone visiting from The Law & Order: Criminal Intent Forum.

Unfortunately, I'm not updating this blog as often as I'd like, but Bitterly Books is going to be updated on the 1st and 15th of the month in the coming year. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!

Meeting Eric Bogosian

2007-08-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Eric Bogosian.

The man has to restrain the loose-cannon antics of Mike Logan and Bobby Whatshisface on a weekly basis. He dared to hijack a train while Steven Segal was on board. And I’m in the same building with him. I can get his autograph, if I grab something quick for lunch and rush over to his book signing^* before I have to get back to my exhibition booth.

The nearest place to eat is selling “chicken kebabs,” fist sized knots of chicken gristle that crouch defensively on a bed of rice, aggressively foiling any attempt to cut them with the flimsy plastic utensils provided. My efforts to eat them aren’t pretty, and I’m still struggling with them while on my way to Eric’s booth, because I don’t have much time. I get a place in line, still chewing.

Suddenly, the last person in front of me has moved away, and I am staring at Eric Bogosian with a mouth too full of surprise and chicken gristle to speak. I smile, trying to show that I am both happy to meet him and unable to talk. Afraid that this isn’t getting the message across, I add a little wave. I fight to clear my mouth so that I don’t end up choking physically as badly as I am choking socially. Smiling, chewing, and waving at the same time, I hope that he won't think I'm having a seizure. It’s too late to keep him from thinking that I’m mentally retarded.

He graces me with the smile that he has practiced with his agent. "Hello," he begins, pausing while his eyes scan downwards towards my ID badge, "...Peter."

He sounds exactly as he does on camera. World-weary, detached, and cynical, leavened with a hint of slightly-amused sarcasm. And then I realize that he just read my nametag.

Eric Bogosian just read my nametag!

ERIC BOGOSIAN CAN READ!

AND HE READ MY NAMETAG!

I am beside myself with excitement, and a burst of adrenaline wrenches the chicken down my throat. Now that I can speak, I want to ask if he’s holding a grudge against Casey Ryback for ruining his plans, or if he’s due back at the station to tell the commissioner why there haven’t been any breaks on the case. Instead, I request an autograph.

Hesitantly, I ask, "Can you make it out to my wife, Jennifer?" He complies, and I am even able to get my picture taken with him.

On the trip home, my pictures are ruined by airport x-ray machines, and I am left with 27 hazy photos of blackness, one of which bears a glimpse of a giant inflatable cow. There is no trace of Eric Bogosian on the film.

At least I have my wife's book, which has been inscribed:

To Jnnmql -

Trnml yrrmf
hlsmnfrl.

E_B&wmn

The man's handwriting is as wild and unkempt as his hair.

_{* Talk Radio, published by Theater Communications Group ISBN 978-1-55936-324-2.
I got your back, Eric.}

LARP Nerds

2006-12-20T11:32:00.001-05:00

Friends don’t let friends do Live Action Role Playing (LARP). It’s like getting dragged to a grade school production of Peter Pan, spending a day at a renaissance fair(e), and sitting through a goth poetry reading all at the same time. And LARP events are usually scheduled to last for an entire weekend. It’s a big game of Let’s Pretend for the socially inept, with terrible acting, ridiculous costumes, blatant attention whoring and the most desperate cries for help you’ll see this side of a successful suicide.

LARP fans tell themselves that if enough people do it, it must not be pitiful, but at the end of the day it’s still a bunch of feral nerds playing dress-up in the woods. And while LARP enthusiasts are harmless on their own, they can exhibit a pretty savage pack mentality in larger groups. A sensible person gives LARP events a wide berth, leaving the town, county, and even state that they are held in whenever possible.

I wish that I had been a sensible person in college. That way, I wouldn’t have found myself dressing up like a ninja with some other loser, trying to sell a pretend key to a third loser who was dressed like Robin Hood on laundry day. And if anyone tried to pick a fight with us, we had to throw the fight. It was the kind of ordeal that shouldn’t even be wished on folk singers.

We weren’t called ninjas, the official name was something ridiculous and copyrighted that I have long since forgotten, but we were dressed all in black, and we were supposed to have come from a country with “strong Asian cultural influences.” We weren’t really given much more information than that. Or maybe we were. I might have missed the key part of our NotNinja briefing that explained why two trained killers who strike from the shadows were supposed to be wandering around in the middle of the day doing a traveling salesman act.

Eventually, we found one of the guys who was supposed to buy the key from us. He was a greasy, red-haired "rogue" who would never know the touch of a woman, but after we sold the key to him we could ditch the stupid outfits and go do something else. At least, we were supposed to, but we ran into some trouble.

We had completed the sale and were hustling off to do something less demeaning when one of the huskier pretenders called out to us. He looked like a complete mess, with oily hair that had clumped into rudimentary dreadlocks, and a scrubby goatee, accented by an outlandish costume that Gary Glitter wouldn’t even have worn in the privacy of his own bedroom with all his lights turned off. Imagine the fattest hog you can rooting through Liberace’s closet and then getting caught in a category 5 greasestorm. A gruesome spectacle.

I should have ran the moment he opened his greasy, fur-lined mouth. Ran straight back to my car and driven home. Because he had told us to halt. No one there was in the army, no one was dressed like a soldier, and we were miles from the nearest military base, but he actually used the word “halt.” And once we did, he jiggled over.

As he panted closer, I got a better look at Duke Fatbert Largefield. He never recited his pedigree, but from his bearing and the various trophies of battle that were scattered about his costume, I could piece it together myself. Born in the butterlands, he had bested a wild pack of ding-dongs in hand-to-mouth combat, and was awarded with a knighthood in the order of the Burst Girdle for it. Then he laid waste to the Kingdom of Frito Lay, and became the Earl of Beefington. Finally, he went on to claim the title of Viscount of Tubbsfull and became the scourge of Little Debbie Snack Cakes everywhere. But since listing all of his titles here would be tedious both to write and to read, I’ll simplify it and use a shorter name that conveys the power and grandeur of the individual involved. I’ll call him the Hulk. His associates, ten grown men wearing garish and unflattering pyjamas, gathered behind him.

In his most imperious tone, the Hulk began his interrogation. “What are you doing here?”

I wish I knew. I was told that it was supposed to be a fun weekend with some interesting people, and I had been quite thoroughly lied to. But since I didn’t have anything nice to say, I followed mom’s advice and didn’t say anything at all. My fellow ninja chose that time to practice his impression of Marcel Marceau, so we all just stared at each other for a minute.

The problem was that I knew so little about their world of make-believe that I had no idea how to answer. What did ninjas in their world do? Work long hours with one eye on the clock, waiting for a chance to get home to their families, maybe falling asleep on their recliners at the end of the day, with cold drinks in their hands? I figured that I was just an average, garden-variety ninja. A regular Joe Sake-pack, maybe with a ninja mortgage, and two ninja kids I was trying to put through ninja school, counting the hours until quitting time and hoping that the ninja union could negotiate better wages in the next round of ninja contract talks. Or whatever it was that an average ninja from NotJapan was supposed to do. And this average ninja just wanted to quietly slink off to someplace that he could change into a slightly less humiliating costume.

The Hulk took a deep breath, flaring his nostrils. “I asked what you are doing in these parts!”

I ventured a response. “We, uh, have a business to conduct.” Mid-sentence, I remembered that I was supposed to be Asian. So I squinted, and used an accent that came out sounding like Pat Morita on a tranquilizer binge.

The Hulk’s expression made it clear that he thought my response was insolent. “Where did you come from? How did you get here?” His tone made equally clear that he didn’t want more evasive answers.

I had no idea how far we were supposed to have traveled. And if we did come from far away, nobody mentioned how long distances were covered in Playland. I didn’t know if they traveled on horseback, through magic spells, by train, or borne aloft on the gossamer wings of fairy unicorns. Probably not the unicorns. That seemed a little fruity for ninjas.

“We, uh, walked,” I said. My companion was still silent.

The Hulk took another deep breath. He thought that we were defying him. And that just wouldn’t do at all. Our defiance was making him angry. And he was trying as hard as he could to emote that we wouldn’t like him when he was angry. “Then who let you into the settlement?”

That was anyone’s guess. We had just kind of showed up, and were told to put on dumb outfits and wander around. I guess that I could have remembered a few key people, so that I could name-drop about knowing Lord FakeReagent, or Prince MadeupName, but their aliases were too silly to keep straight. So I just tilted my head at him quizzically.

“Well, who took your papers?” It was the most important question that he asked, even if it made no sense to me. The Hulk wanted to know if we were registered characters, or if we were extras. If we had handed in a registration form, it was considered bad manners to attack us without provocation. But if we hadn't registered, then we were just extras furnished for the sole purpose of making him look effective in combat. And I still had no idea what he was talking about.

That’s when Fatbert saw that his dreams had come true. Not only was he the boss of a mob of tough fantasy bruisers, but now they had found targets. And when he figured it out, I’m pretty sure that he had to adjust his costume to mask an erection.

And that’s when someone hit me with a savage +5 tickle attack. A foam sword tapped me on both legs and one arm. The touches were so light, and so fleeting, that I thought it was one of those “what’s that spot? MADE YOU LOOK!” gags that are so popular with grade schoolers and the mentally enfeebled. So I stood there, trying to figure out what had just happened. My genuine puzzlement was interpreted as aloof indifference.

My assailant (a weedy looking fellow whose costume could generously be described as having been scavenged from the Hamburglar's laundry basket) took a step back as his eyes widened in horror. "He didn't take any damage!" Disbelieving murmurs rippled through the crowd, and the word "enchantment" was thrown back and forth as I realized that I had been attacked.

"Oh," I said, finally realizing what was going on, "ouch." I tried to make my knees buckle a little bit and hung my arm at my side in what I hoped looked like dead weight. I brought my foam sword up to defend myself, and was immediately charged by the Hamburglar, Fatbert, and three others, Drooly O’Headcase, A Very Special Elf, and Doug, the eternal virgin. Things looked grim.

The fighting itself is a blur. Since I was outnumbered 5 to 1, I spent the entire exchange in a defensive stance, backing up in the hope that I could break into a run and get the hell out of there. It didn't work. Instead, I ended up backing out of the clearing into a more wooded area with thick underbrush. That’s when they started yelling “Hazard! HAZARD!”

The word was supposed to warn me that I could hurt myself by tripping over a root or something, but what they really meant was “Step out from between the trees, because we spent months practicing the cool foam sword moves that we want to use to poke you to death. We can’t get enough clearance to use the Spinning Dragon Burn Scythe of Righteous Justice Strike (+2) over there. “

So I stepped back into the clearing and got killed. It was an experience that I could really have done without. That description applies equally to the whole time I was there, but something is particularly degrading about having to listen to the cheering and pant-hooting of a bunch of geeks convinced that overcoming you was a victory against a mighty foe who wasn’t completely outnumbered and explicitly told to lose to them beforehand.

I was able to leave a little later that day, less than 24 hours after I had arrived. I didn’t spend the full weekend with them, but I still had more than enough time to witness uncountable acts of stupidity and to collect a lifetime’s worth of shameful memories. By far the best part of going to the LARP weekend was the drive home.

Pilar

2006-12-15T11:19:00.000-05:00

Our dog Pilar had mastered the art of raiding the table at an early age, and realized that she wanted more out of life. She couldn't leave it up to The Man to classify something as food, restricting herself to what society said was edible. So she broadened her horizons, eating things like balloons and rubber gloves. When brother wouldn't play catch with her, she ate his favorite computer game’s disk. And when she felt like having a snack, she'd eat matchbooks, pinning them between her paws and carefully licking the connected heads like an ice cream cone.

Eventually, she ate 5 ant traps in an afternoon. Mom had bought the traps along with a few other things that Pilar usually ignored, like lightbulbs, and thought that our dog could be trusted with them in the car for a few minutes. Pilar thought otherwise. Whether she consumed the traps in a fit of pique after being kept waiting for too long, or just satisfying her boundless epicurean curiosity, we'll never know. By the time mom got back to the car, the damage was done. The vet said that 3 can put a dog in a coma.

Pilar’s mealtime discipline was bad from the start. As the new dog in a house that hosted up to 7 children, Pilar received a lot of table scraps from fussy eaters desperate to clean their plates. My brother and I ate salad by eating the green stuff, and giving the red stuff to the dog. By the time our parents caught on, it was too late. Pilar had learned that not only was people food as edible as dog food, it was usually tastier. She silently vowed to include it in her diet whenever she could.

Pilar recognized that we could no longer help her, so she began to help herself. Our laps were at eye level, and usually draped with napkins. Napkins that ended up dirty. Like Dune’s sandworms detecting the slightest vibrations made by prey, Pilar sensed the subtle odors made by trace amounts of food. Our miniature Shai Hulud would rustle unseen under the table, visible only briefly as a flash of teeth claiming used napkins to be consumed at her leisure. From then on, napkins were kept out of reach, but I'm still clumsy at dinner. I need time to register that in Pilar's absence, anything placed in my lap will stay there. And I still want to warn friends not to put their napkins where the dog can get them.

As food sources became scarce, Pilar resorted to more drastic measures. She started begging for food, much the same way that pickpockets and muggers roam a city begging for wallets. She started innocently enough, staring at her mark in a mute yet adorably optimistic plea. Then she got impatient. Occasionally, she barked her displeasure. As she realized that food would not be offered, she decided that it must be taken. Her expression melted into calculated resolve as she formulated an attack strategy. And then she waited carefully for the split second of inattention in which she could launch her furry little Schlieffen plan. The instant that guards were down, she was up and on the attack. She would twist her neck to open her mouth horizontally, extending her range further, and moving her lower jaw clear to scrape plates clean with her teeth. From above, she looked like a hairy black pac-man streaking across the plates. She'd grab anything within reach, swallowing smaller items whole, and cramming everything else into her mouth, keeping at it until she was dragged away, chewing triumphantly.

After she chewed through her nylon collar, it was replaced by a chain that jingled merrily as she trotted around the house. It bound her body, but not her spirit. The giddy chiming of her new collar was an alarm, warning everyone to finish eating quickly, before she drew closer. Her black wagging tail, cresting gaily above the far edge of the table as she worked her way around the dining room, looked like nothing so much as a shark's fin prowling for its next meal. It added a sense of adventure to mealtimes.

But not many people recognized the warning signs. My friend Josh was visiting when my mother warned him not to let the dog eat his food. He made the mistake of turning his head towards her to ask for clarification. Mom had served from the left, and at that moment, Pilar came zooming in to remove from the right, ending up eyebrow-deep in food before Josh had any idea that something was wrong.

And so she chewed her way through life with gusto, eating food, household items, and the aforementioned 5 ant traps, which only gave her mild constipation. We tried to figure out the reason behind her miraculous survival after eating them, especially given the vet’s grim pronouncement. Maybe Pilar was impervious to damage of any kind? Maybe the traps were defective? Maybe the vet was thinking of a different, more lethal type of ant trap? Maybe the vet was an idiot. We reviewed all the possibilities carefully, and realized that given the evidence, there was only one conclusion at which any rational person could arrive.

It was pretty cool knowing that I had an indestructible superdog.

Cemetery Work

2006-12-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

I needed a summer job when I was in high school, so I worked in a cemetery for a few months. It wasn't much different from any other landscaping job. Kind of like maintaining a golf course, only with more tombstones.

Most of the time was spent mowing the grass. If you were lucky, you got to mow the empty field that they had put aside for future development. That meant long stretches of time spent driving a rider mower in lines so straight that you could catch a quick nap before it was time to turn around and head back the other way. Every now and then you got to menace a groundhog, which would easily outrun the underpowered mowers in a kind of waddling hustle that still managed to express its contempt.

Avoiding the groundhog holes was vastly preferable to weaving around floral arrangements and those mini flags that members of the armed services get. You would have to steer the mower as close to them as you could, stopping every few feet to reach out and move one of them onto the grass that you had just cut. Then, at the end of the row you'd turn and mow the grass that you had just cleared of obstacles, stopping again every few feet to pick up the displaced items and put them back into their original positions. It was tedious and awkward, and since the front of the mower was much wider than the back, it was tricky to ride close enough to pick things up without getting so close that they got destroyed by the mower.

It was particularly rough with the little flags. The older ones had gotten yanked out of the ground and shoved back in so often that their stands were permanently bent. Over time, the bends got so severe that the holders angled out over the ground, with the flags almost touching the grass. You had to make wide detours to avoid clipping them, since it would have been a serious insult to the generations of brave men and women who gave their lives for our country if one of those drooping flags was accidentally sucked into one of the mowers. As weak as the mowers were, the flags were mass-produced and cheap, fixed to their posts with the most tenuous of bonds. It didn't take much suction to rip a flag clean off its mounting and send it flying through the whirling blades, to emerge out the other side as so much red, white, and blue confetti. So thank god it never happened, which is why no one needs to check the trash dump behind the machine shop to see if I tried to hide the evidence out there.

The machine shop was in the back of the cemetery, hidden in a bunch of trees behind the mausoleum. It was where we kept the digging equipment. Everyone pictures gravedigging work to be two guys with shovels working by lantern light under a full moon, like the science of body disposal reached its apex back in the fourteen hundreds. But trying to excavate almost 150 cubic feet of dirt unassisted is hard goddamn work. And just like any other business, there's a constant pressure to do things bigger, cheaper, and faster to make them more profitable. That's why the backhoe and the dump truck are the modern gravedigger's accessories, and the only time that people actually use picks and shovels is when they need to widen a hole but don't want to crack open a burial vault by mistake.

Burial vaults went into all the graves in the cemetery. They were thick concrete shells that were fitted over the caskets, supposedly to keep the earth from settling as the contents deteriorated. I was comforted by them. While the cemetery would be ground zero in the event of a zombie attack, I knew that the vaults would keep the undead in their place. And if zombies are able to punch through solid concrete before burrowing through six feet of packed earth, using nothing but their bare hands and a seething hatred for the living, then you don't need to look for a hiding place. Because there isn't one to be found.

But that was no reason to get complacent, and I always kept a weather eye open for the first signs of a zombie uprising. The job was pretty low-stress, but I had absolutely no desire to stay there after dark. And neither did anyone else that I worked with. I don't know where people got the idea that cemetery work is done at night. We just worked normal hours, from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, and didn't hang around at the end of the day. The only person crazy enough to do that was the guy who lived there.

As you can imagine, it's difficult to find a tenant for a house that's in a cemetery, which is why this particular house was leased out rent-free. Anyone could live there, as long as they could do two things. They'd have to mow their "front lawn" (the strip of grass between the house and the fence), and they'd have to ignore the fact that at any moment they could have their souls turned inside out or ripped to shreds by supernatural horrors from beyond the grave. The tenants got a place to stay, and the cemetery had someone on-site after hours if vandals or punk kids broke in and started screwing around.

The only time we ever saw the bodies is when other people came in and started messing with them. Like the time that somebody broke into one of the private crypts and left an arm in the bushes. The rest of the time, the job was just putting big boxes into bigger boxes and then dumping a lot of dirt onto them. When it comes to corpse exposure, cemetery work is probably the least unnerving of all the death services industries.

We never saw the bodies, and we never saw the mourners. Like shoe-cobbling elves, we did our work unseen, getting the blue-and-white pavilion ready for the service before disappearing back to the machine shop. We set up chairs, and did our part to make the grave look less like the yawning chasm of infinity that waits to swallow us all. This was accomplished with sheets of artificial grass, like those you find on mini golf courses, draped down the sides of the pit to disguise the bare soil. The steel sling that lowered the casket was placed on top of them, to keep them from slipping out of place. With the dirt from the excavation carted away in the dump truck, it looked like the grave was a natural formation that had always been there, and hadn't been slashed from the earth just that morning or the day before. Once everything was in place, we kept out of sight until the service was over and everyone was gone. Then we'd clean it all up, and fill in the hole.

The Punched Monkey

2006-11-30T09:35:00.002-05:00

I know someone who punched the monkey.

My coworkers are good people, but they're not too complicated. Code Red, Pepsi Blue, GoGurt, Liquid Ice, they'll try anything if it has enough buzz behind it. They’re a marketer's wet dream.

Mary is a coworker of mine who is particularly naive, a big fan of taking people at their word and acting without considering the consequences. One time she ended up homeless for a few weeks because she was promised that a gutted apartment would be totally refurnished in less than a month, and ready for her to live in. She had to move out of her old place at the end of its lease, and was supposed to move into the refurnished apartment the very next day. Strangely, when her move-in date arrived and the apartment still wasn’t ready, the realtor wouldn't return her calls and was never in the office when she stopped by. Imagine that.

Back in November, there was a bit of a gadget binge. MP3 players were the New Hip Thing. (hey, I never said that they were current with the trends, I just said that they followed them, which makes their behavior more touchingly tragic). At the same time that their eyes had been opened to the possibility of portable music without tapes or CDs, the Nano was causing a stir, and it was time to start thinking about Christmas presents. Maybe they wanted one of their own. Maybe they would be the perfect gifts for significant others. Maybe this time, after so many hollow promises and false hopes, an iPod would be the one thing that they had been searching for after all these years to make their empty lives complete.

That's when Mary got it into her head that she needed an iPod. I'll tell you right now that she needed an one like Bruce Campbell needs twenty pairs of sequined pink ballet slippers. This woman had no idea how an iPod worked. I don’t know if she thought that they magically picked up songs from the radio, or if you put songs on the iPod by rubbing it against a CD really hard, but she didn’t realize that you need to connect it to a computer to add a playlist. She barely grasped the idea that songs can be stored as MP3’s, and was stunned to find out that the iPod stored those MP3’s on a tiny hard drive. It's also worth noting that she never wore headphones, a walkman, or a portable CD player into work, but by god her life wouldn't be complete unless she had an iPod of her very own. And then she saw the link.

I don't know what it said. Probably something like "PUNCH THE LOW MORTGATE RATE TO GET HERBAL VIAGRAS FOR LESS! ALSO, IPODS!1!" Whatever it was, it said "free iPod," and that meant that she was going to get one.

My coworkers aren't complete idiots. And most of them knew that any company giving away iPods to everyone on the internet was going to end up bankrupt in five minutes. They knew it was a scam, and they all tried to talk Mary out of it. But Mary thought she was smarter than that. After all, they had to give out some iPods, right? They wouldn’t be allowed to put out false advertising, would they? Sure, they might not be giving out millions of them, but they had to give away at least one, or they’d be telling a lie. And if they did give one out, she was going to be the person who got it. Like some modern-day David, she'd take on this marketing Goliath, and wrest an iPod from them with her cunning wiles. She probably wouldn't even have to take her clothes off to do it.

Once she began her quest, she spent the rest of the afternoon handing over all of her personal information. Other people might have thought that it was risky, but she was going to beat the system. Name, age, address, date of birth, phone number, mother's maiden name, first pet’s name, number of felony convictions, favorite brand of peanut butter, there was nothing she wouldn't tell them in pursuit of her iPod. She applied for a credit card. She completed two marketing surveys. And she subscribed to three magazines. That’s when we told her that she was never going to see that iPod, but she didn't want to hear it.

The next day she came rushing in to work all excited. "Guess what, guys! I just got an e-mail confirming my order, and they're going to ship out my iPod! It should arrive in 4 weeks!" We used that opportunity to tell her again that she was never going to see that iPod.

A week or so after that, she brought in one of those massive packages from a CD club. The ones where they can’t just list the CDs for sale, they have to include tiny little pictures of the albums in case you shopped for music based on the pretty colors. She was supposed to pick her free CDs now, and sign up to buy additional CDs every month. It turned out that joining their club was part of the iPod application process. Hey, she'd need a bigger music collection since she was going to be able to listen to it anywhere, right? A few people had fun helping her pick out CDs, but most of us were asking when she was going to see that iPod.

"I'm serious guys, it's going to be here in 4 weeks," she insisted. As though repeating it often enough would make it true.

Eventually, I heard her spending another afternoon in pursuit of her iPod. This time she was on the phone. I guess that in addition to the magazines, and the CD’s, she had been enrolled in a few of those credit card programs.

They’re the programs where they charge you a monthly fee to watch your credit report, or to send you coupons for disounts, or to ensure that you'd be "protected" if you couldn't make your monthly credit card payments. They come up with new ways to scare you with tales of the Terrible Things that can happen to Unprepared People, and then they promise you that their program will be your one true light and salvation in these dark and turbulent times. Then they pretend that they’re making your life better while they keep charging you a substantial monthly fee. Mary was on the phone trying to cancel the programs before their free trial periods expired.

Have you ever tried to do that? It's like trying to win knife fight against a lawnmower. You can't just cancel, you have to tell them why you want to cancel. Then they tell you why the reason you just gave them was a bad one, and how you don't really want to cancel the excellent service that they're providing you. If you insist on cancelling without giving them a reason, they “have” to make you listen to a prolonged marketing pitch so that you'll find out about "all of the great features you'll be missing." But don’t blame them for it, it’s their civic duty. After all, they can't just let you cancel without considering all the useless crap that they're forcing on you, because letting you pass up such magnificent bargains would be like ripping you off! They think that if they talk long enough, you'll get so bored or confused that you hang up.

"When's the iPod getting here?" we asked Mary.

"Any day now. I'm serious, it's due to arrive sometime this week or next week! And I'll bring it in, and you'll all be jealous," she insisted.

Finally, she admitted that she had received one last e-mail regarding her iPod. It turned out that the credit card application she had filled out at the beginning of the whole ordeal had been rejected. As a result, she was no longer eligible to receive the free iPod, and her "order" had been cancelled. But thank god that all those things she had signed up for in the meantime had required an active credit card to enroll. Since she had put them onto one of her other cards while she waited for the new card's approval, they had a ready source of funding. She may not have gotten an iPod, but if she hadn't punched the monkey, she wouldn't have gotten such an up close and personal view of all the different customer service companies that were now charging her monthly fees.

I'd like to think that her experience made Mary a little more skeptical, a little less willing to expect something for nothing. Even if she is going on a "vacation" this weekend to listen to some company pitch her a timeshare.

But that's what happens when you punch the monkey.