Now that I am all Going Grant, I’ve also decided upon a personal scenting strategy. Well, no, that makes me sound more metrosexual than a man named Cary could stand. I’ve not started using body washes or gels; it’s still simple cake soaps sold at 36 for $5 at the warehouse store and $1 shampoo for me. I have started dabbing on a little cologne, though, since I have quite a chemistry lab of little vials of it as I recently discovered as I unpacked a little bin underneath the sink. And I wonder: has any man ever used a complete bottle of cologne? Continue reading “Revisiting Cologne”→
The man on the radio says the island of Hawaii is about to get hit by a tsunami.
Wow, how is it going to hit the Big Island and miss Molokai, Maui, Oahu, Lanai, Kaiau, Niihua, and Kahoolawe?
In other news, just yesterday, I learned the names of the major islands of the state of Hawaii to bolster my trivia knowledge. Just in time for this quip.
I know it’s all the rage among conservatives and libertarian types these days to “Go Galt,” that is, to not work as much as you can since the more you work, the more the government takes from you in taxes and basic humanity. It’s too late for that: a couple years back, even before the election of the current president, I absented myself from the work force mostly as I became a consultant and, as time elapsed, more of a stay-at-home Dad than a consultant. So I’m not in the employment numbers anyway, and if I went Galt, our house would be two-boy-induced-rubble in a matter of hours.
I sometimes make other people uncomfortable, and by uncomfortable, I mean I creep them the hell out. I don’t know why, but I suspect it’s because of incidents like this:
Today, I’m watching my child play with the train set in the church-run preschool corridor when one little boy tells one of the teachers/attendants about his twin brother’s cast for his broken finger, which covers the urchin’s complete hand.
Then she turns to me, the only adult in sight, and relates the story of how when she was a child, her sister was goofing off when their parents were gone and managed to knock her thumb out of its socket and jam it up into the hand itself. I agreed that it sounded painful, but the first chit-chat, small-talk comment that came to mind as I stood there, leaning against the cinderblock wall in my beaten old black trenchcoat and holding my black fedora, was:
With a thumb you can dislocate on command, you can slip out of handcuffs easily.
I don’t know why Andrew Hicks’s name popped into my mind tonight. But there it was.
Back in the late 1997s, I encountered his “A Year in the Life of a Nerd” series of posts where he talked about being a teenager in a western St. Louis suburb and then going to Mizzou. As fast as a 14,400 BPS modem and an AOL account would let me, I ran through the whole set to that point.
So once his name popped into my head, I did an Internet search, and lo! The Andrew Hicks World Wide Web Extravaganza, those years in the life of a nerd, have been republished as a blog, by a fan no less. Frankly, I don’t think any of you would do the same for me.
Meanwhile, now over 30, Andrew Hicks is a daddy blogger in Springfield…. Illinois.
Last night, the HGTV television program House Hunter featured our home in Old Trees, Missouri (Still available! Cheap!).
We haven’t lived there in a year and a half (sellers ready to make a deal!). Right after we moved out, we had the entire top floor painted. Then, when we changed realtors, we had the house staged, so it’s full of furniture that’s nicer than ours (and which is not charged monthly, thankfully). The porch swing, mounted on a frame instead of hanging from the porch roof, is in the backyard now. My garden, which I tore out of an asphalt driveway with a sledgehammer, a pick, and a shovel, is gone; it’s a patch of grass now.
So it’s our house, but it’s different enough and distant enough that it’s not acute. The only things distinctly ours are the stepladder tucked into the main floor laundry (along with a large supply of light bulbs and 9-volt batteries to keep the rooms lit and the smoke detectors from beeping–one thing that made an unused home seem more unused when we were looking was the unrespiting bleating of abandoned smoke detectors) and the cherry tree in the front yard which should produce a pretty nice crop this year.
I do miss a couple things from the house. The next-door neighbor was often available for a hey,-how-are-you that would turn into a 40 minute chat. We could walk out the front door and walk everywhere. We could sit on our front porch and watch the neighbors walk or drive by (we could even talk, no matter what the “highway noise” complainers, and there have been many) say (loudly).
If it would have aired earlier in the winter, I might have been more wistful. But now that the spring is tipping its hand, the benefits of this house in the mountains are tugging at my sleeve. I spent part of yesterday morning cleaning out our inherited burn pile for an eventual rose garden and in building up a raspberry patch with peat and soil. Later today, I might pick up a couple of fruit trees for the orchard. Also, even though the Springfield murder rate more than doubled last year, it rose to 7. Total. In St. Louis, that’s called a weekend.
It was a strange experience, and a bit exciting, and ultimately the couple who were “considering” our house said mostly nice things about the house. Maybe it will spur some interest in that house so we can finally unload it and get to saving money and thinking about the future.
My wife has never really liked the kitchen sink at Nogglestead. An off-white acrylic two-bowl with just room for a bead of caulk between the edge of the sink and the back splash, she never felt it got clean. So when our faucet began dripping constantly, I knew I had to act with the alacrity to which I respond to most household repairs and/or improvements that reach the “project” level: I acknowledged I’d replace the faucet, and I would replace the sink at the same time. After all, one set of water connections would be disconnected anyway.
So after enough time elapsed (one cannot say alacrity without first saying alack!), I actually went to the home supply store to see what was available. I hemmed, I hawed, I slept on it for weeks on end. Then I decided I wanted a four-hole sink and a faucet that had two valves for the hot and cold. Then I decided I wanted the standard cartridge type faucet after all, so we could make due with two holes.
My wife knew she wanted stainless steel, so at least I didn’t have that to Handymanlet over for two acts of the drama.
On Saturday mornings, I listen to KMOX radio on the Internet, and heard the following advertisement. I thought it was bad enough hearing it, but I see the company has its own YouTube channel and includes the radio spot along with the bouncing ball to help you sing the jingle.
Oh, my, word.
I don’t know if it was put on the Internet stream only or if KMOX is running this ad, but….
But….
I think I’ve ruined some small part of life for you, too, now.
Also, you might get the privilege of explaining to your wife why she heard that coming from your computer.
Watson has lots in common with a top-ranked human Jeopardy! player: It’s very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman.
Last night, I slept a bit roughly. Mostly because the bed was like Poland, my cats were Prussia, Russia, and Austria, and I was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
As some of you know, I’ve taken to baking some sweet breads these days, mostly because when life gives you zucchini (and by “gives you,” I mean overruns your yard and threatens to crush your silly brick home, mortal), you make zucchini bread. But after the zucchini ran out after a successful rogue insect team insertion, I decided to try some other breads and a couple of pies. That said, I’m no Cunegonde because I’m not that pretty.
Recipes and cook books sure have a lot of different verbs in them, don’t they? The authors use the mandate tense and order me to do a lot of different things to the poor ingredients, but I am a simple man, with a simple Oster hand mixer that goes to six. As such, whatever the verb in the recipe, seriously, they can’t mean anything but “Mix at 6,” can they?
Cream the eggs and butter? Set the mixer to six.
Fold the nuts into the batter? Set the mixer to six.
Combine the flour and spices? Put on a dust mask and set the mixer to six.
Chop the walnuts? Set the mixer to six and chase them around the bowl until they’re small.
I mean, seriously, can we lose the thesaurus here and just admit that there’s nothing to it?
Also, what’s up with the order of combining things? Just pour it in the bowl and mix it at six.
Everyone remains polite when accepting the breads, anyway. Because they fear the creepy man with the mixer with the long extension cord.
Well, he’s not actually a baby. My four-and-a-half-year-old son is quite precocious. Not only has he made his first pun (watching his Christmas program, he said the little girl wearing the star was the star of the show–I know, it’s obvious, but it’s a a pun and he’s four-and-a-half), but the other day he distributed his first middle.
I made some chili for myself for lunch and put some shredded cheese on it. Then, being the benevolent despot, I put a little cheese on the boys’ lunch plates and announced, “I share the cheese because I am from Wisconsin.”
“Am I from Wisconsin?” he asked.
“No, you are from Missouri,” I said mournfully. “But you come from many generations of Wisconsinites.”
“Is Grandma from Wisconsin?” he asked.
“No, Grandma was from St. Louis. But Nana is from Wisconsin.”
“So she shares the cheese.”
Bang, just like that, proper syllogism. He closed the circuit. Wow, I am so proud.
Also, I’m sorry for burdening the rest of you Wisconsinites with that burden to live up to. If the lad ever sees you with cheese, he’ll expect you to share it.
If you don’t want to, just tell him you’re from Minnesota. Or if you see him with some and want to take it, I guess you could say you’re from Illinois.
Back in the olden days, my grandmother managed the gift shop, so we got in free. When I was at the university, I could get in free, too, so I went every year at least once.
One of the most widely debated topics in the art history world today is repatriation, or the return of “stolen or gifted” items to the home country. Should museums be allowed to keep their collections as they are, for the benefit of their patrons, or are they required to return significant works of art to the countries they originated from?
The debate continues as Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities director, recently announced his continued quest to retrieve artifacts stolen from the countries centuries ago, when the archaeological statutes that we have now weren’t in place. Hawass claims he will be relentless in his efforts, and is teaming up with other countries around the globe in order to further his mission. Meeting last week at the “Conference on International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage”, Egypt and 25 other countries, including China, Peru and Italy, hope to reclaim many of these ancient artifacts from museums around the world.
In Hawass’s sights are the Rosetta Stone, currently held in the British Museum; a statue of Ramses II from Turin’s Museo Egizio; and the bust of Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum.
You know, that’s an awesome idea. Let’s put all of the priceless artifacts in one place in an unstable region. What could go wrong?
Looters broke into the Egyptian Museum during anti-government protests late Friday and destroyed two Pharaonic mummies, Egypt’s top archaeologist told state television.
You know, a certain amount of diaspora of artifacts would help prevent that sort of thing. One might argue that it would be good for all of mankind if those priceless treasures remained scattered so they could not all be lost at once.
But that does not serve the interests of the aggrieved nations, who want to bolster their reputations, their museums, and their budgets.
(For information about Alexandria I, check out the Wikipedia.)
You know what makes me feel left behind? When I encounter a set of signals, sigils, or glyphs that I don’t recognize nor understand. I’m a pretty smart guy. I have a college degree, although perhaps in the 21st century having a college degree is a symbol of not being very smart at all, particularly when it’s a B.A. with majors in English and Philosophy. But, still, I feel like a stranger in a strange land when I come upon something like this:
That’s the bottom of our dust mop cover. I took it off to launder it. I think the package might have said it was washable. Something I own is washable, so maybe this is it. So I looked for the tag that explains what one can do with it, but all I had was this.
Uh.
The first one looks like a tub, so maybe that means it’s washable. But what does the 40 mean? I should use a tallboy can of beer? I should wash it just above freezing? I have no idea. It goes into the white load with the rest of my formerly whites.
The second symbol: A triangle, prohibited or eliminated. Do not listen to The Dark Side Of The Moon while washing?
The third symbol: A tank? This garment will not protect you from authority when you’re at a protest?
The fourth symbol: A circle, x-ed out. A cryptic reference to The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”?
“I want to see the sun blotted out from the sky.”
The fifth symbol: A circle in a square, x-ed out? Wait a minute, maybe the circle does not represent the sun, but rather an elder god or demon of some sort. And this is some sort of warning about containing that eldritch feotid beast from beyond the laundry room. Like an Elder Sign, if only I could decipher it.
Ah, the hell with it. I threw it in the laundry with some malt liquor and then the dryer. I have no idea how many of these important Chinese tenets I violated, but I have a mostly clean dust mop head. The point was not to clean it correctly; the point was to invest enough time ranting about it while seated at the computer with a cup of coffee that I would not have time to actually use the dust mop. Mission: Accomplished.
(And in the course of researching the post, I encountered this list of the symbols and what they mean. In addition to a rant post, I have also learned something that will impress my wife when I someday dramatically interpret a set of glyphs for her. “How do you know that?” she will ask, and I will just shrug. But you and I know, gentle reader.)
