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Eight Hours of Recommended Reading
(But only if you're really slow.)
- PETA: The Worth of Animal Souls Is Great
- Celestial Roulette
- My Body is a Private Club for Members
- Label Maker
- The Fear of God and Spiders
- You Must Be Smoking
- Caffeine: The Devil's in the Drip
Eight Hours Worth
of other Blogs
I've been to too many blogs to list them all in this column, but you can see the list here.
At Least Eight Hours Worth of Podcasts I'm Not Supposed to Like:
November 2005
- Jack Rabbit
- The Seventh Sale
- House for Sale (AGAIN)
- Ick
- Aging—Accelerated
- You're Only Worried About Your Kids Drinking BEER?
- New Math
- Overdose
- It's Evolution Baby
- Fire Bob the Dragon
- I Was Never Cool in School
Jack Rabbit
Friday, November 25, 2005
11:21 PM
A year ago
When Brynn was just five,
We had an immovable rule,
“No matter how much
She begs and she pleads,
There's no room
In our house for pet stool!”
Then off to the pet store
We went just to look,
And swore that we never would buy it,
But I held a small bunny
in one single hand,
And I said, “Well, I guess we could try it.”
The help at the store said, “I think it's a girl,
It's so young I can't tell you for sure,
The only real way to know if I'm right,
Is to wait until it is mature.”
We named her,
We tamed her,
We gave our best care,
Gave her food,
Gave her water,
Gently stroked her fine hair.
But last night as I scratched her
And I shared my affection,
The rabbit showed “hers”
By way of erection!
So our pet turned out male,
And yes we still have it,
But if he can't shake his vice,
Then we'll have a blind rabbit!
The Seventh Sale
Thursday, November 24, 2005
7:37 AM
"And when he had received the fax for the seventh sale, there was silence in the house for about the space of half an hour."
The fourth sale.
"And the seventh buyer poured out his offer into the air; and we did counteroffer. And there came a great voice out of the telephone, from our realtor, saying, it is done. Thou art under contract."
"And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great."
Ok, that last part didn't happen, but we are under contract again. We're set to close in about three weeks. Brace yourselves for the drama.
House for Sale (AGAIN)
Sunday, November 20, 2005
4:08 PM
Friday our sixth sale on the house crapped out TWO GODDAMN HOURS BEFORE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO SIGN THE FUCKING FINAL PAPERWORK!!! Jesus Christ! What the HELL is the matter with people? I gave up on taking people at their word years ago. I thought that getting it in writing was supposed to provide some degree of protection. Instead, I get this:
So, Señor <<name removed upon request>> from <<city removed, too>>, I bid you a hearty FUCK YOU. You screwed us out of a shitload of money, and there's a good chance you've screwed us out of the new home we're building, along with the thousands we put down for the construction deposit. Don't even get me started on the tens of thousands of dollars worth of appreciation on the new house since we started.
Just in case you didn't get that, let me put it in terms you'll understand:
¡CABRON! ¡PENDEJO! ¿Que carajo quieres, hijo de puta? Cumplimos con nuestro parte del contrato. ¿Por que nos dejaron asi? Sinceremente espero cien gorillas con la sida te violen. Puedes llevar tu cheque y meterlo bien alfondo en tu culo. ¡Vaya, chinga tu puta madre!
Well, I feel better. We'll see them in arbitration in the next week or two. I expect that we'll come to a judgment and they'll just skip on the payment. At least we'll be able to keep them from hurting anyone else.
Yesterday morning the house went back on the market. Now we're looking for deal number seven. Hopefully seven really is a lucky number. I can't handle any more drama.
Read about the crapping out of deal number five.
Ick
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
10:30 PM
Have you ever been in a public bathroom and heard someone's cell phone go off in the stall...on vibrate?
Aging—Accelerated
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
10:22 PM
“Daddy, look! I have a new tooth!”
Last night my little baby girl opened her mouth wide and proudly showed me the top of her first adult tooth. It's cutting through on the bottom behind a baby tooth.
“What the??? Are you a shark?”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I came to be ten years older in a single day.
You're Only Worried About Your Kids Drinking BEER?
Monday, November, 14, 2005
1:17 AM
Way back when I was about thirteen or so, I had a friend I used to hang out with quite a bit. We did everything together. One summer, his father got a six-pack of beer as a gift from a vendor at work. He didn't drink, so somehow it got tucked away in the basement. Naturally, we found it. Even better than that, no one was home. We stood in awe of the opportunity for mischief that lay before us.
“I’ll drink some if you do,” he said.
“No, you drink it first.”
“No you.”
We shoved it back and forth at each other as though it were the devil in a can. After what seemed like at least half an hour of this passed, we eventually made up our minds. We'd take it out in the back yard, shake it up and shoot it with our BB guns. (Sigh).
This might not make a lot of sense to you unless you know that I grew up as a Mormon in Utah. As such, I was strictly forbidden to drink any alcohol. There was even a song I had to learn at church when I was a kid:
That the children may live long
And be beautiful and strong,
Tea and coffee and tobacco they despise,
Drink no liquor, and they eat
But a very little meat;
They are seeking to be great and good and wise.
Na na na naa, naaaa naaaaaaaa....
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...
PROPANE.
Ok. I added the last part. Anyhow, if I remember correctly, it was that same summer when I got a call from my friend.
“Doug, you've gotta come over!”
“Why?”
“I can't say. You've gotta see this though!”
“What is it?”
“Just come over!”
Click.
So I hopped on my black and tan Team Murray BMX bike and rode to his house as fast as I could. Whatever trouble he was getting into this time, it had to be good because he wouldn't tell me on the phone.
When I got there, we walked up the stairs and through the house to the back porch. No one was home except for him and a couple of our other friends. He sat down next to the barbecue, detached the hose and stuck it in his mouth. He then twisted open the the tank and took a deep breath.
You probably want to know why he did this. Well, helium is lighter than air, and that's why your voice sounds high after you suck in a balloon. My friend reasoned that since propane is heavier than air, it should make his voice lower.
He was right. Stupid, but right. When he spoke, it sounded like a record of Darth Vader with a serious head cold played back at half speed. We thought it was fucking hilarious.
“HA!! Duuuuuuuuuude! Trrryyyyyyyyy itttttttt! It'ssssss grrrrrrrreat!!!”
“Umm..ok.”
I put the hose to my mouth and he opened the valve. My cheeks puffed up with highly flammable gas. It tasted awful. I blew it out and started to talk.
“It's not working.”
“Duh! You have to inhale it!”
So I tried again and it worked. He didn't warn me what it would do to my head. For several minutes I was in a complete dreamlike state where nothing seemed real. I stumbled to the couch and waited it out. As with so many of our stupid scientific experiments, it was just pure dumb luck that none of us were killed.
As a kid I never drank or did drugs. Hell, I didn't even know what beer tasted like until I was twenty-nine. I didn't swear or watch rated R movies. I didn't shop on Sunday. But this wasn't against the rules. Somehow that made it ok (although we knew better than to tell our parents).
Now over twenty years later, I'm just starting to learn why it's so bad to let other people make rules for everything. It diminishes your ability to think. Had I been thinking, I would have drunk the beer and shot the propane tank.
New Math
Thursday, November 10, 2005
12:03 PM
“Hey Brynn, what’s two plus three?”
“Five.”
“What’s four plus four?”
“Eight.”
“What’s six plus seven?”
“…thirteen.”
“What’s five plus a duck?”
“Umm…fuck?”
Overdose
Tuesday, November 11, 2005
10:52 PM
You know that feeling you get when you listen to the same band for
too long? My mom doesn't .
Two days straight of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and I'm already looking for the tent stakes to drive into my ears.
It's Evolution Baby
Saturday, November 5, 2005
11:03 PM
Today marks three weeks that Heidi, Brynn and I have been living with
my parents. I have to admit, it has gone by amazingly fast. We've all
been careful not to step on anyone's toes. After all, this is a huge
favor they're extending to us. I'm not drinking coffee or alcohol in
the house. I don't swear around them. We've been careful not to watch
shows and movies that extremely Mormonish people might find offensive—until
tonight.
You see, cable is bad. There's lots of dangerous tee-vee shows out there that wholesome gawd-fearing families should avoid, er else Lucyfer'll get 'em. I'm not talkin' 'bout them porny channels. Gawd knows you all's smart 'nough ta not watch them. Heck, I'm not even talkin' bout the MTV, though that's purdy sinful stuff. Naw, I'm talkin' 'bout the spawn of Satan. The devil incarnate: THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL.
Yup, you heard me right. You see, tonight we all sat down and watched a show called Before the Dinosaurs. The dinosaurs didn't drink or take drugs. There was no swearing. There were no boobs, but there was a sex scene between two giant salamanders. You'd think that would be good enough for family viewing, but then the narrator had to go and mention evolution.
Around here, siding with Darwin is about like announcing that you're going to take a new Karma Sutra course at the animal shelter. You see, as far as Mom and Dad are concerned, evolution just plain didn't happen, and they want everyone to know that they know. For about the first half an hour of the show, they made sure that we knew they thought it was all crap by telling us AT LEAST TEN TIMES.
Well, I guess there's only one thing to do now. I'll go back and tell my biology professor at GOD'S ONLY UNIVERSITY that he got it all wrong.
Fire Bob the Dragon
Friday, November 4, 2005
8:50 PM
Brynn and I have a pretty long commute home from work every day, so
we're constantly finding new ways to entertain ourselves during the
drive.
Most recently, we've started making up stories out of random crap that we see as I'm driving. Brynn loves it. If I could have my Eight Hour Lunch, I'd write them all down and illustrate them. Since I can't, I'm posting a couple samples from today.
DISCLAIMER: The accent is assumed. I don't really sound like that.
Listen to Fire Bob the
Dragon, by Yers Trooly (334 KB)
Listen to Robin Red,
by Brynn (199 KB)
I Was Never Cool in School
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
11:31 PM
Growing up I was always, or for at least as far back as I can remember,
a very self conscious kid. I don't know why. It wasn't something I obsessed
over, I just figured other kids were cooler and better looking, so I
was lucky if anyone wanted to hang out with me. How completely fucked
up is that?
A few days ago, I found one of my old little league soccer pictures from third or fourth grade. Now I'm not trying to be conceited. But looking at it, geez! I was actually a pretty cute kid! It actually took me by surprise. For a moment I felt like I was looking at someone else.
So where the hell had I ever gotten this idea? It's not like my parents ever taught it to me. Looking back, I can't remember anyone ever even saying it to me. Even so, the idea stuck with me in one form or another until well after college.
I think that perhaps my hyper-inflated sense of modesty may have been one of the culprits. I don't mean modesty in the religious, “Adam! Put on a fig leaf, you're nekkid!” sense. I mean the kind of modesty that expects people in polite company to coyly refute sincere compliments. I don't know when or where I picked it up, but I continue to fight it to this day.
One of the things I liked best and that made me most uneasy about my wife when we were first dating was her complete disregard for this artificial code of modesty. Here's what I mean:
“Heidi, you sure look pretty tonight!”
“Yeah, I know.”
At first it bothered me, but then I started thinking to myself...”why shouldn't she say she knows? How cool to actually know! I don't see a problem with that at all.”
Now I'm thirty-five and have a six-year-old daughter. I think with a kid you just can't tell them enough how cool and important they are. I don't mean you should go overboard and tell them things that aren't true. Chances are, your kids are so great you won't need to exaggerate.
