My Daughter, Gozer the Destroyer

After our daughter was born we had many of the typical conversations with others about who she looks most like.  Typically the options were my wife or I.  But one person, my brother, cut through the social norms and told us how it was; we had brought to life Russell from Up.

But she grew and changed as babies do, and she stopped looking so much like the helpful little 3D pixar boyscout.  No, now our daughter more closely resembles Gozer the Destroyer.  

Yes, my daughter is an angry Stay Puf't Marshmallow Man.  I've never been more proud.

(Just so that I ever have a hope of my daughter talking to me when she's 15 years old and her friends find this on the internet (ha, like the internet will still exist in 15 years!), here's a cute picture of her:)

INTJ

Several months ago a friend sent me this quiz, a simplified Myers-Briggs personality test.  As you may have inferred from my blog, I am a sucker for a web based answer to my near Quixotic quest for self understanding.

For those keeping score at home of my personality quiz results, I'm Charlotte from Sex in the City, Ralph in Simpsons, and the gay guy in The Village People.  So, according to Myers and Briggs, I'm an INTJ.  This personality is alternately described at "The Mastermind," "The Scientist" and "The Know-It-All Asshole."

Thus, I have decided to abandon my chosen career (and my burgeoning blogging stardom) to become an evil mastermind scientist.  I think the asshole is kind of implied by that.

But wait, I guess I could be a good mastermind scientist, or at least a morally neutral mastermind scientist, but then I wouldn't have as good an excuse for my three favorite pastimes:

1) Dressing in all black
2) Laughing maniacally
3) Building doomsday devices in the basement

Yes, I think the internet has finally delivered something useful to me, instead of the usual... well, porn.

No, wait, just did a google search for "evil mastermind scientist" and 98% of the results were porn.  And one treatise on the evil scientific method.  Nope, wait, it's mainly porn too.

A long, proud tradition of cheating

July is coming, and you know what that means? Fireworks?  No.  Barbeque?  Hell no!  Le tour de France!  Oh, for those who don't sprechen el français, THE Tour OF France.  Yes, I know, most of you do expect a bit of a language lesson in my posts.  Yes, this Saturday the Tour kicks off again, this time in the Netherlands, I believe.  There or maybe Detroit.  I can't keep it straight.  


Anyway, once again the press is filled with news about the latest cheating rumor in the professional peloton.  No, not blood doping, or even it's lesser known (and less effective) alternative, saliva doping.  Not testosterone creams, lotions, suppositories or mints.  Not even HGH.  Nope, the latest approach for the cheating cyclist is to put a drill motor in your bike that pedals it for you.  I am not kidding.  This is what people are claiming.  Seriously.  


Cue the whining, complaining and arguing in the cycling blogosphere, but are we really surprised?  Cyclists will cheat, especially in the tour.  The work is so demanding and the rewards are too enticing.  The penalties just won't suffice.  Short of automatic amputation of both legs at the knee upon suspicion of doping.  Now that would make things interesting.  


Personally, I'm just impressed at the level of sophistication that dopers have achieved.  High tech motors and batteries more powerful for their size than anything a major automobile or laptop manufacturer has been able to produce?  Nice work.  To give perspective on how far they've come, let me introduce you to Hippolyte Aucouturier:

Two time winner or Paris-Roubaix, winner of five stages of the Tour (back when they were really hard, you know, 300 miles or so, on single speed bikes, with wooden wheels, and no support).  But, what Hippolyte (H-dog to his friends) is perhaps best remembered for, besides looking like a villain from a silent movie, was his part in the 1904 Tour.  


In a year plagued by cheating, Hippo took the cake by cheating in a most brazen, creative, and unusual manner.  Sure, some of his competitors simply rode to the train station and hopped a ride for 50 or 60 miles of the stage, and others had gangs attack their competitors, but such pedestrian cheating was well beneath ol' Hippoly.  No, he simply had a cork mouthpiece he clenched in his teeth.  Which was connected to a wire.  Which was connected to a car.  Yep, he was pulled up a mountain by his teeth.  The amazing thing is, that was less painful than riding up it using, you know, your legs.  


So, yes, maybe at some point, someone will use a mechanical motor to cheat in a bike race.  But so what?  It's just the next logical step in a long, proud tradition.  And at least you don't risk having your front teeth ripped out by a 1903 Model A.  

Anti-American Sentiments

Look, I'm not trying to be unpatriotic or a jerk (okay, I probably am trying to be a jerk, it is pretty typical for me), but I really hope the U.S. never wins the World Cup.

Oh, for my American readers, the World Cup is a soccer tournament played every four years among all the nations of the world.  Kind of like the World Series, except with the entire world having a chance to win, not just New York.  Fine, and Boston.

Anyway, I hope the U.S. does well this year, even advancing well into the knockout rounds, but I really don't want us to win it all.  Thankfully, I don't think there is much chance of that happening anyway.  But, seriously, the U.S. winning the world cup would be like the Bora-Bora Buccaneers winning the Stanley Cup.

Sure, they'd enjoy it for about a day, then they'd move on to the next important news item.  Like a 12 year-old who is stuck in a weather balloon but isn't actually but his parents just said he was so they could get a television show... are you FUCKING kidding me that that actually happened?  What the fuck is wrong with people?  And we all just kind of accept that this is now acceptable behavior.  Not only for our fellow man, but for our news sources too.  If I call CNN and say I accidentally flushed my daughter down the toilet would they, with no other verification and despite the fact that such an occurrence goes against all logic and sense, proceed to televise 4 hours of the sewer outlet downstream waiting for a baby to pop out?  Probably.

Anyway, yeah, back to the World Cup, I will spend the next week rooting for North Korea until they are statistically eliminated by being beaten 12-0 by Brazil, then I'm thinking of throwing my support behind Ivory Coast.  Or maybe the Bora Bora Buccaneers.

A Crack Commando Unit

In honor of the upcoming A*Team movie (nice work Hollywood, only 20 years late), I've created an answer for all your sleepless nights trying to decide which cast member best represents your personality.

A*Team personality quiz:

Pick the Answer that best describes yourself.

1) I am:

A) Older, smart, and have lots o' gray hair.
B) Large, black and intimidating.
C) A woman

2) I enjoy:

A) Solving problems, helping the helpless, cigars
B) Being filled with men
C) Being helpless

3) My idea of the perfect saturday night is:

A) Having a plan come together
B) Jumping off dirt ramps and smashing into things
C) Being helpless

YOUR RESULTS......

Mostly "A"s :
Congratulations, you're Hannibal.  Um, what do you want, a medal?  Oh, you do?  Alright, I'll see what I can do.

Mostly "B"s:
Congratulations, you're the van.  Enjoy the brief increase in resale value you're going to enjoy following this remake, then be prepared to be stored in a barn next to a hillbilly's General Lee replicar.

Mostly "C"s:
We apologize, you appear to be a woman.  In the A*Team universe you register slightly above a cat and well below a helicopter in importance.  Sit back and hope a man comes along to help.


Hope that lets you rest a bit easier.  And, just for the record, Shaquille O'Neal would have made a kickass B.A. Baracus.  Bringing a bit of that Shaq-Fu magic back to the silver screen.

Slings and Sharrows

In the face of an ever increasing incidence of cars deciding to show their love for bicycles by smashing into them, my fine city has jumped into action.  Putting aside the typical issues of a large bureaucracy attempting a difficult solution to a complicated problem, they've implemented a corrective course of action.  They're painting sharrows.  About 50 of them.  On one stretch of road.  For those of you who don't regularly read cyclist activist blogs, a sharrow is this:

Yep, it's a "clever" name for what is more technically (and accurately, you know, in english) known as a "share the road arrow," or to most drivers, "crap on the road."  So I guess it was "Sharrow" or "Croad."

Look, I'm not against these, they don't do much harm besides mucking up the nice aesthetics of pure blacktop.  Hell, if the city wants to paint a continuous strip of advice on the road saying:

"Don't run over people.  If you're drunk, please don't drive.  If you're an asshole, consider just doing us all a favor and removing yourself to somewhere you'll blend in.  Like New Jersey"

I'm fine with that.  I don't know if it's the best use of tax monies, but according to our government it does provide an incredible boost to the economy.  Because, as Adam Smith postulated, the basis for all economic growth rests on the financial success of roadwork painting crews.  But I digress (yes, I know this entire post, and really the whole blog is a digression, smart guy).

My real problem is the insipid name.  Sharrow.  It sounds like a weapon a Care Bear would use.  To fight, well, what the hell do Care Bears fight?  Selfish children?  I mean, it kind of sounds right, until you drop out the adjective: "Care Bears fight children....with sharrows".  Hmmm, maybe they fight something less controversial.  Like cancer? 

It sounds better, sure, "Care bears fight cancer", but frankly, looking at one of them, I want something a little more badass fighting cancer.  Like Voltron.  I mean, the bear is asleep.  Asleep!  Cancer's not sleeping, oh no!  No, in my world, Care Bears fight nasal congestion.  With sharrows.  And our roads are covered in Croads.  And all is well... oh, and Voltron is going to kick the living shit out of cancer.

Synthetic Life: About as exciting as synthetic piano.

For those of you who turn to this blog for all your world news, there was a breakthrough last week in the realm of synthetic life.  J. Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute, located in J. Craig Venter, Illinois, successfully synthesized DNA and inserted it into a bacterium, creating an organism with no "parent."  People, especially nerdy people, are very excited about this.  But no one thinks about this poor bacterium.  Brought into this world all alone, no parents, no relatives, no siblings.  Destined to be frozen and sent to a museum.  But, given what it would be doing if it wasn't this famous little life form, i.e. living in the respiration tract of a goat or cow like it's bacterial donors, maybe it's life isn't so bad.

I know, lots of nerds are all atwitter about this, but seriously, creating an organism that is closely related to bacteria that live in the respiratory tracts of ruminates and the genital tract of primates just doesn't do it for me.  After spending 15 years and over $40,000,000, they've created an organism that, well, lives in a petri dish... and replicates... oh, and it's blue.  That's about all there is to say about it.

This work has led to talk of producing strains of engineered life that will feed on carbon dioxide and produce bio-fuels.  Yep, still not all that excited.  Sorry, but until they come up with a large blob-like organism that lives under your sink and eats garbage and excretes... hmm, let's say cake, I'm just not that excited.  But when they do make the cake pooping blobster, I'm totally getting two.  One for home use, and one to sell poo cakes to Japan.  They've got a very unusual relationship with poo.

Why not just staple your baby to the mattress?

SIDS, the misunderstood, unpredictable, and tragic fear of every parent, and apparently a marketing bonanza to baby product manufacturers.  So far, the worst product I've come across is this:

Once again, like all crap baby products, it claims to be a "system."  Now, in my book, two pieces does not a system make.  But then, it does have a seal of approval from The National Parenting Center, although I really question the value of that since the first approved item I found on their website was Filemaker Pro, a computer organizational program... yeah, I'm confused myself.  First of all, how does that have anything to do with children?  Oh, your kids can use it to track and organize their baseball cards, but of course.  Okay then, second question, are there organizational computer programs that failed to get the TNPC seal of approval?  Did Excel pose a choking hazard?  Does quickbooks pose a risk of SIDS?  

But back to the Infant Sleep Safety System (hereafter known as IS3, or just balls).  Through careful inspection of the packaging, I was able to discern the secret of its SIDS prevention approach - it ties your baby on their back.  It appears to be a band that attaches around the mattress and a sleep bag that engages through the wondrous technology of velco (thanks George).  Yep, nothing a good ol' roll of duck tape couldn't accomplish.  But then that wouldn't be a system.  Okay, so a roll of duct tape and a onesie - presto!  The soon-to-be patented Baby Attachment Crib Helper Engagement System (B.I.T.C.H.E.S.)!  A quick review by the National Parenting Center and I'll be raking the money in... and saving lives, don't forget about saving lives.  

iPad Marketing Mumbojumbo

In case you missed it, because you've been living in a hole in the woods (everyone needs a hobby), Apple came out with a new technothingamajob.  Sorry, that's pretty specific terminology.  It's a gigantic iPhone.  Which is just the love child of a cellphone and an iPod.  So, basically, the iPad is the obese child of a mixed-technology marriage (sure, a cell & iPod could have a love-child without being married, but I think the iPod is better than that).  Anyway, that's great, good for Apple, more techno-toys is always a good thing, but then they rolled out their new commercial.  

Check it out, in case you haven't watched television in the past month.  Specifically, check out about 12 seconds in.  Yeah.  "It's magical".  No.  No it is not.  The iPad is not fucking magic.  

Seriously, Apple, this is the best your mammoth marketing team could come up with?  Magic?  Fucking MAGIC?!?!  Can it make you fly?  Does it grant wishes?   Does it show you the future?  No?  Oh, but it plays music AND videos?  Great!  Sounds pretty nifty.  Not magic though.  Do you even know what words mean?  Do you know that simply saying something doesn't make it true?  While you're at it, why not claim it cures cancer, does your taxes, and will, if shaken just right, open a portal into another dimension.  

Then again, maybe I'm just bitter that I don't have one yet.  :(

Bike Path, enter at your own risk.

Ah, the bike path, a safe haven for all the idiots and crazies in Columbus, judging from my experience.  


First, the idiots, and oh boy are there a lot of them.  The guy walking his dog from across the path, having the leash as a barely visible trip wire across the path.  The woman who decided the middle of the bike path was a GREAT place to do pushups.  The family of 30 who wanted to walk side by side down the middle of the path.  The many runners, joggers, and walkers who SUDDENLY turn around, apparently remembering that they left the oven on and need to return home, oh, too bad they just got smashed by a cyclist.  Oh, and of course, the assholes who ride their bikes way too fast on the path.  Can't leave myself out.  


Then there's the other contingent, the batshit crazy folk.  Not as numerous, but, like most things in life, more enjoyable because of their rarity.   The guy with the huge grey beard who rollerblades in a dress shirt and sweatpants. The woman with full cycling kit, a beautiful old steel bike, and half length leather dress gloves.  The 60 year old woman who rides almost every day in a pink string bikini top and sandals.  The guy who wears oven mitts (held together with duct tape) for cold weather riding. 


But today I sighted that rarest of breeds, the perfect blending of psychotically odd and pathologically stupid.  Two guys.  On the basketball court.  Playing basketball.  While riding unicycles.  


I can die happy now.

Only Child

Well, we're 3 months into being parents and so far so good.  As best we can tell, we haven't yet irrevocably messed up our child.  So hurray for that.  But we've already spent a lot of time debating whether we'll have any more children.  In fact, it's probably our most popular debate.  Actually, less of a debate, usually it's something more like this:

"Only one, right?"

"Oh yeah!"

"Sweet."

But whenever we share the information with anyone that we are considering shutting down the reproduction factory, it's met with a combination of shock, confusion, or disbelief.  This reaction seems to be especially common in those over the age of, oh, 35.

"How can you do that to her?  You need to give her a brother or sister!"

"Surely you're not serious!"

"You don't mean that, you'll change your mind soon enough, just give it a couple of years."

But here's the thing, I really don't think we will.  This parenting thing is great, awesome, best thing I've ever done, but that may be enough for us.  Maybe we're lazy, maybe we're just not gluttons, but having one kid seems to just feel right right now....

Yeah, I know, in putting this out in the world I guarantee that we are going to have quintuplets.
Awesome.

It'll probably kill you...

The other day I was reading an environmental report on a building (I was at work, this is not the way I while away my leisure time, I don't do anything nearly that exciting) and was surprised, as always, at how pervasive asbestos used to be.  In tile, in insulation, in glue, in tape.  It seemed to be used in most everything except food.  Anyway, it got me wondering what the next common household item will be found to drastically increase your risks for cancer / heart attack / spontaneous human combustion.  You know, the kind of thing that in 10 or 20 years people will look back and say things like "Can you believe they used to put lead in paint?" "Do you remember how, when we were kids, no one ever used a car seat or bike helmet?" or "I can't understand why people ever thought drano was a good children's toy." Oh, maybe that last one only happened in my family.  Anyway, here's my list of guesses:

1) Lithium Ion Batteries: They're in everything; laptops, cellphones, and now cars.  And we've already seen that they can randomly explode.  Given Toyota's stellar safety record, how long until the new plug-in Priuses (Prii?  Priora? Priores?) begin exploding in balls of flame, incinerating their carbon neutral, greenie occupants (not so carbon neutral now!)?
2) Wireless Networks: Ah, the freedom they gave us to no longer be tied to ethernet cables!  Shame about the massive brain tumors they caused!
3) Bluetooth Headsets: No real reason for this one, just think of the irony if they were found to make you sterile, since using one makes you look like a huge dick.  Mmmmm, delicious irony.
4) Organic Food: Another one for the irony, but I can imagine a discussion in the future:
"Can you believe people used to actually pay MORE for organic food, that was processed less?"
"I know, right, how crazy can people be?  Didn't they understand that natural just means it is trying to eradicate those organisms that stand in the way of the growth of its species.  Like, say, it's main predator, man?  No way, just hand me another McDonalds brand steripak antimicrobo-meal.  Ooh, dehydrated, radiated, macerated, rehydrated, freeze-dried beef!  Yum!"

For right now, my money's on Li-Ion batteries, but my heart wants the headsets.

The DoItAll Mk. 2 - Now with adaptor to loosen the spark plugs on a 1966 Ford Galaxy Wagon

Maybe you missed the news, but someone (Ibera) FINALLY came out with a cycling mini tool (you're a mini tool!) that combines a 5mm hex, phillips screwdriver, and bike stand.

Now, you may ask:
"Why do I need a stand when I've always just leaned my bike against a tree to work on it on the road?"

"But what if you're riding up Mt. Ventoux, famously deforested by the French to build their navy, what then smart guy?"

Not one to be easily cowed, you may reply:
"But if my mini tool is supporting the bike how can I use it to fix or adjust anything?"

"Well, what if you only need to, uh, adjust your, uh, taillight?"

Yeah, that's it.  And yet you don't stop (why are you being such a dick, by the way?), you come back with:
"Judging from the picture you just lean your bike against this, it doesn't actually hold the bike.  Anything can be used for that, say, my shoe, or a rock (neither of which I call a "bike stand"), so I don't need this."

Fine, jerk, you win this time.
But I digress.  Why does every product designer insist on grafting on another function to an item to try to sell more?  (Oh, maybe to sell more, since that's kind of their job.  Hey, I think I got this one figured out!).  Dammit, I'm tired of it.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm one of the worst suckers for a multitasker, I am a disciple of Alton Brown after all, but they better work well.  I don't need a tool that does lots of things poorly.  I learned this lesson early in life with my first Swiss Army knife.  I loved it and carried it everywhere, since it was a weapon, after all.  But then I came to realize I didn't have a huge need for a dull knife, or a toothpick that you are just supposed to reuse (ick), pathetic tweezers, the worst scissors on earth, or a nail file ever, really.  So I just started carrying a knife.  And it worked much better at cutting things, imagine that.  Plus I didn't rip off my fingernails trying to open it every time.  But if someone comes out with a combination wheel building station and minipump I'm ordering two, but only if it is made out or carbon fiber.

An Open Letter to Taco Bell

Dear Mr. Bell, a.k.a. Señor Taco, 


First off, I want to state that I am a fan of your establishment.  Many an evening your food has solved my dilemma of being hungry at 2 a.m. but only having $0.69 in my pocket.  And I've been a supporter of many of your menu expansions.  I'm a fan of the chalupa, I can even get behind the grilled stuffed burrito.  But I must question some of your most recent decisions concerning your taco offerings.


The first hint I had that something was going awry or askew was the black taco.  I first became aware of it from a radio ad, and I must admit, I was stumped. 


"A black taco?" I asked myself.


"Well, yes, according to the information." I responded.


"Black how?  Maybe they meant black-ened?"


"The ad didn't say anything about 'ened', just black.  Apparently the taco shell is dyed black"


"But why black?  I mean, even accepting that dying the taco shell is a good idea, which is a tenuous assertion, why, for god's name black?  There is no good black food.  Black food makes me think it is either burnt or moldy."


"Well, maybe The Bell is thinking that burning or molding would improve their food taste and nutritional content."


"Touché"


Anyway, the black taco came and went, and I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking erroneously that you had realized your error and moved on.  But, alas, no.  Worse was to come.  Soon thereafter you rolled out the shrimp taco.  Because people don't have enough concern about food poisoning from Taco Bell, let's add seafood to the equation.  And the worst thing was that your advertisements tried to imply that somehow these weren't the worst shrimp in the world, but that they were some sort of gourmet shrimp, a shrimp that other shrimp aspire to be like.  In other words, an übershrimp.  


Finally, in my expansive research for this letter, I was on your website and came across this abomination.  The crispy potato soft taco.  I feel slightly queasy just typing it.  I can just imagine the pitch in one of your brainstorming meetings:


"You know what people like at other fast food restaurants?  Fries"


"Okay, so let's sell french fries."


"But we're a mexican restaurant."


"Damn!"


"But what if we put french fries in a taco?!?!?!"


"Genius!"


And thus this disaster wrought of tater tots and cheese sauce was born.  


But, Mr. Bell, back to my reason for this letter.  I am not writing to disparage your fine establishment, though you have had some missteps of late.  I simply want to ask why, oh why, won't you just offer pork?  It's a staple of mexican cuisine, (unlike black tortillas), it is cheap (unlike the übershrimp), and it is delicious (think bacon wrapped barbeque, fried in pork fat.  Mmmmm).  But if you need to jazz it up, I will accept it if you dye the pork taco shells blue or purple.  Thank you kindly.

Walking stiffly around a stage with the stars

Come on, Buzz Aldrin.  Seriously?  Dancing with the Stars?  You aren't dancing, you're barely staying upright.  Yes, I've heard the "But he's 80!" argument and I dismiss it.  He may be 80.  He's still a bad dancer.  Face it, even for an 80 year old, he is a horrifically bad dancer.  Hell, for a 115 year old he's a terrible dancer.  He couldn't be stiffer if they surgically fused all his joints together.  But fine, with age so goes your limberness, flexibility, and nimbleness.  But does your sense of rhythm somehow leave you as well, because he has none.  While "dancing" he manages to suck the sense of rhythm out of his partner and the first three rows of the audience.  He's a rhythm black hole.

Why did he do this?  It's not uplifting or inspiring, it is just sad and depressing. Watching the elderly try something gamely and fail miserably does not inspire me, it reminds me that aging is irrevocable, inevitable, and destructive.  That's what I want from my prime time television.  Oh, he wants inspire people to support the space program?  Frankly, if this is the best we've got, an example of the kind of person we're sending out into space as a representative of the human race, maybe we should just keep to our own planet.  We don't want to embarrass ourselves galaxy-wide, do we?

Bibs

Ah, cycling bibs, one of the best litmus tests of how far your cycling addiction has progressed.  You start off just wearing normal 'gym' clothes, because, hey, WTF, I don't need no stinkin' new clothes, ya jamoke (for purposes of this discussion you are a Jersey guido).  Then, once your ass becomes a wasteland of soreness you either
A) scale back cycling, since it's for queers anyway or
B) buy some cycling shorts, most likely the cheapest pair available from Performance or Nashbar.
These suffice for about, oh, 32 minutes until you realize they are made from a combination of steel wool and hay, held together with staples and a chamois made, apparently, from old Juicyfruit scraped from the bottom of the factory breakroom table.  So you decide to upgrade, once again, and you figure, what the hell, I already look like a freak, my family is embarassed to be seen with me in public, why not go all in and wear a 1930's bathing suit as well.  So you buy some bibs.  Maybe you've learned your lesson (or at least your taint did) and you buy a pair of Pearl Izumi's from your LBS.  And for many this is the pinnacle of their cycling trouser evolution.  But some of us go farther yet, exploring the upper regions of the cost spectrum, shelling out hundreds of dollars, our spleen and a child to be named later for a pair of Assos, which according to their reviews in Bicycling will make you faster, skinnier, more attractive and, for some unknown reason, able to paint amazing watercolors of tulips.  Eventually, with lots of pain, suffering, monetary outlay, and a bit of luck you find a pair of bibs that is comfortable, moderately affordable, and doesn't make you look like a total freak.  Alright, they all make you look like a total freak.

Parental Pressure

Oh, the joy of a parent dead set on their child becoming a professional athlete.  And wherever there's an obsession, there'll be a product to support it.  Thus:

Yes, the ubiquitous Nerf Basketball hoop.  The source of great joy to every boy, discovering he can dunk like the pros, only to be replaced by crushing reality when he ventures out of his bedroom and onto the blacktop to discover he is short, poorly coordinated, and has the vertical jumping ability of a small rock.  But I don't have a big problem with this, maybe largely because I enjoyed the nerf set as a child myself, but also because it claims you can "play" like the pros and yes, even today, if I played with this I would play like I was, well, maybe not Lebron James but at least James Jones.  

But right next to it on the shelves of Babies R Us was this... mess:

Because what do kids love more than playing?  That's right, practice!  And I think I saw Tiger warming up with this set before the Masters last year.  Or was it one of the other golfers?  You know, the white one.  Hmmm, pasty, doughy, kind of a douche?  Yeah, I dunno either.  

I just imagine Christmas morning, when your older brother opens the Nerf Basketball set and begins imagining himself as Lebron, dunking over all comers and winning the NBA championships and you open this disaster and look forward to imagining yourself as Ernie Els plugging away at the driving range.  Oh, be still my beating heart!

Piss test

Today I was "randomly selected" for a drug test by my employer.  I had to leave work, go to the testing site, and pee in a cup.  Well, not quite that simple.  First I had to follow the nice lady, let's call her Sue, to the back to fill out some paperwork.  Then I was asked by Sue, who's job involves handling the urine of strangers every day, to empty my pockets.  I wasn't patted down or anything, they're just relying on my good nature/stupidity to prevent cheating, really.  I wonder how many people come in and pull out a bunch of stunt urine.

"Oh, that?  I always carry that around.  You know, until you carry a bag of piss you never realize how useful a thing it is to have."

Then there's the bathroom you have to provide your "sample" in.  No sink.  No lock on the door (a nice touch, really makes you feel more dignified about the whole process).  No flush handle on the toilet.  They even taped down the ceiling tiles, in case, what, you hide your pee in the ceiling?

But the most annoying thing missing from the "bathroom" (can you call it that if it's basically a pot to piss in)?  A shelf.  Just a small shelf would have been real nice.  But no, because who knows what kind of cheating you could engage in with a shelf?  So, you find yourself in the somewhat uncomfortable position of being done peeing with a cup of your own warm urine in your hand when you need to shake off and clean up.  Well, not clean up, since there's no sink, but you get the idea.  So you're given the choice of trying to put it on the floor without spilling it or trying to zip up while holding it and risk pouring all your pee on yourself.  It's not a big deal, but they have succeeded in making an annoying, slightly degrading experience even more so.

Anyway, I finally succeeded in making myself mildly presentable without pouring pee all over myself (huzzah for small goals!), came out of the bathroom and gave my cup to Sue.  She then poured it into separate containers that she sealed and had me initial and date, kind of the reverse of writing your name in the snow.  It will then be whisked off to a high tech laboratory for testing and analysis to determine if I engage in any illegal activities in my off hours, when my company isn't paying me... you know what though, it could be worse.  I could have Sue's job.

A crazy little person came to live at my house...

Oh Kiki, she is adorable, but my wife did rightly observe yesterday that, in becoming parents, we just brought home a really small person to live with us who doesn't communicate, does nothing to help in any way, and screams a lot.  Awesome, right?  I think Planned Parenthood should adopt that slogan:

"Want a small crazy screaming person to move in with you?  Screw your brains out.  If not, maybe visit us.  Planned Parenthood, preventing insane visitors for over 23 years."

Yes, I know, Madison Avenue beckons.

Grammar's influence on your food safety

Just to be clear, I am not trying to be the grammar police here.  I don't care if you use "thru" in an email.  I'll receive "R U gonna B bak b4 we need 2 leeve" in a text and get over it eventually.  I understand sacrificing grammar and spelling at the altar of efficiency.  As one of the least patient people in the world, I get it.  But when people either don't see what they're doing or just can't bother to give a damn on something more official, like a letter, or, say, signage inside a restaurant bathroom:

Well, that just pisses me off.  Why does only one, singular, employee need to wash their hands?  Excuse me for being a prude but I want ALL the employees to wash their hands after shitting.  Actually, strike that, I want EVERYONE to wash their hands after shitting, whether you are being paid by this particular establishment or not.  And none of this "wash hands" business.  Just wash your damn hands, no quotes, no sarcasm needed.  Now, I am not expecting nor wanting to walk into a restaurant bathroom and see a sign taking up half the mirror saying, "Please pardon the interruption kind sirs, but we, the ownership of this establishment, kindly request that all employees of our business, once they have thoroughly completed their activities in the restroom, do diligently wash their hands with hot water and soap, so as to reduce the risk of food born pathogens and bacteria making their way into the delicious food of the restaurant.  We thank you for your time, attention, and aid in this endeavor."  But somewhere between that and Employee Must "Wash Hands" I think we could find a happy medium.  And while they're changing the sign, do you think they could also ask this mystical employee with the "clean hands" to maybe wash the counter?  It appears the colony of bacteria living in the corner is making an excursion outward, looking to conquer more of the countertop.  Nice.