Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
|
|
|
M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
|
|
Saturday, August 28, 2004 Not Getting People We got our big fat envelope from the book club the other day. Trash sat at the kitchen table and read to me from it while I made myself a sandwich. "I don't get people," she said. "Why do you look at the romance section if it confuses you so much?" "Listen to this: 'The Earl of Egremont has returned…or has he? It's been 15 long years since Christian Sauvage left England…'" "Of course his name is Christian Sauvage, to signify his dual nature. Because as everyone knows, the opposite of Christian is Savage." "'Julianne knew Christian when they were children. He was slender, immaculate, distinctive, only a little taller than average…'" "…Gay…" "'As he came closer and looked up to greet her for the first time…'" "Wait, 'looked up?' I thought he was taller than average." "I don't know. 'His thin, dark brows raised.'" "So gay." "'Their gazes met and Julianne's widened.'" "Julianne's what?" "It just said that Julianne's widened." "If that's what I think it means, the correct word is dilated." "'A sudden look in his made her think he recognized her…'" "A sudden look in his what? He has one too? And how does he 'look' with it?" "I imagine he looks kind of silly." "Hee." "Okay, what about this one: 'Bride McTierney has had it—" "Wait, her name is Bride?" "Yes, Bride." "Gee, I wonder how this one ends." "'Bride McTierney has had it with men—although deep down she'd love her very own knight in shining armor. Just once, why couldn't she meet Mr. Right? Or has she…'" "These blurb writers are very into that 'Or has she,' construction, aren't they?" "Yeah. 'From the second he walks through her boutique door—'" "Oh, of course she owns a boutique." "'From the instant he walks through her boutique door, Vane Karralakis—" "'Vane?!'" "Vane." "Is that spelled V-A-I-N or V-E-I-N?" "Ha!" "'Hello, I'm Vein. Would you like to know why they call me that?' Throb, throb, throb…" "No, it's V-A-N-E." "Oh, okay. Carry on." "'Vane Kattalakis instantly makes Bride's heart pound. More gorgeous than any man she's ever seen, Vane has long. dark hair and mesmerizing eyes—'" "And an insatiable hunger for cock." "'But Vane isn't what he seems. He's a Were-Hunter wolf fleeing for his life—'" "A what?" "A Were-Hunter wolf." "What the fuck is a Were-Hunter wolf?" "I don't know. I don't get people." "That makes two of us." Today's best search phrase: "Hurricane landfall vocab." I think the only vocab you really, truly need in the event of hurricane landfall is "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!!!" posted by M. Giant 8:11 PM 8 comments 8 Comments:Oh my god - that made me laugh so hard there are tears running down my face. Thanks!
By
Mister Giant has done it again -- taken a normal daily event and made it hysterical... or HAS he?
By Is it sad that I recognized one of the books and actually just finshed it. It's part of a series and I just realized it's sadder that I admit it. It was actually good. And there's the really really sad part. I so suck
By Seriously, though, what the fuck is a Were-Hunter wolf? Dammit, now this is gonna haunt me all day ... Or will it?
By That's just it. A were-wolf hunter would make sense, but a were-hunter wolf? What does that even mean?
By
*snort* So bad. So very bad.
By
My laptop monitor thanks you for its luxurious bath of diet cola. ;)
By
A were hunter wolf..
By Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Humpblog (8/25/04) I didn't mention this the other day, but Monday's post was Velcrometer's 500th. I could have been all self-congratulatory about it, but the fact is that some of those posts were only like a paragraph long. And others weren't even written by me. Really, as far as landmarks go, its only significance is the fact that now there are an even 200 older entries that Blogger won't let me go back and edit. As of this posting, it'll be 201. So even that loses its significance. Never mind. Just forget I said anything. * * * The August Kieran's Pub Quiz was last Wednesday, and our team, Third Place Dick, went for the threepeat. The fact that I'm not mentioning it until now probably gives you some idea of how successful that attempt was. Shortly before the Quiz, the Quizmaster came up to our table and apologized in his Irish brogue that our trophies for last month's win would not be forthcoming that evening. It seems the trophy company who supplies the Quiz had gone out of business, apparently unable to survive on the nine dollars per month that the Quizmaster paid them. Or perhaps the engraver was a deeply religious individual who shut his doors rather than engraving the marginally dirty phrase "3RD PLACE DICK" on yet another set of tchotchkes. A few minutes later, the Quizmaster took the stage and repeated the theory to the room at large. Then he said, "No, that's a fookin' lie." He'd just forgotten to order them. Whatever the case, without our trophies there to give us a much-needed morale boost, we ended up seven points behind the winning team, in fifth place for the evening. The prize for fifth place at the Kieran's Pub Quiz? Also, as it happens, dick. Now that the mojo's gone, we've considered changing our name again to something that will sound funny when the Quizmaster burrs it out several times over the course of an evening. We're leaning towards "Monkey Monkey Turkey Monkey Eight." * * * I know I said I wasn't watching the Olympics this year, but Trash and I watched the women's gymnastics. Obciously it's too late to do anything about it now, but somebody really should have advised our young women against the red leotards. Or at least against red material that held onto the chalk so well. Trash was the one who pointed out to me the fact that there were clearly delineated patches of white right at the lower front of their leotards, as if they'd chalked up their hands and had themselves a little party. Or were somehow menstruating in reverse. It was really distracting, until we figured out that that's where the leotards were hitting the low bar, and the chalk was sticking there. Then it was a tiny bit less distracting. Anyway, word to the wise for the 2008 team. I'm not going to go searching for pictures, because I feel dirty enough talking about this already. Let's just move on, okay? * * * Speaking of Monkey Monkey Turkey Monkey Eight, one of us is in the mass media today. ZV's workplace made national news. Check it out. * * * And speaking of questionable imagery at the Olympic Games, do you Yahoo? Infinidox does. The link leads to the first in a series of what Infinidox refers to as Yahoo Porn. Start there and go forward through the archives. Safe for work? I don't know, you tell me. Yahoo seems to think so. * * * Today's best search phrase: I'm just going to preemptively say right now that any phrases that lead to that item about the red leotards are disqualified in advance, forever. posted by M. Giant 7:21 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:
I want to know how many you're going to get just for "menstruating in reverse."
By Monkey! My local Irish pub is the host of the Quiz Night, and we also wanted to make our lovely-accented quizmaster say something silly. Short but sweet, our team was "Arr, Mateys."
By
Oh, I am *so* glad that we weren't the only ones who noticed the chalk problem. And sadly, once we saw it, then we kept *looking* for it, because we are such classy people. At one point Carly looked like she was packing - it was really quite disconcerting. Red was really an unfortunate color choice when chalk was involved.
By OK -- the Olympic Porn site was great. Someone should send it to Fark.
By
Thanks for the link, M. Giant. I got more hits from your link in 2 days than I usually do in 2 or 3 months. Of course, if someone actually decides to follow through on Comment #4 there and Fark me (I certainly wouldn't complain), I'm thinking the ante would be raised significantly.
By Monday, August 23, 2004 The Dutch Eel Trash has been watching more of the Olympics than I have. She even has a favorite swimmer, although she can't say who it is. Not because she doesn't know. And not because it's a secret. It's just that she can't say it. I was puttering around in the kitchen one night last week when a call came from downstairs. It was Trash's voice, saying something along the lines of: "Peter Vanden Hogan Baden!" The name did ring a bell, as did the tones of joy and enthusiasm that suffused my wife's voice. "What?" I called back. "Peter Vadden Hogan Hagen!" I suspected I'd last heard that name—or something like it—four years ago, during the Sydney Olympics. I called down, asking Trash to confirm whether that was indeed the case. "Beater Baden Bogen Hahden!!" came her exuberant cry. I went downstairs to see for myself, and there in the pool, along with more recognizable (and pronounceable) names like Michael Thorpe and Ian Phelps, was the one and only Pieter van den Hoogenband in all his multisyllabic glory. The Dutch Eel himself. As far as I know, nobody actually calls him the Dutch Eel, but somebody should start because it's a hell of a lot easier than calling him Pieter van den Hoogenband all the time. And yet that's exactly what the announcers did. As they called the mighty battle between Phorpe and Thelps, every few seconds there would be some mention of contender Pieter van den Hoogenband— "Peeden Fodder Booger Baiter!" Trash rejoiced. I guess Thorpe didn't do too well in that particular race, succumbing to the greater speed of the Phelpedo, but Trash only had eyes—and comments—for the silver medalist, a sprinter from the Netherlands I like to call the Dutch Eel. "Heeder Fadden Hober Hauber," she said, somewhat disappointed in her champion. "I think you could have done better, Weiner Bagger Boogen Gooden." "Silver's not so bad," I pointed out. "That's true," Trash conceded. She raised her voice in unqualified support. "Eeden Ahden Oden Owden!" I couldn't have said it better myself. Today's best search phrase: "Mullet alarm clock." It's time to wake up. In more ways than one. posted by M. Giant 5:55 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:
This had me laughing so hard my side hurts. I haven't been following the Olympics this time, but if I were, I'd be doing pretty much the same thing.
By Hilarious! Trash can come sing the Impromptu Song of the Dutch Eel with my sister and me, which features this timeless exchange (set, of course, to awesome music): Sis: "I'm Peter vander Hoagerbond" (Me: NO! Pieter van den Hoogenband) Sis: "and everyone says my name wrong."
By
Eeben Eiben Döben Stûben!
By So you need a hilarious pub quiz name and you didn't consider Peeden Fodder Booger Baiter? What's WRONG with you?
By
Even now, with all the Olympic hoopla safely past, this makes me roar with laughter.
By Friday, August 20, 2004 Nocturnal Hunter Strat's current most annoying habit is this: About half an hour after Trash and I turn off the light to go to sleep, he goes downstairs, "chases" one of his cat toys for a while, catches it, and loudly crows his victory. Apparently he hopes one of us will come down and congratulate him. Neither of us ever does. Because we are sleeping. Or at least we were. Therefore, he must come to us. Picking up his vanquished foe between his teeth, he trots up the stairs to our bedroom, hollering loudly around whatever he's carrying. For some reason, having something in his mouth serves to make his meows even louder. I have to say, the cat toys didn't look like bullhorns when we bought them. These announcements drown out the white noise of the window air conditioning unit and the oscillating fan. By the time he's made it up to our bedroom with his fresh kill, Trash and/or I are already asleep, or very nearly so. These public addresses of his almost always wake up at least one of us, and generally both, but never enough for either of us to get up and do anything about it. Most mornings, the rug next to our bed is littered with the carcasses of those cat toys who dared cross him the previous night. And the few nights when I've actually had the presence of mind to have the spray bottle on my night table, he behaved himself and therefore learned nothing. We give him injections of insulin twice each day in order to keep him alive. For this. But he miscalculated last night. Trash and I went to bed after one a.m. This is largely because I had had a decadent three-plus-hour nap in the afternoon. Getting to sleep carried little urgency for me. Trash, not having had a nap, dropped off right away. I lay mostly awake, in no real hurry to conk out. Shortly before two, the Strat Show began. The first amplified yowls drifted up from the living room just as consciousness began to drift away. I came to and listened to him for a while, hoping he wouldn't wake up Trash before he gave up and shut his yap. It was a vain hope, as I listened to the pitter-pat of his little paws leaving their imaginary bloody footprints up the carpet runner. His victorious cries filled the room as he waited for us to rise from our beds and shower him with love and praise for protecting us from the menace of the little stuffed mouse and the little stuffed mouse's little stuffed cheese. So that's what I did. Being awake now and not particularly tired, I recognized this night as an ideal opportunity to teach him a lesson. Without disturbing Trash, I got up, walked around the bed to where Strat was celebrating on the bedroom rug, told him he was a good cat, lay down next to him on the floor, wrapped him in an Iron Hug, and dropped off to sleep. For those of you who don't have cats, an Iron Hug is when you wrap your arms around your little fuzzball and don't let him leave. You don't hurt him and you give him plenty of room to breathe. But it's effectively an indefinite judo hold on someone you outweigh fifteenfold and who doesn't have opposable thumbs, let alone matching judo skills. It's going to get pretty annoying for him after a minute or two, because a Great White Hunter like him has shit to do, okay? Also, I wasn't actually asleep. I don't know if I fooled Strat on that count and I don't particularly care. All he knew is that one minute he was calling loudly for the praise that was rightly his, and the next he was locked, immobile, in the arms of a large bald monkey. And also the minute after that. And also about twenty more. It shut him up, though. I dozed pleasantly while he gave a number of futile full-body jerks several minutes apart. When I got up and went to bed after twenty minutes, neither of us had a whole lot more to say on the matter. We'll see if he learned his lesson tonight. If not, that's fine. I don't have anyplace to be in the morning. Today's best search phrase: "Def Leppard personality quizzes who do i most resemble." I wouldn't worry about it. There's only a one-in-five chance that you're the dead one. And after that, only a one-in-four chance that you're the guy with one arm. Those are odds that anyone should be able to live with. posted by M. Giant 7:44 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:At least Strat just drops his toys on the bedroom rug. Mephistocat has a tendency to bring them to me on the bed. I wake up with a fright in the middle of the night to a slightly damp mouse-toy on my arm, foot, etc. This is worse when he decides that playing with his toys as well as his food and water bowl is an especially good time.
By Ah, the midnight crazies. I remember them well.
By Hmm, I will have to try the Iron Hug on Hermione tonight. Her preferred midnight cat toy of late is our chins (she gnaws). Oh, how it itches!
By
At least your cat hunts normal, cat appealing, cat designated objects.
By Be glad yours just brings toys. One of Mom's cats once brought her a still-wriggling live mouse at about 3:00 am. The cat was extremely miffed to have her prey taken away and...er...disposed of.
By Monday, August 16, 2004 Olympic Fever Immunity I just realized today that this is the first Olympics since I started blogging. That meant I was free to come up with some kind of neato Olympics-related feature that we could all look forward to in 2006. And then I realized that I'm really not interested. I'm kind of out of touch as far as the Olympics go this year. I watched part of the opening ceremonies on Friday night, but that's about it. I'm sure I'm not even the first person to comment that the Olympic Cauldron looked exactly like a 120-foot joint when the guy was lighting it. The only thing missing was another dude sucking on the other end. But I couldn't tell you who else mentioned that, because I'm not even reading any of the coverage. It has been fun seeing Athens again, although it looks quite a bit different than it did when I was there. Naturally, that was over eight years ago, and we were only there for four days, and we didn't see much outside of walking distance from our hotel (which, not to worry, did include the Acropolis), but I think I would have remembered a big-ass stadium in the middle of everything. I think the Internet has sort of wrecked the Olympics. By the time you watch it on TV, you already know what's going to happen. If you have Yahoo! or Google News as your browser homepage, you can't avoid seeing at least one headline that gives away the most interesting thing about whatever NBC is going to be broadcasting that night. For instance, yesterday afternoon Yahoo! told me that some American swimmer dude now has the exact same chance at winning eight gold medals this year that I do. Later, I went downstairs, where Trash and her mom and aunt were watching the Games on TV. I saw the big windup for the relay thingy that Mr. No-Eight-Golds-For-You was about to participate in, with the announcers all breathless and shit. The drama of it all should have riveted me to a seat. Instead I went back upstairs to check my e-mail, because I already knew it was totally blown. People have been bitching about this kind of thing for a while, of course. Hell, I even remember finding out about Kerri Strug's winning vault before the broadcast back in 1996. Of course, we were still on AOL back then, so it was a near thing. It's gotten much worse. Now, if you know where to look, the Internet will tell you who will win the fencing events later this week, the luge in 2006, and zero-gravity diving in 2052. I think there was even a time or two when the Olympics were in Next Thursday Daylight Time and even the newspaper told us some results before we saw them on TV. When dead trees beat the tube, it's a sure sign of the end of civilization. I just find it kind of hard to believe that this planet somehow did not come equipped with a time zone that can host the Olympics in some kind of time slot that will allow us to watch them live. And don't think I don't know how Amerocentric that sounds, but so what? Even other countries get screwed, since a lot of them are stuck with the NBC feed. Which is bad enough when you're stuck with ten years of badly-dubbed episodes of Friends, but if your average Athenian has to wait thirty-some hours to watch what happened just up the road, something ain't right. I'm not going to tell you to avoid the Internet, because look at what you're doing now. I do have another solution, however: set your browser homepage to this one. There hasn't been one Olympic spoiler on this site in its entire history, and that will continue to be the case. That's my promise to you. It's a promise I can confidently make, because the Olympics are something that I myself care about not one bit. Today's best search phrase: "What time is Mall of America open until tonight?" That's not a strange search phrase on its own. What's strange is that I'm the top-ranked Google hit for it. posted by M. Giant 5:01 PM 11 comments 11 Comments:You added some sort of new Blogger bar to the top of your blog. Or did they just do that without asking you?
By Oh my dear sweet Lord. I just realized it's on mine, too. I HATE it!
By Re: Zero-G diving 2052You mean the semi-finals? Aw, man, why you got to bring that up? Pak Tranh got BONED! I know we've had this discussion a thousand times, but I'm telling you: the field was off. The edges of the pool globule were clearly rippling! Come ON! Of course there's going to be axial asymmetry. Jeeeeeez.
By Is it just me or is anyone else starting to get pissed off at the commentators for these events? I mean Michael Phelps "failed" because he didn't get all of the gold medals-give me break! The guy is doing more physical activity than most Americans do in a year and he's still getting medals in every event-they are just not golds-and that's a failure or a disapointment?!? And then you get to the gymnastics where these commentators remark on a wobble/bobble/stepped landing with pity in their voices after the athletes have just done something humanely impossible. No wonder we are such a neurotic, perfectionist culture. Hell, if someone criticized me like that I would make them do what I just did and then talk about it. It only seems fair. I'd like to the some of them commentators try a triple lugey, twisting, one and half backwards somersault dismount. Now that would be much more entertaining than watching the atheletes!
By
Yes, but... I mean, you do understand what the Olympics are, right? We should give people credit for trying? Yes, okay, actually we should -- but that's real life. This is competitive sport, here.
By
OK, you MUST read about this, because that girl (an Oregonian) makes me so proud!
By
The fencing story? Now THAT is what I am talking about. Thanks for linking it.
By This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By Play nice, people. It took me several weeks to figure out how to add comments, and I imagine I could take them down just as fast.
By What about the opening ceremonies themselves? Dear god, what was that? The most surreal moment ever, man in leotard balancing on spinning stryofoam cube about a manmade lake surrounded by spinning dismembered statues. And this we are told, "Celebrates man's evolution into logic and rationality." The hell?
By Saturday, August 14, 2004 Final Destination [Written yesterday for later posting] I realized something earlier. Before today, I don’t think I’ve never flown on a Friday the Thirteenth. Of course, it’s not that I’m worried about the plane crashing or anything. That would be ridiculous. Friday the Thirteenths happen a few times every year, and we don’t hear about passenger airliner crashes on all of them (“It’s Friday the Thirteenth, and we start our broadcast tonight with the day’s plane crash reports.”) In fact, I’m not aware of any plane crashes ever happening on a Friday the Thirteenth, but then just because I have a computer here in the terminal doesn’t mean I have Internet access. So, as I wait to board my flight home, writing this from Sully’s Pub in the terminal of Flint, Michigan’s Bishop International (!) Airport, glancing out the panoramic gate window at the Maxfield Parrish cloudscape that’ll soon be shaking vague memories clean out of my brain, I’m not concerned for my safety, but my convenience. Nothing major has gone wrong yet. I got to the airport plenty early, and there was practically no line at security for any of the five-odd flights out of Flint today. I traversed the metal detector unscathed, despite the bored TSA workers’ allusions to having it cranked up to eleven. But there are trouble signs. The first one was when I went to check in at an e-ticket terminal and discovered that no exit row seats are available. I find exit rows quite desirable because of a) the extra legroom and b) if a flight home comes in on runway 1-2, which means an approach from the northwest, I can simply parachute directly into my backyard from a few thousand feet. I chose a front row aisle seat instead. Later, I went to a Northwest agent at another gate (not the gate I’m leaving from, which doesn’t have an agent—or a plane—fifteen minutes before my scheduled departure time) to see if maybe she could hook me up. Sadly, she could not, because my plane home doesn’t have an exit row (“In the event of an emergency landing, please proceed immediately to the nearest spot where the skin of the aircraft is flayed open like a flaming bag of microwave popcorn”). My front row seat will just have to do. I’ve also realized the importance of a piece of flying equipment I’ve always taken for granted, i.e., a shirt pocket. In place of a pocket, the shirt I’m wearing today instead features a tiny, embroidered warthog. I miss my shirt pocket. My trousers have pockets, of course, but the ones I’m wearing today aren’t exactly “fat pants.” So I’m now quietly bemoaning (to several readers, but still quietly) the lack of a convenient place to drop my cell phone and boarding pass where I can look down and reassure myself of their presence at any time. My boarding pass is getting (I hope) all crumpled up in my pants pocket (okay, it’s still there) and my cell phone is getting its last gasps of fresh air before I Sandy Berger it for two hours. I can only hope that the close quarters won’t mash the combination of buttons that will activate it and make it start working through my speed dial numbers, jamming the aircraft’s navigational equipment and causing it to either plummet into Lake Michigan or inadvertently reroute to the Yukon, which would be equally sad because I don’t know anyone in the Yukon and my phone will not have called ahead to let them know I’m coming. It’s now my departure time, and my plane has just pulled up to the jetway. So my F13 run of baddish luck remains encouragingly minor. But the greatest challenge remains to be seen. I do not yet know the nature of my seatmate. Will it be a flatulent consumptive? A headphone-listening seat-bopper? A writhing thyroid case with no sense whatsoever of other people’s personal space? Abandoned infant triplets with howls like air-raid sirens? Or will it be the ideal plane-neighbor? I suppose it could be, but looking around the gate area, I’m not optimistic. We’ll see, and I’ll post this sometime after I get home. Alternatively, if there’s no Friday or Saturday update, it just means I couldn’t find a phone jack at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Today’s best search phrase: “Red hair berber carpet.” I say if you're going to spring for the red hair, you might as well get shag. posted by M. Giant 10:06 AM 1 comments 1 Comments:
Meaning you've arrived home safely. Good to know.
By Wednesday, August 11, 2004 Humpblog (8/11/04) Notice anything different about Velcrometer this week? No, me neither. But if you know how I can fix it so they only appear when you click on them, let me know. * * * Speaking of which, when I turned them on I didn't realize these things were retroactive. Which kind of comes in handy when you run into a situation where you've missed an opportunity for a great photo. Some enterprising vandal/photographer is liable to come to your rescue, and that of all of your readers. Check it out: http://files.alexbowser.com/burgerking.jpg The great thing about this site is that its readers are so community-minded. * * * Our friend Chao (who you may remember from last year's New York Stories (and who now has a new Internet nickname, "Clark McCoy") is something of a player in the Quad Cities music scene. I will now back that statement up. One day at a local used CD store, Trash and I came upon a CD called Quad Cities Rocks, a compilation of music from a bevy of metal bands in the Quad Cities area. We picked it up, planning to show it to Clark McCoy and ask if he'd ever heard of any of those bands. "I was in most of those bands," he said when we showed him the cover. Anyway, his current band has a new CD out and you can get it for $10.00 ($8.00 plus $2.00 shipping and handling, if my math holds up). Want a copy? Send me an e-mail and I'll put you in touch with the man himself. You don't want to miss this chance. Without Clark McCoy and his boys, the Quad Cities would not rock at all. They would just sort of sway gently. * * * The other day, Trash made her first pilgrimage to our shiny new IKEA, the only retail store in the metro area that has signs inside the parking lot that direct you to the freeway. She was with Bitter and CorpKitten, who were also getting smacked upside the melon with the big blue-and-gold champagne bottle. I cleaned the most space-taking-up crap out of the back of my station wagon so they could have as much room as possible to schlep home any number of large, flat packages containing entire bedroom sets. Normally Trash wouldn't go near an IKEA on a Saturday afternoon, because she likes crowds the way the rest of us like cancer. But she figured she'd be safe because it was the weekend of A) some big Jesus thing in St. Paul, B) the Powderhorn Park Festival, whatever that is, and C) the Uptown Art Fair, which closes down an entire neighborhood of Minneapolis. Of the latter, local residents like to say, "It's not art and it's not fair." It's the reason we had to get up at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, because CorpKitten has to eat at the Uptown Bar & Grill every time she comes up here, and the only way we were going to get a table was if we dashed in while the local bohos were still sleeping off the previous night's absinthe. What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah. We figured that with everything going on elsewhere in town, IKEA would be virtually abandoned. I felt comfortable advancing this theory, because I wasn't going to be among the party putting it to the test. Anyway, an afternoon at the place with the cheapest, most abundant furniture in the Twin Cities was cut somewhat short by the need to contend with the presence of the cheapest, most abundant people in the Twin Cities. They returned home after a few hours, each with a large bag full of random, insanely useful stuff, but not a stick of furniture among them. Trash was carrying a bag that would have held a hundred bucks worth of merchandise from Target. She'd managed to run up a staggering IKEA tab of about fourteen dollars. Welcome to the Twin Cities, IKEA. Welcome. * * * Okay, I'll stop being so coy about the change I made on the site this week. Over in the "loot" section on the right, there's a link to my Amazon Affiliate program. You buy books and I get myself a little commission. I get a little richer, you get a little more literate. Everybody wins. Except Clark McCoy, because I don't think you can buy his band's CD through Amazon yet. * * * Today's best search phrase: "Rubber template for making toupee." Can't wait to see that rug. posted by M. Giant 8:16 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:
I think you solved your comments problem. Or maybe I don't see them only because I'm the first one.
By ["NON-SLIP RUG" JOKE GOES HERE]
By I don't know why your comments are showing up but please, for the love of god, people - don't turn this into a total butt kissing fest!
By I'm new to the whole blogging thing and don't like the way Blogger does comments at all so I just don't use them. The ones by Haloscan suit me much better.
By M. Giant, I thought you always said that you wouldn't do comments because you already do reader mail. What gives?
By
I think Señor Gigante just wants to give the people what we want. It makes things more spontaneous; it allows for a new dimension of ha-ha; and maybe it even cuts down a little on the sillier emails.
By Monday, August 09, 2004 Zero = Operator Trash's grad school friend CorpKitten (whom you may remember from last year's New York Stories) was in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and Trash drove down on Friday to pick her up. Trash was a little nervous about this because the last time we had done this, we'd gotten lost. And I'd been with her that time. This time I was putting in a full Friday's work, so she was on her own. Me: Excited about your little adventure? Trash: No. Me: You'll be fine. Call me from the road on your cell phone. I'll have Yahoo!Maps up all day. Trash used to drive down to Champaign-Urbana by herself several times a year (see above, re grad school) and had become quite confident at it. Of course, who has time for self-doubt at eighty-nine miles per hour? On this trip, she had printed-out directions and a couple of printed-out maps, but navigating isn't her strong suit even when she isn't driving at the same time. Me: Where are you now? Trash: I'm still on 52 and I just got through Rochester. Horrible road construction. I think the ramp I need to take to I-90 is closed. Me: Have you gotten to I-90 yet? Trash: No. I just saw a sign saying to take County Road 1 to I-90 but it was closed. Me: (scrolling and zooming furiously on an interactive map of Rochester, Minnesota) Hang on… I always thought the coolest thing to be in The Matrix would be the operator. You sit in your nice comfy chair and watch what's going on—once you've learned to interpret all those numbers, letters, and Japanese characters streaming down the screens, of course. You get to give your guys detailed and knowledgeable directions over their spiffy cell phones and sound all omniscient and reliable while they scurry around desperately for their lives. You don't have to actually risk anything, but boy are they grateful when you get them to an exit and unplug them. Trash: So when you said you'd have Yahoo!Maps up all day… Me: (Terribly confused by the fact that 52 and County Road 1 appear to intersect about twenty miles away from where Trash is) I do. I'm working on it. Trash: I have to go. I suck. Trash called me a few minutes later from I-90, well on track to LaCrosse. The tricky part was yet to come: navigating through the city. She was picking up CorpKitten at a place that's about as far away as you can get from the freeway exit and still be in LaCrosse. And she was still kind of worried about getting lost again. I assured her I wouldn't let that happen. She called me again to update me on her progress just before reaching the Wisconsin state line. We went over the in-town directions on the phone . I didn't have the heart to tell her that Yahoo!Maps had gone down ten minutes before. And that MapQuest was similarly hosed. Her operator's screens had gone dark. Fortunately, the place she was headed has a map on its website. Which I pulled up and left up. When she called me for the last time, well inside downtown LaCrosse, she was stuck in construction traffic beyond the map's borders. I smoothly rerouted her to an alternate road, not knowing if it actually existed at her latitude. She jinked over a block and drove right to her destination with no difficulty whatsoever. I was feeling pretty good about pulling that out. Maybe I'm cool enough to be an operator after all (although I maintain that the coolest person in the entire series is Gloria Foster, who took one look at the script for Matrix Revolutions and decided that she'd rather be dead than in that piece of crap). Then the next day, Bitter was on her way over and missed her exit due to a combination of road construction and the behavior of a very large, very rude semi. She called from somewhere deep inside the suburban labyrinth of St. Louis Park. I dashed to my study and pulled up Yahoo!Maps, which by now was back up. Me:Where are you? Bitter: The freeway is on my right…Ooh, Target building on my left. Me: Okay, good. I know exactly where you are. Keep going straight. You're about to come to Excelsior Boulevard. Take a left there, stay on it until France, and take a right on France. Bitter: … Me: … Bitter: How the hell did I end up at Wirth Parkway? Me: Okay, I was thinking of an entirely different Target building. Bitter: I'm just going to get back on the freeway now. I would be the worst Matrix operator in the world. I guess that's a good thing to know about oneself. Today's best search phrase: "What's up with your shoes and your cats." Let's just say that they don't cross paths often enough for us to be in the habit of inspecting our footwear before putting it on, but there have been a few occasions when we wished we were. posted by M. Giant 9:16 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:Champaign-Urbana! I live thirty miles south of there my whole life, worked in Urbana for a couple of years, and almost went to U of I, but opted for a Southern school with smaller classes. Small world! Nice try on being the Operator, though.
By
Hey!
By This reminds me of a business idea I had in 1996. There would be a roomful of people answering phones and sitting in front of computers that had DeLorme Street Atlas. People would call on their cell phones from their cars when they were lost and we'd steer them in the right direction. The thing I couldn't figure out was how to publicize the service. I suppose I could've just called it, IamLost.com, issued an IPO and retired. Oh well, then I wouldn't get to be a civil servant for the state of Connecticut. -- ryanoneil
By Saturday, August 07, 2004 Head Games I was at my desk at work a couple of weeks ago when I felt a mild tickle behind my left ear. I reached back to try to find out what it was—a bug, a stray breeze, a phantom sensation brought on by a heretofore asymptomatic brain tumor—and my fingers came away with something gently entangled in them. It was a long, reddish-blonde hair. My hair is neither blonde nor particularly long. Trash's, however, is. How did one of her hairs get mixed in with mine? Simple. She had used my hairbrush again. I'm not normally uptight about this kind of thing. I don't even care if she uses my razor, because I'm not like some guys whose very biorhythms are attuned to the acuity of the blade at any given moment. I'd even let her use my toothbrush, provided she hadn't been eating dill pickle potato chips recently. The hairbrush thing bugs me, though. It didn't used to be an issue. I used to have this cheap-ass, yellow plastic brush that was molded as one piece, as far as I know. Trash hated using it because it hurt her head. But then I retired that brush to my traveling toiletry kit and upgraded to a black-and-purple, state-of-the-art Conair™ that's so ergonomically correct you could sleep on it. Trash has no problem with that brush whatsoever. And I have a problem with that. I'm the first to admit that in the mornings I'm fairly grumpy and, frankly, none too bright. I just want to get through my AM ablutions as quickly as possible so I can get in the car and settle back into a pleasant doze for my drive to work. So it's a little annoying when I go to draw my hairbrush over my wet-from-the-shower head and I end up dragging a curtain of my wife's hair upside my face. It's not that I have anything against my wife's hair, which is lovely, but when it drags over my face I prefer that it still be attached to her head. We've talked about this. I've asked her not to do it. Sadly, she's not a great deal smarter than I am in the morning, and when it's time to work out the tangles she just grabs whatever's there (in most cases, my hairbrush). She's got a perfectly nice girlie brush of her own. Which she uses all over the house. Which doesn't always make it back to the bathroom, where my brush is still sitting on the sink the following morning, just calling up to her, going "Trash! Trash! Use me! I am so tired of short dark hair with lots of gray in it that means my owner will soon be dead! I would much rather get a faceful of your glorious golden mane!" Which it does. Which, then, I do. Putting my hairbrush away in the drawer helps somewhat, but only a little, because it's still on top of everything else in the drawer. So she can just pull it open, reach in, grab the first handle her fingers close on, and get right to work loading up my hairbrush with her detached scalp-stalks. It's become quite the recurring issue. To her credit, she feels bad about it afterward (especially if I bitch at her), so she'll take my brush and pull her hairs out of it and hand it back to me. Which goes a long way towards restoring my goodwill. But all those seconds I stand there waiting for my brush back can add up. We could be talking about as much as three minutes over the course of my lifetime. AuteurCakes came up to Minnesota and stayed with us last weekend, and on Monday morning I was all, "Hmm! Honey, it looks like AuteurCakes used my hairbrush this weekend! Even though her hair is lighter than yours, and lighter than the hair that's clogging my brush right now, I know you didn't use my hairbrush. I know this because I've asked you not to. I should have asked AuteurCakes not to as well…" but by this time Trash was already standing next to me in the bathroom, holding my brush and pulling her hairs free. I probably shouldn't be writing about the most irritating thing my wife does. But then, on the other hand, if this is as irritating as she gets after nearly thirteen years of marriage, I'm obviously getting a pretty good bargain. Today's best search phrase: "Forceps dire hummer." I imagine that any hummer involving forceps could become quite dire indeed. posted by M. Giant 4:36 PM 15 comments 15 Comments:
yay! It's about time he added comments, even if the entry was about how annoying I am.
By Comments! How delightful! I have to agree that Unauthorized Hairbrush Use does sound quite innocuous in the grand scheme of domestic gripes. But then again, I have to admit that I would probably find Unauthorized Toothbrush Use grounds for major freakout and divorce.
By Sweet. My college roommate used to use my nice scissors to trim her crotch hair. Send your wife over here, I can live with a shared hairbrush. Plus, she can tag team the bear with me. (The bear that hasn't killed me yet.) -Sayer
By Cut your hair wicked (yes, people in Boston actually use that word as an adjective) short so you don't have to use a brush. It's passive agressive but it will work. Plus it makes your morning ablutions easier and saves on shampoo.
By My husband has a similar complaint. His revolves around my hairs getting on his clothes. Because my hair is long and curly and blonde - he feels its harder to hide his married from the ladies. - Zoot
By Woohoo! Comments! I don't actually have a comment today. --Laura (the Laura who thinks Trash looks like Linda Hamilton)
By Lick your hairbrush. She won't want to use it then... or will she?!
By
Oh no. Licking the brush will dangerously up the ante, evoking tiny evil smiles from Trash at all hours of the day with no way of really knowing what she's done in return.
By
I'm so happy you added comments!
By
Yay, comments!
By I told Trash your husband should stop sitting on your head. She responded that he should stop eating your hair. I hate it when she out-grosses me.
By
I don't really have anything re: the entry. Just wanted to say, "M. Giant has comments! Whee!"
By You could spend a hundred dollars or so buying her enough nice hairbrushes that there is always one in the bathroom. I have an apartment, and it takes more than five brushes to get to that level. I think you've got a house, so we're talking double digits of brushes. Then continue to drawerize yours, while she gets to keep hers on the counter.
By
I used to have long red hair (now it is short red hair) and my husband was most annoyed about it clogging up the shower drain. He once cleaned the drain and said that he expected to find a small head attached to the massive amount of hair that he pulled out.
By
Hold up -- I think Jen is on to something. Have a whole bunch of brushes, one for every couple of rooms in the house. And then (this is the cool part, and I know it's cool because it requires a wi-fi cloud) put those little Wal-Mart RF tags in them, so the brushes can tell if there's another brush already in the room.
By Wednesday, August 04, 2004 Humpblog (8/04/04) Far be it from me to plug Bill O'Reilly's show under normal circumstances, but there's a good chance that my boss is going to be on tonight. Apparently Bill's people called and said they'd like to invite him on the show to "promote" his new book. Wasn't that nice of Bill? Helping an unapologetic liberal like my boss promote his political tome? Maybe Al Franken has read him all wrong, you know? In any case, I'm looking forward to tonight's bipartisan love-fest on Fox News. * * * Strat, Strat, the Diabetic Cat is doing very well. I brought him to the vet the other day and there was nothing but good news. We've got his blood sugar balanced and his insulin dosage stabilized at three units a day. He's back up to a healthy weight: twelve pounds, which is three pounds fewer than his fuzzy-Butterball™-turkey maximum of fifteen yet an encouraging two over his supermodel minimum of ten. The vet said that she'd like to see Strat stop gaining weight now. Easy for her to say. Since his diagnosis last December, he's been getting dry food in the morning and a forkful of diabetic soft food in the evening so he has something in his tummy when he gets his second shot of the day. In order to stop his weight gain, we're splitting the day's dry food in half so he gets some before each injection. He'd probably be upset about this if he were smart enough to notice the change. Or maybe he just realizes that the change means he doesn't have to go back to the vet until December (although the likelihood of his making that cognitive leap is roughly equivalent to that of his inventing fusion). I won't say how I got Strat into the pet carrier this time, but I will say that he learned to his chagrin that the expression "caught napping" isn't always an expression. Of course, once he's in there and safely transported inside the vet's office, you need a shoehorn and a tranq gun to get him back out. Funny, that. After they were finished with him in the back room—during which time, the assistant reported, Strat had himself a little accident—he was so eager to get back into the box that he tried cramming his head in between the wires of the door. And when I opened it, he wouldn't back up enough to get an understanding of the situation, preferring instead to try to squeeze back into the box through the hinge side of the entrance. Quite the brain trust, that cat of mine. I'm hoping he will have forgotten all about how much he hates the vet's office by December. But with my luck, he will have forgotten all the specifics and will only retain an association with atavistic terror: "Aaah! Box! Panic! Fear! Death! Must poop on nearest human!" I think it'll be Trash's turn to bring him in by then. * * * For some reason beyond the grasp of my own primitive mind, SiteMeter ate all of my hits from Saturday. I have no idea what that's about. I do know I was getting hits at the time, though, so don't be trying to trick me into thinking I was the subject of some secret one-day boycott. * * * I saw The Village this past weekend. I tell you, I've never paid to sit in a movie theater and then been so embarrassed for a team of actors and filmmakers in my entire life. But then the trailer for Taxi ended and I got over it. * * * Have you voted for the Tubey Awards at Television Without Pity yet? Or are you going to leave all of the voting to people who aren't you? Yeah, I thought so. Voting ends August 8th at midnight. * * * Today's best search phrase: "Girl phlegm humiliation." I'm sure I don't have to tell you where this falls on the scale from Zero to Dear God I Don't Even Want To Know. posted by M. Giant 6:33 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Monday, August 02, 2004 ¿Que the Hell Pasa? (Parte Cinco) It's quite common for people to resolve to teach themselves a language and then completely drop it after a few weeks, right? I haven't cracked my Berlitz book in months (three, to be exact), but I can take comfort in the fact that my Spanish is still better than that of Mirna on The Amazing Race. I've been to Mexico twice, and I've never had to bust out the non-phrase "¿Posibla boat stopay?" to a local. But then, I'm blessed with acute powers of observation that allowed me to intuit the meaning of the world "ALTO" on the big, red, octagonal sign at the exit from the airport parking lot. And that was well before I picked up the tools I mastered in ¿Que the Hell Pasa Partes Uno, Dos, Tres, and Quatro. But when it comes to second languages, everyone says use it or lose it. So maybe it's time to get back into the course. We join Maria, the world's unhappiest secretary, in scene 10. The school's director, Mr. Lopez, summons Maria into his office with the letter she typed for Mr. Johnson. Maria says twice that she's coming right away. Note to Maria: if you have time to say "right away" twice, "right away" isn't technically happening. "Thanks for the letter, Maria!" Mr. Lopez chirps. Maria sighs that it's nothing. In fact, it's a photocopy. This is an audio-only program, so we can't see that Mr. Lopez is reading the letter upside down. "It's for the computer," Mr. Lopez announces. I have no idea what that means, but Mr. Lopez's computer spews forth a series of random, rapid-fire beeps that indicates that he picked it up on the set of a 1970's sci-fi television show. This is when Mr. Garcia busts in. He still works here? "Maria, is my student here?" He demands. Maria's like, "What?" Mr. Garcia says, "Yes, yes, my student. Pedro Aragon. Is he with you?" So it sounds like Mr. Garcia's class size peaked years ago, back when Pedro was still a tot. Now his student load consists, in its entirety, of Pedro. Hmmm. Mr. Garcia, alarmed at the apparent loss of his meal ticket, starts shaking down Mr. Lopez for clues as to Pedro's whereabouts. Here's a theory, Mr. Garcia. Maybe Pedro got tired of being your hostage and made a dash for the fence. Ever think of that? Alas, it is not to be, for there is a knock at the door. Mr. Lopez dispatches Maria to open it, because his damn legs are broken or something, and in pops Pedro, complete with a jaunty music cue and a pleasant "Good day! I am here!" "At last," sighs Mr. Garcia. Hey, maybe Pedro would have been here sooner if he hadn't had to check every room in the "school" before finally figuring out that everyone's holed up in Mr. Lopez's office for no reason, Mr. Garcia. "I'm sorry, Mr. Garcia," says Pedro. "My watch stopped." Okay, I'm beginning to detect a somewhat offensive pattern here. I didn't say anything when Maria was an hour and ten minutes late for work back in scenes 2 through 4, but now I'm beginning to suspect that when Berlitz claims that its courses teach "cultural understanding," they really mean "insulting stereotypes." So now I know a couple of different ways to be late in Spanish. You suppose Berlitz could also teach me to haggle in Yiddish, surrender in French, and deal Blackjack in Ojibwe? I'm sorry, I'm too upset to continue. I'll try and get back to scene eleven sometime in the next month or so. But who knows, it might be late. Today's best search phrase: "Handmade homemade pussies." Well, that's disturbing. Try to be less redundant, okay? posted by M. Giant 9:04 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
