Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
|
|
|
M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
|
|
Saturday, January 31, 2004 Reader Mail, Episode XXI This is a bad month for reader mail. Not because I didn’t get any, because I got plenty. It’s the old ones I’m upset about. See, I was saving all my reader mails in a separate Hotmail folder, but that still ate into my total storage capacity. So then I set up a different account and forwarded a bunch of my older reader mails over there. That worked really well. I just had to be sure and log into the other account every thirty days, otherwise it would be shut down and all the messages would be cleared. Erased. Wiped from existence. Deposited into the big bit bucket in the sky. You see where this is going, don’t you? What really hurts is that I was going to go through all of those e-mail addresses one day and figure out where you lived and come to your houses and thank you in person by tapping on your bedroom windows at three in the morning. Now I can’t. Thanks a lot, Microsoft. And my readers thank you too. Maybe next month I’ll just add comments and be done with it. But not this month. Obviously it’s been more than thirty days since I cleared out my reader mail folder, so January is still intact. Let’s get into it before we all start crying. The biggest response came from the entry about the Spanish-language tapes. Like this message is from Sayer, who I suspect is so named because he’s really good at saying things. As you will see: You think Spanish language tapes are insane? Try Greek! It started out teaching "I want a room with a view of the sea. I want some bottled water." Whoooaa, slow down kiddies. Shouldn't we start simpler? Like with: "Hello. I am an ugly American." Then we can transition to our list of demands culminating in an urgent call to Dubya to declare war, I tell you war, on them there unwashed heathens! As for New Year's resolutions, I resolved to make a valiant effort to cut down on my voluminous use of foul language. There would be no more swearing round these parts! Within 2 hours on day one (yes day one) my father went into complete heart block and then cardiac arrest and was resuscitated by EMS. There were f-bombs all over the place. It was like a convoy from Baghdad gone astray through an outdoor market in the West Bank. God has spoken. I know resolve to swear my mofo ass off this year. I can even do it in Greek: Εσείς κολÎÏ?ο κοτόπουλου χαδιοÏ? Ï€Ï?οβÎτων (You sheep-fondling chicken-choker!). It is always good to say that from at least a continent away. Or from inside a van full of patio furniture, as the case may be. As for my father, he survived to everyone's complete shock, and is doing well in rehab. Glad to hear it. I credit the f-bombs. I’m pretty sure Sayer has e-mailed me before, by the way. Hmm. If only there were some way I could check, Microsoft. I didn’t get as many birthday e-mails this year, probably because people correctly figured that that angle was more than admirably covered. But I also got this question from Mary Ann: I have a question for you.... What happens forty weeks before this one that causes so many people to be born between January 16 and 21? I know why I know handfuls of other people born the last week of March, we were all conceived on the Fourth of July. Why so many people the second week of January? I'm hoping as one of them, you may be able to tell me. I celebrated my birthday at the bowling alley, and there were three other people there that night with the same birthday as me. And those were just the ones who had told our waitress. So there might be something to this. My theory? Taxes. Early April rolls around, people run the numbers, and they freak out. “Shit, I need more deductions. I’m going to take a bath next year.” “Unless you take a bath with me right now, hot stuff.” “Sold!” Reader Mail is about you, remember, so I have a very strict rule about gratuitously putting up e-mails that are complimentary to me. That rule is that I’ll do it as soon as I get one. And here it is, from manok, in a message that came in four-point type: You have a way with words, M.Giant. Is all. Hope you best. I don't care if you got blinded by reading this small font size. I like blinding people. Man, don’t let Tom Ridge catch you saying that. Actually, now that I think about it, that might explain the small font size. Today’s best search phrase: "Calvin pissing on Clear Channel." Normally I hate those urinating Calvin stickers, but I could probably get on board with this one. posted by M. Giant 8:35 AM 1 comments 1 Comments:All sorts of furniture solutions, starting from office furniture (mobili per ufficio), equipped walls, furniture used in schools and colleges, office chairs et all are available with http://www.momi.it and however, as soon as you submit your furniture requirements with us, we would ensure to deliver our furniture solutions at the earliest convenience.
By Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Humpblog (1/28/04) Okay, I confess: I'm totally dry today. I got nothing. Fortunately, Yahoo! News has a section called "Oddly Enough." It is the zany blogger's friend. As am I, which is why that link is there for the use of all my zany blogger buddies. And also so I'm not tempted into falling back onto something this lame again in the future. * * * I agree that this is kind of insensitive. For those of you who are either too lazy to click on the link, or reading this more than two hours after I posted it in which case the link is probably dead already, psychiatrists in Greece are mad about the Greek translated title of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They call it The Schizophrenic Chainsaw Killer over there. It's interesting that it's the psychiatrists who are pissed off rather than the patients. Or maybe they're just more quotable. When asked to comment, perhaps the schizophrenics simply said, "spooky disharmonious conflict hellride." On the other hand, I can see the psychiatrists' point. Their jobs are hard enough without the locked ward getting all offended and firing up the Stihls and coming after the white coats. I kid! I'm kidding, Greek psychiatrists! Jeez. Take one of your pills, why don't you. * * * Here's what surprised me in Greece. Our first day in Athens, after a sixteen-hour flight, we were crashed out in our respective jetlagged comas when we became dimly aware of Greek being spoken through a loudspeaker somewhere out on the narrow, tangled streets. Greek, by the way, sounds fairly authoritative through a loudspeaker. We would have investigated, but our heads were too heavy. When we ventured out later, it was to discover that a building across the street on our block had been completely gutted by fire while we slept. Weird. Eerie. The second segment of our Greek vacation was on the island of Santorini, an island so beautiful that the view from our balcony looked like CGI. It's one hundred and eighty degrees from Athens in terms of the environment. In fact, it’s one hundred and eighty degrees from anyplace where it's possible to be remotely unhappy about anything. Again, we heard amplified Greek coming from outside our window. This time we were awake enough to investigate, and we would have done so even if we hadn't been. "Is this country always on fire?" we wondered. It wasn't a fire engine this time. It was a fifteen-passenger van, trolling slowly through the narrow, tangled streets, with loudspeakers lashed to the roof. And also, patio furniture. Greek, by the way, sounds fairly authoritative through a loudspeaker, even when it's only being used to hawk porch swings. I felt a little sad for the patio furniture man. In the United States, he'd be trailed by a mob of excited children. Also, he would have a truck full of ice cream instead of a truck full of patio furniture. When people say America is the greatest country on earth, this is what they mean. * * * Something else that freaked us out: one day I walked down to the market to get Trash a cheeseburger (this was before she went vegetarian) and a pouch of pole-meat for myself. I watched the cook slap a patty on the bun and start to wrap it up. "No, I said a cheeseburger," I said. "Inside," he said. I would have requested further clarification, but I was in Greece, my Greek wasn't a great deal worse than his English, and I knew very little Greek. I hoped that "Inside" meant that I'd gotten a Jucy Lucy-style cheese-inside-meat bomb, but the thinness of the patty made that unlikely. Trash looked at the burger doubtfully when I presented it. "I wanted a cheeseburger," she said. "Inside," I explained. The words "cheeseburger" and "inside" in this context turned out to mean that cheese had been mixed with the meat at some point. Which explained the grayish patty's orange cast. Trash did not eat the cheeseburger. Even I did not eat the cheeseburger. I was wrong. Santorini is only a hundred and seventy degrees form anywhere where you can be remotely unhappy about anything, because we were remotely unhappy about that cheeseburger. * * * Well, that went better than I expected. Which should tell you something about my expectations. I'm going to stop now. Today's best search phrase "Douglas Adams couch rotation program" and "Dirk Gently sofa screensaver." Don’t have them. Wish I did, though. posted by M. Giant 3:27 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Monday, January 26, 2004 Detect This Erie, Pennsylvania is the hometown of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Apparently he still lives there and goes back for the weekend whenever possible. Naturally, the airport is named after him. Tom Ridge International Field earns its “International” designation by virtue of the puddle-jumpers that fly across Lake Erie into Canada, but I’ve been in bigger airports. In fact, I think all the airports everywhere are bigger. One nice thing about smaller airports is that the people in security tend to be pretty cheerful, if not friendly. Don’t misunderstand—they’re by no means lackadaisical, and you don’t have any more chance of wheeling a Pershing missile onto the jetway there than you do at O’Hare or LAX, but it doesn’t make you feel guilty just to have them look at you. This is just as a general rule, of course. If I had given it a half-second of thought, I might have realized that the most likely exception to that rule would be the small airport named after the Secretary of Homeland Security. Apparently these people have heard the joke that the Transportation Safety Administration’s acronym, TSA, really means “Thousands Standing Around,” and they are not amused. On the contrary, they are extremely keen to make you feel like they’re really earning that ten-dollar September 11 security fee that gets tacked onto your airfare. Hell, I got a bargain. I walked through the metal detector on Sunday morning and set it off for the first time in a year. I had to divest myself of stuff I hadn’t worried about for a while and go back through, and when I came up clear this time I still had to submit to a wanding. Which naturally found nothing but my belt buckle, which naturally had to be inspected behind. Sorry you missed it, ladies. I wasn’t the only one searched, but at least I wasn’t questioned, either. I was traveling with several other people from the show, and the local public radio station had given us these ridiculously generous gift bags. They included a small bottle of Pennsylvania wine country’s best white, a couple of local microbrews, an official Erie Otters hockey puck, a T-shirt from Mercyhurst College, another T-shirt from the Erie tourism board or chamber of commerce or whatever, a small box of chocolates, and another bag. They just appeared in our hotel rooms. It was kind of like being an Oscar presenter. One other item inside the bag was a pair of small, powerful magnets from the local magnet company. They’d been sealed into plastic vials with their matching poles facing each other, and the magnetic repulsion was so powerful that opening the cap would have sent one magnet shooting into the air, if it didn’t instead rotate at the vial’s mouth, reverse direction, and clamp right back on to its mate’s opposite pole. They were kind of neato, but the warning language on the package made me a little nervous. Being the one responsible for transporting two laptops, the script bank, and the show disk back to St. Paul, I didn’t want to have to explain how all of it got wiped. So I packed the magnets in a separate suitcase. I probably should have just thrown them away, or mailed them home to myself. Instead, I rolled them tightly in a pair of pants (sorry you missed that too, ladies) and packed them separately. Apparently that was enough to dampen their field, because they didn’t appear on the luggage x-ray scanners at the airport, and a couple of the other guys’ did. I can only imagine that on the screen they must have looked like highly localized distortions in the space-time continuum, or perhaps ingots of uranium, either of which must certainly be on the “strongly discouraged” list of carry-on items. Whatever the case, several of the guys had to dig theirs out and explain where they came from. The TSA guys were not amused. Or particularly impressed. For my coworkers, it was like, BAM—instant defendant’s table. These TSA guys in Erie are serious. I’ve gotten used to flying again in the past two-plus years, but this was like being on the first plane out of Logan on September 17, 2001 without the “Are you in?” camaraderie. Throw in the announcements saying our completely full flight would “not be held under any circumstances,” and enjoining passengers to “please clear security immediately” (which must have been so motivating to those behind us attempting to do just that) and the concept of “security” became paradoxical at best. I can appreciate their position, of course. TSA employees are out there all over the country as one of the most visible manifestations of the Department of Homeland Security’s existence, which must put the guys in Erie on constant alert given that any moment they could be face-to-face with the other most visible manifestation of the Department of Homeland Security’s existence. I imagine that it would be embarrassing to let the safety standards lag for even a second, only to turn around and see that the next guy in line is your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s et cetera, all the way up to the United States Cabinet, on his way back to Washington D. C. to talk to the President. It’s more than their job is worth to let someone through with a contraband bottle opener or a pair of tweezers or a spiral notebook with a metal wire, and have Tom Ridge see them do it. I just wonder if he has to undo his belt buckle as well. Today’s best search phrase: “Electric slipper discounts.” Not only is this person too slothful to walk without electric slippers to aid him or her in ambulatory motion, but he or she is also unwilling to earn enough money to pay full price for them. Ladies and gentlemen, the laziest person in the world. posted by M. Giant 1:11 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Saturday, January 24, 2004 You Can’t Go Home Again I’m a Minnesotan in every important way. Although I never saw the place until I was five, I consider myself a product of it in every sense that matters: constitutionally, psychologically, literarily. However, I was born in Michigan. Detroit, to be exact. And then my family moved back to Kansas when I was six months old and I didn’t cross the Michigan state line again until thirty years later for CorpKitten’s wedding. But Detroit has always called to me, in a sense. Everyone should make at least one pilgrimage to the place of their birth, assuming they don’t still live there. I tried to keep that thought in mind when my alarm went off at 3:45 Friday morning. I had a six o’clock flight to Erie, PA (home of the Oneders) for this weekend’s show. The Music Librarian/Segment Producer and I had chosen that flight to make sure we got there in time for Friday afternoon rehearsal. Then an 8:00 a.m. option had come up, but we were already committed, which meant we took off into a predawn sky. Or we would have, if the de-icing truck hadn’t spent as much time on us as it would have on, say, Finland. The delay was a little nerve-wracking, because our connection in Detroit was already tight as it was. ML/SP got off the plane first and found out where our transfer gate was so we could make the sprint together. I was more than twenty rows behind her and it is to her credit that she waited for me when she heard the situation, rather than killing herself. We had twenty minutes to make the twenty-five minute hike from the far end of Concourse A to Concourse B. There’s a long, blue tunnel between the concourses at the new Detroit airport. The moving walkways pass between walls that are illuminated in shifting shades of blue and green. And there’s this sort of ambient sound going on that’s so subtle that it’s barely even ambient. It must be like being abducted by extremely low-key aliens. I’m sure it’s incredibly relaxing if one is in the right frame of mind; I imagine that one must be wary of its soporific effects lest one melt bonelessly to the segmented grating, leak through, and gum up the works. It’s not ideal when you’re racing three miles on foot in order to not get stranded, but we managed to not go into a trance and drop into an amble. One of the worst things that happen when traveling with the show, I’ve heard, is when you pick an early, early flight and you miss a connection, or a connecting flight is cancelled or delayed, and the people who got to sleep two hours later than you did show up at the gate to fly the rest of the way with you. That hasn’t happened during my tenure, thank heavens, but it has happened to others before I started. I think I’d pass on that experience. Life is enough like The Amazing Race already. So that’s what was on our minds as we ran from A12 to C6, with ML/SP fighting the flu and ear-popped from the flight. A twenty-five minute journey on foot, and we did it in fifteen. We ran up to the empty gate waving our boarding passes, and ended up being the last ones on the plane. The other six passengers on the sixty-passenger plane were already strapped in and we pulled away from the gate about two-thirds of a second later. So that was my big pilgrimage to my birthplace. I can understand why my parents left, because Detroit goes by pretty fast. Must get tiring. I’ve got a forty-five-minute layover going home, and I’ll try to experience Detroit a little more fully when I’ve got three quarters of an hour to explore the city at a leisurely pace. Maybe I’ll try to get back in another thirty-three years, but if I don’t it’s okay. Today’s best search phrase: “Knight Rider Season 2 Episode 5 Blind Spot.” I think this person already knows more than enough about Knight Rider, between you and me. posted by M. Giant 7:42 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Wednesday, January 21, 2004 Humpblog (1/21/04) Just take another look at those poems down there, wouldja? Do my homies rock or what? Am I allowed to say "homies" and "rock" in the same sentence by the way? Or is that an ill-advised mixing of musical idioms? Okay, moving on. Break's over. I'm grabbing the reins again. Such as they are. * * * For an online writer attempting to be funny, linking to The Onion is like a big, bright, flashing sign that reads GO AWAY AND NEVER COME BACK. (I haven't learned how to do flashing text in HTML yet. Sorry.) But for anyone who is considering not participating in the democratic process this election, I offer you this. Yee-haw, indeed. * * * Speaking of ill-advised musical decisions, this is just a heads-up to anybody who went back to file-sharing illegally after the courts took away RIAA's ability to send stormtroopers to your ISP company and have them pop out at you through your modem: they're still suing people. Okay, to be more accurate, they're suing IP addresses. This is unconscionable. Sue people who have the resources to defend themselves, sue people who've done something wrong, but dragging a poor, defenseless IP address into court? An IP address that can't make it's own decisions? What are they thinking? A jury is going to look at that inert series of digits and periods on the witness stand and it's going to be all over. I did love this quote, though: ‘‘Our campaign against illegal file sharers is not missing a beat," said Cary Sherman, president of the recording association. See what he did there? Isn't that just adorable? On the plus side, apparently new-age and modern symphonic music is perfectly safe to file-share. As long as we're on the subject… Dear RIAA: I do not file-share, illegally or otherwise. Please do not crawl up my ass. * * * Pub Quiz tonight, this time with an entirely new team. Even Trash is sitting this one out, what with being in New Mexico and cell phones being banned during rounds. But I have great faith in tonight's teammates, Miss Alli and G. Grod. They's smart. The last time I went out, which was a few days ago, I finally got to meet the very entertaining Space Waitress. And I look back at this item and I realize that two years ago, I didn't know nearly as many people whose names are also hyperlinks. Modern times. * * * Today's best search phrase: "Young man's combover." Is that like a white man's afro? posted by M. Giant 4:22 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Aww, you guys! posted by M. Giant 7:41 AM 0 comments 0 Comments:Saturday, January 17, 2004 January 18th is M. Giant's birthday, and once again, I (Trash) have hijacked his blog. In honor of his big day, several of his favorite web writers have created some special birthday greetings, just for him. Keep in mind that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that M. Giant loves more than bad poetry and misused puns. Happy Birthday, M. Giant. May you continue to amuse us in the years ahead. ************************************************ Watching Alice in Wonderland Made Me Write This by Keckler Of psycho squirrels and growing grass, MmmGiant does so blogeth Once he even wrote a piece of fitting window glass There's one in partic I liked so well I forwarded it across the land It told a tale of catching Strat And peeing on his hand But now he's gone and made it big with a national story man We only hope he does not forget his clutch of drooling fans ***** An Annotated Poem by Keckler M Giant is this guy I "know" Who makes some funny words I read out loud, I read in quiet I even tell the birds (in a world where cats are birds) M Giant is this guy I "know" He lives right near my school If I had one in my yard I'd let him use my pool (but not to pee in) M. Giant is this guy I "know" Whose birthday now is here So I'll tell you sweet and I'll tell you purple His humor has no peer (unless he doesn't think I'm funny in which case I take it all back) ************ The storms rage all around while i stand here looking at you but all you talk about is cat pee and cat poo gross. here's to you M. Giant on your birthday! Regan ************ M. Giant (A rhyming poem) I like M. Giant, Upon him I'm reliant, And I've found him quite pliant, So unlike Gumbel, Bryant, What's he drive? A Reliant! Oh, fuck. I already used "reliant." Of shame, I shall die-ant. These shit rhymes, I'm gonna cry-ant, Why did I agree to write this, oh why-ant? I'm a fool, I want to die-ant. Thanks a fucking lot, M. Giant. Omar ************ Between My Lines -by Pamela Ribon They told me Just today That it was Your Birthday. Or Is, rather, I suppose. Your birthday, I mean. And by "told" I mean I opened an electronic piece of mail As I do in the mornings Afternoons And evenings -- Around once an hour, I guess, if we're being honest now Truly Honest Now. Anyhoo, it's your birthday. How does that Make me Feel? At first, a slight numbing Under my eyes Where a blush would go Had we ever kissed Or shared a tender moment in the past. Then my stomach Made a bit of a rumble Reminding me not that I yearn for you O, near perfect stranger. But rather, That I hadn't yet finished My morning toast (buttered, never with jelly; I pretend marmalade doesn't exist (like how you pretend I never exist (like how I never pretend we once met (like how I never forget that one night (we never shared (you were so kind (you were so gentle (you were so invisible (see my invisible blush now? ))))))))) I drink more coffee Swallow the warmth (I swallow. I swallow.) And wonder: Why I don't love Someone I'll never know? You might be worthy of love (as am I. O, how worthy am I. I am rockin' it in this body, my friend, and most of the world will never know (i am so lonely please somebody find me i miss human contact holy shit i miss real people (but not the show because i am not that crazy yet) i am pretending to take part in an internet portal fun birthday celebration just so i can reach a wider audience to scream out !!!somebody help me!!! i am trapped in a world that I have created for myself because i used to think people were annoying and irritating but now i realize that we need other people. My head hurts every day from all the crying -- (ROTFL, W00T, YMMV, LOL, IMHO, FWIW, JM2C, KILL ME (This is the life of a dedicated internet hermit (don't weep for me (my dsl does it effortlessly. )))))) . ************ Velcrometer is my favorite blog because he talks about cats named Orca and Strat, then warns of the perils of renting a ladder. Those are his selling points, which means that M. Giant is a dork. A lawn- seeding, extra-room- painting, comedy-writing, super-dorky dork. Your Pal, DragonAttack. ************ Higgeldy piggeldy Jeff of Velcrometer from Minnesota, home to the Vikings. If he'd been female, would "Valkyrie-ometer" have become part of an epic Webring? -- Strega ************ Stopping By Velcrometer On A Snowy Evening Whose blog this is I think I know. He's off writing for Keillor, though; He will not see me reading here About...not meter, nor Velcro. His patient wife must think it queer That emailers like hives appear At mention of an ailing cat Or Christmas lights, or hazmat gear. But it's his birthday, and for that I write a poem, and doff my hat To Alexander's natal day, And find a rhyme for "vampire bat." The poem is dreadful, sad to say. The reader should get combat pay. Yeah, sorry, dude. Happy birthday. Yeah, sorry, dude. Happy birthday. - Sarah ************ RHYMING ODE TO M. GIANT Today is the birthday of one Mr. M. Giant! If he were heavy machinery he'd be OSHA compliant. He's more impressive than the biggest bra at Lane Bryant. In the Hair Club for Men, he'd be president and a client. He'd be a mighty and fearsome--but cuddly-- tyrant. He is the crème de la crème. He doesn't hawk up his phlegm. Hey there, Mr. Giant! Can I call you just "M."? -- Wendy ************ The grimmer the news on the falling thermometer, The better the thought of a brand-new Velcrometer. Or even, perhaps, you might use a bolometer, To measure the warmth of your favorite Velcrometer. The sun is quite bright, says this swell actinometer, But not half as bright as a brand-new Velcrometer. While tracking the clouds with your trusty ceilometer, Look! Up in the sky! It's your good friend Velcrometer. The earth shook (I saw it on my own seismometer) The day I first read the bodacious Velcrometer. I'm not sure why you would need a densitometer, I do know we all need a sparkly Velcrometer. Got engines? Please check them with your dynamometer, Then turn your attention to reading Velcrometer. Don't work out too hard, you may break the ergometer, Stop sweating and go read an archived Velcrometer. You can study ozone on a spectrophotometer, Thank God there are no holes in good old Velcrometer. You don't measure pies with a big piezometer, You don't measure Velcro by using Velcrometer. "Tomatoes look fine" says the old tenderometer, But please, do not throw them at this week's Velcrometer. I bought me a new microspectrophotometer, And now that I'm broke, I have only Velcrometer. I could do this all day, by my handy chronometer, But that would take up all the space in Velcrometer. Linda ************ "Ode to the Coolest" Allison Lowe-Huff There once was a man called M. Giant, Who everyone thought was compliant. But he lived in the cold; Man, he got old; And, each year, just a bit more defiant. M. Giant? I feel like I've lost him. The last time I saw him was Austin. Where we rocked through the night, In a Shack of Delight, And all his fans tried to accost him. I'm saying, I've seen this man rock the house, Despite seeming sweet as a mouse. So, don't let him fool you; He really could school you; And, probably, so could his spouse. It's his birthday today, yes, we know. And though his true age doesn't show, He is an old guy, He really can't lie, Because time? It sticks like velcro. ************ "It's a double-dactyl" Foobady boobady M. Giant's Velcrometer Features a humorous Style and tone. Today, a surprise as a Gift for his birthday: un- characteristically Covered in poems. --Monty ************ There once was a Giant named M. At JournalCon he was a gem The girls were atwitter "Wait, he's married? Oh, shitter." Heartbreak he gave all of them. So now on the day of his birth With limericks lacking in mirth I honor his powers To render cold showers While smugly displaying his girth. Get your mind out of the gutter! I meant his great height, so don't sputter. He's witty and kind And quick to remind He loves him some Trash, more than butter. "Than butter"? I know, it was lame; These limericks truly a shame. My Home is no Prairie, My rhyming is scary -- Happy day to dear M. all the same. -- Pineapple Girl ************ There once was a guy named M. Giant Who didn't act like Kobe Bryant. A superior man he is sweeter than flan and as clever as he is brilliant. M. Giant lives in Minnesota where he needs snow tires on his Toyota Does he drive one of those? Friends, I do not knows But I needed a rhyme for this ode-a. "An ode? It's a limerick, you tool!" you may say as you think me a fool Excuse the caprice fucking poem police For M. Giant we break every rule. Today is M. Giant's birthday And he's old but he needs no toupee So let's fix a cocktail And with toasts we'll regale This guy who likes cheesy wordplay. AB posted by M. Giant 9:22 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Friday, January 16, 2004 ¿Que the Hell Pasa? Generally I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. I'm terrible at keeping them. Last year, for instance. I quietly resolved to earn a thousand dollars as a writer, and I missed that by a mile. Blew right past it. God! I'm so stupid! I can't do anything right! But undaunted by my record of failure, this year I'm setting out to learn to speak Spanish as well as someone who took a year of it in high school. I got a set of tapes and a book for Christmas, and I've been studying them assiduously. They're broken up into a series of lessons, or scenes. I spend a total of an hour with the tapes every day on my commute to and from work. To my fellow drivers, I must look as if I'm having an argument with an invisible Ricky Ricardo. And as in any situation where one is abruptly thrown into close contact with others, I'm quickly learning that the people on the tape are really, really weird. The message at the beginning of the first tape claims that the course is built around the way children learn Spanish (the subtext being that two-year-olds all over the Spanish-speaking world can speak Spanish; what the hell's your problem?). Appropriately, the tapes follow the trials and tribulations of pint-sized protagonist Pedro. People outside the action comment in Spanish, like on MST3K but without the funny and with a lot more verb conjugations. All dialogue on the tapes takes place in Spanish, and the book translates it. As do I below, so you don't have to dash over to Babel Fish to make sense of what you're reading, which in this case would be even less effective than usual. Keep in mind, everything in quotes is actually said, albeit in Spanish. The tape also claims to promote cultural understanding, but now I understand less about Spanish-speaking culture than I’ve learned from watching people yell at each other on Univision. Observe: Scene 1: Pedro, who sounds about seven years old, hears the clock strike nine and realizes it's time for school. He has to knock on the door and be invited in by his teacher, Mr. Garcia. Curious. No other students appear. Apparently it's a private school. Very private. Scene 2: Mr. Garcia asks Pedro what time it is. Pedro answers that it’s 9:15. You know, Mr. Garcia, if the day’s going that slowly for you, maybe you should consider another career. This will not be the last time that thought occurs to me. The phone rings. Yes, a phone. In a classroom. And the student has to answer it. Pedro calls to him repeatedly, but Mr. Garcia shows no interest until he hears it’s someone named Maria. Apparently she won’t be in until 10:00. Mr. Garcia tells her it’s fine, then sighs passive-aggressively after hanging up. Pedro imitates the passive-aggressiveness. Mr. Garcia congratulates him. Pedro’s a fast learner. Scene 3: Pedro counts out American dollars to Mr. Garcia. Perhaps he’s paying his tuition for the year. He gets up to six before Mr. Lopez says, “enough.” As the following moments will indicate, Pedro is overpaying. Pedro performs a few rudimentary mathematical calculations aloud. Mr. Garcia tells him to shut up. Pedro points out various items in the room. Mr. Garcia tells him to shut up. Pedro fucks with Mr. Garcia’s radio. Mr. Garcia tells him to cut that shit out. Pedro identifies a piano and a violin on various stations (although the latter sounds more like a violin being imitated by a synthesizer a queso), while Mr. Garcia struggles to suppress his murderous rage. Finally, either Pedro’s sense of self-preservation kicks in or Mr. Garcia gags him, because he falls silent. This is simply tragic. Here we have el profesor, too hung over to help shape the young mind in his charge, instead leaving the boy to make sad, abortive attempts to educate himself. It’s a cry for help, really. Yet Mr. Garcia won’t hear it. If this is what happens when class sizes get smaller, I don’t see why everyone thinks it’s such a good idea. Scene 4: Maria, an adult, finally shows up. She greets teacher and student, then asks what time it is, all innocent-like. “It’s 10:10,” Pedro announces, his voice full of reproach. He knows full well that he’d be flayed alive for showing up this late. Maria apologizes. Mr. Garcia lets it hang there for a moment, but then he lets it go, presumably because he wants to tap that ass. Or perhaps he doesn’t trust himself not to explode in fury at the nerve of this woman, leaving him alone with a student! He’s a busy man! This online blackjack games aren’t going to play themselves, you know! Then we hear Maria walking across the room. A chair scraping on the floor. Maria begins typing. What the hell kind of school is this? Instead of an answer, we hear the phone ring again. Maria answers and hands it off to Mr. Garcia. Which is fine. It’s not like he’s teaching or anything. The guy on the other end asks for someone named “Nakamura-San.” Mr. Garcia takes ten minutes to politely explain to the even dumber caller that he’s got the wrong guy, then continues his well-established habit of telephonic two-facedness. “Nakamura?!” he sneers, his voice dripping with toxic scorn. “I’m not Mr. Nakamura; I’m Mr. Garcia. I’m not Japanese; I’m Spanish.” He’s insulted that anyone would think otherwise. Pedro adds fuel to the fire by barking, “I’m Mr. Nakamura!” Maria cries, “Pedro, please!” If we were up to the vocabulary for “You don’t know what he’s capable of! He’s psychotic! He’s borderline violent! He has World War II flashbacks!” we’d be hearing that now. Instead, Pedro blithely charges on. “I’m Mr. Nakamura and I’m Japanese!” This cataclysmic announcement hangs in the air. Seconds tick by. Tragic banner headlines flash through Maria’s mind. “No, Pedro,” Mr. Garcia says after a mighty internal struggle, during which he briefly wonders and then remembers why he doesn’t have a bayonet at hand. “You are not Japanese. You are Spanish.” “And Maria?” Pedro asks. Maria peeks out from under her desk. “Maria is also Spanish,” Mr. Garcia says. Maria is also happy to be alive, Maria thinks. The situation continues to defuse as everyone’s roles and nationalities are reestablished. Pedro is a student. Mr. Garcia is a teacher. Maria is a secretary. They are all Spanish. Wow. They learn more in this school before 10:15 than most people learn all day. I was thinking that this could be one entry, but we’ve barely started. Looks like we might have a series on our hands. More of this next week, unless my inbox floods with protests. In that case I’ll wait until the week after. * * * Today's best search phrase: "Audition acting lists that I can look at right this minute." Boy, I hear that. You don't ride herd on Google, it'll take weeks to come up with your search results. posted by M. Giant 4:21 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Wednesday, January 14, 2004 Humpblog (1/14/03) Hey, check out Sars's advice column at Tomato Nation this week. Of course, you should check it out every week, but especially this one because my wife Trash is helping write it. She's answering questions about looking for jobs, and they're questions that may apply to a lot of people. Let's get this country back to work! You're welcome, Mr. Greenspan. * * * The overhead fluorescent light in the bathroom at work is strobing. While in there, I stared for a moment at my shirt, which has a tight black-and-white herringbone pattern. After several minutes, I had to admit to myself that I just don't have what it takes to experience a grand mal seizure. Dammit. * * * Update on my brother-in-law's Jeep with the loose door. BIL called a local garage to see how much they would charge him to get his door back in working order. How much could it be to replace a hinge, right? Six hundred dollars. Man, I remember when you could get a whole car for that. Well, not really. But I've seen old magazine ads. BIL asked why the price was so steep. The mechanic on the phone explained that it wasn't a simple procedure. Apparently it's quite labor-intensive. They were going to have to take the whole fender and front end off. BIL decided to save several bills by removing the front end himself. After an afternoon spent dismantling his Jeep, accompanied by language that coming from Darren McGavin would have earned A Christmas Story an NC-17 rating, he called the garage again to find out how much it would cost him with the front end already out of the way. All of his hard work and frustration had paid off, as the new estimate was four hundred fifty dollars. By this point, the other hinge had given way, so if BIL wanted to drive anywhere with the door, it was going to have to be in the back. That's how he drove it to his uncle's place, where he finally got it fixed. Final price? Fifty dollars and a case of beer. As far as I can figure, the only reason for that much of a price disparity is that the mechanics at the garage drink really, really expensive beer. * * * Looks like there’s going to be a Project Greenlight 3. I’m all over it. And I’ve learned from my mistakes. Rather than adapting one of my previous works for the screen, I’m starting from scratch. I thought it would be hard to come up with an idea, but I was wrong. I think it was Monty who said something about how Pirates of the Caribbean was cool because it had zombie pirates, but would be even cooler with zombie robot pirates and possibly a ninja. He may have also mentioned the zombie pirate monkey. Well, my screenplay is going to be the ideal screenplay. I don’t have a plot yet, but it’s going to be about cowboy zombie robot ninja lesbian pirate vampire monkeys. And that? Is an unbeatable concept. I might sweeten it further by having them fight terrorists, but that would just be gravy at this point. Technically the script is supposed to be shootable with a million-dollar budget, but I figure that’s the director’s problem. After I win and the film gets made, I think I’ll offer Monty an associate producer credit. * * * Today’s best search phrase: “Discombobulated and palsied.” You know, if that’s really what you’re looking for, there are plenty of dating websites you can go to without wasting your time here. posted by M. Giant 5:15 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Monday, January 12, 2004 Battle of the Game Sequels I've been playing two different computer games the past week or so. Both were Christmas gifts. Both use binary computer code to allow the user to affect events on the screen. That's about all they have in common. One of the games is Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne from Rockstar games. The other is Super Breakout by Atari. Max Payne 2 hit the streets late last year. Super Breakout came out late in the 1970s. Max Payne 2 tells the compelling story of a tormented NYPD homicide detective who must unravel a mystery whose threads appear to lead to the highest echelons of power, in between long periods during which he shoots absolutely freaking everyone. Super Breakout tells the compelling story of colored, rectangular bricks that disappear one by one as a smaller square gets bounced up at them again and again. Max Payne 2 came on two CDs, took a half-hour to install, and won't even run on one of our computers because the processor isn't fast enough. Super Breakout came on one CD that also included five other games from the skinny tie era, as well as lengthy video clips of interviews with an Atari founder. Otherwise they could have just put it on a cassette tape. In between levels of Max Payne 2 are beautifully painted if rather overwritten panels from an onscreen graphic novel. These take the place of cutscenes in other PC games. In between levels of Super Breakout, the screen is blank for a short time. In Max Payne 2, the player controls the title character's movements through a realistically rendered, three-dimensional game world. He can briefly slow down time, replicating the effects of adrenalin in a pitched gun battle against numerically superior enemies. Max can dive and roll in bullet-time, and occasionally he comes across bottles of painkillers that mitigate the effects of the few bullets that do hit him. In Super Breakout, the ball bounces faster off the orange bricks. And if it hits the top wall the paddle gets smaller. There are two balls bouncing around in pockets inside the brick wall, and they come into play if enough bricks disappear. I think this is what differentiates Super Breakout from Breakout. Max Payne 2 allows the player to customize a wide range of visual elements, from distance fogging to flying debris to the number of bullet holes that can exist at one time. Super Breakout offers an "enhanced" mode, which means the bricks have texture. Max Payne 2 will, as alluded to previously, only run on Trash's computer, which is in our bedroom. I only play it after she's in bed, and I have to use headphones so as not to keep her awake with persistent gunfire. It's so addictive that just sitting down in front of it is committing a good half hour. And this will only represent a fraction of the overall story arc, although that may be a result of how frequently I get my ass killed to death. Each game of Super Breakout is its own self-contained narrative. You get three balls, and three balls only. You blow them, you're done. Game over, man. Ideal for alt-tabbing over to for a two-minute break while working on some other project. Advantage: Max Payne 2. Sure, Super Breakout has been around longer, but it's too much work to make up film-noir dialogue in my head that quickly: "Ah, Ball. My sworn enemy. You killed the brick that used to be next to me." "Yes, and you're next." "NOOOO!" "Ah, Ball. I assure you that you will not find me so—AAAH!" "Ah, Ball. Perhaps you would care to—OW!" "Ah, Ball. Let us—CRAP!" Now that I've mentioned the titles of these games so many times, I know I'm going to get slews of Google hits looking for—whoops, I almost said that word. The word that begins with "W" and continues with a "alkthro" and ends with a resounding "ugh." The one that keeps showing up after Jedi Knight II in my referral logs. I suppose I should toss those searchers a bone, if they were kind enough to click through. So here's my w*lkthr**gh: After pressing the "serve" button, move the paddle from side to side in such a way that the ball doesn't get past it. If the ball does get past it, press "serve again." The game ends after three balls. Continue until Pac-Man comes out. You're welcome. Today's best search phrase: "Indian curses using coconuts." I can see this. You want to put an Indian curse on someone, but all you have in the pantry is coconuts. Sure, we all know about the curses involving pasta shells or evaporated milk, but if you don't have any lying around, you might as well make use of the coconuts. Godspeed, my friend. posted by M. Giant 2:02 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Friday, January 09, 2004 O Tannenbomb I had good intentions when we bought our real Christmas tree this year. I really did. I was going to keep it watered and pay attention to it and love it and hug it and pet it and call it George. I didn't want a repeat of last year, when I kept forgetting to water the tree and by the time I dragged its desiccated remains out to the yard it was so dry that it would burst into flames with a harsh word. I wanted to avoid that this year. And I did. It was worse. See, back at the end of November, when we bought the tree, I was envisioning the removal of a moist, green fir from my living room a month and a half later. I was half right. I didn’t know the cat was going to turn up diabetic. When he did, I got all caught up in making sure he was getting fed and injected properly. The tree sort of slid onto the back burner (which is a figure of speech, because the thing would have gone up like a box of fireplace matches if it came into a burner's line of sight). I think Strat will agree that I made the right call. On thing about the tree we bought; it didn't turn yellow. It retained its fresh, verdant color even while going through a process that turned humans into redshirted piles of baking soda on that episode of Star Trek. The first sign of trouble didn't come until we started removing ornaments. At that point, the slightest brush would cause needles to flake off the branches as if they'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen. And yet they held their color, even as they formed a solid green circle on the ugly beige carpet below. Normally, taking the lights off the tree is a major task. I like having a tree bright enough to read by; hence it generally has a few hundred lights on it. Excuse me—a few hundred strings of lights. I like to illuminate each individual pine needle, you see. This caused some domestic tension two years ago, which was the last year with our old permanent tree. The de-lighting had fallen to Trash for some reason, and she was distinctly unimpressed with the quasi-Gordian techniques I'd used. She ended up using pliers, wire cutters, and hedge trimmers. And when she was done with me, she finished taking the lights down. With a real tree, you don't have to worry about bending or breaking branches. That can even facilitate the process. Here, my life was made easier by my ability to snap off branches that were as thick, yet as brittle, as Mickey Rooney's femur. Kind of a shame that Trash had bothered to clean up the needles in between the ornaments and the lights. The new circle, she be unbroken. Reaching into the very center of the tree to unravel the lights I'd wrapped around the trunk was a little dicey. It was like giving CPR to a cactus. And all of the sap left in the tree ended up on my hands, which, combined with the innumerable little scratches I'd sustained, made it look as if I'd tried to bathe one of the cats in molasses. By the time I was finished, there were large sections of the tree that were entirely bald. It was more Charlie Brown than Charlie Brown's tree, and at seven-and-a-half feet, it was like a monument to mortality. The tree stand still held it upright, which was the only thing that kept it from looking like a small-scale replica of the Tunguska site. Instead, it looked like a free-standing central nervous system. "Hey, kids, it's time to decorate the Christmas spinal cord! Don't forget to get ornaments on all the ganglia!" Last year after taking the tree down I picked up a grocery bag full of fallen needles and branches. This year there were two bags, plus whatever got sucked up into the shop-vac. I imagine I could use them to create some kind of incendiary device, but there are need-to-have things, and there are nice-to-have things. Anyway, this big old tree that weighed something like fifty pounds when I wrestled it into the house on Thanksgiving weekend tipped the scales at about a pound and a half when I strolled back out with it, one hand jauntily around the mid-trunk region. It's in the back yard, next to the chiminea. I should probably cover it up in case the sun comes out. The thing's probably more flammable than a vampire at this point. But I swear, next year I'm totally going to keep on top of the tree-watering. Strat might turn into a four-footed sugar cube, but he'll understand. Today's best search phrase: "How to console someone with hyperthyroidism." Finally, something I can help out with. Try saying something like this: "You know, people spend so much money on makeup to draw attention to their eyes, but you don't have to because of the way yours bug out now." No need to thank me. I'm just glad to be able to give back a little. posted by M. Giant 2:43 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Wednesday, January 07, 2004 Humpblog (1/7/04) Hey, my wife's an expert! Sars is doing a series called "Ask the Expert," and Trash is one of them. As I may have mentioned, her job is with a company that helps laid-off employees find new jobs, so she knows all about job hunting, researching companies, cover letters, résumés, when not to bring a gun to the job interview, the whole schmear. Got a question for her? Go here. Her question queue isn't open indefinitely (like many job postings, but now I'm invading her turf), so don't wait around. Her answers will be up in the near future, assuming she gets any questions. She's also really good at finding stuff for the Humpblog, which I haven't taken much advantage of to date. Time to remedy that situation. * * * Like this, for instance. No, wait. That's a bad example. * * * Part of the challenge of weblogs, of course, is that when something new and neato comes up, it ends up in a kind of blogospheric feeding frenzy. No worries about that with this Strawberry Pop Tart blowtorch experiment; the link is almost ten years old. In Internet years, that's like pre-Cambrian. However, it did remind me of the glory and wonder of sparkler bombs. If I had a written list of things I want to do before I die, this would be in the top five. Check that out! A "Cruel Site of the Day from over five years ago! Humpblog be breakin' all the roolz! * * * January on my Demotivators catalog from Despair.com depicts a salmon about to flop into the expectant jaws of a large bear. The caption reads, "The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly." Which is funny, and true, and happens all the time. Then there's this, which is also funny, and also true, and makes me wonder whether it doesn't happen more often than one might think. * * * BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Belgian furniture shop is offering special packages for divorced men who hate shopping in a country where half of all marriages end in a divorce after five years. I would hate shopping in a country where all marriages end in divorce after five years too. I imagine everyone would be quite grumpy. The packages, sold at 2,290 euros ($2,729) a piece, include a living room, a complete bedroom, a dining room and a television set, including a DVD player. "I always tell them...'you have to put an end to this part of your life and start a new one'," Paul Dierckx, the owner of the shop, who is twice divorced, told Reuters Television. The shop, he said, sells at least ten kits a week. Talk about closing the barn door after the horse is gone. What they need to do is market this to married couples. Then the men won't complain about having to go furniture shopping and the marriages will survive. Duh. * * * I grew up on Butternut Street, which I thought was kind of embarrassing. I was wrong: LONDON (Reuters) - A British couple have been forced to move house because of the shame caused by the name of their street -- Butt Hole Road. Paul and Lisa Allott sold their $250,000 bungalow in Conisbrough, northern England after living there for just 15 months, fed up with the constant leg-pulling. Taxis and pizza delivery men would fail to turn up, thinking their order was just a prank, and they grew tired with groups of youths posing for photos by the nearby street sign with their buttocks bared. "I like a laugh, but it was beyond a joke," Allott told the Sun newspaper. Attempts by Reuters to contact the new residents were unsuccessful -- they have taken a confidential telephone number. Well, of course they did. It would have been asinine not to. * * * Today's best search phrase: "Milwaukee child trapped in vending machines." There are worse places to be trapped, I suppose. But listen, parents—if you need a bag of Funyuns™ so desperately that you’re prepared to stuff your child up the dispenser chute, you should be aware that things are liable to turn out badly for at least one of you. posted by M. Giant 4:24 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Monday, January 05, 2004 Death in the Kitchen Our new oven is a big improvement over our old oven. For a while we had no oven at all, and even that was an improvement over our old oven. Our new oven isn’t technically new. It dates back to the sixties. But when it was installed, it had a pristine blue-gray finish inside that was so spotless it looked as if it had never been used. This, after over forty years of service. How long would you imagine it took for us to mess all that up? If your guess is a year, you’re giving us too much credit. Back in December I set out to make a few holiday pecan pies. I made several missteps in the course of this project. 1. For the first time, I attempted baking a pecan pie in a pastry crust. This actually turned out fine. The two pies I was baking in graham cracker crusts, however, did not fare as well. Those ended up as reservoirs of liquid under charred manhole covers. 2. I put too much filling in at least one of the crusts, and probably all of them. 3. I didn’t just go to the store and buy three pecan pies. What happens to pecan pie filling when it heats up is that it expands. Normally the surface tension is enough to keep it inside the pan, but not in this case. Gobbets of the sugary, eggy mixture overflowed onto the bottom of the oven and the inside of the door, where contact with the hot surfaces caused it to do something that I would describe as caramelizing, if not for the fact that this stuff is pretty close to being caramel to begin with. What state of matter comes after caramel? My experience tells me, “fossil fuel.” So aside from the temporary inconvenience of two pies being ruined and my kitchen smelling like the Dole Sugar Plantation in flames, my shiny, beautiful, new (to me) oven now looked as if Satan had hocked a number of loogies into it. So yesterday, when I was giving the kitchen a thorough cleaning, the signs indicated that this would probably be a good time to take care of the mess in the oven. And when I refer to “the signs,” I mean that I wasn’t struck dead by a merciful God the moment the idea occurred to me. Not then, at least. I broke out the can of Easy Off, the one that’s older than our marriage, the one that hasn’t seen daylight since the year had two nines and a five in it (what? Our old oven was black inside. As far as we knew, it always had been). I read the directions, which told me to heat the oven to two hundred degrees, which I did. Then I donned rubber gloves, per the warnings on the label, and proceeded to spray the uber-toxic corrosive into the small space where our food goes before we eat it. As the foam came into contact with two-hundred degree metal and instantly vaporized into columns of malevolent-looking mist, I tried to recall whether the label had said anything about gas masks. I watched it curiously, quickly becoming aware of a distinctly hostile taste in my mouth. No, wait. The taste was in my nose. And in my brain. Window open. Fan on. I am able to post today only because I thought to slam the door shut immediately after the second application of canned death. Yes, it took not one, not two, but three jousts with aerosolized Alien blood to get the incinerated gobbets cleared out. But the oven looks nice again. I’d like to keep it that way. I wonder how many coats of spray paint it would take to paint it black? Today’s best search phrase: “Inflatable ass c**t football stretch.” Sometimes I feel bad for people who really aren’t going to find what they’re looking for, even on the Internet. This isn’t one of those times. posted by M. Giant 6:52 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Friday, January 02, 2004 One Forty-Two As I write this, my cat is eating. I have become much more interested in how much food goes in Strat’s mouth over the past couple of weeks. More interested than even he is, in fact. Let me assure you that this is a complete reversal. What with his diabetic regimen in place, we have to make sure he eats within a few minutes of getting his twice-daily injections. And the twice-daily injections have to be at certain times. You can see the issue here. The old routine was that the cats would get a cup and a half of dry food every morning. Strat would wake us up, or start howling the minute we got out of bed, all excited about breakfast. One of us would put down the day’s ration of hard food, and he would go to town. Not eating. Just saying, in cat, “This isn’t breakfast. I wanted breakfast. Where’s the soft food? Where’s the good stuff?” Then Strat would spend the rest of the day complaining loudly that since there was no soft food, he was going to starve to death. Oddly enough, most of the hard food was gone by the next morning anyway. In this manner, he managed to avoid starvation for over a decade. In fact, he avoided it by an impressive margin. Now that he’s diabetic, the balance of power has shifted. He doesn’t understand why, but it’s crashingly obvious that he understands that it’s happened. And he’s using this fact to his advantage. Getting him to eat hard food on command was never feasible, but in conjunction with the diabetes he’s got a bum tooth that makes it even more difficult for him. So soft food it is. Even without the diabetes, he’d be getting more of it just to get his weight back up. It used to be easy. Before he turned up diabetic, they got soft food infrequently enough that when it happened it was a major event. All they’d have to hear is the pop-top on one of those little cans and they’d leave cat-shaped holes in the wall getting to the kitchen, where they would engage in dizzy-making laps around the center island while hollering. It was like this during the first week after Strat’s diagnosis. All we’d have to do is give him the shot, put down some soft food, watch him bury his face in it. As with anything that happens twice a day, the specialness has worn off somewhat. Besides which, I can’t imagine the soft food for diabetic cats is as good as the regular soft food. Hell, even diabetic humans don’t get to eat anything good. Then we found out that you’re supposed to feed him before the shot. This complicated matters further. He’s not the brightest cat in the world, but it hasn’t taken him long to figure out that the longer he waits to eat, the longer we have to wait before we impale him with that tiny iron spear. So after the soft food went down, he’d look at it, then wander off. He knows he holds all the cards. He knows if he doesn’t eat, one of two things will happen: he’ll either not get injected, and his blood sugar will shoot up until he goes into a coma and dies, or he’ll get injected anyway and his blood sugar will plummet until he goes into hypoglycemic shock and dies. Cats can sense these things, you know. He also knows that we’re not about to let either of those things happen. So he’ll just sit there in front of his bowl brimming with (semi)tasty soft food, looking at us, saying “what else you got?” Or, for even greater negotiating leverage, he’ll just wander off and curl up in the hallway. He knows we’ll give in. He knows he can afford to hold out. And it’s working. Because every time he’s held out long enough, he’s gotten what he wants. The Holy Grail of cat treats. The food whose name cannot be spoken, which Trash and I refer to even out of his earshot as… T – U – N – A. Yeah, that’s a great idea, giving tuna to a diabetic cat. Would you like some molasses on that? Fortunately, opposable thumbs, a longer memory, and a superior command of abstract reasoning is winning the day. Rather than putting down regular soft food at 7:58 and then panicking for his entertainment while he waits patiently for the tuna, we’re feeding him at 7:30 or 7:40 and then feigning disinterest. We’re getting really good at feigning. We’ll stand around the corner where he can’t see us, but we can see his shadow. He’ll hover indecisively above the bowl for a few minutes, waiting for us to come back and sweeten the deal, and then the shadow of his head will dip towards the food. This is a very delicate time. We must not move, or speak, lest we remind him of our existence and the tuna we represent. It’s been working pretty well this week; he still hasn’t gone into convulsions once. Even better news: we brought him in to the vet today and he’s slowly gaining some of his weight back. And his blood sugar? The number that’s supposed to be between eighty and one-twenty, the number that was over six hundred just three weeks ago? One forty-two. That’s low enough for him to undergo the procedure to extract his bad tooth. Which is good. Maybe then we’ll be able to get him back on hard food. We think that would be good for Orca as well. Obviously her diet has changed too. She doesn’t usually eat until after Strat’s finished, but it’s obvious that she’s getting her share. We’re considering adding a “P” to the beginning of her name. If she gets heavier than Strat, we’re going to look into diabetes for her, too. Today’s best search phrase: “Baby Jesus hostage gasoline.” I try not to read too much into who might be entering these phrases, but I have a theory about who might have run this one. And if it’s correct, I can not wait to see Mad Max 4. posted by M. Giant 7:20 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
