Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Sunday, June 29, 2008 Welcome Back, Part II Even with 700 people in my graduating high school class, it's amazing to me how many of those people I didn't know at all. What's even more amazing is the fact that out of all the people I didn't know, they all seemed to show up for the 20-year reunion last night. This is not to say I didn't see anyone I knew there at all, because I did. But since there were only a relative handful of people I remembered who also remembered me, it wasn't nearly the whirlwind for me that Trash's was for her last week. We kind of set up a base camp of sorts at one of the tables near the back, and hung out there with smart, interesting people rather than spending a lot of time circulating through the main press. Which pretty much reflects my original high school experience as well, so that's cool. I also got to take a good look at our class picture for the first time in twenty years, hung up on one of the walls. There I was, on the left end of the bleachers, long-haired, skinny, and looking like a sprinter in the starting blocks. And there I was again, on the right end of the bleachers, looking winded but smug. Holy crap, did I ever think I was hilarious back then. I was really, genuinely happy to see the people I talked to, though, so I hope it doesn't sound too cynical to say that part of the reason I went was to plug my book. As I explained to one woman who had been in English classes with me for six years, having my book come out three days after my 20-year reunion was all part of my master plan, and the expected bump in sales was totally worth starting kindergarten three years late when I was a kid so I could graduate in '88 and flog the book I was planning for release this year. I don't think she bought it. Still, Trash was a master PR whiz, whipping out the advance copy and the mini-photo album of M. Edium with equal aplomb. Afterward, some of us were going to head over to the Perkins restaurant in the neighborhood that was practically our school's satellite campus back in the day. "Better go now and beat the rush," said our friend. We got in our respective cars and headed over separately, only to find that the place doesn't exist any more. Aren't Perkinses supposed to stay open forever? 24 hours a day, seven days a week, one hundred years a century? Only thing I can figure is that this one must have shut down for cleaning or something and some kind of Sandman absence clause allowed the Fantasy Gifts to swoop in and take over. So since we hadn't gotten updated cell phone numbers from people yet, that was the end of the reunion for us, as we went home and ate microwave nachos instead. But I'm still hoping to catch up with people at the signing. Tell my 10th grade English teacher if you see her, would you? 
posted by M. Giant
7:23 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:Back then?
By
I saw both your book and your sign about the signing at Har Mar. It's for real!
By
I meant to ask after the entry about Trash's reunion - but how large is the average graduating class? 200 to me is a large class - the average here would be around 100 to maybe 150. 700 is larger than my entire high school (which covered years 7-12) including the teachers was. My graduating class ended up having 47 of us, although if you count everyone that was ever in any of the year levels as we progressed through I'm sure we could get up to at least 150.
By Happy Sale Day! You are featured on the front table of our B&N, so that's cool.
By Thursday, June 26, 2008 Branch Out Last Friday, near the end of another sunny, perfect afternoon, M. Edium and I got into the car to make a run to the post office. I noticed some vaguely forbidding clouds high in the northwestern sky and pointed them out to my son. He asked if they meant it was going to storm. I told him not until later, and possibly not at all. When we got home fifteen minutes later, not only was our planned barbecue cancelled, but this had happened:  That's not our house, tree, or driveway, mind you. It's our next-door neighbor's house, tree, and driveway. Since the neighbors were out of town for the weekend, at first I thought I'd stumbled upon a firewood bonanza. But this photo really doesn't give any sense of the size of the branch that came down. This is a good thirty feet of mighty oak standing en pointe in the neighbors' driveway. Please also note the cable pulled tight as a bowstring, ready to catapult the whole thing into Lake Calhoun as soon as leaves start falling off it. That's only one of the cables helping to hold this beast up. And one of them is the power line. So I thought it best to call the power company. They didn't have an ETA for me, but since I could see from the neighbor's slowly rotating electric meter that they still had power, I suspected it would be hours instead of minutes. As of this writing, it's Thursday. The neighbors have not only come home, they've left again. And here's the same scene from a different angle, earlier today:  Can you see the whitish mass there, just to the right of the neighbors' eaves? That's where the leaves are dying. It represents about a quarter of the branch's total volume. To be fair, there has been a little activity on the part of the power company. On Tuesday a guy in a pickup stopped by just long enough to determine that there wasn't anything he could do, and that a crew would have to return with a lift truck or something (possibly a crane or a helicopter). I'm like, "No shit, Hardhat." And now we're coming up on a week. We're not actively scared or anything, but it's been a little inconvenient to not be able to let M. Edium play in the backyard. And M. Edium protested our decision to move the kiddie pool to the front yard. But once we explained to him in precise detail exactly what would happen to him if that power line finally snapped and dropped a live, sparking tendril into the water next to him while he was in it,* he came right around. But we're coming up on a week now. I know the power company has got its hands full, with a big region and lots of storm damage over the past week. But I've realized something else: I should have lied and said the neighbors were without power. *We didn't actually do this. posted by M. Giant 7:54 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:I have a friend in Mpls who had a couple of power lines break in his yard. The energy company fixed one of them, turned the power back on, and almost burned his house down.
By
Crazy! We've had a series of storms here in my part of NC for the last week or so...fortunately it's been those brief ones that roll right out and leave humid sunshine in their wake.
By We had a huge storm in Chicago on Father's Day, which left an enormous fallen branch reaching across *three* backyards. Problem is that the house that "owns" the tree is in foreclosure, so we and a few neighbors had to band together to get the power company, phone company, and tree service to come make things right. Took 'em three days.
By Monday, June 23, 2008 Welcome Back Trash's high school reunion was this weekend. She was part of a graduating class of about 200, so it wasn't that big a crowd. It just seemed like it. And let's face it, the very same crowd probably would have been a bit smaller twenty years ago, if you know what I mean. I kept thinking of that line from Grosse Pointe Blank: "It was just as if everyone had swelled." It's a good thing I wasn't there trolling for dates, because a lot of people seemed a lot older than us. I would see some people's nametags and they would sound familiar from Trash's stories, but even mentally backdating their hairstyles twenty years didn't help me to remember much beyond that. Although Trash and I were in high school at the same time, we went to different schools. So I didn't know all that many people there. Just her closest friends at the time. We met up with a few of them before heading to the bash, which was Trash's favorite part. In fact, she had been looking forward to her reunion a lot more before she consciously realized that there were going to be other people there besides the four of them. Somehow the rest of the class seemed likely to kill the buzz. But once we arrived and joined the party (which was happening in a country club…basement), Trash was immediately beset by one person after another who was excited to see her. I gave her some space and occupied myself by waiting at the cash bar for a beer, a strategy that was facilitated by the presence of only one bartender. I ate up great chunks of the evening that way, believe me. At one point I killed a half hour just waiting for a lime. When I caught up with Trash over an hour later, she somehow looked more like she had in high school. At first I thought this was because the presence of all her old homies had somehow caused her to magically regress in age. But then I realized it was because she had been hugged so much that her hair was looking like it did after we'd been making out in my car. Trash was one of those popular people in high school, although not in an obnoxious way. She was one of those people that everyone likes and admires, but whom nobody wants to take down. So needless to say, she had a lot more phone numbers by the end of the evening. And the other big surprise of the night was the number of her classmates who now have 20-year-old kids. Also, I got to hang out with a bunch of spouses. The most jarring thing was seeing a copy of Trash's high school yearbook standing up behind the bar. I see hers every time I go down to the storage room, and it's become more familiar than my own. I was standing next to Trash's friend and asked her, "So…did you design that cover?" "No! It's horrible, isn't it?" "Oh God yes. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't your work before I said so." Can't be too careful. Earlier in the evening I had loudly mistaken some dude for one of the five people in Trash's class that I knew, so I'd met my quota of embarrassing moments for the evening. At least until I later dropped my beer on that same friend's foot. And it wasn't even an MGD, so I couldn't smooth my way out of it. Overall, I'm glad I went. If nothing else, it gives me some sense of what to expect next week…at my reunion. posted by M. Giant 2:29 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Friday, June 20, 2008 From Publisher's Weekly: A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know From Watching Television Thanks, PW! Still not too late to pre-order! posted by M. Giant 12:02 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:
You've "made [your] living dissecting television"? That's going to come as a surprise to everyone who knows that's completely untrue. Fuck's sake, you'd think if they were going to make it the FOCUS OF THE REVIEW, they might actually find out whether it's true.
By I picked up a copy at the Borders on Michigan Avenue today. I hope you make oodles of money, since you've been entertaining me for free for several years.
By
Can't wait to get my pre-ordered copy in the mail!
By
So, wait, Publisher's Weekly doesn't use the comma after the penultimate item in a list? What the FUCK, man.
By In my defense, I am moving, and I am buried under boxes half the time. If losing my temper at Publishers Weekly is my worst offense of the week, I will be doing well.
By I am the happiest girl in happytown because I received my VERY OWN signed copy in the mail today at work!!! Can't wait to read it, then buy copies for presents this Christmas.
By Thursday, June 19, 2008 Announcements So the real-live book release date is coming up, and I've got a signing scheduled about a week and a half later. In case you haven't already gotten the mass e-mail I sent, the signing is at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 10 at the Barnes & Noble in Har Mar Mall in Roseville, Minnesota. (Yes, that's the same Har Mar Mall immortalized by the band Har Mar Superstar and at least a couple of Pop Culture Junk Mail posts). I've only been to that particular store a couple of times, but I'm suddenly curious to see how many people it can hold. Aren't you? You should come and find out. * * * M. Small is just about done being called "little" in any sense. My go-to nickname for him, "little dude," my lullaby called "Daddy's Little Boy," and the made-up bedtime stories that start with, "There once was a little boy named…" are all responded to with an increasingly impatient, "I'm getting BIGGER!" Indeed he is. The other night he was standing in front of the refrigerator, and when I opened the freezer door I caught myself checking to see that it wasn't going to clock him on the head. There's still clearance, but only a couple of inches. So, everyone? Meet M. Edium.  * * * I'm just going to come right out and say it: I've been cheating on you with another blog. For money, no less. On days when you come here to see if there's an update and there isn't, try going here instead. I won't guarantee there'll be an entry there either, but the odds are better than here. Also, it's one of those group blogs, so there are a couple of other dads posting there. If you care enough to check it out, you can probably figure out which one is me. posted by M. Giant 7:18 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:I loooovvee the moniker m. edium. it is too funny. i hope you stick with it!
By
Hahaha. Awesome. I'm sure you thought of M.Edium long before I suggested it, but I'm still going to brag to all my friends that I nicknamed your kid.
By Awesome. When he hits his teens and decides he's too cool to be mentioned on Dad's blog, will you change his name to M. Barrassed or M. Ortified?
By Lordy, lordy - seems like just yesterday he was M. Tiny.
By The B&N in Har Mar is pretty big IMO. Plus they have a starbucks inside.
By
I agree, Tessa. It's the biggest B&N I've ever seen.
By Monday, June 16, 2008 M. and Gus Okay, imagine you've got a three-year-old who has already determined that he's going to be an astronaut, and to that end has already initiated his own self-training program in which he learns all about the history of the space program from the Redstone rocket to the Phoenix Lander, and masters the general technical aspects of each component of lunar and Space Shuttle missions. He can name about half a dozen non-cartoon celebrities unprompted, the majority of whom were Mercury astronauts (the fifth and sixth being Jim Lovell and Neil Armstrong). So how do you explain to this kid about Gus Grissom? I know where his fascination with the second American in space comes from, at least in part; I'm sure I get kind of cagey and evasive whenever the subject comes up. "Did Gus Gristom go to the moon?" he asks. "Ahh, no," I'll say. "Why not?" "Well, he was on the first Apollo mission, but he had kind of an accident and he couldn't go." "Aw." "Yeah, it was sad for him." And then he dropped it, and I was glad. Telling him that Turtle and Strat got too sick to live with us any more and had to go to Cat Heaven and can never come back was one thing. Telling him about a guy who was an astronaut -- just like M. Small wants to be -- who one day got welded inside a giant Dutch oven atop a thirty-story bomb and suddenly found himself incinerated alive before even leaving the launch pad just isn't something I think he's ready for. If my son decides not to be an astronaut, I don't want it to be because of some horrible nightmare story I told him when he was three-and-a-half. I want it to be when he's a twenty-three-year-old Navy test pilot and suddenly realizes that most astronauts are actually kind of geeky. Not that he isn't trying to get the whole story out of me. On the 45-minute car ride home from my parents' house yesterday, he totally ambushed me: "Dad? What was the problem Gus Gristom had?" Fortunately for me, Grissom is famous for two problems, the first being the premature opening of the hatch on his Mercury capsule after splashdown, an event which resulted in both the loss of the ship and considerable damage to Grissom's reputation (certainly more than I might have just caused with my careless comment to a recently potty-trained toddler about Grissom's "accident"). I was able to go on about that controversy at some length, which allowed me to stall for time and figure out how I was going to address that whole "trapped inside an exploding oxygen tank" thing. I was also half hoping to put him to sleep, but no such luck. In the end, I lacked Grissom's bravery. I told my son, "Grissom's rocket broke, and he and the other astronauts with him got hurt, and he couldn't be an astronaut any more." M. Small let that go with a sad "Oh," but now I'm dreading the no doubt imminent day when I have to explain that Gus Grissom is in fact up in Cat And Astronaut Heaven with Turtle and Strat, even though if I had to pick him out of a lineup I would just be forced to go with the guy who looks the most like Fred Ward. And if you think that'll bum him out, just wait until a few years from now when he finally realizes that you can't talk about Apollo spacecraft or the Space Shuttle in present tense any more, let alone a future tense in which he's at the controls of one or both of them. That'll be a sad, sad day. posted by M. Giant 8:15 PM 12 comments 12 Comments:
Just show him this picture
By I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid and was told (by my mother!) that because I was not American and I was a girl and needed to be good at maths that I wouldn't be able to do it. I of course believed her and I never ever came up with another idea for "what I wanted to be when I grew up". I still don't know and I'm 33. Nothing else ever inspired me. I wish I'd been encouraged to believe that I could. Don't crush his dreams. You just never know what the future may hold. Jim Lovell was interested in rockets way before he thought he would be able to fly in one.
By
My 6yo is an aspiring astronaut, so I feel your pain/exhilaration.
By Have you been Tivo-ing the new Discovery Channel mini-series about the American space program for him?
By
Yeah, you definitely need to Tivo the Discovery series- When We Left Earth.
By For laxdude -- it didn't turn out much better for women who *were* encouraged to be astronauts in the beginning. Check out a book called The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight if you haven't already.
By Plain and simple. Liked your post.
By For some reason, Gus Grissom has always had a special place in my heart, so I think it is neat to see you post about him. I also love that M is such a cool kid, I could totally hang out and talk NASA with him.
By I've been watching the new Discovery series, in bits and pieces (bless the DVR and all who reside in her memory). It turns out Gus was put in charge of the recovery procedures. The details are still kind of fuzzy, but mostly he was pissed because the ship was lost -- the other stuff was icing on the cake. The first helo pilot didn't realize Gus' suit had an open valve and thus was doing the opposite of keeping him afloat. Gus didn't realize that same pilot fought valiantly to save the ship -- but in the process of trying to haul it full of water, busted a gasket and worried about having fuel enough to make it back to the fleet. He left Gus because he didn't want to be the guy who had to ditch with a just-returned astronaut in his helicopter. The Navy has a word for that kind of situation...
By
Has he seen SpaceCamp? Because when I was his age, I watched SpaceCamp EVERY WEEKEND. And now I'm studying to be a PhD astrophysicist.
By Um, I was coming in to flog the Mercury 13 ladies, but I see somebody beat me to it. Remind the Kid there are girls in space, too, though and they tend to be very good at what they do (Barbara Morgan FTW!)
By
But by 2014 when the Shuttle replacement is realized, he'll have a whole new "rocket" to dream about :-)
By Friday, June 13, 2008 Father's Week I know Father's Day isn't until Sunday, but it's been like Father's Week around here. M. Small has known what he wants to get me for months. He and I were at the mall one evening about two weeks after Christmas, and in a cheesy little toy store there he found this inflatable robot that just fascinated him. Should I have gotten it for him? I might have, except that it was, as I just said, only a week after Christmas and he was already scalp-deep in new stuff. And I didn't know he'd still want one at our house a full five months later, to the point where he was willing to get me one for Father's Day just to make it happen. And I certainly didn't know what I found out a few weeks ago, which is that the toy store is now closed. Gone. Packed up every last inflatable robot part and went out of business. Trash took M. Small shopping for Father's Day gifts last Friday, and they've been kind of popping up all over the house lately. Well, I say "popping up" as though they're doing it of their own accord, when in fact it was M. Small who pulled that three-foot watering hose attachment out from its hiding place under the futon later that same day. He also mentioned the new spray nozzle he'd gotten me, which came in handy during yard work on Sunday. Trash and I got tired of re-hiding the three-foot attachment and I officially received the gift on Wednesday evening. Today he and Trash went shopping again, at the local hobby shop where he got his inflatable Space Shuttles and Saturn V rocket (none of which are actually spaceworthy). Trash's car has this Star Trek communicator pin thing built into its rearview mirror, so she can call me on speakerphone from the car. They were on the way back from the hobby store when she called. Not five seconds into the conversation, M. Small, hearing my voice, heard, "I got you a—" Trash actually interrupted him, allowing the surprise to remain in place until they got home five minutes later and M. Small presented me with a set of water-powered rockets that he couldn't wait to help me play with. Oh, and then later today, Trash presented me with my big gift she got last week, a charcoal grill that we can take camping because it folds to the size of a briefcase. Modesty prevents me from outlining the great leap forward my grilling skills have inexplicably taken this summer, but I can't promise that it'll prevent me from carrying my new folding grill everywhere I go and throwing a cookout at a moment's notice. And now that I'm working at home and thus hardly ever go anywhere, you should know that this is not an idle threat. Happy Father's Day to me! If there's anything more quintessentially Dad than a barbecue grill that fits in the bottom of a stroller, I can't think what it might be. posted by M. Giant 9:21 PM 4 comments 4 Comments:
Last year, our park district had a little program where you could bring your young 'un to make their dads these cute little ceramic cups for Father's Day. The kids molded and glazed them themselves and everything--my 3-year-old's was this adorably mishapen bowl-type thing. And despite the involvement of the park district, this project took a good deal of work on my part.
By Just wanted to corroborate your claims of grill mastery. I wish I had a space pillow right now.
By Have a great Father's day!!!
By We got a tent, cook stove and lots of other cool camping stuff (besides the cool camping stuff you guys got us) as wedding presents. Camping with you all must ensue! I think Feb's 2nd rotation is done mid-August. Let us know if you guys are available!
By Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Bachelor Weekend I'll be spending this Father's Day as a single dad. Trash is quite disappointed that she has to spend the holiday traveling to Seattle for a conference instead of pampering me, but she's giving me a great gift even so: she's taking a cab to the airport for her early-morning flight instead of making me and M. Small get up to drive her there. Even if she doesn't know it yet. So I guess my question to you is: what do two young, handsome single, men of wildly divergent heights do in this town for half a week? When proposing suggestions, please keep in mind the following: 1. Obviously we've got all of Sunday, but he's got school and I've got work the rest of the week, so a road trip is off the table. Shucky-darn. 2. Besides, only one of us can drive. Admittedly, the concept of the designated driver is something of a mockery anyway, considering the fake ID I was going to use to get him into the clubs hasn't arrived yet. 3. He's already seen Kung Fu Panda. Not that he minds watching things twice, but he's never as attentive the second time and it's his interest in the film that keeps him manageable in a big dark room full of strangers. You'd be amazed at how hard it is to find a movie theater in this town where the seats have five-point restraints and ball gags. Besides, I can just see him blurting spoilers all through the thing, and I hate that. I asked M. Small himself what he wanted to do, and of course his suggestion was "park crawl." In case it's not evident from the name, a park crawl is when you go to more than one park in succession. It's one of his favorite things to do Our record is four parks in one weeknight, but given a full Sunday we could probably blow that away, weather permitting. Weather not permitting, I guess there's always the indoor water park, but I don't want to be away from my cell phone for that long when Trash is out of town. I get separation anxiety, you know. And I would spend the day taking him shopping for my Father's Day gift, but Trash already took care of that in advance. So I can't really justify making him buy me that riding lawnmower with the built-in toolshed and barbecue grill. Pity. I suppose I could teach him to load the dishwasher and pack his own lunches. That would be a gift that keeps on giving. Whatever we do, though, I'm looking forward to it. A Father's Day of intensive, solo fathering. Quite apropos, actually. 
posted by M. Giant
7:24 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:Dairy Queen. Nuggets. Cold Fudge. Make it happen Dad.
By
I envy your mad photoshop skills.
By Dude: www.waterproofcases.net.
By
My suggestions revolve around things I remember my Dad doing with me, though not necessarily on Father's Day:
By How young is too young for mini-golf? Both the Walker and the Science Museum have mini golf courses set up for the summer months.
By
Although I predict it’s actually going to be nice this weekend, you should let Trash know that she should prepare for weather (just in case) that is colder than Siberia. It’s true, out of 8 major cities in Siberia – 5 are warm as or warmer than Seattle right now.
By
@Jen - That's MS Paint, dude. PhotoShop is a crutch for people who...uh...own PhotoShop.
By The Walking with Dinosaurs exhibit at the Excel runs through Sunday and looks really interesting-
By
Well, since the other commenters have suggested high-class, edifying ways with which to spend Father's Day (and the following week) such as museum exhibits and nature-related activities, it is left to me to suggest other activities of a different cultural nature.....
By It's too bad road trips aren't possible, because I remember the long and happy hours my parents spent playing Come To New York And Help Aunt Linda Move with me.
By
Don't listen to Linda. There's nothing better than an old-fashioned Come to Northern CA and Help a Random Velcrometer Fan and Family Pack Up Their House.
By i'm kinda liking the image, it's alternative.
By Happy Belated Father's Day!
By Saturday, June 07, 2008 M. Small vs. the Volcano M. Small has the same bedtime routine: change into PJs, brush teeth, pee, get into bed for books, stories, and lullabies. "Books" and "stories" are separate items, because the books are what get read to him while the lamp is still on. "Stories" are what get told to him off the tops of our heads after the lamp gets turned off. If you're a parent, I’m sure you're familiar with the kind of stories I'm talking about. He's always the main character, and they're always stream-of-consciousness and fairly surreal, to facilitate the transition to dreaming, and they tend to reflect whatever he's interested in at the time and they all live happily ever after the end. Trash has been trying to get me to pitch as a children's book one of the most enduring stories in her repertoire, which involves a surprise hot-air balloon journey. And I always meant to get around to it. But he's grown a bit weary of that one, and asked for the hot-air balloon in the story to be upgraded to a rocket. Which was fine, except that part of the story involves boarding the balloon in midair from his second-floor window, a stunt that, if attempted with a rocket instead of a hovering gondola, strikes me as potentially ouchy. Sometimes we just come up with something, and sometimes he makes requests, which is how the volcano stories came about. "Tell me a story about a volcano," he asked me one night last week, and I spun a short yarn about how there was a boy named M. Small who lived next door to a volcano and one day the volcano was about to erupt and M. Small went out on his roof and said, "Don't you erupt on my house, volcano!" and the volcano burped and said "sorry" and they lived happily ever after. But then he wanted another story in which the volcano did erupt, so I came up with a story (complete with sound effects) in which hot lava was flowing down the side of the mountain until it hit M. Small's kiddy pool and the water turned the lava to rock, and the rock formed a new pool that held rainwater and was always warm because of the heat from below. He liked that one, except the part about his pool being destroyed. So we experimented with other endings, like M. Small's pool being in the garage all along, or M. Small using the garden hose to stop the lava, or the volcano going to the store to get M. Small a new pool. The advantage this has over the balloon story is what's obvious to anyone who's spent any time at all in the kids' section of a Barnes & Noble: the real money is in series. It's all well and good to have one hit book, but to be really successful you need to hog a whole section of shelf. Hence my vision for the volcano stories. I'm pretty sure nobody else has put out anything quite like them, plus they're just about infinitely variable. "Volcanoes can't go into stores," M. Small reminded me seconds before he fell asleep that night. Okay, not infinitely variable. But there's the story where M. Small and the volcano go on vacation together, and have to take a ship because that's all the volcano can fit on, and M. Small gets tired of sailing and wants to be there now, so the volcano jumps overboard and starts erupting so there can be a new island for them right there. Or the one where they go into space (volcanoes can't fit into the Space Shuttle, but they don't need space suits either so they can ride outside) and volcano saves them from an asteroid collision by erupting at the inbound meteor and swallowing it up, along with all of its exciting stories about its travels around the solar system that Vocano then shares with M. Small. I've already got an idea for the cover illustration: the two best friends, side by side, smiling happily at the viewer. Check it out:  M. Small's the one on the left. What do you think? posted by M. Giant 8:10 PM 9 comments 9 Comments:If you can work in a Venus Flytrap, I think you've really got something.
By But wouldn't the main character have to be orphaned? All the series books seem to feature orphans.
By
The volcano would need a good name, and all I can think of right now is "Volva." Please, PLEASE say you've got a better one.
By
Sara, your volcano story will only be effective if the volcano takes out the entire town of Radiator Springs. And the whole crowd at the Los Angeles Raceway, specifically Daryl Cartrip and Chick Hicks. AND the twins.
By Why can't a volcano go into a store? I can think of several Wal-Marts and SuperTargets big enough for a small volcano. Maybe the volcano has a cold and needs to pick up some charcoal.....
By
There's a book called "The Finches' Fabulous Furnace" that I think might be right up M.Small's alley. It's a chapter book, but they're short chapters, and I think it has pictures. It's about a family of plucky 60's-style children who discover a volcano growing in their basement. Adventure obviously ensues.
By
"So we experimented with other endings, like M. Small's pool being in the garage all along, or M. Small using the garden hose to stop the lava, or the volcano going to the store to get M. Small a new pool."
By The Finches' Fabulous Furnace sounds fantastic!
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Oh my goodness, reading this post is like I'm looking into my son's room at bedtime! Although, Lucas is very into Transformers right now, and the stories usually involve him and the "good" transformers saving the town from destruction by the "bad" transformers.
By Thursday, June 05, 2008 Telephone Man One of the enduring disappointments of my six-week stint as a full-time, work-from-home freelance writer -- second only to the fact that I wasn't independently wealthy at the end of it -- was the fact that I was never able to get a land-line phone working in either the guest bedroom (which later became the study) or the study (which was the nursery for a couple of years before becoming the study again). And it wasn't for lack of trying. It just seemed to me like I couldn't credibly claim that I was "home-officing" if I was dependent on a cordless handset stolen from the kitchen. I let it go after a few years, but when I started working from home, I knew I was going to have to get a fax machine hooked up. And there wasn't room for it in the kitchen. So the other day, during a lull in my day, I dug out a replacement phone jack I had lying around and hooked it up to the bare wires sticking out of the baseboard under my desk. I know I did it right, too, because the terminals were labeled with the right wire colors and everything. But when I plugged in a Slimline and picked up the receiver, it sounded like a phone made out of Legos. Which is to say, silent. Alas, nothing for it but to venture into the basement and wade into the trackless depths of this:  I just want to say that the hairball above is totally not my fault. For one thing, we had two lines coming into our house at two different time periods. Once when Trash was working from home, and once when she started going to grad school via the Internet before cable modems or even DSL were widely available. We've been back down to one line for many years now, as the trained eye can plainly see from a cursory glance above. But somehow all the wiring is still there. Hell, for all I know, that mess includes lines from the house's original construction, which means I could probably send telegrams to President Harding if I wanted to. I could have called my dad for help, but I've seen too many movies where the expert tries to walk the moron through defusing a bomb over the phone and it never goes well. I could have also called the phone company, but who knew what they'd charge just to come out? Besides, they're not just our phone company; they're our cable company and ISP too, and I could just see somebody from one branch messing up stuff that would necessitate a visit from another branch in a vicious cycle that would soon have me going out to find a second job just to be able to afford getting set up to work at home. So I took a deep breath and climbed up on a folding chair with a flashlight, a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a kitchen knife for wire-stripping. After a lengthy interval surrounded with wires all C-3PO in "help! I'm melting!" mode, during which I repeatedly thanked Mr. Bell for not running very much current through phone lines, I extracted myself, went back upstairs and tested the jack in the study. Success! I am being completely serious when I say that I felt like Tom Hanks in Cast Away "I! Have made dial tone!" I sent Trash's office a test-fax right away, and if she hadn't had a broken foot I'm sure she would have walked over to her machine and told me she'd received it at some point. I was so flush with my genius that that very night, during Hillary's non-cession speech, I went to the hardware store to get a second wall jack to wire up a phone in the second bedroom. Yes, I know; guests don't need a land line in there; they have cell phones of their own, and if the phone next to the poo-ton rings, it won't be for them anyway. But that's not the point. The point is that we've now got three functioning phones on the main floor, for no better reason than because I am awesome. Check out the slick hookup in the guest room:  Yeah, I didn't quite get all the parts I needed at the hardware store. Don't care. Future houseguests will be able to easily stay in touch with their loved ones, provided they don't try to carry the phone across the room too quickly. Go me! posted by M. Giant 7:23 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
What is the purpose of the paper clamps in the bottom picture?
By w00t congratulations!
By Monday, June 02, 2008 Poo-ton I had mixed emotions about replacing the bed in the guest room with a futon, and now that we have one, it turns out I wasn't the only one. I'd just like to think that I've been expressing my doubts in a healthier manner than the cats have. We got it used off of Craigslist early last month. The lady who sold it to us had been nice enough to take it apart before I showed up to pick it up, which is good, because it barely fit in the station wagon even disassembled. Reconstituting it without instructions, using only the photo from the original listing as a guide, was kind of a fun challenge, especially since I've never owned a futon frame before and don't really get how they work. But I managed to pull it off with bolts and washers to spare. All seemed well, until our very next houseguest LPG tried to go to bed on the second night of her visit and found an ammonia-smelling damp spot where her feet were supposed to go. Good thing we have a comfy sofa in the basement to use as backup, but of we wanted our guests to sleep on the sofa, we wouldn't have splurged 85 bucks on a used futon. I still don't know who the culprit was; while I could differentiate the odors of Strat's and Orca's pee, I don't yet have that skill with Exie and Phantom and they never seem to want to practice with me. I thought it was because I'd skipped a night of cleaning the kitty boxes, and vowed never to do that again. But several times in the past couple of weeks, we've been finding puddles on the couch-configured futon. And they're the worse kind. The kind with height. I say "we," but it was mostly M. Small. He'd go in, follow his nose to the futon, and cry, "POO, DADDY! POO!" Then he would make a long series of theatrical retching noises, as though he was the one who was going to have to clean it up. I wish. Just the poo on the futon was bad enough, but whoever was doing it insisted on being "considerate" enough to cover it up with something else, which then also had to be either cleaned or thrown away. I'm not going to go into a whole list of those items here, but I will say that it'll have to be raining pretty damn hard before I ever think about using a certain umbrella again. We've been trying to get into the habit of locking both cats out of there, but it's easy to forget, especially since that room serves as our main entrance into the house. We're getting better, though. Tonight M. Small came home, sniffed the futon, inspected everything on it, and asked me, in all seriousness, "Why the cats didn't poo?" I've been meaning to make an appointment for Phantom at the vet, but since she's been locked out it hasn't happened anywhere else, which suggests to me that it's a behavior issue and not a health issue. And today I realized that it wasn't a Phantom issue at all. Trash was the one who suggested that it might actually be Exie, even though he doesn't have her history of this kind of thing. I was skeptical, until a couple of hours into my workday I heard some rather mournful mewling coming from down the hall. Yes, I had locked Phantom into the bedroom with the poo-ton. And she hadn't defiled it even a little. Which made me glad we hadn't punished her for it. (By the way, I accidentally typed "punched" for "punished," oddly enough. That we did. Sorry.) But now we have to figure out what's up with Exie. Again, I'm pretty sure it's a behavioral thing, just marking his territory in the vilest way possible. Could it be because of the open window in there? I doubt it, because he's done it when the window's closed. And even if it wasn't that, I'm not about to close that window and trap the smell of cat poo and pet-stink remover in there indefinitely. So that's where we are now. In unrelated news, anybody want to buy a futon and frame? I can let you have it for $110. posted by M. Giant 7:56 PM 11 comments 11 Comments:i work for these guys - zeroodor.com, and I have to say the stuff rocks. my last dog was incontinent for the last year or so of her life and without ZO I'd've had to chuck a LOT more stuff.
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Maybe the last owners had a male cat? If Exie smelled another unknown male anywhere on the futon or the frame that would explain the territory marking.
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We had the same problem with one of our cats about a year and a half ago. A phantom pee-er. Our vet suggested Anti-Icky-Poo (www.antiickypoo.com) over many of the other brands (even nature's miracle) and it worked.
By I agree with beginning with a whole-futon spray-down with Nature's Miracle. If that doesn't do it, our vet also taught us a useful trick: put the culprit's food bowl on the futon and feed him from there. Cats don't want to mix the two so the peeing stops.
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(Psst. Your DHAK link is broken.)
By Sigh. I meant "gear," of course.
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The plug-in things are called "Feliway" (at least, that's the brand I've used). They're basically diffusers that send out hormones to reduce anxiety. It's the last step before kitty Prozac (I work for a vet, and I have a very neurotic cat, so I've dealt with this many times). The Feliway usually works great, but always get your cat checked out first to make sure the problem isn't medical (which is almost always easier to fix). Unfortunately, defecating outside the box is almost always behavioral.
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I'll second (third, sixteenth) the suggestions for the odor neutralizers, but want to add that peeing is not always a health issue. One of the downsides to have some cats with Serious Issues is that I occasionally have to deal with inappropriate peeing.
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I have a mystery poo-er (I have suspicions about which cat it is...), but fortunately she confines her activity to within a foot of the cat boxes in the basement, so it's really not a big deal.
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Poo-ton. Poo-ton.
By Get Exie checked out, just to make sure it's not medical. But yeah, it sounds like the previous owners of the pooton had a cat that either sprayed or peed on it :-(
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