Weekend

Heading out to Vegas (why is it that I always spell that "vegan" when I first type it out -- I've almost assuredly written "Vegas" out more than I written "Vegan" -- hmmmm. I wonder if this says anything about the way I subconsciously view my identity. Anyway, let's get back to the main text and get out of this parenthetical. I might be getting off topic. Or perhaps I've written too little to actually be off-topic) this weekend (the first part of this sentence was "Heading out to Vegas" in case you forgot) for both a family visit and a dog show. The dog show part of this involves Willow and Chapel participating in an Obedience Competition. Fortunately, no frisbee catching at this competition.



Which is exciting because that means that they're actually doing stuff in order to earn ribbons (unlike the fancy dogs on the TV) but what she's doing is mostly behaving, like following nicely behind Chapel when she's supposed to and remaining in a stay for several minutes (which should make for riveting entertainment when watching other dogs). Anyway, wish us luck.

Scrubbing the TV

I don't hate Scrubs (that charming doctor vehicle) and, while I'm admittedly not totally smitten with it, I find it occasionally amusing. Since Chapel and an earlier roomie of mine like it, I have watched more of it than I ever would have on my own and while, from time to time, I would complain about this (it's expected, you know), for the most part, I can deal with it.

Something (the product of extensive tv watching, er, research) occurred to me recently though. This blasted show is on ALL the time. All the time. What's up with this? There is never a moment when this show is not available to be watched on my local cable affiliate. Is there some reason for this?

And, really, no punchline for this post. That show is just on all the time. Really.

The Dog That Can't Catch

You know those amazing dogs that can catch Frisbee and balls and all sorts of things with ease? Well, we don't have one of those dogs. She seems to enjoy the "not catching" part of the game of catch. Really, she seems to go out of her to make sure she never has a chance of actually catching anything. It's an art. Here are a few pictures of this artist and her craft.



Let's start with a football. Well, this one doesn't seem to be going well...the ball appears to still be landing and she already looking toward the ground.



Keep your eye on the ball. And by that I mean don't keep any eyes on any balls. Anywhere.



She's focused on something in the air. Unfortunately, the ball has already landed.




This one looks promising. And, honestly, let's just say it all worked out. The she jumped way in the air and easily caught it. That she didn't have the toy bounce out of her mouth at the last moment for no reason at all. Yep. It all worked out.



This one never had a chance.


And this one likely didn't either.


Let's blame the throw on this one, shall we?



And this one isn't worth trying.



Again, seems to be going well. Unfortunately, this was mere seconds before the ball bounced off her teeth, bounced toward the fence and rolled to the driveway. Oh the drama.


She found pumpkin guts in the backyard. That was more interesting than the thing whizzing past her head.

So there you have it. Look for Willow in next year's "Dogs that can't catch" reality show. She's the breakout star.

The Disappointed Multitudes

I'm updating the blog today to both greet and apologize to the inevitable masses who will be looking at this site to see what I wore for Halloween. I know, I know....my reputation for Halloween goofiness has been on a tear over the last few years, but this year, I've taken a break. I'm entitled to that. I stayed at home, wore normal-ish clothes, watched Scream and Sweeney Todd and handed out candy to a few of Price, Utah's little ones. I also smashed my finger in a door, but that's not really related to anything. I just haven't gotten all the whining out of my system, so I decided to share.

Anyway to make up for the lack of Halloween-ing from me, I figured I should post some pictures of Halloweens gone by so you can see the great moments of yesteryear. And pretend I wore all of these at once last night if that makes you feel better.



Here I'm Einstein Disguised as Robin Hood, after the lyric in Dylan's "Desolation Row." For the record, everyone got it. Everyone. No one stared at me for a while trying to understand what in the world I was supposed to be before walking away confused after I told them. Why would you think that anyway?



I'm Alfalfa from the The Little Rascals from several years back. Geez, what a dork I used to be. Glad I'm past that. For the record, that crazy hair was a challenge.


This is me and Chapel from last year when we went as Jim and Pam from the office. This one was a challenge for me because I had to do so little. Halloween is usually so much more work. I mean, I had everything (well, I did have to buy a solid black tie but I ended up wearing that on job interviews, so I can't say that was that much of an expense). But yeah, Chapel had to do all the work on that.


You know how difficult it was to capture me in a photo when I was wearing this costume? I mean, I was really fast.


Ah, the Karate Kid in the shower costume. This might be the only costume that fought me back, constantly collapsing and nearly crashing on me. Still, though, it held up better than it should have and it is perhaps the most visually impressive. One thing I've learned in my short time in Utah -- when I described this costume to my students last year in Michigan, no one knew the movie enough to tell me what Daniel-san wore to the Halloween party before I described my costume in its full glory. Here, everyone seemed to know. They must teach the Karate Kid in the elementary schools here.


And this one isn't technically from Halloween (boy, isn't that a depressing thing to admit), but it'll fit anyway. Man, am I intimidating or what?

Sadly, there were a couple of costumes I didn't have pictures for at the ready -- Ace Ventura from the back in the day and the time I dressed up like a pencil from even further back. Still, this will hopefully do. Happy Halloween weekend, all!

Spokane Chiefs drop the Memorial Cup

Man, I miss those Chiefs games...

Poem Ideas? Anyone?

I'm going into the oral surgeon today for a procedure, so wish me luck. I'll likely be out of commission for a day or two (if my getting my wisdom teeth pulled is any indication) so besides warning the world that I might not be as, um, articulate as I occasionally am, I'll also need some help.

I'm trying to write 30 poems in the month of April (that's a poem a day for those following along), but I'm running out of ideas. So. Help? Fair readers, drop me some advice on potential topics for these poems I'm attempting to write? Got a wacky pop-culture idea? A serious theme for an ode? A surreal romp? Throw those ideas my way. I'll need help all the way through the end of April, so help early and often.

Thanks for your help! Looking forward for your responses...

Scroll Wheel

I don't know about your relationship with the scroll wheel, but I love it. Love it. When it comes to a mouse, if it doesn't have a scroll wheel, it might as well not exist. Okay, this is overly harsh and really not entirely true. I've had plenty of solid, worthwhile relationships with mice that didn't have scroll wheels. But those weren't the types of relationships I had to mourn much over when they were through. This is different.

This is my mouse.


That's right. Two scrolls wheels on that thing. One for up and down and another for left and right. There's so much power in that much scrolling. I mean, I'm capable of going all over the place. It's really remarkable.

But, sadly, those scroll wheels on that beautiful mouse are just for show. Yep, neither one of them works anymore. And when I tried to reload the mouse software to attempt to get it back and going, the software caused my entire system to crash and I had to reboot the thing. I admit, it was a difficult betrayal for me to deal with. But I'm dealing. I am.

So I made a movie dedicated to my broken mouse. Yeah, it was painful to me to watch, too.

Vote!

Okay...this is a fantasy baseball post. You've been warned. You don't have to read it. I mean, I'd rather you did, but whatever.

Somebody still there? Good. Last year, I participated in a fantasy baseball keeper league. Basically the deal with that is that you get to take any six guys from last year's team and carry them over and start with those guys when building your team for the new season. Whoever had the team before me evidently hadn't paid much attention to the team in, well, ever, so the players I started with were pretty middling. Still, through plenty of hard work and dumb luck, I ended up having a pretty good season, finishing second in the playoffs.

Well, the new season is about to being and I have to declare my keepers once again. I have five of my keepers decided, but I'm up in the air on the last one. Here's who I'm keeping:

Brandon Phillips (2B - Reds)
C.C. Sabathia (SP - Indians)
Erik Bedard (SP - Mariners)
Alex Rios (OF - Blue Jays)
Troy Tulowitzki (SS - Rockies)

I need to keep one more guy. So, that's were you come in. I've set up a poll on the side of the screen that lists six choices for my last keeper. See it? It's blue abd has the names of baseball players in it. Your choices are:

Howie Kendrick (2B - Angels)
Ryan Zimmerman (3B - Nationals)
Hideki Matsui (OF - Yankees)
Yonvani Gallardo (SP - Brewers)
Daisuke Matsuzaka (SP - Red Sox)
Joe Nathan (RP - Twins)

Well, who should it be? Please discuss this all-important issue by adding comments if you feel like it and be sure to vote! I'll use the poll results as of Feb 24th to choose my final keeper. Choose wisely! My fate rests in your hands!

Roger Clemens' Lie

So, many are in agreement that Roger Clemens was lying about a lot of stuff yesterday. Thanks to watching Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning (since I wasn't able to watch the hearing yesterday because of a marathon dental visit -- but I'm feeling fine today, thanks for asking), I found out about this very significant question exchange:

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) asked Clemens if he was a vegan. Clemens stumbled through his answer saying that he was sorry but he didn't know what a vegan was. Hmmmm. This answer was filled was more ums and uhs than you can possibly imagine.

So, yeah, I'm not convinced that Clemens is telling the truth. His body language clearly indicated that he was lying on this one, but why was Clemens lying?

Well, I'm a vegan. I also write poetry and was born in Southern California. He's an athlete from Texas. Perhaps admitting his veganism would ruin his reputation. Steriods are bad enough, but he's also unable to eat Manwich in its intended form? This would be unforgivable.

I hope Roger Clemens does some serious soul-searching and realizes that fessing up on this issue is really the best thing to do Just tell us you're vegan. Your obsessive need to inject massive amounts of B-12 into your body? Makes sense now (though, really, I usually just use a B-12 spray, but maybe it's trickier for Clemens to absorb stuff in his system than it is for me. I believe he is about 10x as large as I am, and that's only in the cranial region to start). We understand why Roger created this "steroid smoke screen" in order to distract from being outed as a vegan.

But it's okay, Roger Clemens You've got friends. Maybe if you're not busy tomorrow, we can go protest the circus or something.

An Open Letter to Netflix

Dear Netflix,

I first off just want to say you guys are great. I mean, really great. The service is solid, the movie selection top-notch. All in all, everything is just peachy. But you've got something of mine. And I want it back.

I recently recently rented and watched 12 Angry Men -- a study in anger, men, and the number 12 if I ever saw one. Good stuff, especially the frequent close-ups on the old man juror in which he looks mostly terrified and I remember laughing at when I first saw the movie in tenth grade. Anyway, I watched the movie and, in the dark before heading off to bed, slid it into one of those wonderfully convenient sleeves and envelopes of yours and sent it back. But, much to my surprise, when I opened the dvd player the next day, 12 Angry Men was still there. Still angry, all 12 of 'em.

So what did I send back to Netflix if not 12 Angry Men? I opened my dvd cases frantically:

(Okay, that's technically a reenactment. I didn't really lay the open case upon my luxurious bedspread). But what was it, you ask? What treasure from my collection did I accidentally send to you, my fine friends at Netflix? Why, it was....

I believe this set Kory back a dollar at Target. But price doesn't matter. What matters is that is was a Christmas gift. (really). What matters is that Lyn was about to teach me how to pour water into a cup and make a ice cube magically appear. And, because I accidentally sent this back to you, Netflix, instead of 12 Angry Men, I'll never know.

So, Netflix, I'd appreciate it if you'd send Lyn and her amazing magic back to me. I just had a vision of all the Netflix employees magically making ice cubes appears out of nowhere and it made me sad because I'll never know how they did it.