Twisty

I have it on good authority that girls don't like nice guys. They like the rebels who are reckless and uncaring.

So today I left the twisty off the bread bag.



(Shamelessly adapted from the comic Pearls Before Swine.)

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Today I had a pizza With anchovies--little things with big noses.

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It's getting harder and harder for this AM radio nut to find a radio that does what I want it to do, hence my latest Frankensteinian creation:

Get off my Brokeback

Call me closed minded (or worse), but I just can't get myself to watch Brokeback Mountain. It's sitting right here because my sister wanted to see it. I wanted to see a movie tonight, but just couldn't watch this one.

First, it's a love story. I love a good love story, but only like one out of a hundred that Hollywood puts out.

Two, these dudes are cheating on their wives and I'm probably going to be expected by the film maker to feel some sort of sympathy for the nobility of these guys' struggle over whatever it is they're struggling over. Oh, poor babies, look what it's making them do! (I know, I'm just assuming here.)

Three, the gay thing. Actually, it's not such a big deal. You won't find me sporting a rainbow bumper sticker on my car, but neither will you find me refusing to watch a movie because it's got some things in there I don't particularly condone. The world's got things I don't agree with and I don't live in a bubble. Have you read any of Filthy's reviews (link at right)?! I don't particularly condone cursing, but the guy's reviews are right-on. (Ok, maybe the adolecent boy in me thinks he's funny.)

So did that just contradict what I said in reason two above? Ya, a bit. None of these reasons are determinative in themselves, but taken together, I'll pass on the movie unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Here's another contradiction for you. Sometimes I will get in a mood where I won't watch movies that have stuff in them I object to. When the world gets just a little too ugly for me I can't stomach willingly inviting more ugliness into my entertainment time. I'm not there right now.

I'll tell you what, though. The musical theme from Brokeback is beautiful. I've been playing around with it on the piano.

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Oh, and I found the rotten banana today. Um, that's a literal rotten banana for the figurative among you. It was in a cooler I forgot to empty.

Just another day bummin'

I went over to visit the mom and kid sister. The old lady was in a crummy mood so I says to the sister, “Say, let’s blow this joint! Go ask your mom so we can make like an egg and beat it.” “Where we goin’?” “Away. Somewhere. Don’t matter. I ain’t got a lot of cabbage on me kid; the pickin’s slim, but we’ll come up with somethin’.”

Cost of a hotdog and ice cream at Costco: $3. Cost of a pack of hotdogs: $0.99. We’re both being good little computer geeks right now, but a little later we’ll blaze up a bon fire and roast hot dog chunks over the fire. Sure beats hanging out with a grumpy mom and she gets to take a load off too.

Swell.

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I know Costco figures way too often in my little missives, but it’s just such a nifty place. Today’s people watching netted a team of three scammers working the crowds outside the hotdog concession. One was a dude in a wheelchair, the other was a lady with a Costco soda cup she picked out of the trash and the last was the funniest of all. Just imagine a cross between a scruffy homeless dude and an employee from Trader Joe’s. The guy was wearing a “boater” straw hat and a bright red Hawaiian shirt with white flowers on it. The best part was that it was held closed by just one button, strategically chosen so as to hide neither the oh-so-attractive nipplage nor the bulging belly button. Very suave.

Hey, maybe I can be a Trader Joe's employee for Hallowen. But with a twist, like maybe one sauced on Two Buck Chuck.

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On a tangentially related note (pun intended), one of the guys who does the Hollywood Outreach ministry (feed the homeless) asked me if I’d considered playing my sax and helping out with worship at the outreach place. I took a few instruments with me when we went camping for me and the kids to play with and I noodled around with him on guitar. That’s where the idea came from. I dunno. The idea’s fraught with concerns for me. Something to think about, though....

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Man, where's that rotten banana smell coming from?!

You're welcome, I guess

I’ve never been particularly gracious about receiving thanks or favors or accolades for helping others. Aside from the fact that I simply enjoy being helpful, it’s just part of my independent streak. But I’ve learned that, while it may seem gracious to refuse thanks or recompense, you often bless the person doing the thanking by allowing them to bless you in turn. Below is a neat example of this maxim at work and following it is an example of a situation I’m not sure how to handle:

A couple weeks ago I worked on the car of the daughter of one of the sisters at church. She compensated me for a part I bought, but tried to overpay me. I refused, but took her up on her offer to pay for my dinner at a get-together we were having the next day. So the next day we meet up at the restaurant and I happen to run into two old friends. I figure, hey, since she’s paying for my dinner I’ll just use the money I would have spent to do something nice for my friends. I surprise them by sending over the waitress with the message that their desert’s on me. So you see, one act of service—fixing the car—blessed me, the woman at church, her daughter and my two friends. Five for the price of one. How awesome is that?!

A similar situation occurred yesterday only the woman wrote me a check which I didn’t look at until later, only to discover she overpaid as a way of saying thanks. I appreciate the sentiment, but I feel awkward about taking money straight up because I fix cars as part of the Car Clinic at church—a ministry I do as a way of taking the skills I was blessed with and returning them in service to the Lord. I do appreciate the thanks, but the thanks should really be directed heavenward. If I could redo this whole thing I would have told her to keep the money and instead, if she really wanted to do something for me, she should pray about what she might do. I know it’s our gut reaction to thank folks with money, but that’s our reaction; the Lord may have had something else in mind entirely and maybe it didn’t even involve me.

So I’m debating whether to cash the check, return her the difference and tell her what I wrote about in the preceding paragraph.

El Capitán State Beach

I’ve done a bit of backpacking, the most arduous and rewarding of which was a three day hike at the Grand Canyon. We slept on a rock slab in the rain without a tent. Good stuff!

Then one day a cousin invites me to go “camping.” It was as if those guys picked up the garage and shook out its entire contents over the bed of their truck. They may as well have never left home with all the stuff they brought. The next three days were some of the most boring I’ve ever had, watching them watch television and play board games. I can only take so much Monopoly and I don’t watch television at all.

So I was a little leery of going camping with the singles group at my church, but being as this last year I’ve committed to doing all sorts of things I wouldn’t normally choose to do, I packed up my $9 Walmart kiddie tent and military backpack and headed off to meet my destiny. I even declined to drive my own car up there lest I should be tempted to skip out early.

I spent all of five minutes setting up camp and the rest of the day helping everyone else. This may sound like a complaint, but you know, it turns out that’s the niche God had me fill that weekend. I pitched tents and manned the barbeque—and loved it! I also played with the kids in the water and got to run along a desolate beach in the mornings.

Some of the funnier moments included overhearing the ladies laughing about the smallest tent there (like maybe 3ft by 5ft), “I almost stepped on it!” They figured it was one of the kid’s, but were totally embarrassed when I told them it was mine. You see, some folks came with palatial tents, but mine was the most practical. Not only was it small and light, but it keeps the heat in because it’s tiny and I don’t have to share with anyone.

Another funny moment came when I tripped over the firewood, losing my freshly roasted marshmallow in the process. One of the ladies seemed quite concerned until I pointed out where the marshmallow had gone—melted goo all over her jeans. Serves her right for laughing at my humble lodgings!

So my four day camping trip was a success. Goes to show you what good people and a receptive attitude will do. Oh, and I only got through the first four pages of Bleak House (Charles Dickens) and to tell the truth, it would have been a shame had I had time to finish more.

Twelve year reunion

The ol’ high school reunion was a couple years ago, but I was in Boston at the time and couldn’t get out here for it. Most of the people I would have cared to see wouldn’t attend, but then I didn’t imagine I’d ever want to go either.

So a couple weeks ago we made up for lost opportunities. I put together a barbeque replete with a fire ring in the back yard. I think about thirty people showed up, many of whom hadn’t seen each other in a dozen years--basically all the people who wouldn’t have been caught dead at the ten year reunion. It was an absolute blast and we had a wonderful time. The plentiful beer didn’t hurt either. But really, any time I get to make fire is a good time!

Most of us won’t remember a tenth year reunion, but maybe a few of us will remember our twelfth. Life is good.

(I took the liberty of posting your mugs. If any of you object please let me know.)

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My pirate costume got quite a bit of attention a few weeks ago and last year’s Halloween costume was a crowd pleaser (jeans and a long sleeve flannel shirt with a real, large, bloody cow bone sticking out of one of the sleeves in a sling while my arm was tucked and hidden inside my shirt). So now I have a reputation to hold up and I’m on the hook for another killer Halloween outfit this year. I’m out of ideas though. So far I’m thinking of maybe donning a pair of speedos and a “bald cap” then using florescent orange body paint to cover myself completely. I’ll add to this maybe some sort of portable black light and contrasting contact lenses (bright blue?) and I’ll call myself Orange Man. Totally pointless, semi-nude, attention grabbing…. Or maybe I’ll just do something else entirely.

A marriage of three

(A friend's getting married so this stuff's just on my mind lately.)

A marriage of three. That’s the kind of kink I not-so-secretly yearn for. I’m a romantic at heart so let me explain by way of a saccharine metaphor that occurred to me the other day.

Who hasn’t been separated from their loved one by oceans or mountains, literal or figurative? I was about eight or nine years old, it was the end of the school year and the love of my prepubescent life was moving away at the end of the summer. Once the last bell on the last day of the last year of elementary school rang we would never see each other again and there was nothing we could do about it. It was inexorable like the oft dramatized parting of lovers at the train station—no amount of running along the loading platform with outstretched hands and arms will keep that monster of cold iron and fire from tearing your lover from you. We had to do something. Back then kids still rode their bikes around the neighborhood and every Saturday morning two kids convinced their respective parents to let them take a ride to the park on their own, a girl on a maroon ten speed bike and a boy on a purple BMX with white mag wheels.

The summer came to an end and the train left the station. I never saw her again. A kid’s heart is no less tender for its naiveté and I pined for her. I had no idea where she’d moved to or where she was. She was just out there somewhere. Nights had me staring out the window at the moon and the stars. Our situation seemed hopeless in every way—I didn’t know where she was and I had no means of contacting her—yet there was always the hope that she might be staring at the same moon at the same moment and feeling the same longing. No matter what, we had that in common. Sappy, but true. And so, I suppose all lovers, whatever distance separates them, can stare at the moon and know it is the same big ball of cheese (much like this whole story!) that their lover gazes at too.

But sometimes it isn’t trains that tears lovers from one another. We can pick up a phone or book a flight on Joe’s Discount Airline, but the chasms opened by betrayal, distrust and disappointment are not so easily traversed. That is the stuff that breaks marriages, families and lives. It’s exactly for that reason that I want a marriage of three so that, like the moon for forlorn lovers, we may have a foundational rock we both cling to no matter what shakes our marriage. The moon, though, is a mere dumb rock, probably more valuable were it made of cheese than it is as a silly symbol! The rock I want to build my marriage on is Jesus. Separately and before we are married we must both believe that he is Lord—of everything, including our hearts. I know that I could go out tomorrow and start a relationship with this or that woman and I could probably talk an engagement ring on to her hand eventually, but because I strive to make Jesus Lord of my heart I’m waiting for the one he’s already chosen for me. That way, when we are separated by oceans and mountains, literal and figurative, we may stand strong and believe that our marriage was ordained by God and he will be faithful to preserve it. How, then, can man put asunder what God has joined together?

Epilogue:
What happened to that little girl I mentioned earlier? I looked her up many years later. She became a beautiful and intelligent woman, a scientist who studies the very moon and the stars I used to stare up at. *sigh* It might have been a storybook ending, but I’m afraid the story goes no further. Though she hadn’t changed her name, she was newly married when we wrote one another.

The world needs Dilberts

I've always found something funny about those jobs that require folks to apply some serious analysis to a trivial, little thought of, or funny object. Consider the following example.

If you think about it, the government must purchase tons of toilet paper in order to keep the public restrooms in our government buildings supplied. Can the state of New Jersey just pick up a catalog and say "“Gimme 10,000 rolls of that one"”? No, it falls on the head of some nameless bureaucrat or Dilbert-type engineer to write a specification for the toilet paper for the State of New Jersey. Some choice exerpts:

3.1.1 MATERIAL
Toilet tissue paper shall be unglazed, soft, and flexible, of even formation, and relatively free from visible wood slivers, shives, specks, holes, wrinkles or other imperfections....

3.1.2 PERFORATED ROLL SIZE
The rolls shall be 4 1/2 inches wide (+ or - 1/8"). The paper shall be perforated at 4 1/2 inch intervals (+ or - /8"). The sheets shall be easily detachable at the perforation. Each roll shall contain 1000 sheets, (Single-ply).

3.1.4 SOFTNESS
The tissue shall show maximum reading of 12" x 12" in either direction as determined by the handle-o-meter method.

Oh, and the handle-o-meter is a machine, pictured above, that measures a combination of surface friction and flexibilityity: "The test sample is placed over an adjustable slot. The resistance encountered by the penetrator blade as it is moved into the slot by a pivoting arm is measured."

More fun toilet paper facts and stories here.