A familiar face

"Familiarity breeds contempt."
--Aesop

Since I've come out of the closet about repeating myself, I am going to blatantly regurgitate another post I wrote back in September 2004 called Friends (not the series). Essentially the post was about the phenomenon I have been puzzled about for some time -- why people come into your life and then leave, particularly friends. The post was prompted by a good friend of mine named Michael who disappeared out of my life.

I suppose most people won't want to read the original post (it's pretty long), but the last three paragraphs sum it up pretty well:

"It taught me something about friends and especially best friends: like everything else in life, they are temporary. When you are in grade school, you think you will have your best friends for life. But life happens. You get a girlfriend, a new job, go away to college, get another new job. You make friends with the people in your classes. But you graduate. You make friends with the people you work with. But theyget other jobs or you get other jobs. "Stay in touch, OK," you say. But in this age of e-mail and cell phones no one stays in touch. The big gap between old friends is not distance, but time. Sometimes too much has happened in our lives to effectively catch up on with old friends.

But the hardest part for me is that people drift out of my life and in many cases I don't know why. When you end a romantic relationship, there is more often than not closure of some kind. But with platonic friends, I've found there isn't any definite closure. Even when I attempt to reestablish contact with people I was close to in the past, it has always been temporary. Time is a river endlessly drifting forward and our memories are washed up on the banks.

So Michael J, Gary, Holly, Janelle, Nellie, Dave, Robert, Shan, Tim W, and Irene, if you are out there, Tim says hi and hopes life is treating you well!"

Those paragraphs still ring true to me. And since blogging has turned friendship into a virtual experience in real time, I have been thinking about how my theory can be applied to the phenomenon of why people pop into your circle of blog friends and then just as quickly pop out. The epiphany came to me this morning while I was cooking my daughter breakfast -- people stop reading other people's blogs because they become too familiar.

It is not an accident that I write this post on the tail of being called out as egotistical and my own realization that I repeat myself incessantly. Just as familiarity breeds contempt in the real world, familiarity breeds contempt in the blog world. People simply get sick of reading the same crap over and over. And the quirks that made you charming in the beginning become annoying over time (sometimes not that much time either).

Any ongoing relationship is going to have times where the people just get sick of rehashing of the same old, same old (kind of like I'm doing now). So they click in, skim over the latest post and then click away, rolling their eyes. Then they stop clicking in. And you are left wondering, "What did I say that offended so-and-so?" But it wasn't anything in particular. It was just the bugaboo of familiarity rearing it's boring old head.

Occasionally, just as in the real world, old friends do a drive by and try to recapture the good ol' times. But also like the real world, too many posts have gone by to catch up effectively and everyone smiles their fake smile, apologizes for not staying in touch and then promises to not let it happen again. And just like the real world, everyone breathes a sigh of relief and goes about their business until someone feels a pang of guilt about not staying in touch and the dance of stale friendships begins anew.

Oh well, goodbye for now. Stay in touch, okay?

Getting your attention

I suppose I could just whisper, but blogging seems to be my method of choice to get attention. Not that it works. I'm approaching my four-year blog anniversary and I still only attract a few loyal blog friends and the random Google-er looking for porn and home repair tips.

I suppose if I chose one topic and stuck with it consistently for a few years, I'd have better luck. As it is, I seem to be a broken record about the lack of blog traffic. So perhaps I should just make that my blog niche. Trouble is, I'd have to compete with about 14 million other blog whiners wondering why no one reads their stuff.

I am amazed at all of the sites out there now dedicated to herding bloggers together and trying to get them to read each other's blogs so they'll at least have the appearance of being read. I was sucked in by a place called blogged.com where near as I can figure you register and then wait for other bloggers to rate your site. Since no one was jumping to rate my site, the editor(s) of blogged.com rated mine to get the ball rolling. I got a "very good" which makes me feel like the guy with an IQ of 139 when you need to be 140 to be considered a genius (and yes I am aware I've used this analogy before...I'm repeating it on purpose).

The odd thing about sites like blogged.com is that they don't really explain very well how they work and what their purpose is. I have a hunch it has something to do with following the Google model and try to get as many sites feeding into theirs to sell advertising. I think it is an Internet Amway. And this big fish has a hook right there in his mouth.

But I digress.

I've given up telling myself I blog for myself. Or at least I've given up the idea that I blog without caring whether or not people read it. I do blog for myself. It has an addictive quality that you can't quite describe to non-bloggers. It's kind of like Tom Cruise not being able to explain to any one's satisfaction why he is a Scientologist. But then again he has enough money that he really doesn't have to explain any of his quirks now does he?

But there I go digressing again.

This is why I can't really pick one blog theme and stick to it very long. I have a tendency to follow my firing synapses down many a long and winding road leaving many of you (and I use the term "many of you" while claiming literary license to lie) wondering if there is a caboose to this train of thought.

Well no. I just kind of like to blather on. But it did fill up another blog post nicely as I inch my way towards my one thousandth blog. I'd bid you adieu, but I'd probably be outbid.

Blending in

"When Picasso was asked to design camouflage uniforms for Spain's paratroopers, he said, 'Dress them like harlequins.'"

"Nothing makes us blend in like standing out."
--Tim Id

I suppose that standing out to blend in is true in a very esoteric sense. People tend to overlook the obvious. If a thief breaks a back window and sneaks in a house, he is more likely to be noticed by the neighbors than if he simply walks in the front door and walks out with a big screen television.

It is a paradox. People who go out of their way to be different are more likely than not going to be ignored. There is a neighborhood of Seattle called Capitol Hill. It's like San Francisco's Castro District in that it has a reputation of being alternative, fringe, hip, gay, trendy. What's that old joke -- Halloween is redundant in San Francisco. Well, that's true for Capitol Hill. You can walk down the street there and see hordes of people dressed in all manner of uniforms of the counter culture. And after awhile they blend into the scenary

My point is that if something is so out of place and absurd, your brain can gloss over it. This is why naked people streaking through a crowded downtown street in a major city sometimes barely get noticed (not that I speak from experience).

I'm not even sure it is possible to be unique and stand out anyway. Mass media makes sheep of the populace. Obama and his wife are filmed doing a fist bump and now it is politically cool to fist bump. And Obama and his wife are not the first people to do a fist bump. It is just that our entertainment based journalists today are adept at making anything a trend no matter how mundane.

Not sure that how that fits with my theory of blending in, but it was annoying me so I had to belch it out.

Oh well, I'm going off to try and find a different drum beat to march to before someone else beats me to it.

Repeat after me

As I wade through my archives I've discovered a disturbing trend in my blog posts. I repeat myself more than I was consciously aware of.

This annoys me. Because I get impatient when someone tells me the same story more than once or repeats a joke they told me a few weeks ago. I'm ashamed to say I get irritated talking to me 83-year old mother and she repeats something she has told me several times (i.e. my birth was unplanned and she had really hoped for a girl). And I apologize if you've heard me harp on that before.

See what I mean.

Oh I suppose it doesn't really matter since very few people have probably read most of my posts and realize that I do have a tendency to repeat myself. But it annoys me.

Part of it is my journalism training. You write a story and repeat facts with the assumption that no one reading the story would know those facts regardless of how long the story has been in the headlines. It helps establish continuity. It's a very linear form of storytelling. It allows the reader to resestablish how you got to where you are today by recounting the facts (repetive or not) of what happened yesterday.

I'm rationalizing why I repeat myself. Sometimes I just repeat myself because I forget I've written the same thing before. Sometimes I repeat myself because it is comfortable and familar. Sometimes I just repeat myself.

Sometimes I just repeat myself.

As I wade through my archives I've discovered a disturbing trend in my blog posts. I repeat myself more than I was consciously aware of.

This annoys me. Because I get impatient when someone tells me the same story more than once or repeats a joke they told me a view weeks ago. I'm ashamed to say I get irritated talking to me 83-year old mother and she repeats something she has told me several times (i.e. my birth was unplanned and she had really hoped for a girl). And I apologize if you've heard me harp on that before.

See what I mean.

Oh I suppose it doesn't really matter since very few people have probably read most of my posts and realize that I do have a tendency to repeat myself. But it annoys me.

Part of it is my journalism training. You write a story and repeat facts with the assumption that no one reading the story would know those facts regardless of how long the story has been in the headlines. It helps establish continuity. It's a very linear form of storytelling. It allows the reader to resestablish how you got to where you are today by recounting the facts (repetive or not) of what happened yesterday.

I'm rationalizing why I repeat myself. Sometimes I just repeat myself because I forget I've written the same thing before. Sometimes I repeat myself because it is comfortable and familar. Sometimes I just repeat myself.

Something about what I just wrote sounds vaguely familar to me.

Sometimes I just repeat myself.

Wait a second? Isn't this just karma?

Sometimes you have to flush more than once

Okay,I'm not one of those bloggers who likes to republish "best of" blog posts. After all, who am I to say any of the crap I write is the best of anything. But speaking of crap, while I was sifting through archives restoring photos, I ran across a little gem of a post that didn't get a single comment. It was called, A rose by any other name. It tells you just about everything you wanted to know about Thomas Crapper, the man credited for inventing the flush toilet. Turns out he didn't but he was pretty much the patron saint of plumbers.

Anyway, the post includes an original poem I wrote about Thomas Crapper. I think it is pretty good (if I do say so my egotistical self). So I am reprinting it here because I'm sure it is an oversight that no one appreciated it the first time.

ODE TO THOMAS CRAPPER

If I was Thomas Crapper, I'd probably come in a plain brown wrapper,
Because who would want to go through life, being referred to as a Crapper?
He didn't invent the toilet, after all,
But who'd want to be thought of every time nature calls?

Every king has his throne, and Thomas Crapper built his own,
It wasn't very plush, but you could count on it to flush.
He was a plumber to the crown, so why do people put him down?
If he didn't install the royal Loo, the palace would be in deep doo-doo.

If you give it a lot of thought,
at least Thomas decided to shit and get off the pot.
So here's to Thomas Crapper,
If he'd been born today, he' d be a Rapper.

This poem may make you yawn,
But what do you expect from verse that's about a John?

The End (get it?)

I'm just flushed with pride.

Face the music

I think this is the first image I posted of my face Photoshopped on something other than my own body. It was April of 2005.

I've been slowly restoring all of my archived blog posts. I had to move the images off from my Internet provider's server because they were threatening to charge me for the excess storage. Blogger provides an amazing amount of free space. But the downside was I had to manually repost all of the images. I just finished through 2006 and now am working on 2005.

I've posted way too many images.

But it has been fun going through old posts. It is a way to mark the milestones of my life. Blogging is my memory. The older I get, the more important that is. Some day my children will be able to read them and find out more about their father than I ever knew about mine. I think that is a good thing. I would have loved to know my father better.

I'm not sure how they'll take my face Photoshopped on Queen Victoria's body. But I suppose they'll be used to my sense of humor by the time I let them read my blog.

Just a blog

Game? This wasn't meant to be a game. NEVER.
--Rusty, Team Executive, Rollerball (1975)

Blog? This wasn't meant to be a blog. NEVER.
--Tim Id

It is easy for someone who doesn't blog to marginalize the importance of a blog. I sense more often then not, those who blog don't think they are just blogs. They can be many different things: therapy, a pressure valve, a sanctuary or just a record that we existed.

There I go again, worrying about my existence versus accepting that I exist and trying to make the best of it. Except, I believe that understanding ourselves helps us understand others. Understanding yourself can help you be a better self and better able to help others.

But this could all just be a rationalization for being egotistical. It is pointless anyway. You can't change a person's mind if they truly believe something. You can only sway someone who is unsure of their position. It is why people have such polarized belief systems. They are generally stuck in black or white. And believing only in black or white, they can only hear black or white point of views that support their own. Every thing else is strange.

But then again, this is just a blog.

Tim Id's Ego

"I think you're all quite strange and egocentric."
--Anonymous comment on Blue in the face

I hate anonymous comments. Let me rephrase that. I hate anonymous negative comments. It's like someone going by with a can of spray paint and tagging your house in the dead of night. You'd like to catch the graffiti artist in the act and tag their ass. Generally the best you can do is clean up the crap.

I don't really mind being called strange. And I can't escape the fact that posting hundreds of photos of your own face (regardless of whether they are pasted on head cheese or whale puke) is a bit self-absorbed. I can accept that. But the anonymous commenter had to come back and explain their anonymous graffiti with the pseudo intellectual babble of a precocious sophomore writing an essay about the evils of obsessive self reflection.

I was chastised that "there are just more important things in life than 'who I am' as opposed to where do I find myself in the grand scheme of things and how can I best benefit my fellow man?"
I shouldn't assume that wondering who we are is "intellectually scintillating."

This is my blog. It is supposed to be about self-reflection or being self absorbed if you prefer. I don't give a rip if it is scintillating. How you could best benefit fellow man is not spewing anonymous comments.

I'm reminded of this kid in my grade school named Craig. Craig was just too intellectual for his own good. He couldn't keep his mouth shut and was always saying things with a vocabulary beyond his classmates. Plus he carried a briefcase around in 5th grade. This was Idaho, mind you. He might as well have just painted a big kick me sign on his back.

Point is that Craig may have been intellectually smart, but he was socially and emotionally a cretin. Even the dweeb kids wanted to kick his ass. I, a relative weenie, wanted to kick his ass. More than once I held him down and shoved grass down his shirt (he claimed to be allergic) while he screamed, "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." Unlike most of the other 10 year olds, I knew what he meant. It just made me want to shove more grass down his shirt and watch him swell up.

So anonymous, don't barge into some one's blog and quote Descartes in French. Jesus it make me want to shove grass down your shirt and watch you break out.

Blue in the face

I wonder if any of you would actually recognize me if you saw me in real life outside of my blog. I don't think my face is really very distinctive when it isn't grafted onto a black bear or the Pope. I am one of the people who tend to blend into the scenary and become invisible.

Not that I know what makes a face distinctive other than what the media dictates to us should be distinctive. I suppose a face becomes distinctive once you've seen it many times. Or at least familar. So I suppose my face is distinctive to some.

But still would you recognize me? And if you did, would I be what you expected? Would I match my blog?

When I was in college, I wrote a humor column for the college newspaper -- Healyums (I didn't choose the name, the A&E editor did). Every week at least 4,000 copies of my column were read religiously (it was a Catholic university). On the first day of a Philosophy class I was required to take, the professor was reading the class roster. On hearing my name, a young lady in front of me turned around and asked, "Are you the guy who writes that humor column in the school paper?" I said, yes. She responded, "You don't look funny."

One could take that in many ways. But I think she really just thought I didn't look like person who could was humorous. I suppose that is okay because everyone thinks Bill Cosby and Jerry Lewis look funny, but I understand that in real life they are assholes.

So maybe I look like an asshole, but I'm really funny. Or maybe I'm both.

I guess you can't judge a blogger by his cover.

Oh, I'm not really blue, either.

The bearable likeness of being

I'm going to ask you to bear with me now as I launch off on another series of me Photoshopping my face on things. It amuses me if no one else. Actually my 19-month old daughter seems to be getting a kick out of it. Every now and then she toddles by, points at the screen and says, "Da Da!" I love how she just accepts it as me and doesn't judge.

We all could learn a lot from toddlers. Well, except for attention spans. They pretty much don't have any. But that does make them a perfect focus group for what works on the Web.

But I digress.

I think if there was a Guinness record for Photoshopping your face on things I'd have it hands down. I pretty much will try to Photoshop my face on anything. I am willing to bet I am the only one who has ever Photoshopped their face on whale vomit. There is a certain distinction in that. The only thing that has really stumped me so far is trying to Photoshop my face on an elephant. Some day I'll figure that out, too.

I don't apologize for grafting my face to things. It is a harmless diversion. Though one person did get pretty ticked off when I put my face on a Picasso painting. They seemed to think I was defacing fine art. I actually thought I was making them my own. Regardless, I didn't feel bad that the person was offended. I was more offended that they were offended. I was nice about it at the time. I shrugged when I really wanted to flip them the virtual finger and tell them to go darken the towels at someone else's blog.

That person eventually stopped dropping by anyway. Most people do. I suppose there is only so much interest anyone can have in a blog essentially dedicated to Photoshopping the blogger's face on things. Though I like to think I slip in a little philosophy and off color humor in there now and then to spice things up.

Wait, I just told my daughter to take the Swiffer Dust Wand she is running around with and dust the cat. I want to see how it plays out. Just a second. I'll be right back.

Okay, that wasn't quite the good idea I thought it was. Oh well, we have other cats. Anyway, as I was saying, it is hard to maintain a high interest level on any blog unless you mix things up now and then. That's why I go back and forth between nasty rants, heart tugging reminiscences about my childhood and just plain old brain farts. Rest assured that the one thing that remains consistent about my blog is my face. Somethings may not be pretty but they bear repeating.

Making a Pope out of myself

This photo is not unlike my previous photo. For some reason I am reminded of the Coneheads. I have to admit the coolest thing about being the Pope would be to wear all of those funky hats.

But back to making myself the Pope. This is not something I would be allowed to do if I was paid to create this crap. Everyone I worked for would panic thinking somehow they'd be blamed for Tim being too colorful. That could lead to lawsuits and firings. The Vatican has a bigger legal department than Elvis Presley Enterprises. So at some level my judgement would be overturned by some one's act of self preservation and I'd be forced to post a photo of me as a bunny or something less controversial.

Which is just one more reason I'm glad I'm not wildly popular. Even if you are just standing on a dung heap, someone is bound to be pissed because you have a better view of the swamp.

Note to self: Start keeping a list of your original colloquialisms for submission to a publisher. Perhaps working title should be the Idiot's Guide to Colloquialisms.

Note to self: I can't believe I spelled colloquialism correctly without running a spell check.

Back to talking to you (whoever you are):

It is not that I don't have limits. Even I think some things are beyond good taste. I can't think of one right off the top of my head, but I'm sure I'd know it if I said or did it. I happen to think most of what Howard Stern (the radio shock jock not Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer) says and does is in remarkably bad taste. Degrading people isn't funny, it just illustrates you have pretty low self-esteem. Personally I've always thought Howard Stern looks like a drag queen doing a bad impersonation of Cher.

I suppose there is a fine line between making fun of someone and pointing out the obvious. George W. Bush is a perfect example. Even late night talk show hosts have given up trying to make fun of him. It's like pointing out the village idiot every day. It may be funny the first time, but then it is just sad.

But generally I've found, you can find offense in anything if you look hard enough. Any presidential candidate can tell you that. If people spent as much time looking for good in things as they do for reasons to feel offended, everyone would be happy.

If I really was the Pope I'd issue one of those Holy Writs (or whatever they call them) making it so.

Note to self: Holy Grits would be one hell of a name for a breakfast cereal in the Bible Belt. Maybe the Pope would endorse it. If not I could. "Holy Grits make for one hell of a breakfast" or "Holy Grits fortify the spirit and the bowels" or "Holy Grits: Moral fiber for your next religious movement."

Note to self: I think I've discovered another one of my limits of good taste.

Making an ass out of myself

Speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Colorful character

I often wonder what people think about me. I imagine more often than not, they don't. But please shoot me if anyone ever starts referring to me as a "colorful character." It's right up there with being referred to as a "delightful old codger."

Oh, I think it is okay to have a colorful character, you just don't want to be a colorful character, especially if you are middle aged.

I actually think I was more of a colorful character when I was a young man. I remember going to a company Christmas party dressed in black jeans, a white double breasted tux jacket, a black turtleneck with a native American choker and black boots. I also had a ponytail and an earring. Our finance director introduced me to his wife as "our resident Bohemian." I have to admit I did fancy myself as part of the artist fringe crowd. Now I would have just called myself a poser.

I've mellowed quite a bit in my old age. I don't regret losing the ponytail, though. There isn't a middle aged man in the world who looks good in a ponytail. Or an earring. Life after 4o for men is pretty much Tommy Bahama, Dockers, t-shirts and sweats. I am grateful that leisure suits peaked when I was in my 20s.

Perhaps I should design a fashion line for middle aged men. Every thing would be in black gray or dark blue. It would have to include fashionable slacks cut full and discretely expandable at the waist. Shirts would all be untucked and oversized to mask the belly. The collar would somehow lift and pull back the double chin. I'd market it as the Fountain of Youth line. It would make you look 20 years younger. I'd open up shops in malls. Maybe I'd call them Methusala's Closet or Wrinkle in Time. I'd make it hip to be old.

Sometimes I amaze myself.

Recline of civilization

"I sit therefore, I am."
--Tim Id

Everyone should have a chair. More precisely, everyone should have a chair that is pretty much their chair and not subject to free range sitting.

Mine is a leather easy chair with a matching ottoman. Before I was married, my chair was a faux leather recliner. Before that it was a thrift store orange velour recliner that had a tendency to lose parts when you reclined.

I'd say my butt has come up in the world.

My father never really had a chair. He had one end of a sofa. It wasn't even strategically positioned to have the best view of the television. He liked sitting on the sofa, though. He used it to spread out his maps, treasure magazines, books and notebooks that he used to take notes about the lost treasures he hoped to one day find.

He never did. So he might as well have had an easy chair and enjoyed his leisure time in comfort.

My easy chair is positioned in the best position to watch our big screen television and the optimal position to appreciate the surround sound. It is also a great place to sit with my laptop and peck out blog posts when nothing worth watching is on the big screen television (or sometimes when something worth watching is on television).

Actually I'm watching the season finale of Desperate Housewives right now. I'm not sure whether I classify it as worthwhile or not. And did you hear they cancelled Men in Trees? I'm telling you, it was the writer's strike that ruined television as we know it. And now we're heading into the summer with nothing but America's Got Talent, Last Comic Standing and a Nashville version of American Idol hosted by Billy Ray Cyrus.

But I digress.

With television sucking the way it has of late, I may resort to using my favorite chair for...gasp...reading a book.

Timwulf

Every now and then I feel a surge of testosterone and get the urge to watch films that appeal to the warrior guy in me. Braveheart was one of those films and 300 (the film about the 300 Spartan warriors) was another. Pop those puppies in the DVD player and you immerse yourself in some good old fashion sword slashing mayhem. I say, "hoo yah."

So when I saw the film Beowulf was available on Netflix, I slapped it into my list thinking I was in for a macho treat of blood and guts in the Braveheart tradition. Okay, there was plenty of blood and guts, but Beowulf is really nothing more than a computer-generated comic book.

Bummer.

The film had some well know stars like Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. You can recognize them in their CGI (or whatever technology it is) doppelgangers, but they are freakish in the same way the characters in Tom Hanks Polar Express were. They are lifelike in a not lifelike kind of way. These characters were like Shrek on steroids.

I watched this film in the same way you'd watch a train wreck. And then I watched the Making of Beowulf segment in the DVD's special features section. And I discovered the really disturbing part of the film. The actor who plays the megabuff Beowulf --Ray Winstone -- is a middle aged man with a major pot belly.

Okay, on one level this gives hope to the rest of us middle aged dudes with pot belly's who want to be buff heroes without working out. But on another level it creeps me out royal. This Beowulf spends half of the movie prancing around nude with his tally whacker hanging in the wind and having sex with Angelina Jolie. It was kind of okay when he was a mythic hero with major abs. But to find out he really is just a blob with more chins than Jabba the Hut is kind of like pulling the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz.

Okay and don't get me started on the guy who played Grendel the monster Beowulf slays. It's Krispin Glover (Marty McFly's father in Back to the Future). Grendel looks kind of like a cross between a zombie Popeye and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Freaky as the monster is, it is still less freaky than Krispin Glover in real life. Nuff said.

Oh well, I suppose this was pretty cool technology, but I don't really get the point of having real actors doing all the work only to turn them into moving mannequins with spooky eyes. I can see computer generating monsters and mythical sets, but why real people when you have them right there creating the scenes?

Though it would be sweet to have a six pack belly, major bicepts and being able to slay a dragon without having to do a single sit up. I guess I'll just have to settle for my own Photoshopped world.

Getting along famously

With the plethora of programs like American Idol, Survivor, Last Comic Standing, America's Got Talent, etc, it dawned on me that there will probably come a point when everyone in America is famous. Then what we will we do? What's the point of being famous if everyone else is, too? Who is going to take your photo, ask for your autograph or stalk you?

Perhaps we need to start developing reality programs that promote obscurity. How about Who wants to be mediocre?, Biggest Loser (literally), America's biggest victim, or Who can't can't dance, sing or tell jokes?

Just a thought.

Butt, who nose

I am well aware that many of my posts tend to be on the negative side. But let's face it, negative stuff is much more funny than the positive stuff as long as it doesn't get too mean spirited. Okay, sometimes even the mean spirited stuff is funny, too.

Other than calling Gary Busey a whack job and occasional jabs at George W. , I try to confine my insults to categories of people and things and not personalize it too much. And I try to balance things out a bit by beating up myself.

But enough apologizing. I get sick of apologizing for potentially offending someone. Perhaps it is a side effect from living in Seattle. This land of political correctness has so many special interest groups that you can't swing a dead cat without offending someone. Now I've probably offended PETA, cat owners, vetrinarians, and swing dancers.

Jesus Christ on a crutch. Now I've offended Christians and people with disabilities. Sometimes I think if I haven't offended someone, I'm doing something wrong.

Obviously I struggle a bit with this issue. Because part of me has always wanted to be liked. But you can't always be liked, especially when you point peoples foibles. Fortunately nine times out of ten, most people with foibles don't know what the word means.

Insults just come naturally to me. Ironically, more often than not, I insult people I like. It's kind of my way of letting people know I like them without actually revealing I do.

Wow, that sounds pretty messed up. And I called Gary Busey a whack job. Maybe it's my dogs who have treed the invisible raccoon in the wrong tree.

But, who knows?

Too loose law trek

I have never been real good with other languages, including English. I took two years of German in high school and a semester in college. If I am ever in German speaking country I am confident I can find the library as long as it is "um die Ecke" (around the corner). Unfortunately, once I am there, I will be unable to read a single book.

Spanish would have been a much more useful language for me considering all the time I've spent in Spanish speaking countries (including Texas). And I love the way Spanish sounds. German always sounds as if you are shouting while gargling. Spanish sounds like poetry...very fast poetry, but poetry nevertheless.

Don't get me started on French. French is incomprehensible and unpronouncible. Plus it reeks of arrogance and assholes. And I say that with the utmost respect.

English is blah. Americans got the short end of the stick when they got stuck with English by default of colonization. It is not an exciting language. Perhaps that is why we mumble so much.

Though I don't believe many Americans speak English English. We pepper it with slang and accents that identify what part of the United States we hail from and what our economic status is. If someone uses the phrase, "Wellll, sheeeeIt" alot you can bet they are from Texas.

Of all of the American accents, I think New York accents are the worst. Even hello sounds like "fuck you" coming from a New Yorker.

I'm not sure what kind of accent I have. It meanders through the English language with educated white trash overtones that defy geographic pigeonholing. Idaho has no accent it calls its own. Most western states don't. Our accents are the eroded ones from our east coast and southern ancestors migrating towards the west. Half the time I think we just mimic sounds we hear on television.

So I suppose it is a good thing this is a written blog and not an oral one.

ShheeeeIt, yes.

Stop making sense

I was always a good headline writer. It's an art few outside the journalism realm appreciate. Because you don't catch a fish with the pole, you catch it with the hook. And a good headline hooks a reader into a story.

Or not.

Headline writers are notorious punsters. And not everyone appreciates (or gets) a pun.

It was my ability to write headlines that drew me to advertising and eventually marketing. Because I think good advertising is headline writing on steroids. Think about it. A good copywriter has 60 seconds, a sentence or one quarter page to attract you, reel you in and stun you with a fish whacker. It's like writing the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin.

Think of the ads that endure and how deceptively simple they are: Got Milk? The Real Thing. Just Do It! Be all that you can be! Where's the beef? Who made the salad? Have it your way! My weiner has a first name...You are in good hands...King of Beers...How do you handle a hungry man? Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

Obviously I am a child of television.

My days as a headline writer and copywriter are pretty much over these days. I am what they refer to as a "client side" advertising manager. I pay other people to be clever and sit back and bite my tongue to avoid blurting out puns and clever sayings to the ad agency people who work for me. Because there is nothing more annoying to a copywriter than for someone else to give them suggestions. So I just smile and nod at the clever things I'm presented.

Sometimes I wish I was just a copywriter again. It didn't pay squat, but it was sure fun.

Oh well, my 60 seconds are up.

Blogging: So easy a caveman could do it

Technically, I suppose it should be that blogging is so easy that even a Neanderthal could do it since caveman is pretty much a generic term and lumps all prehistoric or early man in one big primeval ignorant stereotypical ooze. Regardless, the point is that it is so easy to blog that just about anyone does. Blogging turns writing in to one big paint-by-numbers kit for non-writers.

Okay, it's nice to have a hobby. But do we really need to cast Aunt May's paint-by-number masterpieces into cyberspace to float around in the ether when they should be in a trunk in the attic?

The problem with millions of people blogging is that we are numbing the judgement receptors that normally would allow people to tell "shit from Shinola." If Shakespeare was alive today and blogging, I imagine he would be struggling for hits and comments on Hamlet while some some illiterate S&M goat lover in the hinterlands amasses a small but significant following.

Such is blogging. It trades art for memes and nearly naked Thursdays.

But what should we expect from a country that thrives on reality television and celebrity fuck ups.

Og's head hurt. Must stop now.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

Today I blah, blah, buh blah blah blah. Then I blah, buh bah, blah blah blahed. It's not that I blah, blah blah. It's just that I blah, blah blah.

But I blah.

Blah, buh blahed, last night. The blah is still blahing the same old blah. It's as if I never blahed the blah blah. Then I stopped by blah. Same blah.

Why does everyone blah the blah blah? They blah blah blah and blah blah blah. I blah, they say, blah and blah. But they never really blah.

I refuse to blah, blah blah the same old blah, blah, blah. "Blah you, you bloaher," I say.

Sorry for the blah, blah, blah. It's just that blah blah blah really gets me blah.

That's blahging for you.

Is this thing on?

"A horse walks into a blog, the blogger asks him, 'Why the long face?'"

I love that joke. Maybe that is part of the problem. I see humor in the oddest things.

This blog for example. It cracks me up. And I don't say that in a conceited way. Because I pretty much think I'm in the minority here.

It occurs to me that blogging is a bit like talking to yourself out loud...alot.

I was coming out of the train station Monday morning on my way to work and while waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change (we wait for lights in Seattle) a street crazy struts up in a tank top carrying a large plastic bag and starts shrieking obcenities at the commuters. It was a racially themed tirade with political thread. It occurred to me that if the guy hadn't been a homeless raving lunatic, he would have made a great blogger.

But I digress.

I suppose in a way, I'm a frustrated standup comedian. I love making people laugh. I imagine part of it is trying to get people to laugh with me than at me. When I was in junior high, I was one of those quiet kids who would mumble funny things that only the kid sitting next to me could hear. I considered it a coup if I could make someone laugh out loud in class and get creamed by the teacher while I sat their innocently pretending I was taking copious notes.

I catch myself trying out new (and old) material on co-workers as I wander the halls at work as if it was open mike night. If something works, I may repeat it five or six times in a day until I've got the timing just right. And like a real standup comedian, I often go to far in the adrenalin stoked high of making people laugh and step over the line in my search for a laugh. Then there is this awkward silence and I slink on back to my office.

The problem is, I'm not a standup comedian. It's hard to foster a professional image and advance your career when you are always pretending you are warming up the room for the headliner.

But seriously folks...take my blog...please.

Ha, ha, ha...

Is this thing on?

Gary Busey is a whack job

I think I am stating the obvious about Gary Busey along with the disclaimer that I have never met Gary Busey. And it is probably not fair to judge someone based on lots of video clips of them babbling incoherently on television while hopping around in a straightjacket, but I think it is a pretty good sign that all of that good ol' boys dogs ain't barking.

I have never really paid much attention to Gary Busey. I am sure he would say the same thing about me. I was just watching some stupid gossip television program like Inside Edition while I was picking up EM's  toys. They were showing the usual stupid teaser clips about hairless cats and chimps who won the lotto. And then they flash to a clip of Gary Busey in a straightjacket screaming, "Let me out of this thing."

Okay, I have seen Busey guest starring on episodes of Entourage acting freaky and I'd briefly paid attention to the bizarre shots of him at the Oscars bursting into a Jennifer Garner interview and kissing her on the neck. But I assumed the straightjacket was just a publicity stunt for something. And it sort of was. He was doing a photoshoot for a book called the Dirty Side of Glamour. The proceeds are supposed to benefit Katrina victims. Something tells me that Busey wasn't really acting though.

Okay, the dude was in a motorcycle accident in 1998 where he wasn't wearing a helmet. So I suppose we can forgive him being a whack job and believing he channels Buddy Holly. But I don't think he deserves to be a celebrity. I get enough of this kind of bizarre shit on the streets of Seattle. I don't need to see this squirrel bait threatening to rip out someone’s endocrine system if they make him wear a straightjacket (which he puts on five minutes later).

I imagine this could all be an act like big time wrestling, but if it is then Gary Busey is a pretty pitiful whack job. And it is a pretty sad statement about our society that watching a raving looney in a straightjacket has become primetime entertainment.

But watching a Star Wars themed Deal or No Deal...well, that's entertainment.

Edgy, or groovin' in the grass is a gas baby can you dig it?

I mowed the lawn today. Then I began the tedious task of edging the front lawn. This is not a normal task for me. I bought Tess a manual edger for Christmas (she said she wanted an edger...how was I supposed to know she wanted an electric one...I didn't even know they made electric edgers...but I digress). I am not an edger kind of person. Edgy, maybe, but I have never to the best of my knowledge edged a lawn before.

So suffice it to say it was out of character for me to finish mowing the lawn and then decide to edge the puppy. It didn't take me long to realize why I had never edged a lawn before and it didn't take me much longer to understand why Tess had wanted an electric lawn edger. Edging a lawn is not easy. But it looks pretty cool once you have done it...well in an OCD kind of way.

I edged both sides of the driveway and the front area where my lawn meets the sidewalk. I had to quit when the rain began. The tricky part will be edging the parts near the flower beds. I mean, the sidewalk and driveway give you a line to follow. The flower beds are more freeform and there is nothing to guide the edger. I mean, how can you edge without an edge?

Note to self: Potential title of book, "Zen and the art of edging or how can you edge without an edge."

Maybe not.

Anyway, I kept looking out the window all day looking at my newly edged lawn. It looks so finished. But then it occurred to me that it won't last long. Just as the friggin' grass grows out in a week or so, the edge is going to creep back over the line and I'll have to redo it, over and over and over.

This has me on edge. What if it snows next week like it snowed last week? I won't be able to mow and manage the edge. Even now, I can hear the grass growing and the edge creeping.

I think I'm going over the edge here. Just don't get me started on beauty bark.

Do you smell that?

I was watching an episode of Weird Travels on the Travel Channel while I was working out on an elliptical machine at the gym yesterday. This episode was about Bigfoot. I was only catching maybe the last 15 minutes of the show but it was your usual guys trudging around in the woods setting up infrared cameras and to take pictures of Bigfoot and usually just snapping shots of squirrels and deer. But then they cut to a segment of these guys in Oklahoma tracking Bigfoot with the aid of a rather large Seminole Indian guide. The camera guy is filming the back of the guide and all of a sudden he stops and turns to camera, smiles and asks, "Do you smell that...do you smell that? The stink? That really bad stink?"

Okay, all I could think was the big guy farted and was enjoying gassing out the stupid white guys who probably paid him a bundle to shuffle around in the woods and pretend he was tracking a giant apelike creature. I don't know who was stupider, the guys filming the crap or me for watching it. Because all of these shows are the same. They build up a lot of drama about nothing, show you some grainy photos of what could be anything and waste an hour of your time without producing a single shred of evidence of anything. And adding insult to injury they film a fat guy farting and try to make you think they were showing you video footage of someone smelling Bigfoot.

I feel just as cheated by programs about UFOs, JFK conspiracy theories and the plethora of reality programs about haunted houses. You never see anything but bad video that looks like an outtake from the Blair Witch Project. I'm beginning to believe Bigfoot doesn't exist, there are no UFOs, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and ghosts are nothing more that dust on your camera lens.

Well pull my finger. That just stinks.

Global warming?

It snowed here in Edmonds, Washington on April 18. This is wrong in so many ways. A week ago I was mowing the lawn in 78 degree weather without a cloud in the sky. I'd say our weather is officially screwy.

I know that the theory of global warming doesn't mean we'll all get tropical temperatures and a tan. I understand at some level that melting ice caps dump freezing waters into warmer waters which in turn cool the air and create colder temperatures in some areas that weren't used to it.

It just all seems so topsy turvy. I mean April showers are supposed to bring May flowers and Mayflowers are supposed to bring Pilgrims. What are we supposed to say now? April snow flurries bring May worries?

I suppose the good thing is that when it snows here, people drive less which reduces the emissions that create the greenhouse effect and cause global warming.

Ironic isn't it?

Achealy's Heel

I had another ephiphany today. One of my downfalls as a writer...and as a person in general...is my adversion to criticism. I don't take it well. I absorb it and dwell on it obsessively. And too often my reaction to it is to projectile vomit right back at whoever is providing me with the criticism.

So I go out of my way to try and do everything right so I can avoid criticism and the emotional anquish it causes me. And since no one can do everything right (except in their own head) I still get criticized. And I take it even harder since I go out of my way try and avoid it by doing the right thing.

This makes my life quite challenging at times.

This ephiphany came after readying Kat's blog post about writer's groups and what other people's experience has been with them. It became crystal clear to me when I tried to formulate a response to that question, that I avoid writer's groups and creative writing classes like the plague because I can't stand criticism. My response when someone tells me how they would have written some passage I've written is generally visceral: "Well good thing I'm not you, then, isn't it?"

When I was younger, I used to think I didn't like criticism because it was always unfounded. I would do extremely complicated mental gymnastics to justify my rightness even in the face of evidence to the contrary. If someone couldn't see the genius in what I was doing or saying, then they were an idiot. As I've aged, I realize that isn't a position that endears you to people. But it is a hard habit to break. It is so much easier to always be right and know everyone else isn't.

Though now that I know that I'm not always right, I am facing this crisis of confidence wondering if I ever was right and ever will be. I realize rationally this isn't any more realistic than thinking I'm always right. I imagine, though, that it is an offshoot of my theory that the older I get, the less I know.

So where does this all leave me? I'd like to be able to accept constructive criticism (an oxymoron in my book) without wanting to shove it back down the critic's pie hole. I want to be able to put it in perspective. I also want to be able be realistic about myself. I can't always be right and I can't always be wrong.

BTW, I'd tread lightly if you have the urge to question something I just wrote here, asshole.

Whoops.

Middle aged cool

One of many things I notice about being 50 is that it isn't easy being cool. It is easy to look stupid (especially if you are trying to look cool at 50). People just don't think of you as cool once you've been invited to join the AARP.

Actually I think it is impossible to try and look cool at any age. To look cool, you have to be cool first.

I think there are some cool looking old guys. I've always thought Sean Connery was cool (except when he had a ponytail in a couple of movies). Pierce Brosnan is cool. Most of the James Bond dudes stayed cool except for Roger Moore. Maybe it's the tuxedo's they wear. It's hard not to look cool in a nice tuxedo (note I said nice).

Paul Newman used to be cool before he started playing geriatric roles. Robert Redford is kind of cool, though he spent way too much time in the sun (I suppose that is why they had him play the Sundance Kid...ha, ha, ha). Harrison Ford is kind of cool as Indiana Jones, but he needs to lose the stud earring. I have pierced ears, too, but I realize that I would look stupid if I wore an earring at this point in my life. Because I would be trying to look cool.

None of the Rolling Stones are cool, especially Keith Richards. If they weren't famous, they'd be sitting at a bus stop muttering to themselves with urine running down their pantlegs. Nor are any of the other former heavy metal band rockers cool. No one over the age of 28 can pull off being called Slash, Boss or Boner. No one with a ponytail and Birkenstocks is cool. No one wearing a Speedo is cool. No one driving a Porsche, Corvette or Trans Am is cool.

It is hard for a man over 50 to be fashionable and cool because fashion is for the young. If I try to dress GQ or Details, I would look pitiful. Plus they don't make those clothes in middle aged men sizes. And clingy polyester is just wrong for most body types except Rob Thomas. Most of us older guys opt for Aloha shirts because we think they hide our bellies. Deep down I know that Aloha shirts are just maternity wear for middle aged men and they hide nothing. It's more like putting a shower curtain over an elephant.

Each older generation also thinks the younger generation dresses like crap. When we were on our cruise, there were some young 20-somethings walking about with what I thought were 80s throwback looks. One sported a mohawk and the rest had various stages of long stringy hair. One idiot wore a Yoda backpack thing on his back. I essentially wanted to do a General Patton on the kid and dope slap him across the Promenade Deck. But then I saw the older guys in their Speedos, black socks and ponytails walzing around with buckets of beers and I had to stand down.

I guess bad taste is just bad taste.

Survivor

I surpassed the 700 mark in blog posts a few posts ago. There was no fanfare or confetti. That is the way with blogs. Sometimes they are loud and boisterous. Sometimes they are quiet as a tomb. To survive in them you must be that bug on the windshield that hangs on despite the wipers and the wind.

Blogs are like life. Sometimes you just have to hang on.

I have never really been one of those overly social bloggers. It mirrors my life in that I have never been one of those overly social people. So I have a hard time engaging in the game that requires that you constantly read and comment on other people's blogs in order for them to read and comment on yours. I despise memes, avoid weekly rituals of nearly naked Thursdays and I don't post cartoons or jokes. I don't like lists and I refuse to ever again take part in any experimental blog communities that use the word freedom in vain.

The cheese stands alone. So does the vanilla ice cream cone it seems (inside joke).

But I digress.

I really am shooting for that 1000 post mark in my blog world. I realize there won't be any fireworks or parades for it either. But I do believe there will a little happy dance of my own to celebrate the milestone.

Beacon

Isn't this photo inspirational? Doesn't it just scream at you at you some cliche like, "See the light...see the light...see the light?" Well, I took it! And I enhanced it a bit with yes, you guessed it, Photoshop. Because it was taken in bright afternoon sunlight when we were sailing away from the L.A. World Cruise Center and the beacon wasn't on.

Isn't technology amazing? I've created a kind of digital black velvet painting. That's what I call art. And a pity that it is only digital. Because damned if I wouldn't hang this puppy on my wall.

Of course that is kind of what I've done. I've hung it on the virtual wall of Dizgraceland where I can enjoy it anytime I want. And the beauty of digital art is that even if someone steals it, it is still there.

Now that is inspiring.

Tequila

What the cluck?

I have always been fond of random things. Mexico is a good place for random things. I have learned not to question what most Gringos might label as illogical when visiting Mexico. After all, we are the ones paying thousands of dollars to invade their coastal towns to fry our skin while we snap picture after picture of anything that moves or doesn't move.

There isn't much to be proud of when you are an American tourist in Mexico. They are loud, obnoxious and definitely ugly. They haggle over everything and even try to talk the poor little girls selling Chicklets down on their price. I think the t-shirt vendors have the right idea when dealing with American tourists. They let themselves be talked down to three shirts for $10 smug in the fact that they are still making a $9 dollar profit and the shirts will shrink so much after the first washing that only the family miniature poodle will be able to squeeze into it (if the poodle will be caught dead in a "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor" t-shirt).

But I digress. I snapped the photo above while frying my skin in the town square of Cabo San Lucas. We'd paid a kid to cart us into town with his bicycle. It is the Mexican version of a rickshaw. He charged us $10. A cab would have only cost of $6. I am a shrewd man with money while on vacation.

Anyway, the town square contains a gazebo, the carcass of a dead whale and this bush trimmed to look like a chicken or dove or some kind of bird. I think it was quite clever actually. So I did what all Americans do. I took a picture of it. Tess refused to pose by it. EM ignored it completely. She is not old enough to appreciate art.

The real highlight of Cabo is a visit at 10 a.m. (on a Sunday no less) to Cabo Wabo for my traditional shot of Cabo Wabo tequila. I'll download the video later. This was our third visit to Cabo Wabo. It is a night club owned by aged rocker Sammy Hagar famous for his hit song, "I can't drive 55." He should put out a new song called, "I can't afford to drive 55." Anyway, the place is famous for some reason for Cabo Wabo tequila and t-shirts.

Oh, we also stopped at Hard Rock for a traditional Mexican lunch before catching a cab back to the dock and our tender for the cruise ship. I never knew hamburgers and potato skins were a Mexican dish. But now I have a Hard Rock shot glass from Cabo to prove I've been there.

Our final stop was the market at the cruise terminal where I'm sure you can really get the best prices. I bought a larger silver chain and a hat that says Cabo San Lucas (and Pacifico Beer). The chain really looks cool when I'm doing my Al Pacino impression from the movie Scarface.

That about sums up our trip to Cabo. I love cultural experiences.

Fru Fru Drinks

After an eight-day cruise with a toddler and my pregnant wife, you'd think I'd have lots to write about. But for the life of me, I just haven't felt like writing. I even checked out this book from the cruise ship library called Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. It was chock full of inspirational crap by writers that was supposed to inspire all of us failed writers to keep writing. All I could think reading it was that it is always easy to be inspirational when you are successful. Plus I kept getting distracted by Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie that was playing on the postage stamp sized television in our postage stamp "mini suite."

I even had my laptop with me on the cruise. But it cost 45 cents a minute to use the Internet, so I used that as a justification not to blog.

I find lots of excuses these days not to write...turning 50, becoming a father (twice in less than a year), the writer's strike (solidarity my brothers), clipping my fingernails, clipping my toenails, staring off into space...the usual things. Again, it isn't that I haven't got things to write about. After all, they teach you in those creative writing classes that you need to have experience to write about before you can write. And I have 50 years of experience now. Trouble is, I feel as though it has all been written about.

I also feel like complaining a lot. For example, I ordered a new camera online to take on the cruise. It was a Canon Rebel XT digital SLR. I was sick of my current digital camera's delay of about a second from between the time you pushed the shutter and the photo was captured. The Rebel is supposed to take four frames per second. This is especially crucial when you have small children you are trying to photograph.

Anyway, I ordered this camera from a place called Broadway Photo in New York. They had the cheapest price anywhere on the Web and I felt pretty smug that I was getting a bargain and not having to pay sales tax. I placed the order and then got this e-mail from them that I needed to contact their customer service department to confirm the order. I thought this was odd. I called and the "customer service" rep proceeded to confirm my order and hard sell me on a bunch of accessories that jacked the price up to almost double before I could get off the phone. I am the sucker PT Barnum was always talking about.

The camera arrived three days before the cruise along with all the crap I didn't really need to go with it. I charged the battery and popped it into the slick looking new camera. I popped off three shots and it stopped working. Broadway Photo doesn't deal with defective merchandise despite their "Complete Satisfaction Guarantee." They only take things back if you haven't opened or used them. Any problems with the actual product has to be dealt with by the manufacturer. I had to pay $17.70 to ship the stupid camera to Canon for a warranty repair the day after I got it. Needless to say I didn't have it for the cruise. And Broadway Photo (may they experience jock itch for eternity) never even responded to any of my complaints.

But I digress. The cruise itself was my 16th cruise. It was my third on Norweigan Cruise Lines. And I have to say it was one of the worst cruises I've ever been on (the second worst cruise I had ever been on was my second cruise on Norweigan). Oh, the ports were fine and the weather was great. But it was the worst food I've ever had on a cruise ship. I had better food when I was in college living in a dorm.

As I mentioned, the cabin was miniscule even though it was billed as a suite. The bed was like sleeping on the floor. And Norweigan Cruise Lines wins the prize for the most expensive drinks and figuring out every way possible to get as much money out of you as possible once you are on board. I am suprised they didn't charge for toilet paper. They do provide complimentary hand sanitizer throughout the ship (including the elevators). Even my daughter began holding out her hands everytime we passed one of the dispensers. She still got sick (which led to a $142 charge to visit the ship's doctor).

Norweigan is extremely proud of their "Freestyle Cruising." Their marketing hype says this means you can do anything you want when you want. In actuality it means you spend a lot of time in line waiting to eat, get off the ship and do just about anything because nothing is organized. It should be called "Chaotic Cruising Without Any Semblance of Class." Even the formal night is optional. I was one of about three guys (not counting the waiters in the main dining room) wearing a tux.

Freestyle Cruising attracts freestyle cruisers. I've never seen so many guys in shorts wearing black socks with sandals in my life. And these same guys are also carrying around buckets of beer shaped like football helmets so they can get six beers for the price of five (and a free baseball hat or Red Stripe t-shirt). It was about 50 degrees out the last day of the cruise when we were sailing back to Los Angeles and these guys were walking around with their buckets of beer at 10 a.m. waiting for the grill to open up on deck so they could chuck down some dogs and burgers.

But I digress. I really don't feel like writing.

Blog reruns

One of the downsides of the golden years is that you can become forgetful. Stress doesn't help the situation. Lately I've been catching myself losing my train of thought mid-sentence. This doesn't help when you are trying to come up with a new blog topic. Some great idea will pop into my head and I'll start to jot it down and then it will dawn in me that I had that great idea in a post a couple of years ago.

Like tonight, I thought I'd title a post "Give us this day, our daily blog." Then I realized I wrote that post back in February of 2006: Give us this day, our daily blog.

Well, it was a good idea for a post anyway. But repeating the same blog is right up there with repeating the same joke. Eventually people get that frozen smile on their face that doesn't match their eyes and start avoiding you. I suppose that is one of the pitfalls of blogging way too long.

I fear at times I have run out of original ideas. I might as well start writing plots for sitcoms. They appreciate rehashing plots there.

If the truth were to be told, I sometimes like to go back and read some of my old stuff. The plus side of not remembering anything is that it all seems fresh and new to me. It's as if I am reading something someone else wrote. I catch myself chuckling and saying, "This guy is funny." Then I remember I wrote it and slap myself for such conceited thoughts.

But some of it was really funny.

I wish I could write as well as that guy again.

Sigh.

Do the right thing

We were driving home from taking Tess' mother out to Easter brunch in Olympia (a city about an hour and a half north of Seattle). It was pouring rain and traffic sucked. But then again traffic always sucks around here. I was driving in the HOV lane on Interstate 5. It is a lane reserved for cars with two or more passengers. And although it is the left hand lane on the freeway, it is not the fast lane.

I was driving the speed limit. Okay maybe 65 tops, but basically around the speed limit. A car whips up behind me. Then it pulls into the lane next to the HOV lane, passes me and whips back into the HOV lane in front of me. Then the driver deliberately and very plainly flips me the finger. Yes, he flashes me the bird, the nasty digit, the ultimate sign of disdain. And it is merely because I wasn't speeding in the carpool lane.

I had my wife and daughter in the backseat. The weather sucked. I was doing the right thing. And this piece of shit flips me the finger and speeds off into the distance like the frigging lowlife coward he is.

My parents taught me to do the right thing. I don't litter. I use my turn signal. I obey speed limits. I wear my seat belt. I return shopping carts to the cart return. I let people into the lane in front of me (when they signal). I don't walk against the "don't walk" signal. I brake for squirrels. I put the toilet seat down. I do the right thing. I believe doing the right thing defines a civilization. Flipping someone off for doing the right thing destroys a civilization.

It is not that I am a slave to foolish regulations. I step over lines in places that tell you to wait behind the line until called. I don't always color within the lines. But these are not laws that create order. Speed limits and traffic signals do.

I will teach my children to do the right thing, too. I will instill in them that it is selfish and a sign of poor character to think that laws apply to everyone but you. I will teach them to be civilized.

As for the piece of trash that flipped me off in the HOV lane...well, may the next car you flip off be an unmarked police car driven by someone who believes in doing the right thing, too.

Nifty 50s

"Today's 50 is yesterday's 40."
--They say

"Bullshit."
--Tim-Id

Twenty-five years ago I was freaked out by turning 25. All I could think about was that I was a quarter of a century old and I hadn't accomplished much. In another 2 1/2 hours I will be a half a century old and I suppose I have accomplished more than I had when I was 25. But it still kind of freaks me out.

Oh, I know I have quite a bit of living left. I have a lovely wife. I'm a father to an 18-month old daughter and I have a son arriving in July. I don't have time to reflect too much on the AARP sending me an invitation to join.

That is part of the beauty of having children. Your focus shifts. It's hard to be self-absorbed when you are comforting a toddler who has just upchucked lunch on you after a coughing spell. And it is hard not to feel a sense of accomplishment when she falls peacefully asleep in your arms after only 15 minutes of rocking.

So I guess turning 50 isn't so terrible. Just shoot me though if I ever refer to myself as 50 years young.

Reno Cowboys

 

 Years ago my best friend Michael J. moved to Reno, Reno to pursue his fortune in the world of casinos and slot machines. This was a perk for me because I went and visited him at least once a year. 

 I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Reno. I went there for the first time when I turned 21. Harold's Club and the Nevada Club still existed back then. I remember going to my first cabaret show at Harold's Club called Bordello. The first number was, "If you want to see my busoms you'll have to pop my balloons." The dancers actually came through the audience and let you pop a balloon. At 21, I thought that was the height of sophistication. 

Anyway, when Michael J. moved to Reno and started working at Harrah's, I was more than happy to take advantage of it as an excuse to visit him whenever I could. It was an opportunity to drink a little, gamble and little and go shoot groceries on the desert outside the city. While working at Harrah's, Michael met a Vietnam veteran named Joe. Joe liked guns and introduced Michael to the pleasure of driving out to the desert with a cooler of beer, lawn chairs and a .357 magnum with plenty of ammunition. Michael soon learned the Zen art of plinking away at random objects with a handgun. And on one of my trips to Reno, Michael introduced me to the joys of shooting up the desert. 

I was no stranger to guns. I grew up in Idaho. We used to go out on the desert and shoot cans with a .22 rifle. So I didn't really balk at Michael's suggestion that we drive out to the desert and engage in some theraputic target practice. But whereas growing up, we simply shot cans, Michael introduced me to the art of shooting groceries and produce. 

Before we hit the desert in Michael's Jeep, we stopped at a Ralph's Market and stocked up on things we thought would be fun to shoot. This included pineapples, coconuts, bottles of water, light french salad dressing, barbecue sauce and eventually Barney dolls. After the first shooting adventure, I was hooked. The desert shoots became the highlight of my Reno trips. I eventually bought my own pistol -- a chrome plated .357 magnum single-action pistol called, the Marshall -- and learned all the airline rules to pack it and take it on my Reno trips (this was long before 9-11).

Now granted, neither of us were great shots. But nothing makes up for a bad aim like lots of ammunition. One time we put a liter of bottled water on a fence post. I pumped so many rounds into the post, it fell over and broke the bottle. 

Eventually Michael grew sick of Reno and moved back to Seattle. Ironically, I saw less of him once he moved back to Seattle than I had when he lived in Reno. Now I never see him. But I always remember our trips out to the desert where we'd bond our friendship while plinking away at bottle's of Snapple. 

The video above documents what I think was our last shootout on the desert. I can't even tell you what year it was. Judging from how skinny I was, it was a long, long, time ago. But shoot, it was the best therapy in the world and I miss those times. Michael J, if you are out there dude, here's to you bud! Hope you still have the dog's playing poker print I gave you.

Original thought

Being original on a regular basis is hard work. I think the writer's strike was probably more of a ploy to give the poor schmuck's a break from having to come up with new material every day. Not that television sitcoms really need original material. You just need to figure out how to repackage the same old crap in new wrapping paper to be a sitcom writer.

Blogging, however should be original thought. I see very few original blogs anymore (even my own). Bloggers need to learn to leave plagerisim to the professional Web sites and sitcom writers and keep blogging pure by being creative about being unoriginal.

I tell you, what I find the most original and entertaining in blogs are the stories of people's lives. Even the mundane day to day stuff is more original than regurgitating political rhetoric or reprinting crap you've googled on the Web.

Okay there are limits what you should record about your life. I was watching a program the other night about some guy who had documented everything he'd done minute by minute for 40 some years...(2:10 p.m. I chewed a stick of Juicy Fruit gum, 2: 14 p.m. I threw the gum away...2:15 I voided my bladder for about 3 minutes). Okay, this may be original in a mindnumbing sense, but it is also stupid and way too much information. Pretend your life is has been Tivo'd and fast forward through the boring crap. Would you watch a movie that spent the first 30 minutes documenting the character flossing his teeth?

That being said, I need to go void my bladder and floss my teeth.

Head in the clouds

I just got back from a business trip to San Diego. And although I think flying these days sucks, I kind of like looking out the window at the clouds. They almost makes you forget for a moment that you cooled your heels in the terminal for hours after two gate changes, endured surly flight attendants who sneered at you with disdain as they offered to sell you a $5 snack box when you complain about the stale pretzels. And you are almost able to shut out the drone of the captain or co-pilot or whoever it is in the cockpit who thinks it is important for the passengers to know what the airspeed is, your exact altitude and what mountain you are passing. Oh, and the clouds are nice to watch when the same crew member lets you know that "we are experiencing turbulence" as if you wouldn't have noticed the severe shaking and the surly flight attendants using the drink cart as a battering ram for unsuspecting elbows as they dash for their jump seats to buckle down until the pitching of the plane stops.

But the clouds are pretty.

Joining the Confederacy

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that
all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
--Jonathan Swift

I do not think I am a genius. I also don't think I am a dunce. But I pretty much know a dunce when I see one. And I tend to see lots of them. They vote for one thing. And they "rise to their level of incompetence" quickly as Lawrence Peter's suggested, in most organizations.

But still the dunces are the majority. And nothing rallys the dunces like perceiving someone is smarter than they are. This is why George W. was the perfect presidential candidate. He didn't threaten the dunces because he was one of them. Al Gore did threaten the dunces.

I have to admit I am torn by the battle over the democratic nomination for a presidential candidate. I am going to break my own rules of not engaging in political or religious discussions and say that I think Hillary Clinton is the better choice than Barack Obama. I think Obama means well. But he is woefully out of his league. And I think he is hovering dangerously close to his level of incompetence and the dunces are clearly coming out to support him. They are clearly being threatened by Clinton who is obviously incredibly intelligent and more qualified to be President. God forbid we elect the right person for the job.

The sad thing is that if Obama gets the nominated (which at this point seems inevitable), we have to join the Confederacy to avoid McCain and the rest of the Mega Dunces dragging us kicking and screaming into four more years of unthinkable Republican rule. I'll vote for Obama, but I think he is woefully naive and I can't help but get flashbacks to Jimmy Carter floundering through the Oval Office trying to do the right thing. That could only open the door to even more conservative dunces.

It is very sad when you have to choose between the lesser of two evil dunces. God politics sucks.