The Unexpected
Juniper Roots
Juniper bushes love work. They love the look in your eyes, when you first arrive at them with all that determination and gumption set on a face with that squared jaw defiance!
"You are going down. I am master of my domain and you are a mangy old ground bush. I've got superior leverage with my tools and superior intelligence with my big honking brain. I've been staring at your ugly form for four years, but today it ends. The line is draw, the count is in and your sorry behind is coming out of that well cultivated ground. I don't care how big you think you are, how deep your roots go, how allergic I am to your bark or how many spiders you send crawling up my sleeve, today you are coming out!"
"You think so bub? Bring it."
They especially love it when you collapse in a rumbled heap at their base, with your pulse sounding loudly in you ears over the din of your mp3 player, sweating profusely and shaking your head after three hours of hard labor. They really get a kick out of that.
"You think this is over?! You think I'm done? So my clothes are soiled my shirt is dripping wet and my palms look like the scene of a sandpaper attack army. I'm not letting you win again!"
"Are you going to start trying now? I think one of my two thousand twenty five roots might have wiggled a bit on your last attempt. I totally liked the part where you were jumping up and down on my main limb like it was a freaking trampoline."
"I still don't get why that didn't work..."
"Did you see the look your neighbors gave you?"
"No, my vision is impaired by my lack of oxygen. I'll I can see are shadows."
"Ah. Well then, are you ready to call it a day then?"
"You wish!"
Gotcha! Now all's that left is digging out the root ball (under the rock in the corner)... Maybe next year...
Related Prequel Post: Battle Of Wills
"You are going down. I am master of my domain and you are a mangy old ground bush. I've got superior leverage with my tools and superior intelligence with my big honking brain. I've been staring at your ugly form for four years, but today it ends. The line is draw, the count is in and your sorry behind is coming out of that well cultivated ground. I don't care how big you think you are, how deep your roots go, how allergic I am to your bark or how many spiders you send crawling up my sleeve, today you are coming out!"
"You think so bub? Bring it."
They especially love it when you collapse in a rumbled heap at their base, with your pulse sounding loudly in you ears over the din of your mp3 player, sweating profusely and shaking your head after three hours of hard labor. They really get a kick out of that.
"You think this is over?! You think I'm done? So my clothes are soiled my shirt is dripping wet and my palms look like the scene of a sandpaper attack army. I'm not letting you win again!"
"Are you going to start trying now? I think one of my two thousand twenty five roots might have wiggled a bit on your last attempt. I totally liked the part where you were jumping up and down on my main limb like it was a freaking trampoline."
"I still don't get why that didn't work..."
"Did you see the look your neighbors gave you?"
"No, my vision is impaired by my lack of oxygen. I'll I can see are shadows."
"Ah. Well then, are you ready to call it a day then?"
"You wish!"
Gotcha! Now all's that left is digging out the root ball (under the rock in the corner)... Maybe next year...
Related Prequel Post: Battle Of Wills
Frisbees Are Evil - Repost
Sometimes I refind a post after a couple of years, and like it enough to repost. This is just such a post. Enjoy, this Kludge Classic!Over the 4th of July a number of us went to Spring Lake and had a picnic. It was nice, I got some sun, Dew and fried chicken. I also gained a valuable bit of information. Frisbees do not follow directions well, and they seem to have a nasty bent on making people suffer. I can only conclude that Frisbees are evil.
My Father-in-law is a very nice man, but even he is unable to correct the evil nature of these discs! While we were playing a seemingly happy game the disc attacked the group of female spectators for no apparent reason. It was particularly interested in the younglings. It identified the smallest baby and flew at it. Luckily the women deflected it. Back in the hands of my father-in-law the Frisbee again wielded its power and went back to the babies for revenge. My father-in-law was rebuked, which is what the evil saucer was really after.
My Frisbee is manic depressive. I can only attribute this to the design on the top. It’s a yellow disc with a large smiling face. It’s hard to be evil with a large smiling face on your top. We would get an hour or so of very nice behavior followed by thirty minutes of sheer terror. Flying at small dogs, children playing, or people sitting on park benches minding their own business. It also tried to make me go into the woman's restroom half a dozen times or so to retrieve it. Luckily Frisbees aren’t good at corners. It’s hard to guess what a Frisbee is thinking, but it can’t be happy thoughts.
One of the players stopped the Frisbee, that I had thrown, from knocking all the teeth out of his little girls head. This was done quite expertly, and in just the nick of time. I had no evil in my heart when I tossed the toy, but it knew exactly what it wanted. Costly dental X-rays. Evil Frisbees are so like that.
Rookie Moves
Last night the remote went missing. Not just the simple, "where the heck did I put that thing?" You know what I'm talking about, you get up, turn around twice and there it is, right next where you were sitting, "must have slid off the sofa arm or something."
This was nothing like that! This was an all out loss. I stood up turned around twice and looked in by the sofa arm. Nothing. I checked over, under around and even rummaged through the cushions. I got down on all fours like some feral remote hunting beast pushing toys and stuffed lions aside. Nothing. No power. No remote. I was helpless. Adrift all the while the paused image of my show stood a mere eight feet away beckoning me,
"Don't you want to see how this ends?"
"YEs! Of CourRSe I DO!"
"Well, then. Lets get to it bub!"
What's a guy to do. Sure I could hit the pause button the DVD player itself like some blithering Neanderthal, but what's the point. I wouldn't solve the problem. The REMOTE WAS LOST. It was probably just as scared and worried as I was. It needed me, and I needed it. We formed a kind of symbiosis. Apart we are weak, together we can stem the tide.
So I left the room, and walked back in. And there it was. Sitting pretty on the sofa arm.
"I was here along."
"No. I'm happy to find you but I know better."
I knew instantly what had happened. Aliens. Rookie aliens understudies. Clearly when the aliens had come by, frozen time and scanned the brains of all the humans on my street, they had some form of rookie fly along program. For all aspiring slimys looking for a career with decent hours and interactions with foreign bodies. Mostly they are just there to observe, sometimes hold the bags scanning equipment is stored in and clean up the slime trails. This one got foolish.
Imagine the surprise of the journeymen level brain infiltration services expert when he saw with this sticky young pup had done! Allow me to translate!
Due to some rushed math there was a couple minute blip where I existed on a planet without my remote. Too bad I'm not one to believe in my own shortcomings, silly aliens.
I imagine that junior understudy will get quiet a slimy pouchful from the master level brain infiltration director. Whoa! If I could be a pile of ectogoo on that wall. Anyway. It's good to know even aliens make mistakes.
This was nothing like that! This was an all out loss. I stood up turned around twice and looked in by the sofa arm. Nothing. I checked over, under around and even rummaged through the cushions. I got down on all fours like some feral remote hunting beast pushing toys and stuffed lions aside. Nothing. No power. No remote. I was helpless. Adrift all the while the paused image of my show stood a mere eight feet away beckoning me,
"Don't you want to see how this ends?"
"YEs! Of CourRSe I DO!"
"Well, then. Lets get to it bub!"
What's a guy to do. Sure I could hit the pause button the DVD player itself like some blithering Neanderthal, but what's the point. I wouldn't solve the problem. The REMOTE WAS LOST. It was probably just as scared and worried as I was. It needed me, and I needed it. We formed a kind of symbiosis. Apart we are weak, together we can stem the tide.
So I left the room, and walked back in. And there it was. Sitting pretty on the sofa arm.
"I was here along."
"No. I'm happy to find you but I know better."
I knew instantly what had happened. Aliens. Rookie aliens understudies. Clearly when the aliens had come by, frozen time and scanned the brains of all the humans on my street, they had some form of rookie fly along program. For all aspiring slimys looking for a career with decent hours and interactions with foreign bodies. Mostly they are just there to observe, sometimes hold the bags scanning equipment is stored in and clean up the slime trails. This one got foolish.
Imagine the surprise of the journeymen level brain infiltration services expert when he saw with this sticky young pup had done! Allow me to translate!
Due to some rushed math there was a couple minute blip where I existed on a planet without my remote. Too bad I'm not one to believe in my own shortcomings, silly aliens.I imagine that junior understudy will get quiet a slimy pouchful from the master level brain infiltration director. Whoa! If I could be a pile of ectogoo on that wall. Anyway. It's good to know even aliens make mistakes.
Chasing Credits
I'm a gamer. I game. That is to say I engage in an expensive form of immersible fantasy for one goal. Credits. I crave a good game, enjoyable play and engaging storyline, but above all, I'm in to win. I suppose it's just my nature. I want to see it through to the end. I have, for no other reason than completing it, spent the last 200+ hours of my gaming time on a game called Morrowind. I traipsed about the countryside, helping those in perils, righting wrongs, slaying evil and insulting uptight policemen. And most folks, besides a few policemen, thought that this imaginary world was a better place because of my interest in it. Why did I do all of this, with what other people might see as an unreal horde of perfectly good free time? Because I enjoy being belligerent to imaginary cops!? Possibly...
But there was more to it than that. I wanted the credits.
See... like a great movie, when a game is completed they congratulate you. A sort of "thanks for sticking it out" sort of thing. It allows you to feel closure. In the game, my character started out as a nobody, a nothing wuss who ran away from scary insects (not unlike myself in many respects). By the end of the game, I rid this fictional world of a crazed demon god leaching his powers from a Dwarven machine attached to a disembodied heart. It was, well, pretty impressive work if I do say so myself. I mean, am I being overly pompous to expect a little praise for that?
Well not in Morrowind. You get a 45 second ataboy, and told, "Thanks for stopping by. But honestly we got other stuff for you to look at. Don't touch the cheeseball though, it's for the real guests."
I have played dozens of games and have yet to complete one that didn't roll credits. It's like...well...like it's not over. Could you imagine a movie ending, the house lights coming up and and being like, "Well... I guess that's it." You would always wonder, was there more film that they forgot to roll? Now imagine if your movie was 200 hours long. That sort of how I'm feeling... A good game, but honestly. Did I really finish it? Should I keep wandering around killing monsters, even though there are no quests left to complete? I feel sort of empty.
I was explaining this to another guy at work, a fellow gamer (who actually used to code games for Lucas Arts) and when I told him after my epic journey there were no credits he was flabbergasted. I tell you this as an excuse to type out the word 'flabbergasted' twice in one blog post and add unnecessary quotation marks. . <--- This second period is a typo that I'm leaving alone so I can type about it. (This is quickly becoming one of my favorite posts)
Regardless... Anyone know where I can get 200 hours of a wasted year back? See, there's this new game I'm thinking about installing...
Meat Lovers Afterlife
I have seen the afterlife. It is called Espetus. In fact I was there for about and hour and a half. Additionally, considering that it was most obviously a slice of heaven the price for admission was such that anyone willing to spend a small wad of dough, could eat eight pounds of meat in relative comfort.
Seriously this place was amazing! I didn't really know what to expect, besides the fact that Leo told us, "It's all you can eat Brazilian BBQ" Leo is generally a man of few words, but those spoke mountains to me. Turns out your brain is not really capable of understanding some concepts without experiencing them. So eight of us arrived and after over an hour of eating seven of us men had to wonder how anyone in Brazil is capable of running a country if eating like this is even partially prevalent!
I have a good Brazilian friend
He likes his meals to never end
He showed us all this house of meat
Where for sixty bucks you eat and eat
And when the butcher comes to call, they say, "yes we'll take it all!"
So the drill was as such. You sat down and on the table was a wheel. The wheel was half green and half red. Green means, "bring on the meat" red means, "I Sally'ed out". Men in authentic garb paraded through the restaurant, table by table with giant skewers of meat. You had a pair of tongs for grabbing said meat as it was sliced off the skewers. To my memory, which is slightly obscured from my lingering meat headache and sever back pain this morning, there was plenty of meat. There was also a salad bar with a wide range of exciting food I'd never heard of before, much less tasted. Some very good eats! I planned to return once the meat parade slowed down. I never got my chance.
Let me see. The floats in the parade... top sirloin with garlic, sausage, giant BBQ prawns, Filet Mignon, brazed lamb, lamb chops, Parmesan pork tenderloin, some other pork cut, flank steak (my personal favorite),BBQ chicken, beef ribs, BBQ pineapple and the traditional favorite of BBQ chicken hearts. In fact I am solely responsible for the deaths of at least 13 chickens. I must say I over did it. But as I've said before, if a little's good then a lots better!
All of us did exceptional in the field of battle, and each man drew upon his courage and inner strength to get him through the engagement. One of us stood alone. While I tried my best to be that man, I had to tip my hat, if I could muster the energy to reach that high, to Matt. Who after all of us has thrown in the napkin, asked to look at the dessert menu. Matt, you sir are the champion. One day I hope to have the stamina you show!
The evening was unreal on so many levels. I weighted myself before dinner, just to see. When I returned home, I was EIGHT pounds heavier. I'm sure some of that was the five glasses of water that my body is retaining to cope with all the salt, but still...eight pounds.
Now that's what I call, getting your moneys worth!
The Bacon Assault
Thanks again to Mr Matt Boyd for keeping me in the loop on all the lastest bacon happenings!
Star Trek - Lost Again
** Spoiler alert **
If you haven't seen the most recent Star Trek movie, be warned, spoilers will be forthcoming.
** Spoiler alert **
Ahem. I would consider myself a pretty hardcore Star Trek fan. See below Chart
Figure 1.1
The first marker, "closet fan" cares nothing about important things like the continuity of the Star Trek universe or the simple lack of understanding that the 6th season DS9 writers showed for what we will simply call, "a good story line".
Contrariwise, the last marker, "Full Surrender" cares nothing about important things like, hygiene, friends, holding down a job or getting a drivers license.
There are many plots along this line that are not defined here. I'll leave that for another time. Regardless I exist somewhere behind "own Vulcan ears" and after "long talks". I'm totally ready to have a long conversation about plot, character or time line mishaps. For me, its just a recreation, not a religion.
I will go on record and say, "I totally enjoyed the new Star Trek movie."
That being said, it not 'really' Star Trek in my mind. A great film, and one I would like to own, but still not Star Trek.
My thing is this, why are we clean slating the original series in order to tell it again!? Give it up already! I don't care about them anymore. We have 200 years and only 3 quadrants of a galaxy explored, can't we try something new!? Why not pick a brand new crew and just venture out. New aliens, new worlds, new technologies, new stories.
Isn't that what made Star Trek so appealing? I was to me. Ordinary people solving issues with their minds. Kirk was a problem solver not a drunk. Sure he got the girl and the last punch, but his guile and cunning were the tools that saved the day. Not childish bar room brawls that involved the groping of Urhua.
Whoever wrote the Spock Uhura scenes should be shot. Seriously. I'll even offer my services if you come up short. I doubt you will.
Oh, and just another thing...Didn't we (the Federation) discover the Romulans in the second season of ST-TOS? So how does this new Uhura happen to speak the language, with multiple dialects?
Holes, holes holes. What happened to our Vulans? I guess beings that don't cry or scream aren't cool anymore. Too bad. I liked Roddenberry's vision of the cool headed logical race the way it was.
Don't even get me started on Sulu. Though in all honestly, I could do with a sword like that.
Sigh.. the truth is, there is just too much wrong to go into here. So I won't. Anyway, as I said. I liked the movie, but please, lets not call it Star Trek, okay? I prefer, "Lost Again" Or "Rick Berman is a Moron". Whichever you want, though I'm leaning towards the latter.
If you haven't seen the most recent Star Trek movie, be warned, spoilers will be forthcoming.
** Spoiler alert **
Ahem. I would consider myself a pretty hardcore Star Trek fan. See below Chart
Figure 1.1
The first marker, "closet fan" cares nothing about important things like the continuity of the Star Trek universe or the simple lack of understanding that the 6th season DS9 writers showed for what we will simply call, "a good story line".
Contrariwise, the last marker, "Full Surrender" cares nothing about important things like, hygiene, friends, holding down a job or getting a drivers license.
There are many plots along this line that are not defined here. I'll leave that for another time. Regardless I exist somewhere behind "own Vulcan ears" and after "long talks". I'm totally ready to have a long conversation about plot, character or time line mishaps. For me, its just a recreation, not a religion.
I will go on record and say, "I totally enjoyed the new Star Trek movie."
That being said, it not 'really' Star Trek in my mind. A great film, and one I would like to own, but still not Star Trek.
My thing is this, why are we clean slating the original series in order to tell it again!? Give it up already! I don't care about them anymore. We have 200 years and only 3 quadrants of a galaxy explored, can't we try something new!? Why not pick a brand new crew and just venture out. New aliens, new worlds, new technologies, new stories.
Isn't that what made Star Trek so appealing? I was to me. Ordinary people solving issues with their minds. Kirk was a problem solver not a drunk. Sure he got the girl and the last punch, but his guile and cunning were the tools that saved the day. Not childish bar room brawls that involved the groping of Urhua.
Whoever wrote the Spock Uhura scenes should be shot. Seriously. I'll even offer my services if you come up short. I doubt you will.
Oh, and just another thing...Didn't we (the Federation) discover the Romulans in the second season of ST-TOS? So how does this new Uhura happen to speak the language, with multiple dialects?
Holes, holes holes. What happened to our Vulans? I guess beings that don't cry or scream aren't cool anymore. Too bad. I liked Roddenberry's vision of the cool headed logical race the way it was.
Don't even get me started on Sulu. Though in all honestly, I could do with a sword like that.
Sigh.. the truth is, there is just too much wrong to go into here. So I won't. Anyway, as I said. I liked the movie, but please, lets not call it Star Trek, okay? I prefer, "Lost Again" Or "Rick Berman is a Moron". Whichever you want, though I'm leaning towards the latter.
Giving Blood
I gave blood on Saturday. It's a easy thing for me and therefore I like to do it. It's not easy for everyone and those that are afraid of needles need not apply. We all have our fears. If I had to give blood in a butterfly tent or via a bee sting, I would never do it. All that just to say, I'm not a afraid of needles, so giving blood is only about finding the free time.
Anyway... After the tech explains to me that she cannot find a vein larger than a silk thread and that she will have to use the teeny tiny needle on my feminine vascular system she begins.
"Ah.." She says, after the needle is in and the juice is flowing
"What's wrong?"
"Well... there might be a bit of a bruise."
Shrug "No biggie"
Well... I guess I wasn't aware of what "A bit of a bruise really entailed". I look like an addict. I mean I've got this fist sized bruise on my arm. Seriously. It's like yellow and purple and black and blue. It doesn't hurt much, but I doubt it will go away anytime soon. In fact when the pizza guy came that night, I was too embarrassed to answer the door, for fear he might think I got a case of the munchies. Why am I telling you all this? I'm not sure. Let try and wrap this up...
Ahem...
Give blood, but only it you want to be insulted, and mutilated in the name of 'doing good'!
Anyway... After the tech explains to me that she cannot find a vein larger than a silk thread and that she will have to use the teeny tiny needle on my feminine vascular system she begins.
"Ah.." She says, after the needle is in and the juice is flowing
"What's wrong?"
"Well... there might be a bit of a bruise."
Shrug "No biggie"
Well... I guess I wasn't aware of what "A bit of a bruise really entailed". I look like an addict. I mean I've got this fist sized bruise on my arm. Seriously. It's like yellow and purple and black and blue. It doesn't hurt much, but I doubt it will go away anytime soon. In fact when the pizza guy came that night, I was too embarrassed to answer the door, for fear he might think I got a case of the munchies. Why am I telling you all this? I'm not sure. Let try and wrap this up...
Ahem...
Give blood, but only it you want to be insulted, and mutilated in the name of 'doing good'!
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