Political Climate Crisis

Estimated reading time: 53 seconds

Then there were just two colors, two flavors, two ideologies and they thought it clever to call it a political spectrum.

They shouted past one another ideas that fit neatly between commercial breaks, serving as forced interruptions. Ideas were kept brief and small to fit this framework, not too complex, not too nuanced. To maintain an opinion short and simple was to repeat culturally acceptable ideology, to repackage conventional wisdom, to revisit what had been established before. And you agreed and nodded as what you already knew was confirmed by someone whose importance, you assumed, put them in front of a camera.

Voices that did not fit this template, voices willing to truly defy and provoke remained silent in favor of those waiting to comply. Those willing to discuss and listen, challenge and discern were kept quietly aside.

Instead, the shouting.

The two men claimed to disagree with one another but secretly had a common goal.
To argue over red and blue, black and white, good and evil, business as usual while their country burned in a hazy darkness.

A Pig To Haunt Your Sleep

Estimated reading time: 1 minute 21 seconds

At first sight, the photo could make the churchiest of church-goers curse in freakish wonder.

A dead pig weighing 1,050-something pounds and measuring 9 feet 4 inches.

Pigs just aren’t supposed to be that big, that monstrous.

About four times larger than the average feral hog, the pig would weigh more than a good-sized cow and dwarf the size of your average bull moose.

Once you rid the massive pig’s image from haunting your sleep, the most logical joke to make from the whole thing is “That’s a lot of bacon.”

Funny because it’s true. That is a lot of bacon. Roughly 22,727 slices of bacon.

But in all seriousness, the father of the 11-year-old who shot the pig confirmed that the bulk of the pig will be used to make sausage – 500 to 700 pounds of sausage, which converts into about 9,390 breakfast links (someone needs to put this guy and his family on heart attack watch ASAP.)

However, I think I’d have a hard time eating sausage that came from this rhinoceros of a pig.

I’d be afraid that the pig’s stuff would somehow get inside me and permeate my glands and nodes. I’d wake up the next morning with shiny gray skin, hands, feet and ears in freakish proportions, my fingers beginning to fuse and harden as my voice gets crazy deep and I sprout dark, thick hair everywhere.

The more sausage I eat, the more I look like a freakishly large pig.

Oh wait . . .

Tennis, Spiders and Terror

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 4 seconds

Passing a tennis court as you walk back from the pharmacy you notice a man laying on his side just inside the baseline on the far end of the court.

Dozens of balls line the fence and sit at the foot of the net. A large empty practice basket straddles the service line.

You try to talk yourself out of investigating, offering the idea that the man had halted his practice to grab some quick shuteye on the court’s 112-degree surface. The blood spattered on the front of his white T-shirt jolts you from your comfort.

Walking briskly across the court, you approach the man, who is apparently breathing but unconscious. You inspect closer the small orange and red splatters on his shirt, noting in your head that it looks like he had been squirted by a spray bottle full of blood.

Looking for the source of the blood you go to lift his shirt. As you reach toward him, what you see sends a shock up your spinal column as you jump away in primitive flight.

Crawling all over the man’s shirt are thousands of tiny red baby spiders, some of which had been smashed to create the illusion of blood.

After a few moments, you deduce the man had been hit by some sort of bomb of spiders, the red being the spiders that splattered on impact. What had rendered him unconscious was beyond your comprehension, a potential truth so horrendous and terrifying you try to suppress it but fail.

Ten years earlier you would have called 911. But not now. Not with a man who had been hit by a bullet full of baby spiders which may or may not have stripped him of consciousness. If you see something, say something, you recall hearing.

You dial the Department of Homeland Security. Awaiting instruction, you back slowly off the court, returning reluctantly to a changed world.

Sarcasm Lost On Google

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 59 seconds

With its complex algorithms that would make advanced extra terrestrial life wither dumbly, it's no secret that the super wizard computer geeks at Google have done some amazing things.

Not only can one type in the nonsense phrase "goat saddle" and actually see picture after picture of, you guessed, goats wearing saddles, but he can also find web sites that sell goat saddles and – I swear it – tips on how to make saddling a goat as pleasant as possible for you and the goat.

But what makes Google so successful as a business is how it recognizes key words within your search results and automatically generates relevant and potentially useful links to paid advertisers. So when searching for goat saddles, on the right of the screen are links to web sites where you can buy goats and saddles.

Google has applied this same technology to its e-mail program Gmail. But instead of recognizing key words in an internet search, it picks up on what it thinks is the content of your e-mail – keywords and phrases – and offers potentially relevant advertising links to the right of the message.

At first this seems a little creepy and a lot obtrusive. I imagine someone or something actually reading and comprehending the content of my e-mail and supplying the corresponding advertising.

But if you read the disclaimers and FAQs supplied by Google, you can be rest assured that it has nothing to do with monitoring or spying and everything to do with the complex algorithms and Google super wizards mentioned above.

While Google may pat itself on the back for being able to use artificial intelligence to decipher human correspondence, all in the name of advertising, I have discovered something Google is not too good at: Detecting sarcasm.

This played out simply the other day, in an e-mail exchange I had with a friend of mine who I'll call "Ted." (I'll also omit the names of anyone else to keep all identities anonymous).

It's important to know that it has been Ted's shtick to downplay his current position in life, his job, the city he lives in. He's not entirely happy with it but when he talks about it, he lays the sarcasm and hyperbole on thick. It's become sort of a joke, kind of like Ted's life (that was actually an example of how Ted might actually joke . . . see?).

The e-mail exchange went something like this:

Ted: You still want to have lunch tomorrow? If so, we should also include "Brian." I'm available around 1.

My biggest accomplishment this evening was [insert name of lame movie here]. My life is in F'ing shambles.

Me: That sorry excuse for a human being "Brian" and I were just discussing activities for tomorrow. We were thinking of playing some basketball and then going to lunch. Thoughts?

Ted: "Brian's" life is one of the only things that makes mine seem relevant. I'll be home from work around 1 so maybe hoops at 1:30 and lunch to follow?

Now I'm going to watch [insert name of lame movie here] and then go to sleep. F---.

So if you're a computer and/or robot reading this e-mail and looking for key words, some consistent subjects and relevant phrases, here's what you might deduce:

You've got two people talking about getting lunch and playing basketball. And then something else keeps coming up, like references to lives being in "shambles" and someone who is a "sorry excuse for a human being."

So I look to the right of the e-mail exchange and notice the specifically tailored advertising generated for this conversation.

Expectedly, there were links concerning the NBA and NBA playoffs. Good job Google, 1-for-1. Next up was one advertisement targeting overweight children and another offering tips for the overweight. I'll give Google a consolation prize for that but it was getting colder on relevant advertising, as the most prominent and abundant number of links it offered were quite different.

There was one for teenagers with troubled pregnancies, one advertising a "practical, proven program for parents of troubled teenagers," and another claiming that "surrogate mothers are needed."

Wow. I never knew our lives were this dire.

So maybe Google still has some work to do, to find a way to detect the dry wit of its users. Or perhaps Google is really a step ahead of me and Ted is actually dealing with a troubled teen pregnancy and just hasn't told me.

Today's Smell: Walgreens

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 28 seconds

I walked into a Walgreens the other day looking for a muffin pan (A muffin pan at Walgreens you ask? Well, it’s only logical when you plan to have muffins on an easy Saturday morning and A) you discover that for some reason your only muffin pan is not in the drawer below the stove as usual but in some closet in your wife's classroom at school and B) there's a Walgreens less than 1/6-mile from your doorstep).
Immediately when I walked into Walgreens I was permeated with that smell. You know that smell. That Walgreens smell. I can't describe it in any other way than . . . Walgreens.
No matter if the Walgreens is in Denver, Kansas City, El Paso, Omaha or Manchester, CT, or if the Walgreens is 16 years old or 16 weeks old, all Walgreens smell exactly the same (true could be said of other discount chains, Target especially).

How can this be?

Certainly over the last 20 years, Walgreens has changed the bulk of its products, or perhaps began carrying more convenience foods and makeup and less camera supplies and toys. And yet the scent is exactly the same.

I want to know specifically what I am smelling.

Maybe the smell is the product of commercially unsuccessful, bargain DVDs placed near a cash register. Maybe the smell is a cocktail of hair clips and self grooming tools placed in proximity to cigarettes and Nicoderm patches. Maybe it’s the combined scent achieved when a photo processing center butts up against a dairy case.

Some I have spoken to about this think it’s a scent Walgreens sprays in all its stores. My only hesitation with this theory is that if Walgreens was to provide a scent for its stores, it would pick something like “sea breeze” or “flowers” over “Walgreens.”

Whatever makes up the smell, to me it’s one of the most remarkable, consistent and unique scents I have ever smelled while purchasing allergy pills and Pringles.

I carry my weight well

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 48 seconds

"If you don't mind me asking . . ." said the guy who sits across from me at work. "But how much do you weigh?"

(For the split second after I heard the preface "If you don't mind me asking" my feeling was part fear, part excited anticipation. Anytime that statement precedes a question, the possibilities are endless. Have you ever shot someone in the face while hunting? How often would you say you are drunk at work?)

"If you forgive me for not answering, I'll forgive you for asking," I responded, turning my cheek and tilting my nose toward the ceiling.

Boo-yah! Take that! Asking me such a personal question. Shame on you! Shame on us all. I'm embarrassed for you, sir.

Actually I didn't really say that. It was a comeback Dear Abby advised a number of years ago to use when someone asks you a personal or embarrassing question. But I should have said it, not because I took offense to the question, but because it would have been quite humorous. As it turned out, I didn't mind providing an answer.

"205," I said.

"Really!?" he responded, with a bit more surprise in his voice than I had hoped. I questioned his reaction.

"Oh, it's just . . . you carry your weight well," he said.

This is something no one had ever said to me. I tried to figure out what this actually meant. I carry my weight well?

After some thought, I figured out that what he was really saying was that, by looking at me and my round face, he would have thought I weighed a lot more than 205. So rather than "you carry your weight well," he should have said "You know you're really not as obese as you look." Suddenly a euphemistic phrase turns into an emotionally-scarring insult.

But if I had to choose, carrying my weight well beats the alternative. I'd rather weigh 205 and appear to be 190 than to severely restrict my calories and exercise like mad to drop 15 pounds and actually weigh 190.

Because in the end, unless somebody asks (which apparently is not unheard of), no one really knows how much I weigh. If I look 190, I am 190.

Now bring on the chicken tenders.

More Assorted thoughts of no particular importance

Estimated reading time: 2 minute, 9 seconds

Haircuts and shampoo

It never fails.

I get a haircut, go about my day and then go to bed. The next morning I feel my hair and remember that I got haircut and am happy that I finally took the time to get the haircut after three shaggy weeks of nagging myself.

However, all recognition of the new haircut disappears in the shower. Ready to wash my hair, I squeeze out the same amount of shampoo as I had the day before. This is, of course, way too much shampoo as the length of my hair has been trimmed by 50 percent.

Ultimately I am left with an abundance of lather that I have no use for, some of which undoubtedly runs into my eyes.

Depressing

I bought a pocket-sized notebook to record assorted thoughts of no particular importance while I am away from a computer or larger portion of paper. However, the first thing I write in it is "Georgy Girl," which serves as a reminder that I'd really like to download the 1966 oldie-but-goodie by The Seekers. I then note how lame I am.

Dogs vs. Mailmen: Hatred Not A Myth

The fact that my dog barks at the mailman is not the issue. Even I have the desire – albeit suppressed – to nervously shout and alert others if a stranger steps onto my porch, whether they be from Jehovah's Witness, Manchester Democrats, LDS or U.S Mail.

It's more of a concern as to when she starts barking at the mailman. Before I get to that, it's important to know that we live in a normal neighborhood where people freely and regularly walk up and down the sidewalk at all times during daylight hours, usually pushing a stroller or being pulled by a dog. Hellion, perched atop her lookout on the arm of the couch where she can monitor the neighborhood from the living room window, allows these pedestrians to walk past in silence.

But Monday through Saturday, Hellion begins to bark at around 11 a.m. I look out the window and see nothing. I look harder, opening the shades as far as possible and pressing my face against the glass to the point of pain to see what is the object of her ire. The mailman, walking his route, is across the street . . . five houses down. He is the size of a Cocoa Pebble to us. And yet she knows it's him, barking and growling, almost out of pure hatred. I compliment her on her remarkable eyesight – clearly better than mine – then tell her to pipe it down.

Maybe it's the blue wool pants, blue cotton blend shirt, eagle-emblazoned hat or the canvas sack of mail. Whatever it is, Hellion doesn't like it.

Where's the Laundromat?

We were driving in downtown Hartford today and were stopped at a stoplight. My window was down, letting the 78-degree air permeate the car's interior. A man on the sidewalk carrying a sack of laundry shouts at me.

"Hey, do you know where there's a laundry-mat?!"

Unfamiliar with that part of town I said I didn't know.

But after thinking about for a second, I was like "Man, you need a plan before you're walking down the street with a bag of dirty clothes."

Human-Sized Bunnies and Potentially-Evil Clowns

Estimated reading time: 57 seconds

Saturday's front page of the Hartford Courant featured unrelated photos of two entities in which I find unequivocally frightening: A human-sized Easter Bunny and a clown.

The bunny was holding a screaming baby, a baby whose screaming is for the first time whole-heartedly justified. If I were being cradled and potentially strangled dead by a grinning, man-sized rabbit, I would too scream with the fear of God.

If I saw that bunny anywhere outside, say, a mall or a fair or a parade, I would respond in one of two ways. Either I would retreat as fast as my aerobic condition permitted, or I would savagely beat it to death, depending on my access to an object that would inflict an adequate amount of blunt force trauma, a tire iron perhaps.

This clown - oddly clutching a stuffed cat - is a somewhat less threatening figure although highly unnecessary and potentially evil and dangerous. Clowns I have learned to coexist with just as long as they don't make any sudden moves or aggressive gestures in my presence or direction. (On the topic, I'm still unsure what I think about those "street performers" who stand still until you put money in their cup before doing some sort of robotic movement or some otherwise non-human action. Double-unsure if all robotic movement corresponds with a hidden whistling sound coming from their mouth).

I was trying to think of what else that could have been pictured on the page more frightening than the giant bunny or the clown. I finally settled on Hobo Dentist.

Assorted thoughts of no particular importance

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 22 seconds

Free-Throw Routines

Nearly every basketball player has some elaborate routine they go through each time they shoot free throws.

For one guy it's four quick bounces in front then one methodical bounce to the right. Shoot.

For another guy it's five slow bounces, clutch the ball staring at the rim, take a deep breath, assume shooting position, knees bent with emphasis. Shoot.

Another player doesn't bounce it at all but employs a dramatic spin before he shoots.

There are as many different free-throw routines as there are players.

I'm assuming these routines, followed with remarkable accuracy, are two parts rhythm – a way to keep things consistent at the line – and one superstition.

This all makes sense . . . for someone who shoots 86 percent.

But guys who are shooting in the 50s? Doing the same thing at the line every time? C'mon. Shake it up. That little thing you do where you rotate the ball so that your hand rests on the same part each time before you send the ball bouncing off the rim has gotten you a deplorable 46 percent clip from the free throw line.

On Vomiting

How come whenever people throw up in movies they always a) sit or kneel on the bathroom floor; b) stick their entire head or face into the toilet c) rest their arms on the dirtiest part of the toilet as they vomit?

Granted I don't throw up as often as people tend to in movies, but when I do I am always standing with my face at least a foot and a half away from anything I had just urinated into within the last 24 hours.

Game Idea

I want to come up with a board game for people to play when they call in sick to work but aren't really sick.

I'm not sure what to call it.

Vague Fortune Cookies

I got a fortune cookie the other day that said "Taking chances may bring success."

May bring success? May?

What kind of vague, on the fence fortune is that?

Why not just say "Taking chances may or may not bring success."

If you're are going to be vague about whether or not taking chances will bring success, at least be specific about something.

Drink four beers before going to work. Your relaxed demeanor may take the edge off a tense workplace and see that your efficiency and creativity skyrocket. Or you may unexpectedly get somewhat aggressive and confrontational over a co-worker's innocent question about punctuation. They smell alcohol on your breath and send you shamefully home in a cab, immediately putting you on unpaid administrative leave.

The Go-Tart

Estimated reading time: 50 seconds

Today's topic: Kellogg's new version of the Pop-Tart, the Go-Tart.

The two products are made of the same goodness: mysteriously consistent crust, high-fructose laden fruit-like filling and the party-themed candy-coated top.

The only difference between the old and the new is the shape.

The Pop-Tart insists on sticking with its bulky, 3x4-inch rectangular travesty, a shape that hit its peak in the early 80s. The Go-Tart, on the other hand, takes the shape of the sleeker, more hip, and possibly healthier, Butterfinger.

The enhanced, streamlined contour makes the Go-Tart much easier to handle, easier to "grab and go," a joy to consume while operating a car and way more convenient to stuff into a purse, backpack or your giant, fat, salivating child's mouth.

My only take on this: Thank God. Anything they could do to make those clunky, complicated and hard-to-grasp Pop-Tarts easier to eat with a 21^st century, on-the-go, not-enough-time-to-hassle-with-a-POP-TART-anymore lifestyle would be a much welcomed improvement.

Just for the kids out there, here is the Go-Tart ingredient list:

ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], RIBOFLAVIN [VITAMIN B2], FOLIC ACID), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN, COTTONSEED AND HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL† WITH TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID FOR FRESHNESS), CONTAINS TWO PERCENT OR LESS OF GLYCERIN, STRAWBERRY PUREE CONCENTRATE, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, CORNSTARCH, PEAR PUREE CONCENTRATE, SALT, APPLE PUREE CONCENTRATE, TAPIOCA STARCH, APPLE POWDER, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA, SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE), NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, DEXTROSE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, CELLULOSE GEL, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, MILLED CORN, CORN SYRUP, MALIC ACID, CARAMEL COLOR, PROPYLENE GLYCOL ALGINATE, DATEM, CELLULOSE GUM, WHEY PROTEIN ISOLATE, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OIL†, RED #40, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, CITRIC ACID, COLOR ADDED, NIACINAMIDE, REDUCED IRON, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, TURMERIC COLOR, FOLIC ACID, BLUE #1, SOY LECITHIN.

Why I vacationed in Dallas

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 24 seconds

Last month I asked if I could leave work a little early because I had an early morning flight to catch.

"Oh yeah? Where are you going?"

"Dallas."

He literally laughed. "Seriously?"

I was serious. I can understand why he found my answer humorous. Although a fine city nonetheless, people don't really see Dallas as a vacation hotspot. It's like Boise or Kansas City or Cleveland.

I gave him the short answer. We have friends there. Here's the long answer:

In April, 2001, we lived in Corpus Christi, Texas and had zero friends living within a 1,000-mile radius. New town, new jobs. It was understandable. Within six months, things started to change.

First came along Tapril, a combination of two people named Tate and April. Erin taught with April at Calallen High School. Tate was her husband, a lawyer. They turned out to be our first couple friend.

From my experience, couple friends create an inherently volatile situation where two people who enjoy each other's company decide to sit their spouses across from one another at a restaurant for a round of uninspired and painfully clumsy small talk while they laugh and talk it up like nothing unusual. Luckily, we and Tapril were able to avoid these follies.

Next, the baron landscape of friendship that was my workplace started to transform. It seemed that every few weeks, a new face would arrive and we would become friends. As people arrived, the circle got bigger and within a year, we had at least seven good friends (I define a good friend as someone you could hang out with by yourself, without the social buffer of another person to take the pressure of the awkwardness of dull conversations and the incompatibility you share).

It was the first time I had that many good friends since my fourth birthday party and that was only because my mom invited everyone on our street and the next street down.

Because of the size of our city, nobody lived farther than 15 minutes drive from anyone else. And our similar work schedules made it not uncommon to push two, even three tables together for post-work drinks and/or unnecessary face-stuffing.

If you wanted someone to hang out with, one person and usually more were up for it. This meant brunch at John and Helen's, Chinese lunch buffet with Ryan and John, camping with Karson (or Tapril), beading with Helen and Kari (that was Erin, of course, not me), reality TV with John, hillbilly concerts with Tapril, coffee before work with Karson, volleyball, karaoke, the beach, pool(s), IHOP and so on.

I don’t know if any of us realized how amazingly odd this was at the time.

But people early in their careers, especially anyone who works in newspapers likely will have somewhat of a transient life. You find a newspaper, work there for a year or three than move on, usually to a bigger paper, a bigger city.

Slowly, the same forces that lured everyone to Corpus Christi sent them away. We all began to go our separate ways. Except something funny happened, something odd and unimaginable. For their own unrelated reasons, all of our friends ended up in the same city again. Except us. We moved as far away as you could without applying for a work visa. And then moved again, just as far in another direction.

And that's what brought us to Dallas/Fort Worth. Besides trips to Denver to see family, it was the first trip where experiencing something new – a new city, a new culture, a new landscape – was not on the list.

We came with no plans, no sights to see. We came to do what we used to do on a near daily basis. Talk, laugh, drink, gossip and laugh some more. And we flew a thousand miles to do it.

The highlight of our trip for me was a single moment. Nothing terribly planned. We were all gathered at Karson's and had opened some wine that Ryan brought. Somebody asked whoever to do a toast. It was more for the sappy sentimentality than a group of people taking themselves seriously.

Ryan stepped up and out of nowhere, with glass held high and a gaze toward the ceiling for comedic effect, he said, "There are wood ships, and good ships, and ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships and may they always be."

A classic Irish toast and now a classic moment. It was hilarious, irreverent, sentimental and poignant all at once.

If Ryan had said the same words, holding the same wine, in front of the same people a few years earlier, I probably would have chuckled. But the meaning would have been lost. Because then, I lived 10 minutes away. And we would see each other tomorrow.

Rooting for nobodys

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 4 seconds

When thinking about professional sports – say, the NBA – you think about sportsade endorsements, night club entourages, all-star games, Sportscenter highlights and theatrically overblown pre-game introductions.

But for all the famously overpaid, pampered, super celebristars, there are a couple guys on every team that sit at the end of the bench wearing their warm-ups throughout the game. They never get introduced before tipoff and rarely even play.

Although it may seem obvious and uninsightful, that guy, the guy who remains anonymous to fans and media plays on an NBA team.

That guy defied serious odds to make it to the most elite point possible.

At every level he played at – junior leagues, high school, college – he was likely the best player on the team, way ahead of the competition.

Right now he could walk in to any gym or crash any pickup game in the world and be the best player on the floor if not outright dominating. He’s a better player than 99.7 percent of people who have ever picked up a basketball.

Despite all of this, to most fans he “sucks.” He sits the bench. Not only is he not the star of his team, he hardly contributes anything. And if he does play, it is only because the score is so lopsided that his presence on the court will not have any effect on the game’s final outcome.

Among his peers, he is paid the least (albeit hundreds of thousands a year) and plays the least.

He has immense talent in some respects and zero talent in others. He suits up in front of thousands of people three times a week yet remains a nobody.

And while the salary probably makes the medicine go down, I can’t help but feel a little for these guys. They’ve made it to the pinnacle of basketball but on some levels are failures.

So the next time I go to an NBA game, I’m not going to cheer for the superstars. They have enough people who know them, love them and cheer them. After all, they’re in the NBA and they’re successful.

Mechanical bulls and me

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 34 seconds

Perhaps it was because my first question was "Do they have a mechanical bull?"

But for whatever reason, when it was confirmed by sight that a mechanical bull was indeed in operation at the Stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas, it was instantly assumed that I would ride it.

No one else in our group of five even hinted at or entertained the slightest thought of they themselves taking a wild albeit unnecessary spin on the mechanical beast. But everyone questioned not if I should ride, but would the ride come immediately or after having given the ¾-lbs. burrito I had just eaten time to hit the bottom of my stomach.

I, of course, wouldn't have it any other way, this being my first encounter with a mechanical bull. And given the amount of thought I have given to the subject of mechanical bulls – talking about them, writing about them, joking about them – to not ride when given the opportunity would be unspeakable.

To me, mechanical bulls are inherently funny. For one, the honky tonk atmosphere of silly, skinny white guys in clownish shirts, funny hats and cowboy boots is a good start. Getting these fellers to ride a bucking machine based on the actions of an erratic and aggressive animal to the point of covering the contraption with the hide of a real bull and you have created something legendarily humorous.

The idea of riding a real bull is absurd enough. Take a powerful, angry, volatile, unpredictable animal and tie an ungodly strap around its private parts, making it more angry, volatile and unpredictable. Then, for the dumb witted, yee-haw fun of it, get on its back and stay on for as long as possible before getting tossed off like you were made of hay and held together by a pair of discarded overalls. Too easy? Well, you can only hold on with one hand. Oh yeah, and to make some sense out of this whole rigamaroll, once you get bucked off the dangerous beast, clowns shall run out to serve as distraction as you pick up your goofy hat and scamper off over some bleachers.

But with a mechanical bull, an absurd and, face it, idiotic event is replicated as entertainment for people who want to ride the bull but don't want the risk of being a) stomped b) disemboweled or c) having their neck snapped as they tumble to an unforgiving dirt surface.

An amusement ride is born. But unlike a normal thrill ride, which undoubtedly buckles you to your seat using straps and belts with the goal of keeping you safely attached to the vessel, a mechanical bull hopes for just the opposite. Its goal is to get you to fall off, and the more violently spectacular you are tossed aside, the better.

For the life of me I can't figure out why the idea of this activity is attractive to people. It is so avoidable, so bizarre, so funny.

To me, a mechanical bull is part absurd, part surreal, part volatile, wholly unnecessary and totally random. Which is almost exactly how I would describe my sense of humor.

And maybe that's the connection I feel with mechanical bulls. Perhaps the mechanical bull is the embodiment of my personality, representing a trait of mine that I value the most.

Perhaps that's why my friends didn't question if I would ride. It all seemed so natural.

So yes I rode. I rode because I would never forgive myself otherwise. Five dollars per ride? I had no choice, you see? Sign a release saying I can't sue regardless of how mangled I become after getting flipped off a mechanical animal? Saying no would be denying the essence of my being.

OK maybe that pushed it too far. But of course I rode.

My ride wasn't as spectacular as how I had planned it in my mind. I didn't cartwheel off the bull in a haphazardly fantastic style. I didn't lie in the mangled, crumpled heap on the ground as I had hoped.

But at least I rode. And at the same time, was able to cross a lifelong goal off my list.

And for the record, moving up on that list of goals were:

1. Learning to yodel
2. Developing a jaw-dropping tap dance routine to bust out at parties and small gatherings.

When a Product Becomes Irrelevant

Everyone has seen those commercials where a group of hipsters demonstrate how incredibly free, exuberant and insanely hip their lives are. They're either playing Frisbee golf while wearing trendy sweaters and scarves or riding ultra-cool scooters while racing through traffic-free downtown streets, also wearing trendy sweaters and scarves. At the end you discover that the commercial was for a product that never even appeared prominently in the ad. Something like underwear or cola or hair care products. You are left scratching your head saying, "What was THAT all about?"

Of course corporations no longer sell products. They sell images and lifestyles. They tell you virtually nothing about the product itself and more about the type of life you will have if you buy it. Many times they tell you as little about the product they are selling as possible.

Could this be because they have nothing else to offer? Like a guy who drives a Hummer, perhaps they are trying to compensate for what they don't have. After all, they are probably thinking, it's just shampoo. With hundreds of options on shampoo, or virtually every product, most producing fairly similar results, why would someone choose one over the other?

Take light beer. Anyone who tells you that they have a preference over Bud Light, Miller Lite or Coors Light is kidding themselves. They all taste remarkably similar. The only way to separate themselves is by advertising and brand loyalty/recognition.

Even when Coors says that its beer tastes better because it "brewed cold and shipped cold" it has everything to do with its Rocky Mountain refreshment image and nothing to do with actual taste.

Or say you set 10 pairs of jeans out in front of someone – all similar in price and quality. What could make someone choose one over the other? Perhaps the image and branding the corporation has spent so much on to create. Toss in some brand familiarity and perhaps some trendy swing dancers in a commercial and suddenly one pair of jeans seems more desirable than the next.

The same could be said for virtually every product. Take away the global onslaught of ads, the theme stores and the athlete endorsements (actually athletes don't really endorse products as much as they appear in non-speaking roles, usually sweating profusely, extremely hungry or running up the stairs of an empty stadium) and Nike becomes any old company selling overpriced shoes made in overseas sweatshops.

But a Swoosh magically increases the value of footwear by 200 percent. After all, the Nike Swoosh tells you everything about what kind of athlete you can be or what kind of active, bold and aggressive lifestyle you can achieve. But nothing about shoes.

Flavor of the month: Turkey

Today's discussion centers on turkey. But I'm not talking about Thanksgiving or anything that involves real, actual turkey.

I'm talking about the kind of turkey that you put on a sandwich, turkey that can be folded twice without coming apart, that slimy, ovalish, stretchable conglomerate appropriately placed next to the hot dogs at the grocery store.

Just because the package says "Turkey" does that make it turkey?

It reminds me of those disgusting strawberry candies. The thing I remember about them is that they taste nothing like a strawberry despite them trying to somehow fool you with the cellophane made to look like a strawberry. Like strawberry Jolly Ranchers, what they actually taste like is a distinct synthetic candy flavor labeled Strawberry.

Same goes for grape gum. When someone pops in a piece of grape Bubble Yum, they're after that artificial taste we now associated with grapes. Instead of calling the flavor Grape, they should have made up an entirely made-up name, as it is an entirely made-up flavor. Something like Grandoliciousness.

Of course they have to call it Grape in order to better associate it with food, hiding the fact that you are actually chewing on artificially flavored edible rubber that allegedly tastes like fruit.

Which gets back to turkey. Do turkey cold cuts taste anything like real, actual turkey?

No. They taste like . . . turkey cold cuts, a unique flavor that we have associated with a bird initially made famous by Pilgrims. Real turkey is eaten once, maybe twice a year, not everyday between slices of white bread.

I've never thought much about comparing real turkey to turkey cold cuts. But if you compare the taste of a Thanksgiving turkey and compare it to your typical turkey lunch meat, the two taste nothing alike.

The distinction became more clear when I noticed a new product at the grocery store. In the midst of the bright yellow and blue cardboard and plastic packaging of various flavors of artificially-shaped ham and baloney, a rectangular cardboard box – left predominantly in its natural cardboard color – caught my eye. Naturally, the product is called Natural Choice Oven Roasted Deli Turkey by Hormel.

Beside the name on the front is the word NEW printed on a leaf as well as the words ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS** and NO PRESERVATIVES.

On the back are bullet points, differentiating further how the product is better than your run-of-the-mill cold cut. They are:

• No Nitrate or Nitrite added
• Minimally Processed
• No Artificial Ingredients
• Gluten Free
• No MSG Added

Is this what it has come to? Has No Nitrite really become a selling point for food? How did we get to the point where all the sandwich meat is packed with Gluten, MSG and Artificial Ingredients . . . except for one? Makes you wonder what else is in all that other turkey.

And why must I now pay more for lunch meat that is Minimally Processed instead of Overly Processed?

Surprisingly, Hormel's Natural Choice actually tastes like real turkey. And instead of the rubbery ovals of "turkey" you find elsewhere, this turkey flakes and tears like you would expect turkey to do.

But the fact that I am amazed because there's a package proclaiming Turkey that contains actual turkey is somewhat of an eye-opener.

Why Thanksgiving is better than you think

Halloween didn't go quietly this year. Judging by the number of Trick-Or-Treaters we've had living in three states in the past five years – about 18 total – I was under the impression that the spooky pagan holiday was on the verge of collapse.

Those feelings changed after a horrifying 106 youngsters rung our doorbell demanding candy this year. Perhaps Connecticut's rich history of heretics, witches and headless horseman gives Halloween higher holiday status than in, say, New Mexico.

With Halloween out of the way and no candy left over to make it all worth it, we now look forward to Thanksgiving, which is by far the best holiday we have to choose from in America.

It goes without saying that the most glorious aspect of Thanksgiving is that it is centered on binge eating. It's the one day where stuffing your giant face is completely and utterly socially acceptable and encouraged, if not downright required or coerced.

But for me what makes Thanksgiving so great – after the eating of course – is that it has somehow survived a commercial takeover.

I mean, when Easter gets to the point where it engulfs four aisles at Target, you know the corporate hijacking of holidays has become quite grave.

Most holidays – Valentine's Day, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day – are all centered on what you will buy for whom. Beyond getting the day off, the only remarkable thing about Labor Day and Memorial Day are the sales advertised at stores like J.C. Penney. And how serious is the problem when our national economy convulses this way or that way depending on how much people muster to plunk down on others at Christmas? With money they don't have, no less.

But back to Thanksgiving. The only spending you're doing for Thanksgiving is at the grocery store. And face it, you were going anyway. You're just picking up a few extra items . . . like a bird that weighs as much as my dog.

In addition to subduing corporate America, Thanksgiving has apparently avoided something else that has attached itself to holidays: Music. If there's one thing that we like about holidays, other than spending money like it's not ours (it's not), it is holiday music.

We stage entire school Christmas performances just so we can showcase our beloved carols through the mouths of innocent children. Fourth of July is rife with patriotic propaganda. Easter has a host of crucifiction/ resurection hymns. New Years has its song whose title I still am unsure how to pronounce.

But Thanksgiving has been left alone. And Dido's "Thank You" or Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being a Friend" don't count, contrary to one web site which ranks alleged "Thanksgiving Songs". (A couple Thanksgiving songs I'd like to see: "Amaizing Thanks," "Gord of Gords" and "O Cornucopia, We Thank Thee")

The only popular song I could find that mentions Thanksgiving specifically was Adam Sandler's "The Thanksgiving Song." (Imagine if there were just one popular Christmas song and that one song was called "The Christmas Tune and it was written and performed by Jack Black.)

Instead for Christmas you've got Silent Night packaged a hundred different ways. And then you've got to buy and send Christmas cards and then you have to buy all your presents, which forces everyone to the store at once because everyone put it off as long as possible which causes snarling holiday traffic, which makes everyone tired, cranky and moody. By the time the day rolls around, everyone is grumpy, in debt and depressed, then forced into contact with extended family. It's no wonder an innocent group of carolers can send someone right over the edge.

Thanksgiving, conversely, is a holiday with no fluff and no fat. No gifts, no songs, no candy and no symbolic explosions choreographed to music. Just right.

Red and blue at war

How did red and blue become such polarizing colors?

Since the 2004 election results were famously color-coded by state, red or blue can now serve as answers for questions like "What is your stance on abortion?" or "How do you feel about warrantless wire taps?"

Regardless of how slim the margin of victory was, each state became a Red State or a Blue State overnight. If you were a Democrat in Alabama or a Republican in Vermont, you suddenly didn't exist, as if there is no middle ground.

As many have realized now, the Red State/Blue State scheme has turned into a divisive mechanism, leading people to exaggerated beliefs and sweeping judgments that lump entire regions of our country into one political party.

In reality, our country is extremely purple, sometimes with two precincts within a district within a state at voting odds with one another.

Of course, this isn't the first polarizing war between Red and Blue. Coke and Pepsi have been trying to get people to choose one over the other for almost a century.

Is this a war that needs to be fought? Is this a war that can actually be won (War on Terror, anyone. . .)?

Can we just stop it already, lay down our arms and admit that Pepsi and Coke are both delicious, similar-tasting beverages, each with their own distinctive subtleties to which some people may or may not favor over the other if they so choose?

Like Miami Herald sports designer Kevin Scott says, Coke and Pepsi are always going to each have 48 percent of the cola market regardless, but they spend hundreds of millions a year in advertising, scrapping away at the remaining 4 percent. Wouldn't those hundreds of millions be better spent hooking a more impoverished country's youth on sweet, fattening drinks for life?

The truth is I'm tired of being told that Coke Is It or that it is Always Coca-Cola. I don't need Pepsi informing me that it just so happens to be America's Choice and that Nothing Else Is A Pepsi.

Don't tell me that I have to prefer one over the other and that if I like Coke I must not like Pepsi and if I dislike Coke that must mean that I love Pepsi.

You, paid-off researchers, stop your studies where you unsuspectingly direct me to drink from two cups, one marked Pepsi, the other marked Coke and when I say I prefer one over the other you rip off my blindfold and mockingly inform me that they were both Coke.

I have better things to do and so should you.

I guarantee the next time I walk into a restaurant this is what will happen:

I'll have a Coke.

We have Pepsi, is that OK?

Yes it is OK. You know why? Because they're both equally refreshing.

Here's how simple this Pepsi vs. Coke thing is for me, and for you too, I would imagine. If Pepsi was magically $1 cheaper per 12-pack than Coke, I would probably become a Pepsi drinker. And vice versa, of course.

Now, if you're the type to say that you find Pepsi horribly rancid but adore every sweet droplet of Coca-Cola, perhaps it's because you've been led to believe that it is not an option to think they're both pretty OK.

I guess the Pepsi vs. Coke war is a lot like the political landscape in our country. On the far right (Coke) and the far left (Pepsi), you have people saying the other side are nothing but vile deceptors who want to destroy America. No middle ground. No gray areas. No I-can-see-your-points. Just ideology to the death.

Meanwhile there are millions of people stuck in the middle realizing that in the end, they both pretty much taste the same.


p.s. It is my goal to have a new post every Monday so make sure to check back then.

I put the gal in egalitarian

The way a job gets done around our house is usually decided by one thing: Whatever needed to get done the longest ago is what gets done first. But not always.

How we divide these tasks is a mystery to me. I might do laundry and fix breakfast one day and Erin might mow the lawn or wash the car the next. And then the next time those duties come up, we switch. Basically, carry your weight or there will be trouble. Luckily there’s never been too much trouble.

Whether a job is traditionally done by a man or a woman has never factored in. The only job Erin won’t do, for some reason, is order pizza over the phone.

What started as a straight egalitarian approach to marriage has evolved. One moment I was barbecuing – the only cooking deemed acceptable by the manliest of men – the next I am looking up recipes for stuffed flounder. One moment Erin is painting the bathroom, the next she is snaking a clogged bathtub drain.

This philosophy of ours reached a level of absurdity over the weekend. Not thinking anything out of the ordinary was taking place, Erin and I went about separate activities. But then it suddenly donned on me: I was in the kitchen finely chopping an onion for a homemade tartar sauce while Erin was busy working with plumbing fixtures and hanging cement board in a shower renovation project she had embarked upon.

For a moment I had to set the mincing knife aside, take off my apron, sit down and think. OK I wasn't really wearing an apron, but I tried to understand how I was in the kitchen preparing sauces and batters while my wife swung a hammer in a gutted bathroom.

How did it get to this point? We had somehow gone as far as embracing a complete male/female role reversal. Being married for 8 years, it's not something that has happened over night. But it got a major boost this summer, when we moved to Connecticut and bought a house.

Generally our house is in great condition for being built in 1927. It's not a fixer-upper, as some in the renovation community might say, but has a few areas here and there that could be improved upon if a person either had the money to pay to have it done or had the desire to do it themselves.

Erin falls into the latter category. Always one with a hankering for DIY, this was her chance to take on some projects. Her first big project was the guest bathroom. This involved in part, ripping out the old sink, counter and shower and then rebuilding everything from scratch, newer, bigger, better. I pledged my support from the start, embracing her new hobby.

But I was clear on one thing: If she was going to become a home improver, it was her deal, not mine. If she wanted to spend her weekends ripping up tile, grouting, painting, soldering and making countless trips to Lowe's, then she was certainly entitled. But just because it's normally men who improve homes, I shouldn't be forced to contribute. Sure I would jump in for the heavy lifting or be around for the occasional task that required two people. She is fine with this.

My shunning of home improvement came down to one issue: I don't enjoy it. I would much rather spend my free time hiking, reading, watching movies or writing. Being roped into episodes of "Flip That House" before embarking on a grueling plumbing project sounds like the kind of activity I would take up if I were sent to prison. I shutter just hearing Erin use DIY slang like "rip" for cutting wood with a power saw, or "demo" instead of the cumbersome "demolition" or "hit" to describe anything that can be done quickly (you can hit a wall with paint, a board with screws or a tub with caulk, among other things.)

While this provides reason for Erin's non-traditional behavior, when it comes to my actions I can only offer the excuse that it's not unheard of for men to be into serious cooking. I mean, look at all those male celebrity chefs (OK, this is not good for my case as a Google search for "Flamboyant chef" returned 397,000 hits).

Looking ahead, I see our non-traditional roles become more non-traditional. Because if Erin insists on rewiring outlets, unclogging drains and installing new sinks, the least I can do is serve her cold lemonade and whip up a decent meal for when she takes a break. And once she is done with her bathroom renovation, it will be my job to clean the new shower, mop the new floor and every once in a while throw down some Comet on the new sink

Thoughts on eye patches

I recently discovered why pirates and sailors are always shown wearing eye patches. You're probably thinking it has something to do with those bowed machetes pirates enjoy brandishing or perhaps just some hard living on the open seas. But you'd be wrong.

Turns out it has nothing to do with injured or defective eyes. Ah, maybe it's something with the eye patch helping them look through a telescope. Again, incorrect.

Here's the deal: Often times on a boat, a captain would have to go from the bright light of day above deck to the dank darkness below deck and quickly performing critical maneuvers. When going below deck, he removes the eye patch and has one eye that is instantly accustomed to darkness.

They may have been barbaric and slovenly, but when it comes to quickly acclimating one eye to darkness, pirates were a brilliant group of seamen.

This raised some further issues regarding eye patches.

Have eye patches ever been portrayed in a non-maritime-related movie for reasons other than a) an easy way to identify a villain; b) an easy way to identify a lunatic; or c) used as some sort of metaphor for shortsightedness?

The answer, simply, is no. This is certainly unfair as I'm sure there are some standout citizens out there who wear eye patches. However, when encountering someone with an eye patch in real life, the initial reaction is to think they are somewhat sinister.

I remember in high school there was one teacher who was known as "the crazy Vietnam vet" and then there was another teacher known as "the teacher with the eye patch." For most of my high school years, I assumed these two teachers were one and the same. In hindsight, I have to admit it makes such perfect sense. Now that I think of it, there was also a teacher with an artificial arm that had a hook on the end. He might've have been the crazy Vietnam vet. Or he might have been the teacher with the eye patch. Or maybe it's all the same guy, I'm not quite sure.

Thinking further, at what point does someone wearing an eye patch go from creepy to intriguing? What kind of position do you have to be in where an eye patch not only doesn’t hurt you but somehow elevates your status?

Certainly anyone in a creative field. You could play classical guitar, write sestinas or illustrate comic books, it wouldn't matter. But let's say you're a sculptor and you work with metal. You've got some talent and have established a bit of a following. You appear at art fairs around the country and do reasonably well. You're one of thousands of artists making work that is slightly different but somewhat indistinguishable from the next guy. In the end, we've all seen abstract curvature, kinetics and iridescent finishes.

Take that same artist, the same work and give him an eye patch. He goes from being gifted and determined to becoming a guru, a genius, a myth. He goes from being that promising sculptor from Minneapolis to being that distinguished, visionary sculptor with the eye patch with an inspired creative spirit.

On the opposite end, say you’re a middle manager wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and a stained tie working for a struggling communications company looking to hire a low-level accounts supervisor. You've already interviewed four people for the job, none of them terribly impressive. You have one interview left and you're really hoping that this one comes through. When that guy walks through the door with an eye patch, you have to admit you're a little disappointed. The eye patch is simply a variable you hadn't prepared for.

Now say the job comes down to two people, all things are equal except one has an eye patch. Whether you like it or not, that eye patch comes into play. If you hire the guy with the eye patch, it's because you consciously decided that the eye patch was irrelevant to the job at hand. Either that or you hire him simply because you couldn't not hire him because of the eye patch.

Who knows, despite initial reactions, perhaps an eye patch tends to help instead of hurt.

I can, however, think of one occupation where an eye patch is bad every time: Ice cream man. If you are driving an ice cream truck through a neighborhood looking for children to buy popsicles and gum and you're wearing an eye patch, fully expect your sales to fall by at least 60 percent. They'll fall by 75 percent if you have an eye patch and a fake arm with a hook. If you have an eye patch, a hook and you're a crazy Vietnam veteran, you just might be teaching high school somewhere.

Tall for a woman

The other day I was doing some thinking about Erin's height. This came after I had described her to someone as being "tall for a woman." With the average height for women being 5 feet 3 ½ inches, she is tall for a woman standing at 5 feet 10 inches. However, I realized that the part about "for a woman" was key. Because, compared to men, she is not tall. If she were, say, 6-foot-3, she would be tall not only for a woman, but for a man as well. And she would probably wear 36x36 jeans, which is quite frightening.

This led me to another thought. Since men are taller on average than women – the national average for a man is 5-foot-9 – what if I figured out how tall Erin would be if she were a guy? And please, quell your instincts to associate my thoughts with some suppressed desire wishing Erin were not female.

Here's what I did: Using some basic ratios, I compared Erin's height to the height of the average American female, which Erin is roughly 7 inches taller than, then compared that height to the height of the average American man.
I have discovered that, when controlling for the height disparities innate to the human species in regard to gender, Erin would be a gangly 6-foot-4 ½ if she were not born with the misfortune of being female.

That is quite tall, I would say. And having three older brothers who range somewhere between 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5, her being 6-foot-4 ½ wouldn't be abnormal in her lofty family.

What did I do with this information? I told her to immediately call her 6-foot-3 brother to stick it to him that he was the shortest sibling in the family.

(For the record, I would be a boring 5-foot-7 if I were a woman.)