the scary thing is that the last guy will actually be AT the convention...

I was listening to NPR today and they were previewing the Repulican Convention, and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to watch any of it. I know it will just make me yell at my TV, but I think it's probably important. I was reminded what Sun Tzu said about "knowing your enemy". Which got me to thinking about similar sentiments by great thinkers about one's proper attitude towards one's enemy. I present the words of three such great thinkers below...

Jesus: "Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you."

Sun Tzu: “Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated"

Conan the Barbarian:: “Crush yooah enemies… See dem driven befooah you… And heah da lamentation of da women.”

I think Sun Tzu's view is probably the closest to my own, but seriously... wouldn't it be nice to hear the lamentations of these women come November?


  (posted by Dave at 2:12 PM || )

  darwin’s little joke...

150 million years ago, small plant-eating dinosaurs found themselves engaged in an evolutionary arms race with some of the most fearsome carnivores that ever walked the Earth, including - but not limited to – the ferocious hunter, Tyrannosaurus rex.

Some relied on speed. Others, like the sauropods – brontosaurus and diplodocus – relied on sheer size. Still other relied on imposing and impenetrable armor. The jagged dorsal plates of Stegosaurus served as a visual deterrent to all but the most determined attackers. The Ankylosaurus – it’s rock-hard shell covered in 8-inch razor-sharp spikes – was all but impervious to a bite from above.

Alas, the dinosaurs, well-adapted as they were, did not survive. Theories regarding their extinction abound, the most popular involving global climatic change brought on by a catastrophic impact by a large meteor or comet. But whatever the reason for their extinction, the plant-eaters of the Cretaceous can rest assured that their evolutionary legacy survives, and that the defenses that once protected them from their flesh-eating adversaries continue to fend off larger and more powerful foes, in the form of the feet of parents of toddlers, who, despite their considerable size and supposed position of authority, can be brought to the brink of tears several times a day by a 3-inch plastic Ankylosaurus.

Worst of all, it was MY idea to buy the damned things.
  (posted by Dave at 11:40 PM || )

  just one more piece of furniture...

We got our new sofa today. (In camel... not red.) The Ikea sofa has been banished to the playroom. Suddenly it looks like adults live here. Of course, the word "adult" may seem a bit less appropriate when THIS arrives.

Ok... I know that seems like a crazy purchase, but I can explain. We use our Discover card for almost every single thing we buy, and we pay it in full monthly. As a result, we accrue CRAPLOADS of "2% Cashback Bonus" every year. And one of the things Discover will do is DOUBLE your cashback bonus if you agree to take it in the form of Giftcards to certain retailers. We usually just get it all in the form of Barnes and Noble gift cards. But this year, they were offering to double your money on Sharper Image purchases.

So... $350 in cashback bonus, times two... equals an $800 massage chair that only cost us $150, shipping included.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful... hate me because of my access to unlimited Robot Massages!

  (posted by Dave at 9:51 PM || )

  jeez, what'd i say...

I'm resisting the urge to post a snippy response to the latest post by my dear wife. So instead I suggest you go read this post of mine... check the date... check TODAY'S date... grab a calendar... and do the math.

No further comment.

  (posted by Dave at 3:23 PM || )

  it's a THERMOSTAT, not a roulette wheel...

I was FREEZING at work on Wednesday morning. I'm sitting at my desk huddled over my cup of tea... rubbing my hands together. I had already turned the thermostat up from 62º to 72º, but it wasn't helping. So Thursday I brought a light jacket to keep hanging in the office.

Warning. Do not tempt the climate control Gods thus...

Thursday they were doing work on the compressors or something, I don't know. I just know that I finally left the office when the last ball on my "Gallileo Thermometer" sank, indicating that it was now NINETY FUCKING DEGREES in my office.

So I went to the library. There was a workshop I was going to go to that afternoon anyway, so I just hung out with my laptop for a few hours. The workshop was on this grant-search software that they have at the library - courtesy of the Foundation Center. It's a big deal - not everybody has this program. It's a comprehensive database of every grant-giving organization in the US. Very useful for work. So the program was great, but the workshop was unbearable, since it was mostly attended by people who didn't know how to use a computer. There was a lot of this.

INSTRUCTOR: "Now we're going to click here where it says GRANT SEARCH. Ok? Now these are the criteria you can select for your search - you've got the grant type and the grantmaker's state, and-

OLD LADY BEHIND ME: "So I click on GRANT SEARCH?"

INSTRUCTOR: "Yes. Ok? Now go ahead and enter ALABAMA as the state and then select - "

LADY ACROSS THE AISLE: "How did you get to this screen?"

INSTRUCTOR: "Just click where is says GRANT SEARCH."

LADY ACROSS THE AISLE: "Here where is says GRANT SEARCH?"

DAVE:

"YES! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YES! CLICK ON GRANT SEARCH!!"

I tried to ignore it all and just search on my own.

Anyway.

Back in the office today, and the temperature seems to be well within the range of human habitation. We'll see how long that lasts. I should go make sure that nobody set the thermostat down to 60º yesterday.

Dave

(Postscript: Yes - indeed... the thermostat was set on 61º. Dammit.)
  (posted by Dave at 10:52 AM || )

  Mr. Soprano, sweetie? Your tax returns are ready...

So I bought this dark grey, glen-plaid suit for the wedding in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to get a really bold shirt and tie to go with it so I didn't look like a car salesman at a funeral. I chose this purple shirt (oh, is it purple!) and a blocky-purple tie. It's not really something I would normally wear myself, but I really liked it. (The Queer Eye Phenomenon again.) Well I tried on the whole ensemble last night, and three words immediately came to mind.

Gay. Mafia. Accountant.

  (posted by Dave at 10:32 AM || )

  i got the itch...

I spent a good part of this evening engaged in the o-so-masculine pursuit of Putting Crap In The Attic. I’ll leave aside the discussion of why this is MY job. That is neither here nor there.

The point is, we have a tiny little attic area over the garage. Meaning – the area in which we can put stuff is small, but it’s open to the whole damned roof/eaves/upper part of the house, which just so happens to be filled with blown insulation.

Oh, the blown insulation! Great flowing white drifts and dunes of blown insulation... fluffy, white, potentially airborne, unthinkably itchy blown insulation.

*shudder*

The sight of it... the THOUGHT of it makes me itch. You see... I had a traumatic childhood experience involving blown insulation. When I was a young teenager, my Dad built an addition to the front of the house, and tore two rooms off the BACK of the house. (I have no idea.) I got to help with the tearing-down parts. I don’t remember much about it other than the fact that the walls were insulated with blown insulation. And when you tear down a house built with blown insulation... well... you can imagine... you’re just standing there sweating in a cloud of the shit. Never have I itched like this... not before.. not since. Never have I showered so long and so coldly. I itched for days

And now... I can’t even stand to LOOK at the stuff. (I’m itching right now, typing this, and I’ve already showered!) So tonight I went up there and swept the stuff back away from the viable-storage area of the attic. My future plans include the construction of a 3’ high retaining wall of cardboard or Styrofoam to hold back the encroaching tide of...

Ok, I can’t even talk about it anymore.


  (posted by Dave at 12:14 AM || )

  olympic notes... part three...

I caught a little Women's Beach Volleyball on TV yesterday. A little later they ran some of the Men's competition, but... I dunno... There must be some subtle difference in the level of athleticism or style of the gameplay between the men's and women's games.... I just couldn't get into it for some reason. It just didn't grab my attention.

  (posted by Dave at 10:37 AM || )

  olympic notes, part two...

The "Best Foreign Name" award of this Olympics goes to swimmer Pieter Van der Hoogenband from the Netherlands. And why? Because if you had come up to me a week ago and said – ”Hey, Dave! Come up with a name that sounds Dutch, but is really just made up” - I would have blurted out, without missing a beat - ”Peter Van der Hoogenbagen!” Or something very, very close.

  (posted by Dave at 10:51 PM || )

  olympic notes, part one...

I may be 35 years old – married with 2 children, well educated with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, but the 12 year-old boy in my head is still unable to listen to the phrase –

”...young teenage breast-strokers...”

- without mentally snickering.

  (posted by Dave at 10:44 PM || )

  with, one would presume, genuine fleas...

Yesterday was SUCH a nice day, we decided to try to get OUT of the house for a change. We’ve seen ads touting the fact that “Alabama’s Largest Outdoor Flea Market” is located just a few miles from our house. So we figured... why not? Jennifer’s assessment of the experience....?

”We certainly seem to have more than the average allotment of TEETH.”

Dave’s assessment of the afternoon...?

”I have NEVER seen so many 15 year olds pushing strollers!”

Welcome to the REAL Alabama. It’s a very scary place. People selling chickens. A tattoo-and-body-piercing trailer. (Which I immediately dubbed “The Hepatitis Express”.) A goat an a leash. Sparkly back-lit Jesus Art.

Can we go back to Target now?


  (posted by Dave at 11:05 AM || )

  beep, beep?

This has happened to me several times since I moved down here…

I’m driving my car, and I’m sitting at red light – there is a long row of cars in front of me, and a long row of cars behind me. Since it looks like I’ll be stopped for a while, I take the opportunity to look for a CD or some Altoids or my sunglasses or something and take my eyes of the road for a few seconds. Then I look up to find that the cars in front of me have moved 30-50 yards ahead. Clearly the light turned to green – I dunno, three, maybe five seconds ago. And I look in my rear view mirror at the long line of cars behind me, and what are they doing??

NOTHING!!!

They’ve just been sitting there for 5 seconds waiting for me to move. What the FUCK?

”Well now, I reckon he’ll move when he’s right good and ready…”

For God’s sake, people… BEEP YOUR FREAKING HORN!!! How else am I supposed to know when I’m being an idiot.

Stupid southerners.

Five seconds!! It blows me away. In NY State you get maybe 2 seconds. In Manhattan you get about 1/2 a second. It makes me want to conduct a cross-country research project where I would just travel the country sitting at green-lights with a stopwatch and timing the average beep-lag-time. I’d like to see the resulting map. Do you think the Department of Transportation would fund something like that?

  (posted by Dave at 11:21 AM || )

  dude, where's my keyboard...?

I ordered a Korg Triton LE-88 for work last week (it's the BIG one), and according to the site's webpage, the damned thing hasn't shipped yet. It's kind of a small retailer - I should know better. It's really worth the extra $50 to deal with somebody large and reputable who actually has stuff IN STOCK, or will at least TELL you BEFOREHAND if the thing you ordered is OUT of stock.

So, I called them today to see what was up, and my call was transferred to a guy who introduced himself as "Tango".

Tango??

Oh, now my confidence is just soaring, knowing my order is being handled by a guy named "Tango"!

Anyway, "Tango" assures me that the keyboard will ship today... or maybe later this week... if they come in.

Thanks, Tango... that really clears things up for me, dude. Rock on...


  (posted by Dave at 9:59 AM || )

  everything zen... i don’t think so...

I did some more office decorating today. Besides dropping $600 of the boss’s money on a new sofa, I made a trip to BB&Beyond to pick up some candles and little rocks and whatnot. Then when I got back to my office I proceeded to set up my “Zen Fountain”. You know those little motorized trickly water things that are supposed to soothe and relax you, but really just make you have to pee twice as often as normal?

Anyway...

It’s a sort of black plastic bowl with fake plastic rocks. But I took out the fake plastic rocks and replaced them with these big chunks of real obsidian, and some smooth black river rocks. The real rocks look much nicer. Bit when I set the thing up, and turned it on, I noticed that the hum of the little pump was louder than the trickle of the water. There’s nothing particularly relaxing about a little motor going “BRZZZZZZZZZ” so I spent about an hour fucking around with the thing... adjusting the water level, repositioning the motor, changing the pump speed, moving the rocks around. I was getting pretty pissed off.

Is it missing the point when you find yourself getting pissed off at your “Zen Fountain”?

Yeah. I thought so.

I finally got it working quietly. Then I burned my thumb lighting one of my scented candles.

Yeah... Relaxing sucks.


  (posted by Dave at 12:39 AM || )

  if james lipton ever asks me...

"What is your favorite SOUND?" I need to remember that the answer is....

New guitar strings.

It's so easy to forget. Bright. Clear. Shimmering. God, I love that.

  (posted by Dave at 11:54 AM || )

  2 hour lunch...

I just do NOT feel like working this week. So I went shopping. I need shirts.

Now, I buy most of my clothes from the mid-level department stores… Target, Kohls, sometimes JC Penney. But for the past few years, it’s been Kohls. They were close to my house, they had good prices, and their clothes were fairly nice. Well – they don’t have Kohls down here. They have them in Atlanta, and they have them in Pensacola… but not here. So…

So I figured now that I have a bit more money, I might take it up a notch to the Macy’s/Dillard’s level. Dillard’s is the big anchor-store at the nearby mall, and let me tell you… shopping at clothes there is fucking EXHAUSTING! Because at the cheapo department stores, you’ve got your shirts pretty much all in one place and you jeans pretty much in one place, and your t-shirts pretty much in one place, and your dress shirts…

But at the upscale places, everything is by department and by designer. You’ve got your Hilfiger (**) department and your Ralph Lauren department and your Nautica department and your Calvin Klein department… ”Oh look, there are some shirts over there… Oh look! More shirts… hey… look way over in that corner… SHIRTS! And oh! Look…” I feel like I’ve walked a hundred fucking miles, and I only wound up buying ONE FUCKING SHIRT. And it took OVER AN HOUR!!

Then I went to Target and bought 3 shirts. It took 10 minutes.

And this is the other thing. While I was at Dillard’s walking around in the Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein sections, I kept finding myself drawn to shirts that I would NEVER wear, and yet I’d see them and think “Hey - that's nice. Ooh, I like that!” And yet these shirts are totally not my style. And who is to blame for this phenomenon? It’s the fucking “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy”, that’s who. Somehow, my subconscious self has developed better taste than my conscious self, and it’s all because of that TV show. Damn you, Carson Kressley!!

Anyway, I guess I’m stuck with my suburban-cheapskate fashion sense for now. At least until I can stop cringing at the prospect of paying $65 for a pair of pants.

Dave

(** By the way – Tommy Hilfiger makes some ugly fucking clothes, people.)


  (posted by Dave at 2:37 PM || )