Hamas Opposes Middle East Peace Plan
Members Say "We Hate Israel And. . . *BOOM!*
JERUSALEM (Rhodes Media Services) -- Amid outcry that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas may have given away too many concessions in negoatiations for the "road map" to peace, members of the militant Islamic group, Hamas, took to the streets in protest. To further voice their displeasure, some members detonated themselves at random areas throughout the city.
"We will never allow the Jews to dictate a peace with Palestine!" screamed an unknown Hamas member wearing a black mask. "We will forever fight the Zionists until we drive them into the sea and. . . *BOOM!"
Eyewitnesses had conflicting accounts of what the Hamas member said before he exploded in a mist of crimson, but popular variations included "where's that damn button again?" and "virgins, here I come!"
Another Hamas member, interviewed as he fought his way towards an Israeli checkpoint, was so enraged at the concessions, he reportedly strapped himself with three times the standard amount of high explosives.
"Let this be a message that carries loud and clear that Palestinians will never accept their own nation if it means sharing soil with the nation of Israel," he said, visibly laboring under the weight of his gigantic explosive belt. "We will resist until our hearts no longer beat and. . . *BA-ROOOM!*"
All apparent indications showed that the Hamas member's heart stopped beating at the exact moment of detonation.
UPDATE: This enty reminded me of another bomb-belt related post which was equally as tasteless:
"Blow Out Prices In The Middle East" c. Ryan Rhodes, April 10, 2002
Crazy Hassan: If you follow news the way I do, you know that the Palestinian and Israeli situation is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. The Israelis attack with helicopters and tanks, and we Palestinians retaliate by blowing ourselves up in large crowds. It’s madness, I tell you, madness; and wherever madness goes, I, Crazy Hassan, follow.
Failed Suicide Bomber: Three years ago, I tried to detonate myself with a clumsy contraption hidden in a duffel bag outside of a busy Israeli office building. Instead of blowing up and making me a martyr, the duffel bag erupted into flame, singeing my hair and landing me here in prison. If only I had a more reliable explosive. If only.
Crazy Hassan: Are your suicide detonations as effective as you would like? At Crazy Hassan's, we've drastically improved the efficiency of our bombs. Now, the last moments of your life need not be wasted worrying whether you can bring down an entire shopping center. At Crazy Hassan’s, our explosions are INSANE!
Satisfied Customer #1: Before Crazy Hassan, there was no way I would ever consider blowing myself up, unless I was guaranteed to take at least 15 Israelis with me. Now, thanks to Crazy Hassan, I'm poised to kill scores of innocent civilians aboard this very bus. Thanks Crazy Hassan!!
*BOOM*
Crazy Hassan: Thank you, brainwashed fundamentalist!! Not only are our bombs designed to instantly atomize your body just before your journey to Allah, they also annihilate anything within a 30 foot radius. So, you can rest easy before you rest forever.
Yasser Arafat: There was a time when we had to work with time-consuming and often unfulfilling peace negotiations. Now, thanks to Crazy Hassan, we can make our point by wantonly snuffing out the lives of men, women and children who previously thought it was safe to perform simple tasks like grocery or clothes shopping. Thank you Crazy Hassan!!
Crazy Hassan: Thank you, Yasser Arafat!! Peace negotiations? What are those? Is that what U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is talking about? Well, remember, you can’t spell Powell without POW! And you’re guaranteed plenty of POW with Crazy Hassan’s new line of C4 suicide belts. These stylish, yet concealed, self-detonation devices can slip by even the strictest security. And you can accomplish all this at Crazy Hassan’s blow out prices!
Satisfied Customer #2: I always wanted to be a martyr for the Palestinian cause, and the promise of having 23 wives in Allah's realm has been greatly alluring since I was a child, but I've never been able to afford it until Crazy Hassan. Now, here I am, strapped with 25 pounds of high explosives, waiting for this Israeli school to release students for the day, and it only cost me pennies per ounce of C4. Thanks Crazy Hassan!!
*BOOM*
Crazy Hassan: Thank you, brainwashed fundamentalist!! And let’s not forget the women out there. Although I, Crazy Hassan, am wary of giving women too many freedoms, I open my arms and doors to those women who want to further the Palestinian cause by violently ending their existence. Crazy Hassan’s offers a wide array of suicide belts for the female figure, including sensual nitroglycerin negligees. Truly, in our bid to liberate the Holy Land, anything goes.
Ariel Sharon: There was a time when I thought the Hebrew Biblical claim on Israel would easily be enforced through a technological military and omnipresent army. It just makes sense. But these suicide bombers just don’t make any sense. They blow up here and they blow up there. They blow up everywhere. I may despise suicide bombers, but hats off to you Crazy Hassan.
Crazy Hassan: Huh? Was someone talking to me? You must forgive me, but I’m rather deaf to any voice other than that of the Palestinian cause, particularly if it’s the voice of Israeli infidels. You've seen the utter devastation you can achieve using my bombs, and now you can be part of the new craze sweeping the militant Palestinian branches. Don't settle for peace when you can settle in pieces. Visit Crazy Hassan's today!!
Friday's Cheddar X
Borne out of the crucible of intolerant conformity and coma inducing inanities posing as questions that was the Friday Five, the first ever full floating boat of the Weekly Cheddar X is breaking out and heading for higher ground. Answer them on your site, add a question if you like and leave a comment.
1. What was the last thing you stole and why?
During my job working in a grocery store meat department, I learned quickly that, to make up for a shitty hourly wage of $5.25, pretty much every employee in the store helped themselves to merchandise, and I was not immune to the epidemic. But, far from being totally obvious under the scrutiny of omnipresent security cameras and "secret shoppers," I opted for a far more clandestine thievery approach. I used to sneak back to the storage room and hunt for the holy grail of grocery theft: razor blades. Particularly when the Mach 3 came out, apparently made out of gold, I could lift 10 or so containers of cartridges a time without their absence being detected. I would usually do this right before a 15 minute break so I could run the hot merchandise out to my car. Using this method, I think I upped my hourly wage to about $11 an hour just through razor savings alone. I also had my friends come in posing as legitimate customers. They'd come to the meat department and ask for hamburger, only I wouldn't give them hamburger; I'd give them T-bones and New York strips and ribeyes at about 69 cents a pound. I ate very well indeed during those otherwise lean years.
2. What was the last thing you had stolen from you?
Back when I lived in my previous apartment, assholes went through my car with maddening regularity. My car was such a crapwagon, I didn't bother locking the doors. The little car looters made off with all the change in my change cubby and a couple of really bad cassette tapes. They also stole a Nike running jacket that I highly prized.
3. When was the last time you had to go to work without underwear (''cos you were too lazy to do the laundry!)?
Ah, a chance to relate a truly disgusting tale! Thank you Cheddar X! During my stint as a reporter for the Winona Daily News, I was coming back from an assignment and I wasn't feeling all that great, by which I mean I wanted to die. I thought I had to fart, but man oh man, it wasn't a fart. It was a flood. I drove the rest of the way back to the office holding myself six inches above the seat so I didn't have to squish my cheeks into what I had just done. At the office, I shuffle stepped to the bathroom and dribbled off my polluted boxers which were defiled as no other pair of boxers has ever been defiled. I did a clean-up job on my backside and then I filled the bathroom sink with water and set about cleansing my drawers, refusing to simply throw them away because they were my favorite pair of Calvin Klein boxers. I ended up stuffing them in my glove compartment and forgetting about them until a friend found them one day and started asking all sorts of questions about the boxers in the glove compartment. For months afterward, I was known as Boxles The Clown.
4. When was the last time you remember not reading a single blog in a day?
Pretty much any given weekend I force myself to disconnect from the Internet, so I go blog free on most Saturdays.
5. If a tree falls in the woods and smacks the only guy there to hear it, killing him, does it make a sound until he's dies?
Whether the falling tree makes a sound or not is irrelevent. What you would likely hear when you come upon the poor tree-smacked soul would be his internal gasses roiling and escaping as his bloated body begins the early stages of decomposition.
My own question #6. If there was an inhabited planet that consisted entirely of beings that breathed helium, would they think it was funny to suck in balloons filled with oxygen because it makes their voices deeper?
Sure, why not.
Blog Day Afternoon
Okay, I admit it. I haven't done much at work today except blog and watch a fly buzz around the flourescent light and think how cool it would be to be a fly buzzing around a flourescent light. I mean, think about it. With all those eyes, the world must seem like it consists entirely of thousands of flourescent lights. That would be so sweet. I think the ventilation system may be pumping in canabis fumes or something.
Anyway, I still haven't written a column for next week, and the Stewartville Star got on my case via e-mail just a moment ago asking where my column was, so I suppose I should try and conjure something. Thinking. . . thinking. . . thinking. . . scratching self. . . thinking. . . watching fly. . . thinking. . . okay, I think I have something. I give you. . .
I Have A Fear of Phobias
Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously uttered the words, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."
I don't disagree with the good polio-stricken ex-president, but I would like to interject an addendum that states, "but you should also fear any weird prickly fuzzy thing crawling up your leg under the bed covers at night; and then you should scream and shriek and shudder and sprint into the shower and scrub your leg until you are completely free of all heebies and especially all jeebies."
Then again, I don't suppose that would have rallied the Americans to rise up to the challenge of the Great Depression quite as effectively.
I don't have many phobias. I mean, things startle me, and I've been frightened by a few things during my lifetime, especially the movie Battlefield Earth (the fact that movie was even made is truly terrifying), but when it comes to long term phobias, I don't have all that many. Come to think of it, I only have two phobias that I can mention and elaborate on long enough to fill this week's column.
The bottoms of lakes and rivers scare the living digested excrement out of me. I mean, I'm not afraid of swimming in lakes and rivers, but as soon as I start pondering the murky depths below my dangling feet, I start to feel considerably agitated and I can't wait to get back in the boat or crawl-stroke my way back to shore with a speed that would make an Olympic swimmer envious.
As far as I'm concerned, one of the most helpless feelings I encounter during the summer months is the time frame immediately following a tumble off of water skis. In an instant, I've gone from king of the water, standing triumphantly aloft, skimming the surface, to essentially being a human bobber awaiting rescue in the middle of a lake. It's unbearable waiting for the boat to slowly arc its way back to me. "What's taking them so long? Don't they know I'm in the water? Don't they know my toes are vulnerable to attack?"
Here in Minnesota, many of the restaurants feature the bodies of preserved fish tacked up on walls, trophy catches forever captured in lifelike form by the skilled hand of a taxidermist. Always, always I tell you, the fish have their eyes trained upward, from the lowliest bluegill to the biggest muskie. Do you know what they're looking at? Do you know what those fish were eyeing as potential meals before the fisherman's pole yanked them from the water? That's right, they were looking at my toes! Or, at least that's what I tend to believe.
The same holds true for rivers. One of the most disconcerting feelings is when I'm wading down a river, and suddenly I hit a drop-off and can't touch bottom. Yeeargh! Where's the bottom?! Where did it go?! My toes! My precious toes are vulnerable to attack yet again! It's at about that time that a chunk of river muck brushes against my ankle and I become a pathetic, thrashing, incoherent torrent of activity. Must! Get! Out! Of! Deep! Water!
My other phobia really doesn't make a whole bunch of sense. Not that my lake and river bottom phobia makes much sense, I guess. At any rate, my other great fear is to be doused entirely in something sticky such as soda pop, or honey, or ketchup, or mustard or anything else that would make me feel like a sandwich. I slightly flip out when I spill pop on my hand, so the thought of having a full can poured over my head just makes me shudder.
There was a Honey Nut Cheerios commercial awhile back that showed a guy sitting in an open convertible. He was asked how much honey flavor was packed into a single bite of Honey Nut Cheerios. He didn't know, so he took a bite, and from out of nowhere a gargantuan blob of honey dropped from the sky, filling the convertible and covering the driver. I honestly couldn't change the channel fast enough when I saw that commercial coming. What a horrible thing to do to someone! The thought of being covered head to toe with dripping honey makes me tremble in horror so hard I'm generating a small earthquake as I write this. Who would do such a thing, and why? And how could that possibly help the sale of Honey Nut Cheerios?
So, those are my phobias. What are your's. Come on, you can tell me. Or, are you afraid?
UPDATE: Yes, as a matter of fact, I did initially have that FDR quote attributed to Winston Churchill, an especially egregious error considering I had a history minor in college. Many thanks to all of you who noticed it and pointed it out. *grumble*
Shakeup at the New York Times
There's nothing quite so gratifying as watching news organizations descending on a hapless rival. First, the New York Times has the whole Jayson Blair fiasco, followed by Rick Bragg taking credit for work done by a freelance grunt in the field. I'm thinking there's a lot of hubris at the NYT. Whatever the case, they were a wounded gazelle on the serengeti, and the lion pride of rival media outlets were ripe for the kill. The first to be dragged down? Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, the Times executive editor and managing editor, respectively.
I'll admit it; it's fun to watch. But, more than that, I think it's necessary from time to time for these media monoliths to suffer a shake-up of their own doing. I think they get complacent, resting on their established names and building a feeling of invulnerability. The Jayson Blairs of the world can flourish under that because fact-checking and reporter scrutiny just tends to take a backseat after awhile. Until something comes along to change that.
Now we'll see all sorts of media introspection, because if there's one thing news organizations can't stand, it's admitting that they're wrong. So, they're going to take steps to fix leaks in their boats, and I'm sure Raines and Boyd won't be the last casualties we see before this plays itself out.
Which is cool. Because there'll be some new job opening I can look into.
Impending Ten Year Reunion
Well, it's coming.
A decade has passed since I donned the high school cap and gown (twice, but that's a different story). The ten year Harmony High School class reunion always just seemed so far away, particularly as I muddled through college trying to figure out what I was good at and what I wanted to do and somehow finding a way to tie those ends together, and then one day discovering that I could write news articles and just kind of finding journalism from there. For me, now, that was one of the defining moments of my life, way more important than most everything I did in high school.
I was a geek in high school, or so I think in retrospect. I was a student without a clique, which is unheard of in a small town school, where cliques aren't just common, they're necessary for survival. I played football, but I wasn't a jock. I was a good wrestler, but I didn't hang out with my fellow wrestlers lamenting weight maintenance and obsessing over the sport. I was on the golf team, but mostly so I could play golf courses around the area for free. I got good grades without really putting much effort into it. I just floated by in high school, taking things seriously only if they didn't interfere with the things I liked to do. And, boy, does that sound like the Ryan Rhodes of today, too.
I'm not sure I want to be reunited with many of my classmates. The ones that I like and built strong friendships with mostly came about after high school. Troy, mostly by accident, became my roommate and most trusted friend, despite us not saying more than four words to each other through most of high school. Jim, the ex-marine who came back and we discovered we liked golf equally, as well as bar NTN trivia. Norm, the quiet high school non-conformist who is still unearthly silent and I can't really explain why we're friends, except to say he's always just kind of there. Jeremy, the high school prick turned lawyer. These are the friends I have from high school, and they're the only ones I really care to see, and I see them all the time anyways.
I guess I would have liked my 10 year reunion to be like the one portrayed in Grosse Point Blank. There I'd stand, a dashing yet dangerous looking John Cusack, dressed in a black suit, nervous that I'm around all the old classmates, but fully knowing I could kick the shit out of them and maybe even kill them if the price was right. It would be cool if I could hook up with an old high school flame, though, truth be told, I really didn't have one. Instead, I'd just hook up with some desperate chick who was drunk and horny and requiring my man pole. I guess that would be as close as I could get to nailing Minnie Driver. Afterwards, it would be super cool if an unknown assailant attacked me in the hallway, and then I'll kill him after a sweaty and cool karate fight by sticking a pen in his neck. Then, Troy and I would wrap the body in a "Go Falcons" banner and toss it in the boiler. That would be a pretty cool and memorable class reunion.
Far from Grosse Point Blank, however, all I can really expect is a lot of people I'd rather avoid coming up and asking a slew of pointless questions about what I'm doing now, whether I'm married, whether I have children, how much I can drink, whether I still have a montrous cock. You know, those types of questions. Yesterday, one of the organizers of the reunion sent me a list of questions they wanted me to answer so they could put together some sort of book or something. The questions struck me as remarkable in their banality, but I answered them anyway, and my responses are as follows:
Name: Ryan Rhodes
Significant other: Right and Left Hand (alternating depending on finger cramps)
Address: Rochester, Minn.
Children: None that I know of (fingers crossed)
After graduation: Why, yes. Yes, it is after graduation. Thanks for the heads up.
My goals for the next 10 years: To continue with a steady heartbeat, complemented by inhaling and exhaling air. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
Greatest memories of high school: That one time, when I had three naked women on my bed, and they were all like "oooh, Ryan, you make us so hot," and I was all like "I know it ladies, now let me work my magic," and they were all like "we can't take it any more. Please just pleasure us with you pulsating man rod," and I was all like getting mad at how impatient they were and stuff. Oh, wait, that was a porno I watched once. I don't have any great memories of high school.
According to Aubrey, the reunion organizer: "Several memories people have had is that time you whipped your pants down for all to see."
What I want to know is to which time Aubrey is referring. I must have done that 20 times or more. That's just the kind of high school student I was, and really the kind of person I am now. No secrets. No shame. And a whole buttload of incredulity.
Maybe I'm more prepared for my 10 year reunion than I realized.
An Open Letter To Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
Dear Mr. Kucinich, with all due respect, would you kindly consider shutting your fucking pie hole. I understand you opposed the war in Iraq, and I further understand that you have aspirations to be President yourself (good luck with that), but to use the raid that rescued Pfc. Lynch as your own own personal political tool to gain a little attention demeans yourself and your position as a U.S. Representative.
Yes, I know that conspiracy theorists and huffy media outlets like the BBC would like to portray the raid as "fake" or "staged," and they can come up with any number of ass-backwards facts to support their case, but I think the facts thus far clearly show that, although the military may have used edited footage of the raid as a PR piece, the raid itself was very real.
I see, Mr. Kucinich, that you want the Defense Department on to release unedited footage of the raid and to answer questions about Pfc. Lynch's injuries. Well, I thought I'd save the Defense Department some precious time and answer your questions myself. Hope you don't mind.
Did U.S. troops encounter any Iraqi forces in the hospital?
Irrelevent. Nasiriyah, at that time, was far from under coalition control. Perhaps you, Mr. Kucinich, would have felt confident entering the hospital unarmed and simply asking hospital workers if they had seen a stray U.S. Pfc. laying around somewhere, but given the fact that the hospital was used as a fedayeen paramilitary headquarters just days before, I think a forceful raid was justified whether they encountered Iraqi forces or not. Oh, and by the way, The Defense Department admitted early on that they encountered no resistance in the raid, so what's the point of asking this again? Oh, right, publicity.
Were U.S. troops fired upon during the rescue operation?
Again, irrelevent. However, the troops did take enemy fire prior to entering the hospital, so it stands to reason that they were expecting resistence inside the building as well. As for any use of force, the raid employed the use of flash bangs which, though they are loud and bright and probably stunned more than a couple workers, they hardly constitute an undue use of force, given the situation.
Did U.S. troops have information suggesting that Iraqi forces had abandoned the hospital?
Yet once again, irrelevent. Would it make a difference to you if intelligence indicated a fedayeen headquarters two days prior or two hours prior? Would you not employ the same precautions and tactics either way? Mr. Kucinich, I can only say that I'm happy as hell you weren't in command of any actions during this war, because you would have been crying in the sand demanding exact up-to-the-second intelligence before taking any sort of action. And, in the chaotic and ever changing nature of war, that's not a luxury commanders have in abundance. Sometimes, two day old intelligence is the best they have to go on, no matter the technology or sophistication.
Did Lynch sustain any gunshot or knife wounds?
Everyone together now. . . irrelevent! All indications pretty much show that Pfc. Lynch was neither shot nor stabbed, but at the time of the raid, how the hell was anyone supposed to know that? Now, of course, we know with some degree of certainty that she suffered a head wound, an injury to her back, and multiple fractures to her arms, legs, and her right foot and ankle. Bullet wounds or no, stab wounds or no, this girl wasn't going anywhere without help. Oh, and lets not forget the bodies of unit comrades also found in the hospital who DEFINITELY had bullet wounds. Perhaps you'd like to switch places with Pfc. Lynch, Mr. Kucinich. I'm sure she'd like the opportunity as well.
Did U.S. officials have information suggesting that hospital staff were trying to deliver Lynch to American forces?
Ah, yes, the stickler. The big kahuna question. The thing that makes you go "hmmmmm." Well, not really. Listen, in war, you're going to get conflicting intelligence on just about everything. But, let's pretend intelligence dropped on central command's desk indicating that hospital staff was trying to deliver Lynch to American forces. How much credibility would you give to the report? Would you throw up your hands and thank the powers that be for such a great gift and then go sit out on the front steps smoking a cigarette awaiting the delivery of Pfc. Lynch? Or, would you opt to put things in the hands of coalition forces specifically trained to carry out a rescue mission? And, really, how do you know that the information is not, in fact, misinformation sent out so coalition forces would allow an ambulance loaded with high explosives to park itself right in the middle of a Red Cross facility and detonate?
Did U.S. forces fire at ambulances?
See answer to above question. In a country where you had Baghdad Bob promising unconventional attacks, and where you had a pregnant woman blowing up in the name of martyrdom for her and her unborn child, I, too, would tend to err on the side of caution when an "ambulance" nears a checkpoint, particularly in an unsecure war zone such as Nasiriyah. But, hey, if it would rest your moral nerves to go up to every truck coming at you and ask if they're carrying a wounded U.S. Pfc., you go right ahead. I'll be right behind you, behind a bunker, with my fingers in my ears.
Thank you for your time.
When Life Gives You Lemonade, Make A Lemon
There's this girl I see every time I go for my five mile run around Rochester's much-valued Silver Lake (so named to give a positive spin on all the goose shit, I'm sure). She's anorexic. Totally and completely anorexic. She's so thin I wonder sometimes how she's able to convince her left foot to place itself in front of the right in the practice known as walking.
I can always see her coming. She's my age, I think. She wears a plastic sweat outfit that does nothing to hide her skeletal frame, her face shows off every facial bone and her legs display the sharp cut of her femurs and tibias as plainly as the sun shines. She also chews gum perpetually, because that, too, allows her to lose weight in a small way.
The first time I encountered her, I was shocked, and I'm sure I recoiled in horror. And my reaction probably just fueled her belief that she has some hidden reservoir of fat she should lose. She'll kill herself, I'm convinced, within the next couple of years (maybe months).
I find myself trying to stitch together a story about the girl. Perhaps she was a homecoming queen, or maybe she had parents with aspirations of her being a great scientist. She had a great future in front of her, I tend to think. A great mind, a sharp sense of humor, a wit that could cut through the biggest ego (even mine?).
Instead, she found herself unable to think of anything except her own weight, and her delusion that she's nothing if she's not perfectly thin, which is an ideal so entirely her own, and thus impossible, that she'll only attain it once she's a pile of bleached bones somewhere underground. So, she walks around Silver Lake in perpetuity, chewing gum and hoping that last fictitious gram of fat will magically disappear, which it won't, because only she sees it, and she probably always will, no matter what the best and brightest minds at the Mayo Clinic tell her.
I don't dispute that she has no control over herself. Her mind has built up mental barriers to ensure she'll kill herself, as plain as I'm typing here on a dirty keyboard. She'll die, and the world of seven billion people will move on, not caring one whiff if she was fat or thin. But, she thinks it will.
I'm not sure what my point was with this post, but I think I'll sleep a tad better knowing that it's not entirely locked exclusively in my mind.
Good night.
Quick Potty Talk
So, I quick went to the bathroom to make my bladder gladder, and some guy was making fecal soup in the stall next to the urinal, and the smell emanating was so sickeningly sour, it's burned into my olfactory bulb, and I can't shake the smell, and I'm about to go for a walk outside to try and clear my nostrils. Holy yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Weekend Runaround
I don't like busy weekends. I like weekends that consist of lounging around sleeping and burping and flatulating. Those are nice weekends.
Alas, now that June is upon us and summer is now officially in full swing, such lazy weekends simply can't exist, at least not until November or so. Summer weekends in Minnesota have to be jam packed with fun and frivolity and everything else you vowed you'd do as you hunkered beneath twelve layers of blankets that one week in January when the temperature was just a few degrees shy of absolute zero.
Last weekend was one of those weekends where I was determined to tie up some loose ends and start my summer with a piercing screech of the tires as my summer dragster sped from the starting gate. Unfortunately, my girlfriend's weekend schedule required a whole heck of a lot of driving all over the place so that I might accomplish my weekend goals.
Soooo, Friday night, Mel drove down from the cities to Rochester after work, and we promptly loaded ourselves into my Caddy and drove down to Harmony. We did this because we had big and important plans for the next morning. We were going to go rollerblading! But, not just rollerblading. We were going to go rollerblading from Hamony to Lanesboro, a distance of about 23 miles. We awoke at 10:30 Saturday morning, and I went outside to try to get my father's truck started, because we needed two vehicle so we could leave one in Lanesboro and thus have transport home. This required a jumpstart of the battery, because the truck hadn't seen active use since August.
I don't like jumpstarting vehicles. I've heard one too many horror stories about batteries exploding and acid turning human faces into dripping flesh and gore. I always imagine myself screwing up the whole jumpstarting procedure and spending the rest of my life enduring reconstructive surgery and skin grafts. But, once again, I conducted a flawless vehicle jumpstart, so all that dramatic play up that I just wrote about was really kind of pointless. Then again, you were probably expecting some great tale of me deftly dodging acid and shrapnel as a battery exploded or something. Weren't you? Suckers.
The trail system connecting Harmony and Lanesboro really, truly shouldn't be missed. You want natural beauty, you'll find it there. Melissa and I saw deer and squirrels and chipmunks and alligators and stegasaurus and an occasional unicorn. Okay, we didn't see any of those last three, but we did see a Baltimore Oriole (no, not a baseball player), and that's really rare here in Minnesota.
It was at about the 20th mile that my legs decided they were getting pretty sick and tired of all the standing and rolling. Beautiful scenery or no, exhaustion was setting in. Mel and I forced our legs to carry us the final few miles to my awaiting Cadillac, and we both agreed that a nap was in order when we got back to Harmony. I haven't been that pooped since I can't even remember. All the sun and rollerblading had taken its toll, and we both conked out for two hours as our bodies tried to recuperate. When we woke up at about 7 p.m., we went outside to do some quick yard work. My parents are coming home for the summer next week, and I wanted to get their house as nice as I could. Melissa had bought a bunch of garden borders for my mother's back yard flower garden, so she set about putting those up while I mowed.
Mel bought the garden borders from Restoration Hardware, where she works, a store that excels in the art of selling worthless junk, in my opinion. And my opinion was validated by the iron garden borders that tended to snap and break if you looked at them wrong. Sure they were cute, I suppose, but cute doesn't get you anywhere when the damn things break as you stick them in the ground. There weren't enough borders to go around the flower garden as it was, but after five of the fucking things broke, there definitely weren't enough.
Mel had to work at 8 a.m. on Sunday, so we drove back to Rochester Saturday night after a full day of rollerblading, sleeping, and breaking garden borders. She had to wake up at 6 a.m. on Sunday to drive the rest of the way back to the cities. I slept in until 9 a.m., and then I got up and drove back to. . . .
Harmony, so I could finish mowing the lawn and go golfing with my friend, Troy. The golfing was pleasant and uneventful, and then I went home and started transferring the garden borders from the back yard flower garden to the front yard flower garden, taking extra care not to break any more of the fragile pieces of crap. Thankfully, I didn't break any more, and there were just enough to encircle the front yard flower garden, so I managed to salvage a victory of the Restoration Hardware crap factory.
Then, I dragged the mower back out so I could finish trimming the front lawn. I was pleased, because this would be the last time I would have to mow the parents' lawn this summer. This was it! I pulled the starter once. I pulled the starter twice. I pulled the starter three times. . . Success! The mower roared to life. . . even as the starting rope snapped off in my hand. And, I mean the ENTIRE rope. My mission was clear. I had to mow the lawn in its entirety without stopping. I couldn't let the mower stop or I would never get it started again.
And then a woman pulled up alongside the curb to ask directions. There I stood, unable to leave the mower, because loosening my grip meant stopping the mower. It was an unusual dilemma. I eventually opted to drag the mower with me to the curb and shout directions to the confused woman over the growl of the mower. She seemed perplexed as to why I was so anally tethered to the mower, and I didn't feel like explaining my situation. She drove away, no doubt convinced that I was a small town yokel with four functioning brain cells. But, no matter. I got the lawn mowed, and now it's in my father's court to buy a new fucking mower.
Then I drove back to Rochester. By this time, I had driven back and forth so many times, they officially changed the city signs to read "Welcome To Rochester, Ryan!"
Ugh, my 10 year class reunion is a month away. But, at least I test for my black belt this month. Busy, busy, busy. Welcome to summer, everyone!
I'm Sorry, but I Just Don't Get NASCAR
I like to think that I can pretty much enjoy some aspect of every sport. For example, although soccer could qualify as one of the world's longest athletic yawns, it still has some fascinating aspects, like when Brandi Chastain tore off her top after winning the Women's World Cup. That was pretty cool.
However, there are some sports that, try as I might, I just can't get into them. At the top of this list is NASCAR. I'm sorry, but I just don't get NASCAR. Now, before all you NASCAR enthusiasts out there spit a collective wad of Skoal in my direction, allow me to explain myself. A friend of mine just read that last sentence and said I would be lucky if I didn't receive a "collective beating" because of it.
I should note that, within my circle of friends, I'm in the minority when it comes to my distaste for NASCAR, and by minority I mean that I'm the only one who doesn't have a favorite driver. However, if I were to pick a favorite, I would simply select two common first names and combine them, which seems to be a pre-requisite for being a NASCAR driver (i.e. Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, etc.).
Even NASCAR stars who don't have two first names still have designations that remind me of people living in beaten up hunting shacks in the forest with two or three shattered toilets laying in the yard. Who wouldn't be a bit wary knocking on the door of a Jeremy Mayfield or a Sterling Marlin? Sounds a lot like an automotive version of Deliverance. I'm sorry, but I just don't get NASCAR.
I remember first becoming aware of a NASCAR interest infestation about six years ago as I sat watching TV with several of my friends. As I flicked through the channels, we briefly saw a line of cars roaring down a track, and before I could change stations, one of our group, Jim, shouted "Ooohhhh! NASCAR!!" We all looked at Jim as if he had stepped in something supremely foul.
It wasn't long before Jim's NASCAR enthusiasm began infecting others, and I now routinely find myself enduring consecutive hours of NASCAR chat while my friends watch cars zoom around and around in what to me is a pointless steering exercise. I'm sorry, but I just don't get NASCAR.
JIM: Rusty's gaining on Labonte. He'll probably draft him for awhile before trying to take him high.
MARC: No way, man. Bobby is leading in points; he's gonna take the Winston Cup this year.
ANDY: Who's leading the Busch Series anyway? I haven't been keeping up on that like I should.
JIM, MARC, and ANDY: Man, I really hate Jeff Gordon!
ME: I'm getting dumber, guys. Please, change the channel.
I should note here that I don't totally understand racing terms like "drafting," so I may have used it incorrectly here, and the nuances between Winston Cup and Busch Series escape me, although I think one has to do with smoking and one has to do with drinking.
I'm sorry, but I just don't get NASCAR.
