When I mention to people that I take bubble baths on occasion, I get the standard quizzical look one might give if a swine-like animal swooped by on a set of plush, feathery wings.
If I'm to understand the quizzical looks correctly, I assume that it's generally assumed that men don't take baths, or at least they're not supposed to. Come to think of it, I can't recall any commercials that feature a guy lathering himself up in a tub full of bubbles, but there are plenty that feature guys in showers. But, maybe I'm thinking about this too hard.
The point is that, yes, I take bubble baths, and I enjoy them, damnit.
Well, as of a couple months ago, I now have two kittens running around my housed and, as is to be expected of kittens, they're curious about pretty much everything, and the bathtub is no exception.
When I take a bath, one or both kittens will hop up on the side of the tub, and stare down at the water below with a look that combines absolute awe with trepidation and fear.
You have to understand, one of the ways I use to train the kittens not to do something I dissaprove of is to sprtiz them with a water bottle. It's gotten to the point that I don't even have to spritz them; I just have to reach for the bottle and they go tearing out of the room. In other words, the kittens view water as an annoying weapon of control. To see me laying naked in a tub of water must seem like a god-like act to them.
Well, one evening awhile back, I was laying back, enjoying a nice hot bubble bath, reading a book. As expected, one of the kittens was perched on the side of the tub, watching me intently. The other kitten was off in another room, playing with an empty plastic bottle.
Eventually, the kitten with the bottle must have realized that his brother wasn't playing with him, so he ambled on into the bathroom to see what was up. That's when he spied his brother's twitching tail and decided to attack it.
What transpired was something that I've taken to calling "The Incident."
Taken totally by surprise when his brother bit his tail, the kitten, which had previously been safely perched atop the side of the tub, found himself in the tub with me, and he was none too happy about the situation. The yowls and howls that poured forth could have been heard in Kentucky. And the kitten was making a lot of noise, too.
Why was I yowling and howling? Because, in that instant, I went from a relaxing bath, to dodging a feline cuisinart that was mad at everything in the world. I instinctively cupped my exposed genitalia to protect them from the slashing and flailing kitty claws. I still took a minor slice to the chest but, considering the vast amount of exposed flesh the kitten had to work with, it was a minor miracle I escaped with such a minor wound.
I managed to flop my way up and out of the tub, all the while cupping Dickey and boys which, although they can't speak, I know they were very appreciative.
Wrapping my hand in a towel, I was able to scoop the kitten up and out of the tub, and he wasted no time running to the only carpeted room in the house, where he rolled around for a good half hour attempting to dry himself.
And the moral of this story? I don't think there is one, but I sure do close the bathroom door any time I take a bath now.
So, the girlfriend and I were watching Something's Gotta Give recently, and there's this scene where the two main characters are about to prepare pancakes. The following dialogue ensued between Melissa and myself:
ME: Why is she going to the refridgerator? Since when do you keep pancakes in the fridge?
MEL: It looks like she's getting eggs.
ME: Oh.
MEL: But, why would you put eggs in pancakes?
ME: You always put eggs in pancakes. Eggs are an important ingredient.
MEL: I guess I'm just used to the powder.
ME: Well, yeah, but you always put eggs in the powder.
MEL: Oh, well, come to think of it, I've never actually made pancakes.
*an insane amount of laughter followed*
So, I'm watching all the archeological turnover of the network news fossils, such as Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw, and I got to thinking about something.
Dan Rather, quite probably, saw his twilight years forever besmirched by a throng of pajama-clad anklebiters who just happened to notice that he relied on obviously forged documents to augment an "investigative" report. He then later went on to criticize the "blogging machine" for running rampant with leaked early exit polls, even though those polls were leaked by folks within the established media.
Then there's Tom Brokow who--although he himself wasn't chopped off at the knees by alert pajamahadeen--did at one point say bloggers amounted to "political jihad."
I have a problem with such a dismissive attitude towards blogs, and not simply because I'm a blogger. I certainly don't equate myself with the amazing bloggers who sniffed out forged memos within hours of a broadcast. Hell, the epitome of my online sleuthing only helped to expose a 30+ year old man masquerading as a bi-sexual Web diarist. Hardly Pulitzer-level investigation.
But blogs, to me, represent a growing influence that acts as a sorely needed check on the mainstream media. Prior to blogs, your best chance to be heard by Dan Rather would be to call CBS and listen to Muzak for four hours only to leave a message with an underling that was never returned. Or, you could write a letter to the editor, only to have a newspaper edit your words, at best, or not run it at all, at worst.
Now, with blogs, if you have something you want to vent, you can vent it, or if you smell bullshit, you can yell "BULLSHIT!" If you think Trent Lott said some pretty racist-sounding things, you can write about it and whip up such an online froth that the man steps down as Senate majority leader.
I can see why the likes of Rather and Brokaw can't understand the value of bloggers. To them, the idea that somebody tapping on a laptop while taking a crap could produce a thought-provoking post that can whip its way around the globe within hours and actually become a type of news is positively terrifying. From where I sit, however, it's one of the most self-empowering tools to emerge in this high technology age.
It wouldn't be bothering me so much because, after all, Brokaw and Rather are on their way out, and Jennings will no doubt be close behind. But then, you have people like Bill O'Reilly saying things like:
The reason these net people get away with all kinds of stuff is that they work for no one. They put stuff up with no restraints. This, of course, is dangerous, but it symbolizes what the Internet is becoming.
It's that nasty old free speech thing that O'Reilly just can't condone.
Or you have Brian Williams saying something like bloggers are:
on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with a modem.
I don't know. I guess it would be nice if so-called young blood like Williams had a better understanding of just how powerful bloggers are right now, and just how powerful they're going to be in a few more years. As a single unit, a blog isn't much, but when you get a few hundred or thousand galvanized together sniffing out a bogus story, they can be more powerful than any network news outlet.
You'd think they'd start to realize that.
I watch the advancement of computer mouse technology with a touch of bemusement. Of all the little components that make up today's desktop computer, I've always thought that the mouse should just remain simple. Instead, they're growing entirely too complex.
My initial mouse training came about in high school, working on the then-revolutionary Macintosh. The mouse was a simple thing: a single button hunk of oval plastic that took a maximum of two minutes to master.
There was even a brief tutorial program on the Mac that taught students the nuances of clicking and dragging, and the excessively difficult maneuver known as double-clicking. It was a silly little program, but seeing as how there was precious little else to do with the Mac, roughly 98 percent of my classmates probably ran through the tutorial six or seven times just for the heck of it.
I continued to use the single-button mouse for many years, but then a little company known as Microsoft came about and unveiled an operating system called Windows 95. Perhaps you've heard of it.
Windows 95 was an operating system that revolutionized the world of home computing. For the first time, millions of Americans could experience the joy and wonder of having their computers lock up and crash for no apparent reason. Almost overnight, people learned the hidden meaning behind the term Ctrl+Alt+Delete, affectionately referred to as the "three finger salute."
Windows 95 also prompted a revolution in mouse technology, introducing a second button. I'm not sure why, exactly, but whereas I was able to learn the single button in under two minutes, it took me an eternity to get used to that infernal second button. But, because all the really cool computer games supported Windows 95 rather than Macintosh, I had no choice but to endure the new double button mouse.
Then, as the Internet became an indispensable part of our daily lives, the mouse powers that be decreed that a third button should be placed between the two main buttons, and that button eventually morphed into a scrolling wheel which, for some reason that still escapes me, I JUST HAD TO HAVE.
From there, mouse developers just started going crazy. Mice were introduced that had as many as seven or eight buttons. Apparently, the developers forgot that the standard issue human hand only features five fingers.
Still other mice make use of the revolutionary track-ball technology, which, if you've ever attempted to use, is kind of like trying to navigate an airplane through a hurricane using nothing but your thumb and forefinger.
As you may have surmised, I had to purchase a new mouse over the weekend, because my old mouse--a five button optical mouse with scrolling wheel--up and died on me Saturday night. It's sad when a computer mouse dies; the cursor just kind of hangs there on the screen, unmoving. It's the computer equivalent of a flatline.
My new mouse features yet another innovation that strikes me as unnecessary, but which I had to have nonetheless: wireless technology. Using it, I could, if the mood so strikes me, walk as far away as eight feet from my computer and still move the cursor, all without the maddening limitations of a traditional, wire-bound mouse.
Now I just have to sit back and wait for my keyboard to up and croak, because there are some really cool keyboard innovations available. You still have to type Ctrl+Alt+Delete though. I know this because my computer crashed while I was installing the mouse software.
Ain't technology grand?
I've never been in debt. Okay, that's not entirely true. Yes, I've been in the kind of debt where I had to make car payments, and I'm currently in the kind of debt that says I have to make house payments.
I've never been in credit card debt, however. Truth be told, I've never even owned a credit card. I don't trust them. I've been conditioned not to trust them thanks to many years of living with college roommates.
Most of my college roommates had this weird outlook on credit cards. Basically, they thought credit cards were magical pieces of plastic that just magically paid for things and that they were somehow immune from the the ensuing debt that came about due to excessive credit card spending.
I'll admit it: I was sort of jealous of my roommates and their magical credit cards. After all, they always seemed to have money and, if they didn't, they just whipped out their credit cards. Books? Put them on the credit card. Food? Put it on the credit card. Night out at a strip club? credit card.
And yet there I was writing checks and budgeting like a fool. I remember thinking that I was doing everything all wrong. I mean, there I would sit, meticulously lording over my finances, while my roommates went waltzing all over town swiping their credit cards with the careless glee of a six-year-old with a loaded pistol.
Then, one year, I was a roommate with a guy named Chad. Chad was actually a former high school classmate of mine. He was, and is, a tech-head. He's one of those guys who was born to know technology. Way back in elementary school, he taught me how to write simple programs for the Apple IIc, and he always just seemed to know everything about computers.
But he didn't know shit about personal finances. He whipped out any one of his many credit cards with the swiftness and ease of a Old West gunslinger. By the time we became roommates, he had already accrued over $10,000 in credit card debt.
I remember thinking what an incredibly large amount of money that seemed to be, especially when I factored in the understanding that he also received financial aid, and that he also worked. Granted, he worked at the local Brach's candy factory on the Gummi Bear line, which paid about as well as you might imagine, but it was still money, so I came to the conclusion that old Chad was a pretty carefree spender.
Well, one day, I popped into Chad's outrageously messy room where I noticed, tucked between two huge bags of pilfered defective Gummi Bears, a credit card notice that was slugged "Urgent!" and another that was slugged "Immediate Payment Required" and still another that read "We Break Fingers And Toes."
Then the calls started coming in, usually two or three a day. "Is Mr. Haugen available? We really need to speak with him." No, he's not here. "Are you sure you're not really Mr. Haugen?" Yes, I'm sure. "Well, when he comes in, have him call Mike at Discover immediately." *sound of shotgun cocking* Will do.
Chad was masterful when it came to avoiding creditors. He always seemed to leave the apartment just two or three minutes before a creditor called. It was like he had some sort of sixth sense. Which was all fine and dandy, except that I ended up being the intermediary between Chad and the creditors, so I got to absorb all the impatient anger and suspicion of basically every credit card company on the planet.
It was the day a creditor appeared, in person, at our doorstep that I realized Chad's debt situation was probably more dire than Chad cared to admit. There was a knock at the door, I answered, and a gentleman in a suit that looked both impressive and threatening stood before me. He asked to see a Mr. Chad Haugen, at which point I heard a little scuffling emanating from Chad's room as Chad scurried out the back entrance which, conveniently, was located at the far end of his bedroom.
We chatted together, the ominous creditor and me, for about an hour, waiting for Chad to get home, even though, of course, there was no way in holy hell Chad was going to make an appearance while that guy was in our apartment. I even had to produce my ID, so the creditor was satisfied that I wasn't, in fact, Chad Haugen.
After that, I believe, Chad ended up getting a loan from his parents, or somebody, so he could pay off his credit card debt at least enough to keep the creditors at bay. He eventually got a job working at IBM, which was a long-assed commute from Winona to Rochester, but paid a whole lot more than the Gummi Bear line.
As for me, Chad's experience with credit cards pretty much scared me away from plastic for good.
Surprise Video Trumps "Alexander," Fails To Usurp "Spongebob"
LOS ANGELES (Rhodes Media Services) -- A new videotape issued by al Queda featuring Ayman Al-Zawahri, widely believed to be Osama bin Laden's top deputy, shot to the #6 spot at the box office Monday, raking in $14 million, a single-day record.
The video, entitled "Zeroing In On Al-Zawahri," easily outsold the stumbling epic "Alexander," currently on track to be the next "Ishtar," according to some sources.
The surprising immediate success of the al-Queda video came about largely due to the media's tendency to over-report and hype every tape issued by the terrorist group, often mistaking every tape as legitimate news.
Movie critic Roger Ebert gave a positive review of "Zeroing In On Al-Zawahri," saying that the video reflects a more polished artistic style on the part of the film-makers.
"Given the sheer bulk of video and audio tapes issued by al-Queda, you have to expect that they'll eventually become more polished at their craft," said Ebert. "This film shows the continuing maturity of the artists, and their use of light and shadow, as well as the careful and precise placement of weaponry."
Ebert was less enthusiastic about the plot and acting content, saying it "was more of the same, formulaic, like a James Bond movie, only worse, and kind of monotone."
"The Spongebob Squarepants Movie" stayed ahead of the Al-Zawahri film. Reached for comment on the news, Mr. Squarepants said only "I AM SPONGEBOB, DESTROYER OF EVIL!"
