Rambling Rhodes

Yeah, My blogging Sucked This Week

Sorry about that. It's the deadline time of the month for the magazine, and I actually get paid to do that sort of work, so I'm sure you understand.

Not much to report on anyway, although I did clean my hardwood floors with Pledge, so now they're really slippery, and I've spent an unusual amount of time sliding around at night in my socks. The cats seem amazed by my behavior, because for them the slippery floors just mean they fall down quite a bit when they try to go around corners too fast. I've exploited this vulnerability by using a laser pointer to get them all riled up and chasing the little red dot. Then when they're at full speed, I just kind of turn off the dot, and they'll slide right into whatever's in front of them. Hours of entertainment with these floors, let me tell you.

The Plague is Funny!

Caroline says: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9355413/

Caroline says: Two WEEKS ago?

Ryan says: But, were they three BLIND mice?

Caroline says: heh

Ryan says: Because then they should be able to see how they run.

Ha! Ha!

I just got an e-mail in my work inbox, with the following subject line:

"Story Idea: How employee obesity is affecting your company's bottom line."

Lots of fat asses in an obese workplace.

My Katrina Q&A

As incredibly unlikely as it may seem, I, Ryan Rhodes, keeper of this blog, managed to score an unprecedented interview with Hurricane Katrina. I won't divulge my methods or my contacts who helped coordinate this astounding sit down interview, but you know who you are, and I thank you.

ME: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me, Katrina. How are you?

Katrina: Pretty much exhausted really. Worn out. Dissipated.

ME: Okay. Well, I have to get this one out of the way. Why'd you do it?

Katrina: A girl's gotta let off some steam once in awhile, you know. There I was, off in the Atlantic, thinking "this tropical storm status is just not for me." I always wanted to be more. I wanted to be SOMETHING.

ME: But, a Category 5? Wasn't that a bit over the top?

Katrina: In retrospect, maybe. But, there hadn't been a Category 5 since, what? 1969? I figured "why not me?"

ME: But, you killed a lot of people and did a lot of damage.

Katrina: Helloooooo?! I'm a HURRICANE! That's what we do.

ME: I suppose. A lot of people have attributed your unusual strength to the phenomenon of global warming. What are your thoughts?

Katrina: They're just trying to steal my thunder, so to speak. I'm a hurricane; a naturally occurring weather event. And since when has weather ever, in the history of recorded time, been predictable? Sure, I was a Category 5, but the reason there's a Category 5 classification is because, you know, there have been Category 5 hurricanes in the past. I was a powerful bitch because, well, I'm a powerful bitch.

ME: Doesn't sound like you have much in the way of remorse.

Katrina: Look, I'm a hurricane. I can propel 2x4s through walls. I can reduce housing complexes to toothpicks. I can dump enough rain to flood most major metropolitan areas, especially those that are already below sea level. In other words, I can, and will, deal out the hurt when I arrive. If you can't understand that, then you're just kind of dumb.

ME: Were you at all surprised by the number of people who didn't evacuate the coastal communities?

Katrina: Not really. People are funny that way. Be honest now: now many tornado sirens have gone off in your lifetime and, instead of running to the basement, you went outside to take a look?

ME: . . .

Katrina: Come on. . .

ME: All right, probably most of them.

Katrina: Exactly. A lot of people just don't have any concept of what Mother Nature can dish out until they've experienced it firsthand. If you had walked outside and taken a few licks from a tornado, I'm betting you'd be hightailing to the deepest cavern you can find then next time a siren blows. As it is, because you haven't, you'll probably be right outside the next time. Right?

ME: . . .

Katrina: Come on. . .

ME: All right. Probably.

Katrina: Thank you. It always amazes me that people live at the base of Mt. Vesuvius, and Mt. Fuji and even on the currently-active volcano in Hawaii. I mean, from a common sense standpoint, those people are fucking insane. Those mountains are gonna fuckin' blow. It's gonna happen. At some point, a lot of you fucking people are going to die. Likewise, if you live on the Gulf coast, powerful bitches like me are gonna come along. It's inevitable. And yet every time, every fucking time, after all the bodies are piled up and the damage is calculated, people STILL stand around and ask "how could this happen?" And then the news reports start rolling and before you know, people are so busy blaming themselves and others, they'll forget that a Goddamned hurricane was the cause of it all in the first place. It's pretty damned amusing, really, from my perspective.

ME: Well, maybe, but you have to agree that the relief effort from bottom to top was pretty well fudged.

Katrina: Oh, yeah, no doubt. But, here's the thing: how do you prepare for something like me? How do you plan for relief after something like me? Not to thump my own chest or anything, but I'll say it again, I'm a powerful bitch. I'm a mushroom cloud laying motherfucker, motherfucker. I'm the guns of the Navarone. Every time my fingers touch brain, I. . . sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, my point is, when a bitch like me comes along, and people stick around to see what I can do, and you have every variable in the world stacked up against you, including already basically being under water, you're going to have yourselves one big-assed disaster. Good luck coordinating a seamless relief effort after I come knocking. That's not to say you little bi-pedal fuckers didn't mess up all across the board but, I gotta tell you. . . if I were you, and I went up against me, I'd probably screw up plenty of things, too.

ME: Do you think the Gulf coast will recover?

Katrina: Oh, yeah, because that's what you weird little fuckers do. I may belittle you for not being able to stand up against me, but I have to admit, you're tenacious little bastards. I'll give you that.

ME: Hurricane Katrina, thanks again for taking the time to speak with me.

Katrina: No problem. I have to go now. I'm gearing up to recollect myself and dump about four feet of snow on a bunch of dumbasses living in Rochester, Minn., sometime around January 10. It'll be a hoot.

I love Minnesota

Yeah, I've posted this before and, yeah, there's a flaw where you can see the deck leading down on the lower left (but that's part of what makes it special to me). I caught a bunch of fish off that dock, and my grandpa taught me how to catch more than perch one summer. That's Island Lake, and it's one of the most peaceful places I know.