Dog Days Of August

Boise seems to have a lot of bank robberies. It's been a couple of months since I've read of one, but generally, there seem to be three or four a year. It always gives me a little chuckle ... I mean, really, a bank robbery? Who does that? I'm not a big fan of crime, of course, unless I'm absolutely positive I can get away with it, but there just seems to be something romantic about knocking over the local Washington Mutual.

I'm pretty sure I don't actually know any bank robbers ... well, I was pretty sure until today. I got home and walked into the house to say hi to the beast who will occasionally stop biting me in order to let me feed her, and here's what greets me:


Above: Potentially unidentifiable bank robber.

I was all "like, seriously, dude? You can't even write to make a stickup note, and your vocabulary is fairly limited as well. By the time the teller figured out what you meant by 'Ron't rit re ralarm!' the cops would have taken you out."

This is a dog who's too stupid to eat a treat when it's right in front of her eyes.


Above: Just ... just ... not smart.

Sometimes I don't know why I even try.

Of Cars And Dogs And Sealing Wax

One of the sites that I've got linked over on the side is McSweeney's, which is a mother lode of good writing, the reading of which is considered de rigueur if you're going to hang with the pretentious literary crowd. (I don't hang with the pretentious literary crowd, by the way, I just like reading shit that's funny and well-written.) One of the regular features is "A Convergence of Convergences: A Contest"
, which is described thusly:

Submit your own convergence −an unlikely, striking pair of images, along with a paragraph or three exploring the deeper resonances. The best contributions will be posted on the site, along with responding commentary from Weschler. (For those of you who still aren't quite clear on this "convergence" concept, it's kind of like Celebrity Look-Alikes, except instead of Nick Nolte and Gary Busey, it's a cuneiform tablet and the Chicago city jail, followed by a series of brilliant, spiraling ruminations.

Nothing that I've penned or ever will pen will be published on McSweeney's, of course, since 1) I doubt I'll ever submit anything, and 2) me no write good.

Nevertheless, I have snapped a couple of pictures on my handy-dandy cellphone-cam lately that had a certain familiarity about them, and the other night, in a whisky-induced moment of clarity, I finally realized the images that they evoked.

First, the Demon Hellhound for whom I work the mines, that she may gorge herself on the flesh of infants:

Above: One of her rare docile moments.

And here is Pig, from Pearls Before Swine (also linked over on the side):

Above: The comics page's most lovable character.

The ears suggest a common ancestor no more than four generations back, according to Lehi "Butch" Jensen, Senior Researcher at the LDS Genealogical Society.

Next up: as some of you may know, the Grey Ghost finally, well, gave up the ghost, shall we say. A sad day for all, and certainly a subject of a future post, but for our present purposes, it's sufficient to know that she left a permanant mark on my life:

Above: Major driver in Iraq War.

And from Prince William Sound:

Above: Vehicle of Joe Hazelwood, not a student of the "ride a bike if you're going to be drinking" school of thought.

Unfortunately, while these images are quite striking, and certainly lovely to look at and to compare and contrast, they really offer no insight into the central question concerning my existence:

Is my life a goddamned cartoon or a fucking shipwreck?

And the introspection continues ...

If I Were King Of The Forest

When I’m president, there will be a few changes made. These will not go through congress, they will not be reviewed by the judiciary at any level, and they will be enacted immediately via Executive Order upon my inauguration.

1) A lid standard will be set for the plastic food container industry. There will be a limited number of sizes (6-10, perhaps), and all lids for a particular size will fit all brands of containers. Our nation’s kitchen drawers are overflowing with mismatched pieces from companies that actually change their own lid design every six months in a devious form of planned obsolescence. A lid cracks, and rather than being able to buy just a lid, consumers are forced to buy a whole new set. Bastards! And lest you interpret this as mere frustration on my part, keep in mind that we, as a nation, discard approximately 233,000 tons of plastic containers a year. The reduction in manufacturing alone (as plastic is a petroleum-based product) would decrease our dependence on foreign oil by nearly 90%*. Fewer lids = fewer wars. Peace will be delivered in a handy, airtight, and standardized Tupperware container.

2) The maximum number of blades on a razor will be set at two. Triple Trac? Ta ta. Quattro? Quashed. Fusion? Farewell, fucker. Obviously, there are a lot of razors with more than two blades out there in America’s homes, and ours is not a nation in which the government can force the public to buy a product (usually). Therefore, I will implement a buy-back program which will be known as “Bucks For Blades.” (Since my plastic container edict will unquestionably get me labeled a communist, I might call it “Rubles For Razors,” just to make the wingnuts’ heads asplode.) After a three month transition period, the National Guard will be mobilized to search houses and enforce compliance.

3) The "musical" group The Doors must be “disappeared.” I’m talking full-on Orwellian erasure. All recordings, all media, all cultural references … gone. They will have never existed. This includes any covers, tribute bands, and movies. The Morrison Center will be renamed “The Center.” I’m considering banning actual doors as well, and having everybody just use those hanging bead thingies from the ‘60s. Possesion of a Vox Continental organ will be illegal. Val Kilmer must die.

Day Two: Roy Halladay to the Cleveland Indians; Health Care Reform.

* That's kind of a guess, but it sounds about right, doesn't it?

Let's See ... Spaghetti, Dog Food, Fleeting Moment Of Passion, Lettuce ...

I enjoy going to Winco to shop. I don’t always go there, because it’s a few miles away, and the convenience grocery store a few blocks will usually suffice to provide for my low-volume sustenance. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the no-frills, low-cost approach. Red bell peppers, for example, are usually around $.60 there, while they run a couple of bucks at Albertsons. The corn on the cob is usually about the same price, but the quality seems much higher at Winco. They’ve really got that whole “economies of scale” thing down pretty good.

I also enjoy it when some quite-attractive-couldn’t-be-a-day-over-22 checkout girl cards me for beer, but to be honest, that’s … well, let’s just say that happens only slightly more often than a five run homer.

However, as much as I enjoy the budgetary advantages of shopping there, I think my favorite thing about Winco is the social interplay that takes place between the shoppers as they criss-cross the aisles. It’s far more erotic than it might appear at first – one might be excused for not noticing the coy, sideways glances, the faint, wispy smiles, the quick strokes of fingers through hair, as the bodies stroll past each other, all pretending to be oh-so-interested in the deal of the day. It’s a subtle dance, as you first sense the sultry sexuality of a smokin’ shopress near the cereal*, initiating a reprioritization of your list and a quick calculation of when you need to arrive in dry goods, so that you can pass her again, forgetting any concerns with the efficiency of your trip, only hoping to lock eyes with her, if just for the briefest of moments; for in that moment comes a blissful sort of amnesia, a fleeting yet sweet release from your worldly ties and all that binds you, weighs on you, burdens you as did the heavens burden Atlas, and it’s only you two, if but for a split second, until, with the slightest of blushes and a shy downward glance, the spell is broken, and it’s off to the beer cooler to see if you can slam a quick one without getting busted.

It's definitely an interesting dynamic. Still, though, even without all that, you really can’t beat that deal on red bell peppers.

* The suckiness of my metaphors is rivaled only by that of my attempts at alliteration.

Release The Hounds!

I’ve mentioned before that I’m something of a less-than-stellar house cleaner/maintainer, but this weekend things really went to the dogs. Literally.

The hound with whom I share Casa de Acorn had a few houseguests over – Cooper and Peanut stopped in Thursday night, and Chili showed up Friday afternoon. Cooper is a little bit bigger than Indy, and they play pretty rough together (though all in good fun). So Thursday and Friday, they were gnawing on each other while Peanut watched from the safety of the couch. Then Chili showed up, and they were all “bros before hos,” so Indy was all butthurt a little put out by that. Chili likes the larger gals, however, and Indy certainly knows where the food bowl is, so she was back in the gang after a while.

I let them stay up late on Friday, which may have been a mistake. I think they might have been a little baked, because they were going on about the meaning of life, and Peanut kept telling the joke about the atheist dyslexic flea who denied the existence of a dog over and over, thinking it was the funniest thing since the Three Stooges. At one point, one of them suggested a game of poker, but Cooper muttered something about "being a fucking cliché," so that didn't happen. Later, they got all amped up about starting a band, and Chili thought it would be really hilarious to do a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Bitch.” Indy didn’t seem amused.

Well, they finally went to sleep, but not before we took the picture for the album cover:


Above: Angsty emo dog rockers The K-10s. (clockwise from lower left): Lead guitarist/pretty boy Chili, bass player/party animal Cooper, drummer/chick magnet Peanut, and lead singer/pit diver Indy.

It's probably for the best that they realized their folly when they woke up.

Bonus dog joke: So this guy walks into a bar with his dog. The bartender says “hey, buddy, no dogs allowed inside.” The guy says “well, this is a very special dog … he can talk!” The bartender is a little skeptical, of course, and asks for proof. The guy says to his dog “Ok, boy, who was the greatest baseball player of all time?” to which the dog barks “Ruth! Ruth!” The bartender looks at him with disgust, and throws them both out into the street. As they’re walking away, the dog says “How was I supposed to know it was a goddamned Red Sox bar?”

Take Me Out To The Ballga ... Oh Jeez, Just Take Me Back Home ...

It being July and all, the Live Acorn and I had a hankering to see some professional baseball being played. In lieu of that, we went out to see the Boise Hawks.

Technically speaking, I concede that these “baseball players” are paid to “play baseball” for a “baseball team” in an allegedly professional “baseball league.” They got uniforms and everything! But sweet Rocky Colavito’s ghost*, what happened last night was a little closer to t-ball than the bigs, to be sure.

It started off with promise … the Hawk’s starter (Su-Min Jung) walked 1 in the first, but didn’t give up any hits. No perfect game, but the no-hitter was intact, with only 8 more innings to go! The tension at the park was as heavy as an acid-fueled conversation on the meaning of the universe at a '60s hippie reunion.** No one in the crowd dared speak for fear of jinxing it, and Jung sat alone at the end of the dugout, his teammates showing the proper reverence by avoiding any risk of disrupting the transcendent state he was surely occupying. Unfortunately, he gave up 4 runs on 4 hits in the 2nd, while only recording 1 out, so there went the no-no.

The Vancouver starter fared a bit better in terms of innings pitched (3), but worse in runs allowed (7). All in all, the Hawks used 5 pitchers, none lasting more than 2.1 innings. They were sloppy on the offensive side as well, with a couple of runners getting thrown out at 3rd (including a nice 8-6-2-5 double play – those whacky Canadians with their solid fundamentals and all that). In the bonehead play of the night, a Hawks batter reached 1st on an overthrown ball, rounded the base but lollygagged it back, during which time the Vancouver 1st baseman had retrieved the ball and winged it to the catcher, who was alertly covering 1st, for the put-out.

Final score: Hawks 12, Vancouver 9, thanks to 4 unearned runs on 3 Vancouver errors. Way to earn it, fellas.

Unfortunately (I guess that’s somewhat debatable), I had to pick up a friend’s dogs around 10 pm, so we had to leave in the 5th (2 ½ hours for 5 innings? WTF?). There … I admitted it, damnit. I left a game early. On half-price beer night. My god, what’s happened to me? I'm just a shell of my former self ...

In big league news, Cleveland starts a critical series against Detroit tonight. Not so critical in terms of Cleveland’s long-dashed hopes of post-season play, but critical in the Tribe/Tiger season series, upon which a keg of beer rests. The Indians are down 7-2, and therefore need to win 7 of the remaining 9 just to throw it to the tiebreaker. I’m not optimistic. I’m also not happy with ever uttering the words “ok, I’m not changing underwear until they climb back up to .500.”

Next April is a long time away.

* Rocky Colavito, being alive, doesn't have a ghost in the traditional sense. However, The Curse Of Rocky Colavito, born after Frank Lane traded him to Detroit in 1960, certainly haunts the team to this day. It should be noted that Detroit "fans" never gave Colavito the sweet love he so richly deserved.

** I really, REALLY need to work on my metaphors. Or similes. Whatever, you fucking language nazis.

I've Been Framed!

I’ve been trying to get started back up on some projects that I’ve sort of set aside over time.

To those of you who are familiar with my approach to projects: I apologize for the state of your computer screen and keyboard, which, I would assume, are now drenched with the bourbon you undoubtedly sprayed from your mouth and nose upon reading that.

I tend to get harebrained inspired ideas for things that I could spend time on rather than, oh, say, actually doing something productive with my life. These ideas vary quite widely in terms of scope and ambition – on the grand end, there are such activities as turning an oversized closet into a master bathroom. At the other end of the spectrum, there are smaller-scale things like tying my shoes.

Disirregardless of scale, however, most of these projects share a common attribute: they rarely get finished. Take a look down the next time you see me … there’s a fair chance that one shoelace will be flopping around like a French soccer player. It’s one reason I avoid escalators. In the rare instance I do finish a project, the start-to-finish time is usually best described in units of years, rather than days or weeks.

The current project of interest is the construction of a pair of picture frames. I bought a couple of Will Bullas prints at Art In The Park last year, which have since been kept in a somewhat underviewed location on a desktop beneath a bunch of matte board in my dining room. Now THAT’S a hundred and thirty dollars well-spent! The tragedy of them not being on the wall is all the worse when you consider the brilliance of the art itself:

Above: Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

One of the problems with living alone is that there is often a complete absence of compulsion to maintain a presentable environment. Obviously, this means that I sweep up dog hair and wash dishes with FAR less regularity than common sense (and county health codes, I would think) dictates. Less obvious is that things like hanging art on the wall in an effort to class up the joint rarely happen. But every once in a while, like right after the longest solar eclipse that will occur this millennium, I get a little itch to try to actually make Casa de Acorn a bit more refined.

Hence the frames.

Rather than doing something as sensible as taking the prints to a frame shop and letting the experts do their thing, I stopped in at the Depot* and picked up about 11’ of 1"x2" poplar. It being a Sunday morning, I naturally wasn’t in a state to actually do the math to calculate how much I would need, but that seemed like plenty. That certainly won’t be the last time I’ve been wrong in such matters.

Here, then, is a brief synopsis of the events that transpired over the next two days:

1) Cut the groove for the print/glass on the back side.

2) Realized that I should have rounded the inner edge before cutting the groove, making the router work somewhat freehand and substantially more dangerous (though this fits my general 3B approach to woodworking: Beer, Blades, ‘n’ Blood).

3) Cut a decorative groove on the front side.

4) Measured the pieces using the ruler on the router table, placing one edge of the wood at inch 1, so that all of the pieces were 1” too short.

5) Realized my error after cutting; swore; giggled a bit at my incompetence.

(next day)

6) Went back to the Depot, bought 16’ of 1"x2" poplar, having actually done some math.

7) Did the router part first (yay me!), cut both the backside and frontside grooves.

8) Did the exact same fucking thing with the measuring and cutting, though this time, there was enough wood to finish one frame.

Net result: 27’ of wood gone; 1 21”x15” picture frame finished; lots of kindling in the wood box for camping.

Norm Abram ain’t got nuthin’ on me.

* I know that Home Depot is a right-wing corporate cesspool of an organization, and I do try to go to local hardware stores and lumber yards. Sometimes, though, in my weaker moments, I submit to the foul temptress of convenience.