Damn It! Just When Things Were Starting To Come Together!

I just read a shocking news story concerning my alma mater, the eminently prestigious Idaho State University. While primarily known as a mecca for underage drinkers, ISU technically does have a couple of other more traditionally recognized collegiate activities; namely, scholastics and athletics.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the story is that scholastics and athletics are loosely related to one another (unlike at some institutions, such as The Ohio State University). There is, I have just learned, a measure known as the Academic Progress Rate (APR), and Division I schools are required to exceed some minimum aggregate score in order to avoid horribly Draconian penalties, punishments so severe that even Magdalene, my cruel and unforgiving dominatrix friend, shudders at the thought of them. (And hey, call me, Mags! The new girl doesn't EVER ignore my safeword - miss you!)

According to the story, the threshold at which a program can avoid the brutal horrors that only the NCAA is evil enough to administer is 925. Since the APR rule came into effect in 2004, Idaho State’s football squad has never scored above 900. So even worse than just receiving whatever penalty would result in just a single year’s transgression, ISU could be facing the wrath of the NCAA administrators for seven years of scholastic sloth! Dear god have mercy on their souls.

So what horrific punishment have these sadistic demons handed down? Read on, if you can think you can stomach it ...

The Idaho State University Bengal Football Team will not be eligible for post-season play in 2011.

For my reader in Tanzania who may not be familiar with the ISU football program, here are their records for the last few years:

2010: 1-10
2009: 1-10
2008: 1-11
2007: 3-8
2006: 2-9

Yes, wins are listed first.

In other sports news, apparently Amaury Sport Organisation has noticed that the level of writing on this blog hasn't really progressed over the past three years and has disallowed me from this year's Tour de France. Monsters.

A Strained Attempt At A Post

I visited the local “grocery store” the other day, which is really nothing more than a gussied-up Kwikee Mart, but is conveniently close, and so is acceptable for those quick emergency trips, as when I commit the unforgivable sin of allowing my beer reserve to dip below a six-pack. (If you’ve ever seen a grown man in the grips of a full-blown panic attack, you know it’s not a pretty sight.)

While strolling down the pasta aisle, I came upon this display:

Above: Nice to see the store catering to the neighborhood Lilliputians.

Just to be clear: Those are NOT giant packages of noodles. Those are miniature one-serving colanders. Now believe me, I’m appreciative of the fact that the food industry creates different sizes of packaging, so that those of us bereft of human companionship don’t have to buy more than we really need. Avoiding spoilage is just common sense, and really a responsibility of those of us in that situation as planet citizens. I be all down wit dat, as the kids say.

But a single-serving colander? WTF? They don’t cost less than standard sized colanders, and I certainly can’t imagine a kitchen so cramped for shelf space that the actual storage volume advantage would be a considered factor in any colander purchase decision process. I think the only explanation is that the local “grocery store” is going out of its way to tell us solo passengers that, on our little ride through life, we’ll nevah EVAH find ourselves in a situation requiring preparation of a meal for two.

Those bastards.

Well, I, for one, refuse to accept that (it would, of course, be difficult for me to refuse to accept it as more than one ... that's the whole point here). After a brief and calm explanation of my feelings on the matter directed at the checkout girl, who I don’t think was really listening, because she kept gesturing wildly toward the store manager and screaming “CALL 911!” over and over again, I drove to WINCO and purchased the largest colander they had. And while I may not soon, or even ever, have a need to prepare more than one place setting for an evening's dining, I am ready should that time ever arrive. I urge those of you in a similar situation to do as I have done, and reject the oppressive message that the food preparation industry is trying to force upon us. Go! Go buy that colossal colander, the super-siziest sieve you can find! We will stand united in our loneliness (well, metaphorically, of course, because, by definition, we’re not united, duh …) against the cold-hearted monsters who would see us broken had they their way.

In the meantime, the devil dog seems to be developing an Italian accent in her barks. Must be something in her diet.

I'll Wring Your Scrawny Little Necco!

I really don’t know exactly what I’m feeling right now – it’s an unsettling mixture of anger, sadness, confusion, betrayal … I certainly doubt that there’s any word for this particular emotion in the English language; perhaps not in any language, in fact.

Yesterday, I purchased a roll of Necco Wafers, after realizing that it had been perhaps a year since my last one (by far the longest Neccoless period in my life, excluding my first three years). I was a bit disappointed in myself, naturally, but I worked through it and was eventually able to forgive myself by pledging on my very soul that never again will such an oversight take place.

As is my practice, I prepared to begin sorting through the box in order to select the roll with minimal licorice-flavored wafers. Licorice-flavored Necco wafers, on the Acornian Taste Scale, are just to the bad side of lutefisk. They are, without a doubt, the foulest tasting things I have ever put my tongue on, and I’ve dated some rather Bohemian women in my day.

To my astonishment, the first roll I grabbed was entirely devoid of them! Such was my glee that I could not contain myself, and the store clerk was a bit taken aback upon being hugged by a grown man squealing like a school girl upon hearing that Justin Bieber had been spotted downtown. It was perhaps the high point of my confectionary consumptive career.

“My god, my god, what are the odds?” I asked myself. I quickly recalled the formula for binomial probability calculation and came up with p=6.65 E-5, or about 1 in 15,000. Of course, being one who shuns the sound rigidity of mathematics and statistics in favor of baseless superstitions, I figured that I was on a hot streak and began going through the rest of the box.

To my great shock, the second roll I picked up had no licorice wafers, nor did the third, nor the fourth! “This simply can’t be chance!” I said to myself. “But what else could explain this?” I asked aloud. At that precise instant, my knees buckled, and I fell to the floor, overcome by the realization that had just struck me:

I had won.

For the past twenty-some years, I’ve campaigned for the abolishment of the vile licorice wafer; a campaign involving letter-writing, picket lines, hunger strikes, candlelight vigils, and more than a few shenanigans that, for legal purposes, won’t be mentioned here. And at that moment, I realized that my work has not been in vain. The New England Confection Company had, at long last, succumbed to my demands, admitted defeat, and had rid the world of that most horrific of abominations.

I wept with joy.

Alas, my elation was short-lived, for as I tossed the fourth wafer into my mouth, I nearly gagged and rode into a parked car as I was flooded with the putrid sensation of my old waferious nemesis. They hadn’t gotten rid of it at all! Those bastards had only changed the color! I felt akin to Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist:

You son of a bitch, you moved the cemetery changed the color but you left the bodies flavor, didn't you? You son of a bitch! You left the bodies flavor and you only moved the headstones changed the color!! YOU ONLY MOVED THE HEADSTONES CHANGED THE COLOR!!! WHY?! WHY?!!!

Well, I got home and did a little research, and discovered that Necco went natural back in late 2009, and the colors consequently changed due to the new ingredients. At least that’s their cover story. I suspect … no, I KNOW … that this was a not-so-subtle escalation in our little war. Well, you’ve won this battle, Necco, but this war ain’t over. Not by a long shot.

Game ON, bitches.

I'm Pretty Sure This Is Scotland's Fault ... They Invented The Stupid Game, After All.

As I am currently just past the midpoint of my 9th decade on this earth, I am becoming ever more aware of my pathetic frailty. Where once I could battle the cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix on a brisk spring day and carouse with French lasses throughout the night, drinking absinthe from various body concavities, today I am near tears with every movement, thanks to the unnatural twisting and bodily distortions required by the game of golf.

I thought I had prepared properly – I stayed up well past midnight Saturday and long into the morning strategizing, using the time-tested method of trying to drink all of the beer that the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company had produced and annoying strangers with senseless banter. Regrettably, while such activities can be advantageous for the younger crowd (and John Daly), a man of my advanced years does not fare so well.

But golf we did, a foursome quite comical, as well as odoriferous, I’m sure, as my fellow players also subscribe to these commonly accepted means of golf-eve preparation, as well as the traditional 10 am practice-green Bud Light Tall Boy. Between the ubiquitous four-putts and our tendency to use the fairways adjacent to the particular one we were actually playing, I’m sure it was quite a spectacle – quite a spectacle, indeed.

It probably didn’t help matters that later in the day, I helped move an armoire that weighed in excess of 3000 lbs (13,636 decagrams) and was the size of Rhode Island (but, you know, 3-dimensional). Luckily, the two girls that I was helping were quite a bit stronger than I am, so we were able to accomplish the maneuvers without serious damage.

To the armoire, at least.

And so I sit, whimpering at my desk, arms aching, searing pain shooting through my body with each keystroke, and I think back to last week, when an excursion to the bowling alley, requiring similarly bizarre gyrations for which the human body is not intended, produced a nearly identical result. It's almost as if I haven't the capacity for learning.

The cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix seem like heaven in comparison.

A Bloody Mess

“2 weeks ago,” reads the line beneath my blog name on other blogs kind enough to include me in their blogroll. Two goddamn weeks.

O, that I were able to fill this post with a fortnight's worth of tales of daring-do, of adventure and excitement, of journeys to far-off lands on missions of mercy, but sadly, empty have been the days and dark the nights, a longing for the renewal of spring denied by the incessant rains and bone-chilling cold, with all-too-brief respites of sunshine serving only to aggravate my yearnings and intensify my aches ...

So yeah, I got nothin’.

I’ll relate an actual conversation that took place between me and The Live Acorn the other day while I try to make up some stuff that would be interesting were it really to have happened:

Dead Acorn: You know, Live Acorn, the intellectual black hole that is the Idaho Legislature actually got something good done this past session.

Live Acorn: Oh yeah? (rolls eyes; thought balloon with “Jesus Christ, why can’t he shut up?” visible above her head)

Dead Acorn: Yep ... they lowered the age at which a person can donate blood from 18 to 16, with parental consent, of course.

Live Acorn: Neato. (thought balloon now reading “maybe I can just walk the last 8 miles to volleyball practice ...”)

Dead Acorn: Yes indeedy ... it goes into effect on July 1st, the beginning of the fiscal year.

Live Acorn: This is quite the informative ride, father. Thank you for the information.

Dead Acorn: So it will be in place when you turn 16 in the middle of July, and I’ve scheduled appointments for both of us on your birthday!

Live Acorn: NO NO NO OH GOD NO NO DAD NO I NEED MY BLOOD I NEED ALL OF MY BLOOD NONONONONONO ...

And I thought I was a sissy.

It Obviously Skips Generations ...

There are a number of syndromes that occur from time to time in humans in which an extra chromosome is present. For example, while most females have an XX karyotype and most males have XY, about 1 in 1000 people are born with an additional chromosome: XXY (Klinefelter’s syndrome), in which a male carries two Xs, XYY, in which a male carries an extra Y, and XXX (Trisomy X), in which a female carries a third X chromosome and often winds up in the Adult Entertainment industry.

A far less common form of aneuploidy, XXG, is one that affects The Live Acorn, and people afflicted with it carry an extra Goofball chromosome. Unfortunately, while the aforemented three syndromes have little or no effect phenotypically, XXG manifests itself in ways at once sad and hilarious.

Saturday, for instance, she had an all-day volleyball tournament, and therefore, as is the tradition around these parts, decided to put on her grandmother’s old pearl ring the day before so that her finger would swell up, rendering it unremovable by morning, and resulting in her being disallowed in the matches until it was off.

Initial attempts at removal employing bathroom soap as a lubricant were unsuccessful, so I was dispatched to the grocery store for other potentially helpful items:

Dead Acorn, to Store Worker: Excuse me, I’m looking for a bag of ice and a container of lotion.

Store Worker: (brief pause) Umm … aisles 7 and 2.

Store Worker: (under her breath) Sicko pervert.

Dead Acorn: Hey, it’s to get a ring off of a girl’s finger.

Store Worker: Sicko pervert homewrecker.

I made my way back up to the tournament and got the Live Acorn to soak her hand in ice water, which was quite a task in and of itself. After about 20 minutes, a coach came over and inquired as to our progress, and apparently decided that it was time to stop fooling around. She got The Live Acorn to stand up, and gave surprisingly detailed instructions on how she would pull the ring while The Live Acorn would compact the flesh as it was being torn and push it back wristward under the the band.

This operation took approximately 3 1/2 days, with the coach straddling her arm, The Live Acorn trying to stifle her screams, and a team of players surrounding her and wincing in empathic pain. The ring finally did come off, and after some gentle massage, she was able to get into the matches. We had this conversation after:

Dead Acorn: So who was that coach?

Live Acorn: I don’t know.

Dead Acorn: Well, who was that team standing around?

Live Acorn: I don’t know them, either.

Dead Acorn: Ummmm …

Live Acorn: Yeah. You allowed a crazed stranger to nearly rip my finger off while you stood by. Way to go, dad. Looks like Father Of The Year will have to wait another trip around the ole’ sun.

I don’t think I need to rush too fast to clear a spot in my trophy case for that award.

FATHERLY BOASTING NOTE: The team won their final four matches, all against higher-ranked teams. The Live Acorn, while woefully underplayed by her coach (well, so it seemed to me, at least) during most of them, played the entire last game, and did extremely well, making a strong case that she should start. She rocks.

Tick Tock Tick Tock ...

I’ve noticed that as I grow older, there seems to be less and less time to do the things that I want or need to do. It really applies to everything … huge long-term aspirations (write The Great American A Mediocre Albanian Novel (I'm trying to be realistic here); finally convince Betty Jane Kloppenschleimer to return my calls), mid-size projects (finish the damn lyrics to that song; clean the garage), simple tasks (scratch my itchy belly; get another frosty beer (okay, I get that one done)) … there’s just never enough time.

“I wonder what that’s owing to?” I asked myself, then scolded myself for ending a sentence with a preposition. “I wonder what that’s owing to, dumbass?” I then asked myself, quite pleased with having caught my error, as that particular grammatical faux pas is one I try and watch for.*

My first thought was that as we age, our perception of time changes, and the hours and days just feel like they’re going by faster, giving the illusion of having less time to do things. There is some evidence for this (science-y evidence, not simply that Stephen King refers to time during childhood as “slow time,” though that’s good enough for me), but that cake ain’t quite done bakin’, as they say in academic research circles.

Another thought was that I simply have more things to do. Perhaps as I’ve gotten older, all of the things I keep putting off have been piling up, so that the ratio of activities:time is continually increasing. This seems plausible at first, as I am quite the procrastinator, but my memory is also shot to hell, so my actually remembering things that I would like to do for any extended length of time seems a stretch.

Then, this morning, I figured it out. It occurred to me, after I took off my underwear to turn them around after putting them on backwards, after unbuttoning my shirt to rebutton it in proper alignment, after lying on the ground writhing in agony after stubbing my toe on the bed post, after tripping over Indy and falling in the hallway, after spending 20 minutes looking for one of my shoes, after waking up at 6:00 to get to work by 7:30 and not arriving until 7:50 because of all this stuff … it occurred to me that I have less and less time because I’m a fucking idiot.

I feel so much better now that I know!

* D’oh!