Month: October 2001

Rock climbing followed by football means soreness upon soreness. Maybe I should go running and complete a wussy personal triathalon. But at least I had a good game: four (!) touchdowns, two interceptions, several nice defensive plays. I think I’ll be able to try out for the Cowboys soon.
When we were done playing after about three hours, a group of us were sitting on the sideline, drinking water, enjoying the pain (and in the case of two players, smoking). Then this group of guys came over and asked us if we’d be willing to play against them for a while. It seems they’re practicing for this big touch football championship coming up in November, and they needed people to defend them for a while. Dog-tired but never ones to reject a challenge, we played. These guys clearly took thing much more seriously than we do — they had a playbook! With more than a dozen plays! They had a coach! When a route wasn’t run crisply enough, they’d talk about being two feet farther left or right, a degree of precision we don’t even have when we’re parking our cars, much less running pass patterns. Anyway, they smoked us good. But I did get a few nice views of the backs of their shirts as they ran past, at least.

Just got back from rock climbing in Carrollton. For those who haven’t been there, they’ve converted a bunch of old grain silos into climbing walls. (You can climb up the inside or the outside; as it was raining, we stayed inside.) They claim it’s the tallest indoor climbing gym in the world.
I fared okay, considering the last climbing I did was in college, and that was of buildings, not rocks. A great guy named Lukas lived across the hall from me freshman year — probably the most brilliant guy I’ve ever met. (He took fourth-year graduate-level theoretical physics as a freshman.) Among his (non-marijuana) interests was rock climbing; on a whim he entered a contest and won the Connecticut state rock climbing championship. But he did most of his climbing on the Gothic spires of our campus: they were convenient and fun to conquer. During spring semester, he lost his dorm room keys; instead of getting new ones, he just left a window open on the third floor and climbed in every day. I’ll never forget the look of horror on this one poor freshwoman’s face when Lukas appeared outside her fourth-floor window one night…

More greedy self-promotion: I’m supposed to have a story on the front page tomorrow, on a new rush by high school dropouts to take the GED before it gets tougher on Jan. 1. Of course, it was supposed to be on the front page of last Monday’s paper, but a few nasty little bombing raids scuttled that pretty quickly, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see a random anthrax attack push it back another couple of days again.

Today’s signal that the world truly has changed post-9/11: Last night was the debut of Survivor 3, and none of us at work even noticed. (This after it dominated huge swaths of every working Friday last year.)

I was sick yesterday morning, then spent yesterday afternoon wrestling with my hard drive. (Around 1 p.m., it decided that installing a new operating system was far too much stress. As the afternoon went on, I could actually see files disintegrating, one by one: old email, a web page from 1996, my resume, etc. I’d like to publicly pledge my first-born child to the very nice people who make Disk Warrior, which officially saved my ass.) And of course, Wednesday brought news of some of my coworkers getting laid off.
So there was a heavy burden on last night’s trip to the state fair with my friend Natacha to lift me out of the doldrums. Luckily, it worked. Observations:
– I was very disappointed to learn that, according to the lady in the coupon booth, there was no butter sculpture at the fair this year because “they couldn’t finish it in time.” I have this horrible vision of an aged butter artisan — probably a Swedish grandpa from Wausaukee, Wisconsin — crouched over some half-human form, burying his head in his hands, bawling his eyes out over his inability to finish carving in time for the fair.
– I feel sorry for the people who run fair events with an international theme. The Moroccan horsemen have started putting American flags everywhere during their act for fear that the small-minded will start making the Moroccans = Arabs = terrorists equation and start making glue of their horses. Even the Belgian waffle stand made a few changes; on a sign that says autocratically “Waffles only!” they’ve put a small American flag. (I had no idea the Belgians were linked to terrorism.)
– I wonder how the Flying Men of Veracruz get insurance.
– Growing up in Louisiana, corn dogs appeared pretty regularly on our school lunch menus. They were uniformly awful: a bland, doughy breading, a lukewarm frankfurter, etc. So I was skeptical when I heard of the glories of the state fair corn dog. I was wrong. They truly are a glorious foodstuff.

On a day when my employer announces layoffs and wage freezes, I didn’t expect to be laughing out loud. But I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen something this funny.
Look at the posters of Osama Bin Laden in these photos of anti-American protests: here, here, here, and here (same as #3).
Now go back and look over Osama’s left ear. (It’s clearest in the first one. In case it’s removed from the site, I’ve archived it here.)
If you can’t believe your eyes, check out here, here, and here. Muppet power! Fight the evil Bert!

Bad news from my employer. Cross your fingers for me.

I know, humanitarian aid is not a very funny concept, and bombing is even less of one. But I love this Post story on the food drops the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan.
First off, these pouches are being dropped from very high altitudes, with no parachutes. Is this safe? Why am I reminded of the famous turkey drop episode of WKRP in Cincinnati? (See episode #40.)
Anyway, from the story:
“‘This is a food gift from the people of the United States of America,’ the label on the pouch reads…The text is in English, Spanish and French.” (Oh yeah, lots of starving Afghan peasants read English. Great education system they’ve got there.)
“Someone tearing into one of the food pouches would find…a shortbread cookie, a biscuit, a fruit bar, fruit pastry, peanut butter, strawberry jam, and a condiment package that includes salt, pepper and sugar.” (Win them over with condiments! It’s worked in every other theater of war!)
And, my favorite line: “A moist towelette is included.” I’m sure the Afghans appreciate it.

I was really intrigued by Ev’s latest blog entry: “sdfasdf.” So profound, so penetrating, so…je ne sais quoi.
I had to find more, so I turned to Google, and it did not let me down: 1,770 pages on the wisdom of sdfasdf. Irish bloggers, California consultants, Hoosier chemists: they all know the secret of the sdfasdf.
But then I learned a devastating truth: sdfasdf was not nearly as popular as its rival, asdfasdf. (Just as “amoral” means the opposite of “moral,” “asdfasdf” must be the diametric opposite to “sdfasdf.”) The asdfasdf school of thought has made no fewer than 5,100 converts online, including the city of Fife, Washington, a Maryland golf course, and a distributed computing company. Where will asdfasdf’s vile influence finally end? (And don’t even get me started on asdf, its lean, cruel cousin.)

Some of the Google search terms used to find this site so far this month: “barry bonds download gone in 70 seconds,” “rem nostradamus end of the towers,” “osama 7-eleven,” “osama and a goat,” “dayo song,” “scared to be in afghanistan song,” and, naturally, “limited edition nikes.”