Month: November 2001

If the photo above is changing, that’s your clue that Josh is ditching town. I leave in too few hours for lovely Toledo, Ohio, my former home, to visit friends and generally raise heck (as they’d say in the polite Midwest.) The photo above is of iron ore being offloaded from a ship on the Maumee River in Toledo. I used to live a few blocks from that offloading site, downtown in these apartments. (But wait! That’s not my building! That’s a building that looks a bit like my old building, but with about six extra floors and a slightly different shape. And the page mentions an indoor heated pool; I lived there for almost three years, and I swear there’s no pool of any kind. Clearly there’s some fraud going on — uninteresting fraud, but fraud nonetheless. Harrumph.)
The dfwblogs happy hour was tonight and fun as usual. And the mojitos at the Meridian were as tasty as usual. And I was able to offload all my homeless CDs to worthy homes.

If you’ve got a hankering for some close contact with polar bears, the Mars Society wants you. They’re now taking applications for volunteers willing to spend time at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island between December and August. (Any place meant to be a model for the Martian winter has got to be a major party locale.) So if you’re 18 to 60 and in good physical condition, do your part for interplanetary travel. Unfortunately, they don’t mention how long of a time commitment they want people to make; if it was short (2-3 weeks), I’d absolutely be applying. (They say they want applicants with “scientific, engineering, practical mechanical, wilderness, and literary skills.” Well, I might be able to get away with the last one — don’t they need an intrepid journalist to record the journey?)

As Leia would say, w00t! Just found out I get to go to Salt Lake City in February to be one of the 9,000 journalists covering the Olympics. My run of absurdly good luck continues…

Pedro es inteligente. En senor y la senora Garcia son profesores. Juana y Josefa son estudiantes. Tu perro se llama Galan. Yo preparo la limonada. Gabriel es un gato grande y gordo. Gerardo y Geronimo son gemelos. Donde esta Carmen? Esta en el supermercado. Que compra? Compra leche. Luis usa la computadora. Los muchachos estudian espanol. Yo pregunto en la clase. Ellos caminan en el parque. (In case you can’t tell, last night was Spanish class.)

At the risk of repeating myself: I fully expect all area bloggers to attend tonight’s dfwblogs happy hour at the Meridian Room. And I don’t want to hear that same old “I’m too busy fleeing from the Northern Alliance” excuse.

Been feeling uneasy since 9/11, unsure who America’s true friends are? Well, worry no more — the Principality of Sealand has “communicated directly with the United States of America offering its resources” in the wake of the attacks, along with “its sympathy and concern.” (For those who don’t know, Sealand is an offshore platform built by the Brits in WWII to ward off German air raids. When the UK abandoned it after the war, a man named Roy Bates realized it was in international waters and decided he would occupy it, proclaim himself “Prince Roy,” and declare Sealand an independent, sovereign nation. More info here and here.)
The Sealanders say they can help the anti-terrorist cause because the Sealand Criminal Code “provides for placing any persons suspected of such activities under immediate arrest and detention at the Sovereign’s pleasure.” One hopes the Sovereign doesn’t get too carried away with his pleasure.

People, people — how many times do I have to say it? Let law enforcement do its job. Never take the law into your own hands. Innocent clowns could get hurt. (More details; via the smack.)

Matt and I linked to the same article today. He is hereby jinxed. He may no longer blog until I say his full name; until then, should he blog illegally, I may freely punch him. (Ah, childhood.)
Searching for a couple good jinx linx brought me to a four-square page. Now that is the sport of kings — strategy, cunning, cat-quick reflexes. I’d pay good money to see a professional four-square league. Hell, maybe I could play in such a league: four-square was just about the only successful athletic outlet for a geeky kid like me. I was damned good, I tell you. (Well, I was also quite a star at benchball, an odd sort of volleyball/four-square/tennis hybrid invented one middle-school free period by Josh Caffery and me. Truly a tactical sport, with much more Olympic potential than silly events like synchronized swimming.)
I was disappointed to learn, however, that the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel is not an organization for believers in the sport, like me, but instead for followers of Aimee Semple McPherson. She was one of the first evangelists to learn how to work the media, with stunts like staging her own kidnapping, “faith healing” animals at a Los Angeles zoo, and shilling “Go With Me to the Holy Land!” cruises to the Mediterranean.
Interesting fact about the ICFG: It runs the L.I.F.E. Bible College in San Dimas, Ca., which had heretofor been best known as the setting for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. So they’ve got that going for them. (In case it isn’t clear, San Dimas, not L.I.F.E. Bible College, was the movie’s location. Just to be clear.)

Peter Buck’s air rage trial has hit a snag, as the jury has been dismissed for reasons unknown. (Buck allegedly got drunk after 15 glasses of wine — well, who wouldn’t be? — and disrupted a British Airways flight in April.)
The only reason I’m linking this is because one of the four charges against him is “damaging British Airways crockery.” Is that a capital offense in the U.K.?

So I can’t read a calendar (see below). Is that a reason to vilify me? To attack my family, my good name, my heritage? To call me names like “silly nincompoop,” “cretinous ninny,” or “softheaded simpleton”? If you prick me, do I not bleed? I just (sniffle) don’t know (sob) if I can take (whimper) this abuse (howl) much longer.
Anyway. My photos are back from Japan. Horrible, every last one. All my attempts at “creative” shots for the paper are out of focus. I hope the photo desk can work some magic on them. (And if someone wants to buy me a scanner, perhaps you’ll see some of the horror yourselves in a very special episode of crabwalk.com.)
Still time to lay claim to some free CDs. I plan on bringing whatever’s unclaimed to the happy hour (whatever day it is), so get yer orders in now.
Advice columnist breaks up with husband: couple announces split in chat room. And it somehow all ends up with the happy, charming smugness of, well, a couple who shouldn’t be splitting up.