Attn: Single Truckers -- Photo of the Week 18 Jan 2010

I know my audience, and since the vast majority of my readers are truckers, I know this PotW will be a huge hit. Apparently these have been floating around at trucker shops around the US. Both are worth taking a closer look at:

 

Thanks to Annie G for the submission. I would add something, but I feel I can add no more value to these fliers. Plus I'm back from traveling, so I'd rather go collapse on a bed than try to make fun of these -- like shooting fish in a barrel.


Happy Monday all. Hope you enjoyed your day off.

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My Niece -- The Nascent Terrorist

Is it cause for concern when my 3-year old niece makes her grandmother start talking like Dick Cheney? "Don't give into her demands. Then she wins." I suppose if Shigeko starts talking about launching some sort of preemptive strike against her in order to protect "vital interests" and "American lives," or my niece starts growing a beard and I find her cleaning parts to an AK-47 -- then I'll start worrying about things.

For now, I think I will continue chuckling about how cute she is, even when she's a little assertive.

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My Future Self -- Photo of the Week 7 Sept 2009

Went to the NJ shore and stayed in a beautiful Victorian house with some friends. Most people -- myself included -- would not associate the words "nice" or "beautiful" with New Jersey, but I'm glad to say I was pleasantly surprised.

Banker and I were walking out to our spot on the beach when he said, without even pointing at the guy: "This is you in five years, P.S."

People express anxiety about the the unknowns of the future, but given Banker's predictive abilities I would say this is as good as done. Sure, I'll have an enormous gut-- but I take comfort in the fact that I will be sporting large gold chains at the beach, as this man was.

And of course I took this picture in the "I'm acting like I'm texting on my phone, but really pointing my camera phone at you"-move. Oldest trick in the texting book.


Happy TUESDAY, everyone. PotW was delayed due to vacation. Now-- back to work.

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Ignorance is Bliss

I learned the painful lesson of this blog title two weekends ago while on vacation in California, where in the matter of a few days I went from ecstatic to homeless-orangutan-level-depressed.

Before leaving for Sac-town, my boys told me that they had Tivo'ed all episodes of a new MTV show called "Bully Beatdown." Based on title alone, it had to be good. Basically, the premise of the show is random people ask the show's host for help with the bullies in their lives. The host challenges the bully to fight a professional MMA fighter for the chance to win money. If the bully loses, the prize money goes to the bullied person. Not quite The Iliad or The Odyssey, but at least it would keep me entertained while I was sipping on some Henry's.

Imagine four friends sitting on a couch howling with laughter, clutching each other in pure joy as a guy -- one they have been manipulated into hating by MTV -- gets the ever-living crap kicked out of him. This was the start of a new chapter in my life.

I came back home from vacation -- and then, out of nowhere, my beautiful world was shattered. A friend (who shall remain nameless for his own protection) who is an MMA fan told me that the "bullies" for the show were actually stuntmen, and that "Bully Beatdown" was all staged.

It is impossible to pinpoint my emotions at the time my world collapsed around me, but, after some reflection, I will try to articulate the range of emotions I experienced, which unfolded in (approximately) the order below:

• Primal Rage (Think Wolverine in X2, right when he stabs that soldier in the chest in the kitchen, screaming at the top of his lungs, saliva flying everywhere)
  

• Confused Betrayal (Think William Wallace in Braveheart after he unmasks that knight, and it turns out to be Robert the Bruce. I mean, I put my trust in MTV and they do this to me? I feel like a teenager again.)
  

• Utter Inconsolability (Think Denzel Washington in Man on Fire before he meets Dakota Fanning: Haunted by past demons, numb to the point of being incapable of feeling comforted)
  

• Abject Self-pity (Think Nancy Kerrigan, immediately after knee-clubbing: "Whyyyyy? Whyyyyyyyyy?")
  

It has been an emotional rollercoaster. I hate rollercoasters.

I considered keeping the news to myself, and sheltering my friends by allowing them to live in their ignorant bliss; but everyone knows what misery loves, so I dragged them down with me. Selfish, perhaps, but I'm just the messenger. Here are testimonials from the friends whose lives have also been ruined thanks to "Bully Beatdown":

"I felt betrayed. I spent hours making lists of all the bullies I wanted Mayhem [the host] to beatdown for me, but it was all in vain, and now I will continue w/ out justice being served against my bullies." --CT

"I felt like I had fallen for a used car salesman's pitch when I could see for myself that the 'pristine' Mercedes he was selling me was in reality a 1985 Pontiac Fiero. . . and I still bought it." --JN

"It was like the time I found out that Nigerian wasn't going to send me a bunch of money and I gave him my banking info for nothing." --JT

So I guess I should change this blog title to: "Ignorance CAN be bliss."

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Jones Soda Blows -- Photo of the Week 24 Nov 2008

With the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I hope all of you get to enjoy time with your families and continue those traditions that bring you together, create memories, etc.

Here's one tradition that should not go on: Jones Soda and their holiday vintage flavors: Cranberry Soda, Pumpkin Pie Soda, Wild Herb Stuffing Soda, Turkey & Gravy Soda...

And, most disgustingly, Brussel Sprouts Soda.

These pictures were taken the night before my friend Rye got married. We were bored, and I admittedly ended up trying some. I do not possess the command of the English language required to describe the flavor. The only comparable sensations I can think of come from two separate episodes of "Man vs. Wild" with Bear Grylls. Anybody see the episode where Bear is dehydrated, disembowels a camel, takes its dung, then squeezes and drinks the fluid?



Also, there is another episode where Bear finds a snake and eats it -- standard fare for the show. He then takes the empty skin of the snake, pees into it, ties up this tube of his own urine and slings it over his shoulder, thinking that he might "need it for later." Sure enough (go to the 4:05 mark or so):



On the "Disgusting Things Frat Boys Are Likely To Drink At Some Point" scale, I would place Brussel Sprouts Soda between "Drinking a wild animal's urine" and "Drinking your own urine" -- it's basically the same as the other two, but with carbonation!

Now if you'll excuse, I need to go have an experiential-recall-induced vomit.

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My Bridge Day Adventure

After missing the Elton John Concert, my friends and I continued, albeit despondently, to "Bridge Day" in Fayetteville, WV. Bridge Day is the one day a year that base-jumping is legalized in West Virginia and 200,000 people of lesser courage (ie myself) watch others of greater courage (also read: "lesser sanity," "greater testicular fortitude," or "inferior common sense") throw themselves off of an 876 ft bridge and let gravity and a parachute take care of the rest.

These guys jumped for hours and we just watched. You would think the redundancy of watching people jump off the same bridge would get old after awhile. But it didn't. It's like watching "24": If you've seen one season of Jack Bauer escaping captivity, defying authority for the greater good, torturing some bad guys, getting angry and snarling/yelling out some intimidating lines, sabotaging his personal relationships because of his maladjustment to societal norms (see the afore-listed items for reasons why), etc, you feel like you've seen all of the seasons of "24" (because in essence, you HAVE). But you still keep watching -- despite the repetition and predictability.

The day was interspersed with me shooting the fall foliage (I still feel effeminate using that wording), and the abundance of material for people-watching. WV is an absolute GOLD-MINE for this, and my one regret (besides letting my friends purchase two sausage biscuits for $1.50 at a roadside cafe) is not doing an extensive photo essay on the people we saw. Think men with braided beards down to their stomachs; think men with short cut-off jean shorts sporting rainbow lanyards; think my name next to "Pulitzer." It would have been timeless.

Then again, I guess I shouldn't say too much about people-watching -- these three were my travel companions:



We got bored walking the trail from the river back to the bridge, so we had a leaf catching competition. It got intense. The slideshow below does a good job of capturing it.



But back to manly things. Base-jumping. It is steadily gaining popularity, but definitely outside of the mainstream sports we have in America. I think if the organizers created some traditions -- something that we love about our sports here -- base jumping would catch on a little faster. Here are some ideas I have:

• (More) Drunk Fans: I don't think this one needs to be explained.
  
• Ceremonial first "toss" from the mayor: Baseball has someone famous throw out the ceremonial first pitch to open games. Why don't they have the mayor of Fayetteville ceremoniously push the first base-jumper off of the platform, just to get things started? Or toss a base-jumper midget...? This one may need refinement.
  
• Fantasy Leagues: No other phenomenon than Fantasy Leagues has so many people supporting teams and players they would otherwise have been indifferent to. Don't ask me how the scoring would work for a Base-Jumping Fantasy League. I'm just throwing out ideas here.
• Streakers: The occasional streaker never hurt any spectator sport.
• Overpriced Food: Overpaying for unhealthy food is an American sports tradition. The vendors at Bridge Day were selling unhealthy food, but it was way too reasonably priced. This needs to change.
• Costumes: Uncle Sam (below) had it right. Patriotic, tacky.
  

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A Vacation From Myself

You need to watch this clip in order to understand the title of this entry:



About three weeks ago, my friend Josh M and I were discussing facial hair, and lamenting the fact that our half-Japaneseness left us severely handicapped in our ability to grow any sort of respectable beard, goatie, etc.

Long story short, we decided to have a mustache-growing contest -- just for the hell of it. I think we settled on mustaches because: 1) the sparseness of Josh's facial hair wouldn't allow him to grow a beard of any sort; 2) we are both huge Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds fans; and 3) neither of us had filled our mistaken-for-someone-caught-on-Dateline's "How to Catch a Predator" quota for the year.

In essence, we needed "a vacation from ourselves."

(No, this was not one of those "I was restricted by the Honor Code at BYU from growing facial hair so now I am going to exercise my individuality by growing facial hair" decisions)

Needless to say, it was a hard, lonely road that we walked. Remember in Field of Dreams where Ray initially builds the baseball field and everyone thinks it's a joke, but then they realize how serious it actually is when he can't make the mortgage, and accuse him of being crazy? This was something like that. People joked during the first week, then realized that we were actually trying to grow them.

Here are the sad, pathetic results:

(Josh M - Took the Creepiness Prize)


(Me)



By Week 2 1/2, the growth of both of our faux-staches'* plateaued. In one last ditch effort to accentuate his, other Josh bought some "Just for Men" and tried to dye what he claims were "tons of blond hairs" in order to make it look thicker. A "game-changer," as one of my friends put it. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of his dyed upper lip.

The stats under what I came to term the "Faux-stache Era":
0 - Phone numbers received by women
18 - "What the hell is that??"s
8 of 10 - # of people capable of looking me in the eye during a normal conversation
3 - Number of neighborhood watch lists I was placed on
1 - Pulled over by a cop and asked way more questions than I should have been for, in his words, "no observed erratic driving behavior"

I shaved it on Sunday -- thank goodness it's over. A burden has been lifted.

*I use "faux-stache" because there's no way it could be considered a real one. Also, much like the faux-hawk, it wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of guys living at Belmont Condos in Provo started growing a faux-stache; not because it actually looks good, but because they saw some Abercrombie ad-guy with one.

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The Dora Incident -- Photo(s) of the Week 11 Aug 2008

Title: "The Massacre at Durham"
Location: Durham, NC
Year: Aug 2008

Took a much needed vacation this past week with the family. Young children are hilarious to me; it's always amusing to me how short kids' attention spans are, while they simultaneously retain so much.

One of my nieces, Elise, is absolutely obsessed with "Dora the Explorer" (I'm convinced that no one, since the Nazis in the 30s and 40s, has conducted a more successful brainwashing and propaganda campaign than the creators of this show.¹ Children are infatuated with this cartoon character who, in my opinion, lacks the complexity needed to be a lead character for a successful TV series), to the point that she has her cousin, Alice, saying "Dora, Dora" when I'm pretty sure Alice has no idea who Dora is. I'm telling you: Propaganda.

Fascist conspiracy theories aside, Elise got rewarded with five crayons shaped like Dora for doing something right.


Five minutes into playing with them, she accidentally handled one of the Dora crayons too roughly and snapped its head off. "We have to fix Dora. We have to fix Dora" she kept imploring me. "Get scissors, get scissors. We have to fix Dora."

I didn't know what scissors had to do with piecing Dora back together, but I convinced Elise to cut (hah!) her losses and play with the remaining four Doras that remained intact.

30 minutes later, this scene greeted me:


The carnage was harrowing.

So much so that I expected Elise to look at me with contempt like Russell Crowe does at the crowd in Gladiator after that one fight scene where he killed like six guys, and then yell "Are you not entertained?! Are You Not Entertained?!" and then spit disgustedly and throw her sword to the ground. Something like that.

Instead, she moved on to playing with something else.

(Green Dora will walk again, albeit with a limp. The other four weren't so fortunate)

1 - That's RIGHT. I made that analogy. Hyperbole strikes again. If I don't post within a week, the Dora Gestapo found me.

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