It Wasn't Fun

So I'm a fan of the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA. I don't get to watch their games on cable TV, so when they're on our local UPN affiliate I try to watch the game. Well, not that long ago I put the game on and for some reason the audio was all in Spanish. I'm sure it was just a problem with the English audio feed, so they put the Spanish feed up (which makes sense in a heavily Hispanic market like Dallas). I have to say it was disorienting.

That's all right, though, I thought. I'll watch the game and kind of just tune out the Spanish. The trouble is, I didn't like it. It sounded downright foreign to me. Yeah, I know, Spanish is foreign, but it was more than that, it sounded kinda alien.

It was so strange that I had to turn off the sound. That's right, the simple act of watching a game on TV (something that you don't even really need sound for) was made unbearable by the foreign language.

I didn't like it at all.

But I learned something from it. I learned that it must be really hard to come to the United States and not speak English. It isn't just intimidating and scary, it's actually uncomfortable. So I'm glad I got a perspective on something I pretty much dismissed in the past.

Oh, and I also learned that Spanish-speaking sportscasters get way more excited about the game than English-speaking sportscasters. I liked that.

I just didn't like it enough to keep the game off of "mute."

G-d Blogger!

So I finally log on to write this witty and funny post about the Great Pet Migration at our apartment complex. I finish it, edit it, and hit "Publish Post."

Nothing happens.

Okay, so my Internet is down for a bit. No big deal. I reset my router and we're back in business. I go back to the screen, see that the blogger submit screen froze out, so I hit the "Back" button on my brower.

Lo and behold, there's the post form, but it's empty!

I lost the whole damn post.

This pissed me off so much I stopped posting for a while. But now I'm back. I'll re-write the post and add some others.

Don't hate me, hate blogger.

The stinky dinosaurs

So my daughter comes in and says matter-of-factly, "Daddy, did you know dinosaurs are stink?"

I thought this was kind of funny, in both her comment and her "learning how to use language" mangling of the sentence, so I answered, "Really? I didn't know that dinosaurs stink."

She kind of looked at me with furrowed brow and said, "No, dinosaurs are stink!"

I was not getting it, but I decided to play along. "Ewww, dinosaurs are stinky!"

Now she was getting into that frustrated dad-you-are-such-an-idiot place that all my girls know so well, "No! They don't stink. They are stink."

So I kind of scratch my head and break this down to the very basics: "What does stink mean?"

She replied, "It means they aren't around any more."

Dad's can be plenty stupid some times.

My How The World Has Changed

So my daughter wanted to call one of her friends today. I hand her the phone, and she starts dialing the number. After a few seconds, she turns to me and says, "Daddy, it's making this weird beep-beep-beep sound."

Oh, that means the line is busy, I told her. She looked at me rather dumbstruck, and then replied that she didn't understand.

"Well," I explained. "When you call someone who is already using the phone, that's the sound it makes."

"You mean you can call someone and the phone won't ring?"

"Yes."

"But why don't they have call waiting?"

"I don't know. Some people don't like call waiting."

She then looked at me like I had just revealed to her that some people like to chew glass and others like to bathe in ketchup. It was part funny/part disturbing in her mind.

Imagine that--in the old days you could call someone, and the phone wouldn't ring. Boy, those were the dark ages.

I'm Fat Because I Can't Run

Back in college I was disgustingly healthy. I ran indoor track and averaged about six miles a day of intense running. I think I weighed 165 pounds at one point. We also had a weight training program, so I didn't look half bad. From below the neck at least.

Over time, however, I started to get shin splints. The pain got worse and worse until I am positive I finally ended up with stress fractures in both legs. It got so bad that when I would cross my legs it would cause me to scream out in pain. Before I realized how much of an idiot I was being, I had to ice down my legs for an hour before cross country practice and then an additional hour after practice. When the "icing your legs" part of cross country practice takes more than twice the length of time that the actual running does, you start to realize something is seriously wrong. For me, it told me that I was probably running on two broken legs.

After I healed enough to walk with a minimal amount of pain, I went to the trainer, and the first thing he asked me was to see my shoes. I gave him my cross country shoes, and he nodded sagely.

"You have roman foot." Wha???

"That means that your toes are much less aligned that normal people. You don't walk or run on the ball of your foot like most people. Your foot kind of hits on the outside and then rolls in, where you then push off. This rocking motion is creating the stress in your lower leg."

Okay, so do I need surgery?

"Nope, just go down and buy some ten dollar foot inserts that will support your foot and force you to run on the balls of your feet."

Holy shit. That's it?

"Yep, and, if you decide on running a lot at all, that ten dollars will probably add at least ten years of healthy living at the end of your life. Otherwise, you'll have leg problems that will evolve into hip and back problems."

Holy shit.

"So you have two choices: Don't run or buy the ten dollar inserts."

Now, I'm not the kind of guy who is going to ignore a doctor's advice. I also value the thought of being able to walk my daughter down the aisle without the help of a motorized scooter. So, I did the only thing that made sense.

Needless to say I don't run anymore.

She Did It For Her Son, That Bitch

So this lady here has had a permanent tattoo of a casino placed on her forehead. Her rationale for this rather distinctive facial billboard is that she is receiving 15,000 dollars and that this money will pay for her son's education. Her comment, "It's a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son" just about makes tears well up in your eyes, doesn't it?

Well, not if you're her son.

Let's see what this means for that poor chap:

• First of all, the son is now known at school as "The kid with that crazy mom who had a casino tattooed on her face." Knowing kids as we all do, this will subject him to such priceless conversations as, "I'm going to tattoo my fist on your forehead" or "Your mom likes selling her body, how much would it cost for me to have a go at her?"
• Secondly, the kid has to live with the knowledge that his mom doesn't have a very bright vision of his future. I mean, 15K won't even pay for one year at Harvard. Telling your son that he has a whopping 15K for his education is tantamount to saying, "Kiddo, I know y'all don't got the brains for those big fancy pants schools, but this here money will pay for you to get your associates degree at Tulsa Community College in basketweaving."
• Thirdly, she's practically driving him to a gambling addiction. Think of it this way: Every time his mom talks to him he'll have "goldenpalace.com" staring him in the face. Hell, when she kisses him good night, "goldenpalace.com" will be seared into his retina. Eventually, he'll be sitting at home watching TV and his mind will be overcome with one thought: "Must... log... onto... goldenpalace.com."
• Finally, his bright and shiny familial example of how to deal with financial adversity is to... sell his body.

Yes, a career in gay porn is definitely in this kid's future.

The G-d G-d problem

I was perusing Jamie Dawn's blog, which has a lot of neat anecdotes about things like her husband needing eight Q-tips to clean his skull orifices every morning, when I stumbled upon a comment from someone with the word "G-d" in it. Now, my immediate instinct was that they were using a polite acronym for goddamn, one of those good old-fashioned curse words that still has a bite, unlike these lame modern imposters like assclown or asshat. But, no, I was mistaken. The usage of "G-d" was actually describing "God," as in the almighty creator and the one who will eventually mete out the punishment for my subjecting you all to my thoughts.

Now, call me overly sensitive, but using a word for "God" that also means "goddamn" seems a tad disrespectful to the big guy. I mean, we don't call our country's leaders "dick" and "bush" do we? Okay, maybe that wasn't the best example, but you get my point.

I do understand the philosophy behind what the G-d people are trying to do (that's G-d as in "god" smartass), but the trouble is that this eventually leads to chaos. To wit: Presumably the goal in using G-d is to show respect for God by not using his name. Well, "God" isn't really his name is it? It's our representation of his name in the English language.

Now the more pious among you may say that it being a representation of his name is enough that we should respect it by not using it in print. Fair enough, but the moment we start using G-d, that becomes a representation of his name. Soon, we'll be needing to replace G-d with G--, and eventually after that it will have to be ---. Alas, even this homage to the hyphen will need to be replaced since it, too, will be a representation of God's name.

The only real solution is to simply avoid the naming thing entirely. Unfortunately, this leads to us referring to god as "you know who" or "he who shall not be named." And, I don't know about you, but when I hear phrases like that I immediately assume that someone named Hermione or Ron will be involved in the conversation shortly.

Goers & Yellers

One of my pet peeves occurs when a family member yells through two or more rooms for me. Generally speaking, unless they are drawing my attention to a debilitating injury, something amusing that another family member is doing, or a cat with its head in the fish bowl, I believe they should come to me and discuss it.

Recently I tried to use some forceful parenting to break my three little daughters of this habit. It was during this pursuit that I learned that I was not facing laziness and bad habits; I was facing nothing less than a hardwired element of my daughters' personality. Or so my 3 1/2 year old daughter would have me believe.

She informed me of this while yelling across the house for me. After numerous attempts to get her to come to me, I finally decided to address this head-on with her on her turf. So I walked sternly into her room to find out what she needed and why, by all that is right in the world, she couldn't come to me and ask me directly.

She thought about it for a moment, and then very simply stated, "Because I'm a Yeller, and you're a Goer, Daddy." I then proceeded to be taught by my 42 month old daughter that she, her sister, and my wife were all "Yellers." I, on the other hand, was a Goer. This was how life was, and, as a Goer, I had to "go" when the Yellers called.

There was no room for discussion. This was the way of the world, and if I didn't like my position as a Goer, well, I should have thought of that before I became one. My wife witnessed this conversation and didn't help matters by vigorously nodding in agreement.

I actually tried the opposite tack and became a Yeller myself. Little did I realize that society as we know it breaks down when there are no Goers and all Yellers. Of course, as the Goer, I got blamed. A Goer that no longer "goes" is even worse than a Yeller apparantly.

As it is, I continue to fight the good fight, doing my best to recruit someone--anyone--over to the Goer side. It rarely works, however. Just the other day I told my daughter that if she wanted something, she would have to go get it herself. "Be a Goer!" I enthusiastically told her. She smiled, and replied, "But I'm a Yeller. You're the Goer!"

I nodded slowly. Sometimes acceptance is best.

Don't Be Fooled

So I recently finished the book The Intelligencer, and I can say now in no uncertain terms: Just because a book has an interview with the author and a "book club" guide in the back doesn't mean it is well-written or worthy of being discussed.