With a Dragon Net!

I've shied away from thinking about the whole Creationist Museum story, as it makes me writhe and shudder with such palpitating vigor that I fear a myocardial infarction is imminent. But this?

"The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth . . . We like to say, ‘You’ve captured them for evolution, and we’re going to take them back.’"

My head. Just. Exploded.

Ryan's Shortest Post Since Like The Mesozoic Era

Who here has been to Dundee, Oregon? Show of hands in the form of comments telling me all you know about the tiny, tiny vine town.

Corporately Supportive

The culture at StanleyCorp is such that it fosters positive, can-do attitudes, which can be enjoyable, annoying, and sometimes, just downright weird. Like, for example, this recent exchange over IM with a co-worker:

Me: gonna run to the loo.
Co-worker: awesome!

Uh, yes—awesome…

I am probably a bad person

I play in a few bands, but these days it tends to be Band A and Band B.

Band A was over (on my day off!) to work on some new songs, and they caught wind of an upcoming Band B gig. You see, Band B is playing a show at a nearby shopping mall, and the show is sponsored by [that big corporate radio giant that you all hate because you're paying attention and agree that it's a bad idea that one company should own so many radio stations]. And we're being paid a lot of money for our short set.

Enter Band A mocking Band B, deploying terms such as "sell-out" and "stupid" and "lame" and "hypocritical".

I sigh.

We in Band B do seem to be "getting our hands dirty" or whatever. Under some rule-based ethics, we're guilty. But I'm thinking that the music industry is so egregiously fucked, not to mention cut-throat and totally luck-based at this point, that we're okay to get what we can get for the moment. Later, when we've got fame, we can use our platform to denounce it all.

I'm not saying we're chuckling all the way the bank. But we've got to get to the bank at some point, or we're going to run out of gas and strings and drumsticks.

I hate the FCC.

Guess who

Here's a fun game to play while you're driving along listening to NPR (which you totally do right? Of course you do). When they do top-of-the-hour newsbreak, the reporter always says, "From NPR News in Washington, this is [name]."

So! Your goal is to correctly identify the reporter before you hear the name. Hence, me, driving to work today:

Radio: From NPR News in Washington,
Me: KORVA COLEMAN!!!
Radio: this is Korva Coleman.
Me: [celebratory dance]

I thought I had Craig Windham down, too, but I sometimes confuse him with Corey Flintoff.

Fun, right? I know!

Pre-existing condition

Best-ever response to me declining some chicken, explaining that I'm a vegetarian:

"Oh really? How long you been like that?"

Friday Afternoon Taxonomy

Teh So Awesome - Receiving an unexpected phone call from an old friend offering a free ticket to a long-since sold-out Inquisition reunion show in Richmond. Holy crap! This is not Strike Anywhere Lite. This is Inquisition, and they were fucking amazing back in the day—and, bonus awesomeness, they played the first show I ever attended, long ago, a wee, rosy-faced eighth-grade boy, innocent to the ways of the world. So. Friggin'. Awesome.

Teh Not So Awesome - Having to decline the offer in light of a mandatory band practice, one day ahead of the very important wedding gig in Harrisonburg. So. Friggin'. Lame.

I blame marriage.

The Help Desk

I had come to think of this blog as ridiculous. A hodge-podge of personal anecdote and rambling one-sentence paragraphs. But apparently, that's not all we do here. We help, too.

Looking over the referrals, I see that google links to this blog as the #1 expert in the following areas:

get hair like peter parker. I'm pretty sure this person must've found the answer to their inquiry in Ryan's post about, uh, something. So I'm just gonna keep my eye out for some stranger on the street with hair like Peter Parker. And I'll approach and say, "Hey. Nice hair. Oh, and you're welcome."

salty armpit. This one's a bit trickier. The linked-to post was about deodorant, but it was about deodorant that's no longer available. I'll have to look into it more, as I haven't really thought about salty armpits enough to warrant a google search of the phrase. And now that we're #1 for that topic, I really should be an expert. Meantime, salty armpit person: drink plenty of water. You seem to be losing bodily fluids. Or salting your crevaces.

Confirmation

One good way to know that you are keeping good company is to receive emails that say thing like:

I got paid today. Let's have a picnic!

Yes. Let's.

Mental, Dental

I don't avoid going to the dentist because of pain. In fact, it rarely if ever hurts, for my dental specialist is a gentle, gentle soul. Rather, I avoid going to the dentist because I always imagine the visit will go something like:

Dentist: [examines chart] Hm. Yep. You're a terrible person.
Me: I am?
D: Yep, no doubt abou it.
M: Oh...
D: Probably the worst person I've ever met, actually.
M: Oh. Well, uh, is there anything you can do for me?
D: Ha! Yeah right. [throws down bill for $700; walks away cackling]

Of course, in reality, he's much liklier to tell me, "Sure, no problem, in and out in under an hour, oh, and you know what? I can't use this plane ticket to Bora Bora, would you like to have it? Here are the keys to my beach house there."

Because my dentist is that cool.

All Minorities Think I Look Like Peter Parker

Whenever the quote unquote nice old woman from whom I buy my dozen quote unquote extra-large brown free range chicken eggs every Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market down the street from my apt. - whenever this maybe nice maybe not so nice it's a tough call lady is making me change, because the more or less regular-sized but labeled as extra-large eggs cost $3.50 American p. dozen and I don't carry change, as I find it lumpy and uncomfortable to sit down with like a George Castanza-type wallet, hard on the ass and it makes me walk self-consciously, like for the same reason I don't like to have cell phones or keys or anything, really, in any of my pant pockets, so I don't carry change, ever, never have never will, and so I don't have $0.50 American, I'm sorry but I just don't - but anyway this old woman, who hails from CT, this I know because a few weeks ago we talked about the late frosts we've been having in VA, or had had, in April, at the beginning of April, which caused a lot of problems for the crops and also probably lots of backyard flowers that got all confused with the warm January and February and then here come all these cold, like literally freezing, nights in mid-April, these nights of which I talked with the old woman who told me that they did not have these problems up in CT, and it wouldn't matter anyway because she grows all her herbs in a greenhouse, and she is counting my change, making my $5.00 American turn into $1.50 American and one dozen normal-sized "extra-large" brown free range chicken eggs - so but when she's counting my change she always looks up at me and smiles and kind of manages to explain, just with her eyes and facial expression and the impressive amount of time she lets elapse whilst quote unquote counting the change, that maybe she thinks she shouldn't have to give me change, this is what she is telling me, that I should say, 'Keep the change,' like it's only $0.07 American or like she's serving me at IHOP, and somehow I am positive this is what she's telling me, just by looking, just by counting extra slow, maybe having to dig into a second - yea, second - small register thing to get the dimes (she's been out of quarters for like decades), just by looking up, back down at the change, eye contant with me again, change, me, again and again, like this is a real hassle, her selling me these 300% marked-up fucking eggs and then having to, God forbid, fish some change out and maybe touch my hand.

It’s as easy as 1-2-3...

Has anyone blogged about the 4 hour work week yet? Oh. I guess so.

Well, I hesitate to give this site any more traffic, but it's too rich to pass up. "Outsource your life!" really is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever read.

Non-definitely

Two of my favorite people in the world—they, strangers to each other—share a common formulation: they refer to their moms in the third person as "Mom" instead of "my mom." For example:

Her entire adult life up till then, Mom was an engineer; then she opened a restaurant at the age of fifty-five.

I really like this manner of expression. It's a very warm and familiar way to frame it, and it demonstrates how close these two people are to their respective mothers (which, by the by, they are).

It's one of those things, like a southern accent, that I know I couldn't pull off—it would just sound forced from me. But, man, do I appreciate it when I hear it.

teh pr0n

One of the saddest things about my roommate's impending departure is, she's my sole source of pop-culture updates. For example, I would've possibly never known about the whole Marilyn-Manson/Evan-Rachel-Wood shebang were it not for Beth. Thanks, Beth.

See, apparently the new video is causing a stir, because it's, well, soft-core. See for yourself (objectively NSFW):



I really didn't find it that controversial. I guess I expect sex with Marilyn Manson to be Teh Fr34ky, and this was pretty conventional stuff (okay, okay, minus the blood thing; but that's only not-weird because obviously they're not really wounded or anything; it's awkward, maybe, but not freaky-deaky).

We can hope only that the roomie will send along a weekly newsletter or something.

Oh! Also: I thought the Manson song was really pretty poppy. Hooray! Sex! Death!

Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

In the hit song "Africa," Toto counsels:

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company

True wisdom, this is. Verily, Toto is obviously calling out to my co-workers, themselves feeling like solitary dogs in this corporate slogfest. Hence my current Friday gift to them: I'm playing the song on repeat at a moderate volume. We're on iteration number five. I wonder how long it will take for one of them to thank me for my selflessness.

UPDATE: Thirteen tracks in, my nearest co-worker leans back and asks, "Do you have this song on repeat? 'Cause I'm gonna have to kill you soon if you don't change it."

So, there you go. It takes thirteen times.

"Burg is the German and Dutch (as 'Burcht') word for castle"

Recently, I played a gig in a place we shall call Farmburg. Because there are farms there, though no castles (that I know of).


As you may know, my bass drum features prominently a stencil of our thirty-third president, an image that fits nicely with this band name. Plus, it's pretty and not something stupid like my initials or some crap. (Man, that's crap when people do that.)

The thing is, I play in other bands, too—other bands whose names do not have such a seeming connection to "Give 'em Hell Harry." When I play with these other bands, it's not uncommon for somone to approach and inquire about the bass-drum stencil. (Standard question: "Is that FDR?"). These exchanges inevitably lead to a sort-of awkward conversation, wherein I explain the other band I play with, and their name, and that, no, it's not (at least not directly) a reference to the president, but you know, it's cool and junk, you know? Okay, great.

At the recent gig in Farmburg, however, the exchange was somewhat different:

Dude: Is that Harry Truman?
Me: Yep.
Dude: Hmph. Better be careful with that. People 'round here don't much like Democrats.
Me: Oh. Well, he did drop the bomb. On Japan. Twice.
Dude: Oh, was that him? Well, shoot. Musta been one of them good Democrats.
Me: [nervously] Heh. Musta been...

Why did I do that?! I seemingly endorsed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just to placate this guy. I hate it when I do that—say something to smooth over the ripples, even when it's something I don't fully agree with. And yet it's something I do fairly often, even when there are other readily available arguments at-hand (e.g., "well, he did desegregate the military").

No convictions, this one…

Una receta

The five-pepper "Salsa de Cinco" that I made today:

-Three jalapeños, diced
-One poblano, diced
-One yellow pepper, diced
-One orange pepper, diced
-One habanero, diced

Sauté all peppers with olive oil and butter over medium-high heat until tender but not super-soft.

-Three beefsteak tomatoes, diced
-One cucumber, peeled and diced
-One medium-sized yellow onion, diced
-One bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped finally finely [whoops]
-~Half cup, minced garlic

Combine cooked and raw ingredients; stir thoroughly; let sit overnight.

Update tomorrow when we see how it goes over...

UPDATE: Success! But too hot for some. If you want a milder version, substitute red bell pepper for the habanero and add another cucumber, which will cut the heat a bit.