What part of DANGER WILL ROBINSON don’t you understand?
Or, Meteoro La Película
Today, we watched Speed Racer, but in some unusual conditions:
It was OK.
I expect the mechanic will call me at any minute, to have me come pick up my car. For your edification and entertainment, I shall now tell you what it feels like to rip off the band aid all at once. What you are about to see is about $1100 in maintenance and fixes.[1]
Despite what you may think, I’m pretty pleased with this outcome. I always budget about a grand for preventative maintenance at the first cold weather. Also, this car is at 120,000 miles, and the longer I can keep it going, the longer I don’t have to buy a new one. :)
Continue reading ‘All At Once Now’
A Return To Bipedal Hominidism
Okay. How big a computer nerd do you have to be before you are walking 0.8 miles, and you think, “Man, walking still works pretty reliably to get me around. The old Biped Two-Step is still pretty easy.”
Granted, I’m not in my usual state of mind. Why? Try this:
P.S. - Re: “unnaturally early” - For those of you who get up every morning at 5:00 AM and go punch wallabees or whatever it is you do at 5:00 AM, you probably weren’t drowning fried cods in beers at 10:00 PM, so I think we work from different givens. You can have your dark wake-up calls; I’ll take my dark at night when it seems more natural. Besides, by working in shifts, we can oppress the wallabees at all hours.
P.P.S. - Also, if my wife - who is always awake before I am - is so sleepy that I’d rather leave her in bed than have her come pick me up in the 45 degree weather, it must be unnaturally early.
P.P.P.S. - Also, I have made claims that I like this weather, but those claims were necessarily based on memories that were at least a year old. I can now substantiate those claims, though: I enjoyed taking a chilly walk through dry leaves with my knit cap, fleece, jacket and gloves on. My face was pleasantly cold, and the rest of me was not too hot. [2]
P.P.P.P.S. - Given that I program the thermostat at my house, you may now pity my wife.
P.P.P.P.P.S. - Small miracle: I dislike Halloween more every year, but my walk turned up just about zero crazy-zealous Halloween decorations. Unless you count the costumed mannequins in the front window of the… um… “Adult Sleepwear” store down the street. But they’re crazy-zealous year round.
No That Is Not An Upcoming Square Enix Title
Look, I understand that Final Fantasy is a Fantasy game. It’s right in the title. That makes it hard to miss. Given this, I am willing to suspend my disbelief in a lot of situations.
Sharks are teal blue? That one’s easy to work with, because teal is not far from a realistic grey.
I'm a Shaaaaaark
Mermaids are pink? OK, sure. I don’t know what color real mermaids are, anyway.
All the mermaids are identical
Mermaids are suspicious of my characters’ ability to breathe underwater. This is fair. My party possesses “oxyale” (Magic Fairy MacGuffin #802), with which mermaids may not be familiar. (I mean, you can’t even buy the stuff. You have to find a pirate who’s kidnapped a fairy and sold her into slavery to a desert caravan… look, it’s complicated.)
How can YOU talk underwater?
But come on… White Sharks…
I'm a Shaaaaaark toooooo
…are purple? They’re not… white?
(This post is dedicated to my wife, who was willing to buy into all the pseudo-scientific claptrap underpinning Mass Effect, including the mysterious Element Zero (Space MacGuffin #2193) - with its ability to produce both the titular gravity distortions, and make unborn humans psychic - until they mentioned running a “negative current” through a device. “Negative current?! There’s no such thing!” Welcome to our household of nerds.)
P.S. - I almost forgot my obligatory FF8 teaser!
A gun? That's also a sword? e_e
Ch-ch-ch-chaaaanges
Instead of watching tonight’s debate, I shaved off my beard.
Most of you who have been putting up with me for a long time know about these “Face Vacations”, but everyone else probably thinks I do it to avoid frightening small children.
It is not so! If it were, October would be a terrible time for me to shave! But to understand the origins of the Face Vacaction, we must travel back in time, to… the boring part of my Origin Story!
~~~[1]
As a young man, I was cursed with (dun dun dunnnnnnnn) DANDRUFF. In retrospect, I think I got off lucky, since other young men had to contend with volcanic acne, wildly cracking voices, mangy facial hair, or occasionally a third leg growing out the back of their necks. However, shampoo commercials of the time made it clear that it was morally wrong, and possibly a felony, to have dandruff. (Some of the more extreme Western philosophies actually contend that dandruff is grounds for mercy killing.)
I learned of ways to cope with this problem, of course: wearing bright colors and loud patterned clothing, cutting my hair short, disavowing family and friends and living in a cave. Fortunately, time, frequent washing, and the liberal application of medicated shampoos cleared up the problem, before the Federal Bureau of Dandruff Investigation was able to find me and bring charges. Sure, some of the stronger brews may have contributed in my current ailments of frequent headaches and a painfully sensitive scalp, but at least those aren’t morally wrong.
~~~[2]
Fast forward to the present day, when I can excercise the most awesome of (predominantly) male superpowers: growing a beard! Also, my beard comes in very red, which is awesome.[3]
I love my beard. It serves several important purposes:
However, I have sensitive skin, and I can never get my beard completely dry after washing my face.[4] After some months of awesome beardedness, my chin will get itchy and red, and I will get a rash. And, then… BEARDRUFF. Which is like dandruff. But from a beard, and therefore even more reprehensible.
Once a year or so, then, I give my face a vacation, so that it can heal, and I can rejoin society. Only, this time, it’s been much longer than a year. You know how aftershave can sting sometimes, if you shave after a long hiatus? Two years is a long hiatus. And my gigantic nose almost wasn’t a problem, since I almost cut it off while shaving for the first time in memory. (I use a razor with six blades and a battery-powered motor. SURELY they could afford to put training wheels or something on it.)
Pain aside, it made me sad to shave off my beard. I really like that beard, and I think I look like me when I have it cut just so. It’s my favorite fashion, and I hate to be without it. I’m trying not to get too attached to it. I’ll think of it as a mighty Phoenix, perched proudly (on my face) until it falls in a cloud of flame (I shave it off)… and later it is reborn (grows back) magnificently from its ashes (my… stubble?) and delivers a magical weapon (surely not a razor…) in the nick of time to a boy wizard (what) who is fighting a monstrous lizard (I’m seriously lost here).
No, while I stay clean-shaven for a week or two, I’m trying to look on the bright side. Obviously, there are some advantages to not having a beard. For instance, I can eat barbecue ribs without using a hotel bottle of shampoo in the restaurant’s bathroom afterwards. Also, I hear that gigantic, hilarious eyebrows are “in” this year.
Perhaps most importantly, I’ll have some time away from my beard. After I scare myself half to death in the mirror every morning, I can reflect on how my beard is my biggest temptation to vanity. Of all of my fashion and grooming choices, it really is the most important to me. I can really like the way I look in a beard, and I can really enjoy the style of my beard. But, I shouldn’t be sad when I cut it off.
After all, for now I’ll be able to say for sure that a man is not defined by his beard.
He is totally defined by his hat.
Anyway, I figured you guys may not have seen it yet, so I thought I’d better explain! Oh, and if you want to use it, too, the guy said he could probably arrange bulk rates.
Also, that store has Pocky. Rad. [↩]
I have not read this book since I was 8 or 10 years old, probably. Maybe 12? I don’t think I was even clear on what a Klingon was at that time, but mark my words, I already knew with certainty that space and the inhabitants thereof were the pinnacle of cool.
I remember all of this stuff with crystal clarity.
If you think this is way too nerdy, then I suggest you praise God every night in your bedtime prayers that science has not yet discovered the secret to reading minds, because I swear, this does not scratch the surface of what lies dormant in my pulsating cerebrum. The deep backstory underpinning the “LEGO men from space” / “Hall of Heroes” / “Tribe of My Little Ponies and Miniature Barbie Doll” playtime that my little sister and I shared might break you. (I think… the LEGO men were the uncles of one of the Ponies? It’s complicated.) [↩]
What You Say
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