Tag Archives: Culture

You might be a Tech Addict if

14 May

funny smartphone pictures (8)_opt

Yesterday I overheard this in Panera between two guys just a little older than me:

Guy 1: I think I’m going to stop at Best Buy; I don’t have an iPhone yet.

Guy 2: uh-oh.

I hope to God that Guy 2′s “uh-oh” was meant to be sarcastic. Of course, the interesting part of this snippet is the “yet,” like it’s inevitable or somehow shameful to be walking around without an Apple product.

So I typed “smart phone addiction” into The Google and found some interesting articles, like this one, that pretty much confirmed that’s it’s a legitimate phenomenon.

Don’t worry, I don’t feel at all superior for not having a smart phone. I had one and it was cool at first, but then it became a constant interruption to whatever I was doing. Ultimately, I decided it was unhealthy for my sanity, which is a fragile thing anyway. It’s impossible to be “in the moment” with a smart phone in my hand or in my pocket (or in the waist band of my underwear for those crazy morning when I forget my pants).

From now on I’m done calling my phone “dumb.” The benefits are pretty special: It’s small, sturdy and fits into useful crevices; it stays charged for, like, ever; and it’s costing me a mere $7 a month. Smart, indeed.

I’ve also cut down on the time spent online in general. A part of that has to do with the emergence of beautiful weather after a long sucky winter, but after the Boston Marathon bullshit I realized I was spending way too much time reading news.

The epiphany was delivered by God (juuuust kidding) when the kid was captured in the boat. I was in bed on my tablet hopping from Twitter to Google news for updates like some kind of addict trying to score some smack. As soon as they caught the mo-fo, it hit me: what the hell am I doing? I thought This has nothing to do with my life. If anything, it’s depressing. Ever since I’ve pretty much opted out of being a well-informed citizen. I hear stuff on NPR throughout the day, but I’ve freed up some precious time cutting all the crap.

And less time online means less time on Facebook. I’m not anti-Facebook. Actually it’s too fascinating, too much for my pea brain to disentangle from.

Peace, ya’ll!

funny smartphone pictures (5)_opt

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If You’ve Ever Thought “Man, I Wish It Was Legal to Throw a Baby off a Roof”

14 May

Like most people, I’ve tossed my share of babies off roofs, but this is just too much . . . to make a tradition out of it? Come on, that’s just lame. Here’s another video link. If you didn’t click, I’ll summarize. In this particular town in India, parents line up with their kids, aged 3 months to 2 years, to have them tossed from the roof of a temple onto a cloth held by men. They say the practice makes the babies grow stronger.

Here’s a bullet list about random things being tossed from high places:

  • A Watermelon – Letterman used to do this. The cool part about using a melon instead of a 3-month-old infant is there’s no chance of ending up with a dead baby when you’re all done. Who likes dead babies? It gives me the willies typing it.
  • A Mattress – Somewhere around 1996, while moving from a crappy 3rd floor apartment in Springfield, IL, I tossed a mattress over the rail of our back porch. The impetus to this irresponsible act was my initial desire to throw a baby from a high place. So really, really loud, I was like “Does anyone have a baby that I can throw from my third floor apartment window? Anyone?” No takers. Second best thing:  mattress.
  • A Penny – I conducted a very scientific study and found that every single one of of y’all believe that a penny dropped from the Empire State Building would go right through a person’s skull, brain, neck, ripping a  cool-as-hell “penny path” right through an body until lodging somewhere in a big toe. If you hadn’t thought it through in such detail, you thought that it could kill a man, in general, somehow. Well, you’re ignorant. Read this. But something aerodynamic, like a pointy baby, thrown from the Empire State building, could do serious damage to a man holding a sheet.
  • Liquid – What do you get when you combine a group of 18 to 24-year-old men, beer, tall buildings, and a baby sitting on the sidewalk? Come on, it’s easy, people. You get young “adults” dumping beer, spitting, and urinating on that baby. And that will be the most hilarious thing in the world. “Oh my God! Stifler just peed on that baby’s head. Duuuuude! That’s was sooooo awesooooome!”
  • Dexter & Kitty - Yes, I wanted to toss two of our pets off a tall building this weekend. Saturday afternoon a crappy mood and a headache forced me to the couch. As soon as my ass hit the cushion, Kitty barfed. So I ended up crawling around on the floor with paper towels, trying to catch the next three barfs. Then Dexter was barking his damn head off outside, so I brought him in. He gulp down a bunch of water, munched on some kibbles, and barfed it all back up on the kitchen floor. Oh my freaking God, animals!

When my girls were tiny and tended to just lie around all day grunting and soiling themselves, I’d go to extremes to make sure they wouldn’t somehow fall from the couch to the floor: A sturdy object keeping them in place . . . pillows and blankets on the floor. And of course I had a back-up object on the couch and back-up cushioning. Oh, and the safety system set up to buzz and auto-dial 911 when they moved too suddenly. Couch to floor: what is that, an 18 inch drop, 24? Yeah, I’m going to hand my baby over to be tossed from a roof of a building and caught with a sheet.

To blindly follow a tradition.

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Feelin’ Forty: Some Thoughts on Aging

3 Jan

I turn 40 this year.

Turning 40

Some consider the big 4-0 one of the most difficult milestones, like Oh my freakin’ God, yesterday I was young, today I’m old. But “old” is subjective. I don’t feel old. I still have hair (non-gray). I don’t have unexplained pains. My energy level is usually high. A quick web search tells me that I can expect to live to around 77, so, going by that, I’m more than halfway done with this life. Given my relatively healthy lifestyle, I’m going to predict I’ll live to see 80. So . . . I’m half dead . . . is one way to say it.

But when I first “existed” on March 5, 1972, I didn’t know–to use a colloquialism–my ass from a hole in the ground. I don’t even remember the first 4 years. I probably didn’t get much done.  I didn’t work a single minute on important global issues (my mom would have told me if I had). I just crawled–then ran–around and . . . developed, I guess. I sat around playing with little wooden toys. My point was going to be that the next 40 years will be better than the first.

Then I thought about it for a minute, always a mistake. It’s possible that my last 4 years (theoretically from age 76 to 80) will, again, be spent trying to figure out the difference between my ass and a hole in the ground. The first 4 years is tolerable because a lot of the silly stuff you do is adorable, but can you find anything adorable about a grown man pooping into a diaper, ripping it  off with one hand, and then winging it into a ceiling fan? Oh, you do, huh? Sicko. And don’t accuse me of making fun of Alzeimer’s sufferers, because I’m writing about about things I’ve already started doing.

I’m just thinking out loud here.

I’m writing about this because I’m sitting near two “old” people in Sacred Grounds. They’re in their 70s, maybe 80s. They’re wrinkled up like a couple of raisins and they’ve gone gray up top. I just can’t keep my eyes off these people. I want to ask questions. What do you think about your . . . oldness? Does it take a day’s worth of energy to get to and from the coffee shop? Are you guys wearing diapers?

I went to the restroom, came back, and they were gone.

I’ve decided that i’m okay with 40. I’m not going to worry about things I have no control over. All the wisest people, past and present, will tell you the same thing. They say “Dude, worry kills!” The Alcoholics Anonymous folks are going on and on about it right now in church basements all over the world.

God, grant me the power to keep my diaper strapped on until someone comes along to change it and the power to not worry about how the Serenity Prayer goes.

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Reading Cat Fancy Magazine Does NOT Shrink Your Wiener

7 Nov
Here’s to self-confidence and not giving a crap about what other people think of you.

As my wife and I hovered at the back door, gathering our coffee shop paraphernalia, I stopped and stared at the magazine I was about to stuff into my messenger bag (Don’t call it a purse, dammit). The weekend buzz of Sacred Grounds means tackling War and Peace is out of the question. I needed something light, easy to read, a magazine, but–this?

I subscribed to three magazines to help my oldest daughter raise money for her school. I signed up for Running Times, Bicycling, and–Cat Fancy. It makes sense: we have two awesome cats, two awesome daughters who love cats, and now a magazine dedicated to caring for and celebrating cats of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Yes, it was Cat Fancy I was hesitating to take to the coffee shop.

I’m in a lifelong fight to rid myself of quirks like this: being embarrassed to be seen in a hip coffee shop reading a magazine like Cat Fancy. I’m still evolving. But now, in the current version of me, do I really want the regulars–people I see over and over, but don’t talk to–to see me prance in with the latest edition of Cat Fancy? Okay, I don’t prance, but that word sure does fit with “fancy.”

I prance around in my fancy pants, reading my Cat Fancy.

Sacred Grounds is full of people who seem to be unaffected by self-consciousness. A guitar sits in the corner. I let it continue to sit. Other people–cool, hip people I suppose–are always strumming away on that thing like they’re in their own living room. These people would be comfortable walking in naked with my Cat Fancy taped to their face and a recent back issue folded into makeshift underwear. If you get close enough, it’s obvious they don’t care about the strange odors wafting from their bodies either. That’s what I’m aiming for: naked, stinky, and confident.

I tossed my Cat Fancy back on the shelf.

Okay where’s that damn issue of Men’s Journal I saw lying around here last week? Did we recycle that?

I think “real” men read Guns & Ammo or Field & Stream, right? Well, this guy thinks those magazines are for sissies. I read this new magazine–one so new you probably have never heard of it. It’s called I rip raw flesh from freshly killed deer with my teeth magazine.

And “real” men build things. Big things. Very. Big. Things. With their bare, calloused hands. Grrr.

I read Cat Fancy. With thin gloves. Because it gets a little drafty in here. Prrr.

Still, isn’t it impressive that I can admit this stuff online for anyone to read? I’m learning and growing every stinkin’ day. It’s fantastic. I also have been known to read Yoga Journal, Health, Spirituality & Health, and Whole Living–all targeted to women.

If you’re in need of some help like me, check out some articles that deal with building self-confidence #1 #2 #3. And please, ignore the worn stereotypes; the term “a real man” is meaningless. The healthiest of men go both ways (not like that). They feel equally confident chopping wood as they do afterwards when they settle into their favorite, cozy chair to knit a scarf.

Be well awesome people.

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Local Boy’s New Slinky Tangled, Again

17 Feb

Jimmy's Slinky, Before

Jimmy Wormley thought it would be different this time.

Last week at Skate ‘N Shake, the Edwardsville resident unwrapped a shiny, new Slinky toy from his friend Stanley Stalegrass as they celebrated Jimmy’s tenth birthday. As the cool metal met his hands, he made a silent promise to himself. He closed his eyes, cradled the toy to his chest, and mouthed the words “This Slinky will last forever.”

Unfortunately, the Slinky was a tangled mess within 45 seconds.

Jimmy's Slinky, After

Of course, this wasn’t the first time Jimmy has been devastated by the tangle-prone toy. He received a plastic, rainbow-colored Slinky from Grandma and Grandpa Wormley last year. It lasted all of  27 seconds.

“I fiddled with that damn thing for an hour last year,” said Joe, Jimmy’s father. “Those things can’t be fixed. Even if you do get ‘em untangled they’re all bent to hell. This year I just tossed it in the trash.”

When asked how Jimmy handled the ruined toy this year, Joe became agitated.

“Oh jeez, you should of seen him. He cried and cried right there in front of all ‘is friends and even that little girl he likes–what’s her name?–Jill,” Joe said, spit running down his chin. “I wanted to give him a good smack on the head, but I didn’t. I mean, not until we got home. The boy don’t deserve no working Slinky acting like a little whiny baby.”

According the the famous 1989 National Tangled Slinky Study, conducted by Maxine Styway, Ph.D., the popular toy, invented in the early 1940s, is not known for being sturdy enough to, say, be handed down from father to son.

Last Year's Slinky

I examined close to ten thousand Slinky toys over a ten year period and found that in the hands of male children they lasted, on average, 19 seconds before tangling. In the hands of female children, it’s a little higher, where they lasted up to 24 seconds. I found that children enjoy stretching the toy beyond its capabilities. Also, children (both boys and girls) tend to fight over toys. The Slinky toy, unfortunately, does not stand up to yanking this way and that.

A follow-up call yesterday to the Wormley home revealed that Joe had purchased a Paddle Ball toy for Jimmy “to shut him up.”

According to Jimmy’s distraught mom, Sally, the elastic string broke even before they made it back to their car at the nearby Glen Carbon Wal-Mart. At home, Joe tied the string back together. Twelve seconds later, the string came loose from the staple on the paddle. Seven seconds after Joe reattached the string to the paddle, the string became detached from the ball. At that point, Joe repeatedly whipped his son on the a– with the cheap paddle until it broke.

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LARGE PRINT & Tiny Books Both Suck

14 Jan

Last night in my jammy whammies while I wished for sleep, I was in the grip of the 2009 book  Columbine, written by Dave Cullen. This guy spent 10 years–it shows!–researching and writing this fascinating book about the April 20, 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School. But I’m not writing about the book or the shooting.

I stopped looking at the clock because I didn’t want to be frightened by how late it was. Ideally, I read from 9 to 10:30. It was way past that when I put the book down and lay there thinking about blood and guns.

I read 200 pages. Impressive? Not really. We’re always ordering books through our public library system and making the mistake of ordering the LARGE PRINT version. It takes careful attention to make sure you’re not getting the audio book on CD (sometimes that’s what I’m after, though) or, even worse if it’s an old book, the audio book on cassette. What the hell am I going to do with that?

Usually it’s Jennifer who orders the LARGE PRINT books and I unmercifully make fun of her for it.

Ha Ha, you’re 90 and blind you need LARGE PRINT You have to turn the page every 5 seconds and your book is three feet thick Ha Ha.

Yeah, I am that annoying.

Last night she walked into the room, noticed the gigantic floor to ceiling print and before she could utter a word (make fun of me) I said “Yeah, I know, I pulled a Jennifer.”

Even the library clerk, a hulking, odd-looking young man, had to comment on the text size. Whoa, large print is all he said. I said What? I ordered the large print? Then he told me that it was a good book and told me a little bit of why he thought that.

Five or so years ago I ordered the late Richard Carlson’s Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff–and it’s all small stuff from Amazon and eagerly awaited its arrival. I open the box, removed some of the packing stuff, and thought they had shipped me an empty box. What a disappointment. I turned it upside down and a microscopic “book” fell out. I had mistakenly ordered some kind of abridged pocket book. Again, what the hell am I going to do with that?

I sent that thing right back to Amazon. Or did I? I just received a vision, or memory, of–and I don’t know why I would do this–throwing the worthless thing in a box destined for Goodwill. It cost, like, five bucks.

Tiny-ass book

Another time I ordered a non-fiction book about I-can’t-remember-what from the library and, in horror, watched the librarian pull a giant children’s book off of the hold shelf for me. The words were twice the size of the LARGE PRINT book I tackled last night. I guess I was embarrassed because I didn’t tell her I had made a mistake, but still tossed the book in the outside drop-off box as I left.

What a crazy world of extremes we live in where books are sometimes teeny-weeny (in a blink I lose the dang thing in the folds of a sheet) or sometimes gigantic (I’m knocked out by it when I fall asleep reading).

I just want to hang out somewhere in the middle where I’m safe.

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I’m scared to death of all you tweakers.

13 Aug

Oh my freaking God. This post is about meth or crank or speed or crystal or ice or chalk or zip. I’m so paranoid right now. I’m out of my mind. No, I’m not on meth, but I am on “Methland,” an excellent book by Nick Reding. I’m only on page 142 and I know way too much about this drug. It’s keeping me up at night. I’m paranoid because there are people out there tweaking and shouldering as I type this (I’m peeking out from behind the curtains at you right now). The photo above scares the absolute shit out of me. Yes, that is the same person in each photo. That’s what three years of meth can do to you. Here’s a scary excerpt from the book about this guy, Jarvis, who just blew up his mom’s house with his meth-making shenanigans in the basement. Warning: sick stuff.

Jarvis looked down and saw what he thought was egg white on his bare arms. It was not egg white; it was the viscous state of his skin now that the water had boiled out of it. Jarvis flung it off himself, and then he saw that where the egg white had been he could now see roasting muscle. His skin was dripping off his body in sheets. . . . He’d have pulled the melting skeins of skin from himself in bigger, more efficient sections but for the fact that his fingers had burned off of his hands. His nose was all but gone now, too, and he ran back and forth among the gathered neighbors, unable to scream, for his esophagus and his voice box had cooked inside his throat.

Please, if you are on meth and you live near downtown Edwardsville, stay home. I am scared of you. Of course, I feel sorry for you and I want you to get help, but I don’t want to be near you because you are unpredictable and I don’t know what you’re capable of doing to stay high. You will probably beat me up and take my money because you’re totally insane. Because of this drug-induced insanity, I realize that you’re just as likely to leave my money and steal my underwear instead, pulling them down over your head and running in circles screaming about black helicopters and pink dinosaurs.

Still, if I see you stomping on puppies in my neighborhood, I will intervene. I won’t like it because hitting addicts with sticks just isn’t right. If I see you kicking over old people to steal purses, I will be all up in your meth face going “What’s up with you knocking this old fart around, are you high or something? You want your little rotten black stubby excuses for teeth knocked out?”

Yeah, you better run, fool.

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What? I have to wear pants here?

11 Aug

Happy Portlander (That's OR, not ME)

What’s the deal with people wearing pants in Illinois? In May we moved from Maryville, where pants are required, to Edwardsville, where I thought pants are totally optional. As it turns out, I may have donated all of my shorts to Goodwill for nothing (why is it that I have been donating things–boxes and boxes and boxes of “things”–to one particular Goodwill for seven years and I have never seen any of it for sale on the shelves? Are my shoes too stinky for your store? My clothes too out of date? Humph.) Obviously, I kept my ankle-length pants to battle the cold winter, but, moving just before the arrival of June, I thought I had five long months of freedom from the harsh restrictiveness of shorts.

I didn’t want to stay in Illinois. I wanted to move to Portland, OR or Austin, TX where I heard people rarely wear pants. My wife, however, prefers that I wear pants, so she looked for houses in pants worshiping communities like those found here near St. Louis.

Yeah, I get it. There are some disadvantages to not wearing pants.

  • Full-spectrum sunscreen is expensive and I use 37% more with no pants.
  • Getting caught in a hailstorm with no pants is not fun.
  • Running really fast with no pants is out of the question.
  • People look at me like I’m not wearing pants.
  • Emphasizing my sexy knees is almost impossible when I’m not wearing pants.
  • No pockets (I have solved this with a belt and sandwich bags)

You’ll notice that the list of advantages is longer.

  • In the summer, the temperature in my pants reaches temperatures up to 140º Fahrenheit. Uncomfortable.
  • People tend to move out of your way…like if someone is lingering in front of the whole wheat pasta and I need some rotini.
  • I get to meet new people; I’m familiar with all the local security guards and law enforcement officials.
  • Obviously, getting dressed in the morning is a snap. No pants decisions or matching conundrums.
  • No chafing.
  • When caught in the rain you’ll never hear me say “Crap, my shorts are getting soaked.”
  • I don’t have to share a table at the library.
  • I still get to ignore the “no shoes, no shirt, no service” signs at restaurants.

Until I get Edwardsville to transition to the pants-free lifestyle, I’m looking into temporarily transitioning into a loincloth. For those unfamiliar, Wikipedia will tell you that a loincloth is a one-piece male garment, sometimes kept in place by a belt, which covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks.

And yes, I’m insulted that my own wife prefers that I wear pants.

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