Now young Skywalker, you will die!

Ooh that evil emperor really got my goat, using Anakin as his pawn then trying to kill Luke! Rrg!

The Ol' Chug and Glug

Yesterday, my Didi and I went out to see a big NFL football game, the kind Mel Allen used to do voice-overs for, and about which the big-shouldered broadcasters talk with such apparant authority. Yeah. Well, anyhow, we went to the "Game of the Decade", in which we were supposed to learn whether the Bengals are a) an astoundingly good team that's slipped the surly bonds of mediocrity and is en route to the Super Big Game (tm considerations)!, or b) poopers with a slack schedule.

Well, as you might guess, b) happened, and we now know that we're among the best of the lame teams. So what. That's not why I write you good people. I write because I understood, after seeing big-league sports First Hand and Up Close and In Person and Without Televised Help and Stop Spitting on me, jerK! Anyhow, I understood that people by the ultra thousands don't attend these games because they're all aficionados of the finer points of the game of football. No. Like so, so many other things, people go to these games so they can spend quality time with their best friends: beer. Think of it: how many concerts have we attended where the goal of those around us is merely the thoughtless consumption of as much beer as possible? Maybe ace can give me some clarity here, but this applies not only to public musical venues and sporting events of every stripe, but also to fairs, bowling alleys, drive-in movies, statue unveilings, legal presentments from state attorneys' offices, etc. etc. etc. My heavens WHAT IS WITH THE BEER, PEOPLE? Really.


I understand that some people claim to enjoy its taste. Great. Enjoy away. But that's not what I'm talking about. Socially speaking, what else is like this? I really used to loooove Dr. Pepper. But I didn't talk about Dr. Pepper all the time, wear shirts and caps proclaiming how much I loved Dr. Pepper, make fraternity t-shirts referencing Dr. Pepper, buy posters and neon signs for my dorm that touted Dr. Pepper, and constantly invite people to enjoy this deliciousness with me. There is no equal to beer in these respects. I just want to understand. If you just want to get blasted, save your $70 on Bengals tickets, or the big musicFest, and just down your brews outside the 7-11 where you got them. Either way, you end up toasted and happy. Why all the external fuss and hype? And (I'll just casually throw this in) why ruin the pleasant enjoyment of non-boors around you, whatever they may be drinking?

**I feel the need to insert here that I am not against alcohol consumption, per se. I'll have a water, you'll have a beer. We're good. It's the glorification of beer that's so confusing, unlike anything else. And it's the kind of way it's referred to as an enhancement of something else, when the observer can see that the drinking of the beer, itself, is really center stage. I'm just saying.

This brings up a related question of mine, regarding the nature of 'partying'. I always thought I had a pretty good time in my life: I've done a lot of laughing, had a lot of fun. If partying is really fun, I'll tell ya, I want IN. But I've been places where people were just milling around drinking a lot of BEER, then the next day what was described about the night before was that a lot of PARTYING!! went on. Now, somewhere between execution and description, I missed the partying, or at least the appealing part of it.


Surely there are some people out there who can help me, here. Maybe this all sounds very prudish and self-righteous, and if so, I'll take it. I have been those things before. But here's the fact: Beer. I don't get it.

For me, it's a good day in sports

**Our Cincinnati Bengals, well, they're quite good these days.

**My erstwhile Disastros are going to the World Series, full of confidence.

**Vlade Divac has just announced his retirement. His complaining and bad acting will be reserved now for the local grocer or his own kitchen.

**Andre Agassi is still a force in the tennis world.

**I recently read in Slate magazine that the jock strap is definitely on its way out.

**The Yankees were humiliated this year.

**Being that the season is just starting, the Mavericks are full of hope and optimism. "This could be our year!" they say. This won't be disproved for months and months yet.

**I don't think the Texas football Aggies are very good, though I don't really know, and that doesn't bother me a whit.

**Jerry Glanville is still not doing network football coverage anymore.


I would be fine if we ended all sports today. Things sit pretty well for me at this juncture.

How dare they exercise their authority!

This, from this morning's USA TODAY:

The NBA has announced that a dress code will go into effect at the start of the season. Players will be required to wear business-casual attire when involved in team or league business. They can't wear visible chains, pendants or medallions over their clothes.

[Stephen] Jackson, who is black, said the NBA's new rule about jewelry targets young black males because... the league is afraid of becoming "too hip-hop." In protest, he wore four chains to the Pacers' exhibition game against San Antonio on Tuesday night.

...Philadelphia's Allen Iverson also was critical of the new rule, which the NBA made teams aware of in a memo Monday.
"I feel like if they want us to dress a certain way, they should pay for our clothes," he said. "It's just tough, man, knowing that all of a sudden you have to have a dress code out of nowhere..."

Recently, I have been doing some study, along with my pals Rooster and the Rod, on the subject of authority. These fellows give me a good handle on how this works in America, the land of freely talkative and bravely rebellious.

Hey, um... Allen? You receive an annual base salary from the National Basketball Association to the tune of $12.4 MILLION. This comes out to $6,200 an hour. THEY DO PAY FOR YOUR CLOTHES.

The Eyes of Truth Are Always Watching

When I'm perched atop one of those electronic seeing-eye robot toilets that flush on their own, and that toilet will for some reason (I leaned forward too much? My shirt fluttered before its aperture? The barometric pressure in the room changed?) flush prematurely, preventing me from... er... VIEWING my... er... PRODUCE, I feel rather cheated (not in a sick and perverted Jungian, I'm-so-proud-of-what-I-made-and-won't-mama-love-me-now-kind-of-way, though, I don't know--maybe--my eyes are not haughty; more of in a oh-this-is-my-chance-to-do-a-little-research-and-see-how-I'm-functioning-up-on-the-insides kind of a way. I'm not like my friends Rod and Tinff, who have 3+ bowel movements PER DAY!!! No, it is not so for me. The instances happen MAYBE every other day, which is fine by me, but I have only so much opportunity to see what's going on inside of stevie. And the seeing eye robs me!).

You Can't Have Any New Old Friends

Last night was a night when I thought of two old friends. First off, I had the rare joy of seeing people I know and like on the teevee. It was that zany Extreme Makeover gang with more of their big-hearted hijinx, who'd done up and gone to Camp Barnabas, a place that I know well and love a lot. It's a camp for kids with disabilities of every stripe. I wiped many retarded butts, as we like to say, and showered many bodies there. Restrained many would-be violent kids. Sweat about a gallon a day. Good times. Hard times, humbling times. Good times.

When I think of that place, as I did last night, I think of a few people, none more than my old friend Jesse Robertson. Jesse and I met in Scotland, where he started telling me about this camp he worked at and how much he loved it. I asked if this camp had a theme song, and he said it did. After I made him sing some of it to me, I told him that I'd writ that very tune years ago. What a serendipitous moment for us both. Really. He responded that I caused many, many retarded kids to run around with glee by making up that silly ditty, and that they sing it every night at Camp Barnabas. That made me glad.

Something that's nice about Jesse is that he really BELIEVES in his St. Louis Cardinals. This is ironic, because my (erstwhile) Houston Astros have just ended the Cardinals' season and put themselves, for the first time, in the World Series.


This reminds me of Chris Havard, my best friend since the 1st grade. I believe we met in Mrs. Raines' Sunday School class. Anyhow, my formative years were all with Chris (when I say formative, I really mean "up through college", because really, I hope I'm still being formed, but you understand how such things are used in the vernacular. It can be exhausting, though, when language is so un-literal), and we spent many many evenings of junior high and high school shooting baskets and listening to Astros games. These were all disappointing seasons, ultimately, and none so much as 1986, when Nolan and Mike Scott took us to the brink of beating the eventual champs, the NYMets. At the time of that particular series, with so much hope in our young hearts, Chris and I worked on Wednesday nights at our Christian organization's meal kitchen. We worked, as I recall, from 3-8 p.m., mostly washing dishes, for the free meal and $10. We always came out of there slippery with grease on our soles (as is anyone who works in a retail kitchen), and faces oily due to excessive steam. By God those were good days. But these days are even better, at least as far as the 'stros are concerned.

You're my only hope

5 Minutes With Frederick Buechner

The gods are dying. The gods of this world are sick unto death. If someone does not believe this, the next time he happens to wake up in the great silence of the night or of the day, just listen. And after a while, at the heart of the silence, he will hear the sound that gives it away: the soft, crazy thud of the feet of the gods as they stagger across the earth; the huge white hands fluttering like moths; the little moans of bewilderment and anguish. And we all shudder at the sound because to witness the death of the gods is a fearsome thing.

Which gods? The gods that we worship. The gods that our enemies worship. Their sacred names? There is Science, for one: he who was to redeem the world from poverty and disease, on whose mighty shoulders mankind was to be borne onward and upward toward the high stars. There is Communism, that holy one so terrible in his predilection for blood sacrifice but so magnificence in his promise of the messianic age: from according to his ability, to each according to his need. Or Democracy, that gentler god with his gospel of freedom for all peoples, including those people who after centuries of exploitation and neglect at the hands of the older democracies can be set free now only to flounder in danger of falling pray to new exploiters. And we must not leave out from this role of the dying what often passes for the god of the church: the god who sanctifies our foreign policy and our business methods, our political views and our racial prejudices. The god who, bless him, asks so little and promises so much: peace of mind, the end of our inferiority complexes. Go to church and feel better. The family that prays together stays together. Not everybody can afford a psychiatrist or two weeks of solid rest in the country, but anybody can afford this god. He comes cheap.

These are the gods in whom the world has put its ultimate trust. Some of them are our particular gods, and there are plenty of others, each can name from himself. And where are they now? They are dying, dying and their twilight thickens into night. Where is the security that they promised? Where is the peace? The terrible truth is that the gods of this world are no more worthy of our ultimate trust than are the men who created them. Conditional trust, not ultimate trust.

--from The Magnificent Defeat



Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses.

Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one.

--from Wishful Thinking

Chew Turns a Critical Eye on Ailments

Everyone’s always going on about their Strep Throat:
“Say, I’ve got Strep Throat!”
“Oh, sure, I’ve had Strep Throat! Who hasn’t?!”
“Boy oh boy, I’ll never forget my first Strep Throat.”
The examples proliferate.

Frankly, I’d had enough. Tired of being the one kid sitting in the corner full of stinky britches, while the other kids are enjoying Pudding Packs™ out on the playground, I decided to go get my OWN Strep Throat. I think I deserve it.


Strep Throat is an okay illness… not a great one. I rate it as follows:

Exotic/Shock value name: **
Exotic/Shock value symptoms: 1/2 (+)
Sympathy factor (inside the home): ***
Sympathy factor (outside the home): *
Ease of diagnosis by doctor or know-it-all: *****
Desirability for retelling later: 1/2
Ability to get you time off work: * (read: half day)
Ability to sleep well in spite of it: 0
Ability to eat well in spite of it: *
Treatment/cure-ability: ****
Average score for this illness: 1.8 Stars

(+) When I described my symptoms to Peb over the phone, he suggested it might possibly be the famous “mono”, which is SUCH a favorite with the high school and college crowd, and I knew this would be an instant hit. The ambiguous symptoms allowed me to say, “It might be mono!” a couple of times, so the half star was awarded.

Compare this paltry score to a truly successful illness, like Ebola virus:

Exotic/Shock value name: *****
Exotic/Shock value symptoms: *****
Sympathy factor (inside the home): *****
Sympathy factor (outside the home): *****
Ease of diagnosis by doctor or know-it-all: **
Desirability for retelling later: *****
Ability to get you time off work: *****
Ability to sleep well in spite of it: **
Ability to eat well in spite of it: **
Treatment/cure-ability: 0
Average score for this illness: 3.6 Stars

And you can see where we fall short.

So, now you know friends. In sum, Strep Throat sounds pretty good, but the actual symptoms aren't worth the trouble, and the aftertaste is terrible. See you next week, when we'll be reviewing endometriosis!

Progress, with a P!

I work in an office building. The people who work in this building largely work in... offices. Right now, there's a huge amount of construction being done here, so there are a lot of people around and about that work in... construction.

There is a bathroom at the bottom the stairs outside my office. This is usually my sactuary of quiet, of serenity, and of respite from the nonstop world of workaday life (I know, this is a total sham. My life couldn't be more cush. But follow me, here). Lately, for reasons UNKNOWN, the urinals are ALWAYS full of dark yellow, rank urine. Connect that to the above paragraph IF YOU WANT TO. I'm not going to do that myself. Anyhow, this is a great frustrator for me, so I have dealt with it in the following way:




When I went to post this sign, there was (shocker!) dark yellow, rank urine waiting in the urinal to greet me. Since posting it (no kidding) IT'S BEEN CLEAN, LIFE-GIVING WATERS ALL THE WAY. Credit my sign? That's not for me to say. But the change is, well, refreshing.

See folks, we CAN make a difference, in our own small ways. Never stop dreaming!

HalleLOOya!

This is in response to my good friend ace, who remodeled an entire apartment, stem to stern. I think he did it in about 3 weeks. I, on the other hand, remodeled a bathroom, and it took me from February to, I think, July. This was a LONG time to not have a john except on the first floor, and to have to go into the dank, fetid basement of ours for a shower, many of which left me feeling ickier than before.

Anyhow, Mr. Ace, these are for you:

This is the ceiling of the Great Bathroom, complete with new exhaust fan (innovative!), spa-esque tile work (natural!), and wavy lighting (sure to be out of vogue in five years!).


These are the shelf nooks I created in our shower. I am delighted with this addition to our cleansing world, but the molds for these babies cost $50 a pop, which is ridiculous. Yet, I sprung. Shower storage space matters.


What this is, is apparent to everyone. You can see, though, that I had a detail tile fall out on me. That part of the Great Bathroom is deemed "under construction--pardon our dust!"


This is the Tub of The Damned. If anybody ever walks up to you and says "hey! I'm about to install a tub, will you come help me? It'll be fun and easy: sure, it's a huge, awkward appliance that has to be set in just so in every way, and the connecting pipes have to be at exactly the right slant and angle, and you won't know if there's a leak until you install EVERYTHING then have to dismantle everything to fix the problem, but IT'LL BE EASY!", act like you're shaking his hand, but FLIP HIM on his back, then STRANGLE HIM.


This is our Ultra-Hot toilet (one piece!), and our sweet floor tile, which disguises Mexican Woman Hair From Massive Blow-Dryer Use expertly.


This is the glory of built-in cabinetry!!



Below you will find photos of the dump before I got my hands on it...