Archive for category grab bag
Crocodile Tears
In an effort to further peel back the curtain and grant a glimpse of my personal life, part of my new years resolution to post more content on this blog, I offer the following:
Last night I sent an email to a friend of mine whining about how each day seems to bring fresh new evidence of how little I really know.
The two examples I gave were the crocodile from Peter Pan and the pen knife. You all probably know this already but the crocodile who swallowed the clock and chases Hook from one end of Neverland to the other, represents time or mortality and its relentless pursuit of man, hunting him down with a tick tick tick until he is finally chomped. The pen knife on the other hand, is called a pen knife because it was originally used to sharpen quills, the original pens.
I’ve seen Peter Pan as well as Hook numerous time and never made the connection. I’ve owned and used pen knives for years and never wondered why it was called a pen knife. How I can be thirty eight years old and this ignorant is beyond me.
So I fired off an email from my phone to a friend, lamenting my retched state. Did he offer a Socratic pronouncement about how the road to wisdom begins with a humble acknowledge of one’s own ignorance? No. Instead he sent this:
Not a lot of hope for you, I’m afraid. You’re telling me that – when considering the story of an ageless, forever-boy, who lives in “Neverland,” the idea that a ticking clock in the bowels of a reptilian monster represents mortality – this idea never occurred to you?
And as far as the etymology of “pen knife” goes, a passing familiarity with Old French should suffice to inform the average observer that the word penne – meaning the feather of a bird, or quill – had simply been contracted in English to ‘pen’ to describe the writing instrument of the past. Sheesh!
I suppose its helpful to know, prior to digitally self immolating via email, which friends throw water and which throw gas.
That being said, I will conclude by offering a movie recommendation for Finding Neverland. A little late to the party, I know, but it really is a wonderful movie and if you have not seen it, rent it. Prepare to cry like a baby, not a croc.
Which reminds me, RIP Steve, life was better with you around.
The Root! The Root! The Root is on Fire!
Posted by Craig in general interest, grab bag on August 25th, 2009
I spent about sixty minutes last night rooting my T-Mobile G1 and it (so far) has been an unqualified success. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, I’ll explain.
The G1 is the first mobile phone to use the Google Android OS (operating system). The good news is that Android is open source and developers are free to to write whatever kind of apps they want for it. The bad news is that T-Mobile takes the OS and adds a bunch of junk to it and then releases updates for it in their own sweet time. Very similar to what Dell does with Windows. When you buy a computer from Dell, you get a Windows OS but it is a Dell modified version. That way you get all those annoying programs on your desktop when you start it up for the first time.
Rooting is the process of replacing the version of Android on a phone with a different version . There are all sorts of available versions from a number of different people with names like JesusFreke, The Dude’s Cupcake and Haykuro Builds. Some are highly volatile and not good for everyday phone use. Others are quite stable and provide an expanded group of features not available with the stock OS.
It’s a bit risky and if anything goes wrong you can’t go crying to T-mobile, you have to turn to the online community for help. But I am now liberated from the control of T-Mobile, setting up my phone the way I want and there is something to be said for that. It really isn’t any harder than upgrading the OS on a computer. If you are so inclined, I suggest you give it a try.
Interestingly enough, my wife wouldn’t let me near her phone. Chicken.
Dethroning the Matriarch.
I am back from vacation and ready to get back into the swing of things with the blog. I saw a t-shirt not to long ago that said “More People Have Read This Than Your Blog” and I was struck by how true that is of most blogs including this one. Undaunted, I press on with the thought that maybe today will be the day that one person reads this blog and is affected in one way or another.
Speaking of vacation, the family I spent two weeks in northern Michigan at my wife’s ancestral home on the shore of Burt Lake. It is without a doubt one of my favorite places on the planet and we have been blessed to be able to go up there every summer for the past 15 or 16 years. I think one year we went to the beach in South Cackalacky but other than that we have gone North.
One of our favorite vacation activities is fishing for Smallmouth Bass. The family record is held by Ghenny, my wife’s grandmother. Legend tells that back in the day she caught a fish that was 21 3/4″ long and just a hair over six pounds. To put that in perspective, a keeper is anything over 14″ and most of the fish we catch are between two and three pounds. I have been dutifully trying to dethrone her for years and this year, for a moment, I thought I had her.
The fish I caught was 5.71 pounds and 21 1/2″ long. Let me do the math for you: I missed the record by less than three tenths of a pound in weight and half an inch in length. If I had a lick of sense, I’d have stuffed it with a little split shot and hung it up for a while before I took it down to Pat and Gary’s for entry into the annual contest. Needless to say I am in first place (or was when we left) but I never seem to be able to win. Some seven year old will catch a six and a half pounder on a Sponge Bob pole and relegate my lunker to second place. Never fails to happen.
So there is my fish story. No blog is complete without one. In closing, I’ll mention that I called Ghenny and told her that she better live for a few more years (she’s in her late 80′s) becuase I plan on dethroning her before she dies. She chuckled and promised me she’d do her best to oblige.
(Yes, the camo does help me sneak up on the fish and yes, I am having the sucker mounted to hang on the wall. Sorry Babe!)
\m/ >.< \m/ on.
The Badassiest Pick-up Truck on the Planet
With all the negative publicity surrounding GM lately, I offer this post as a tribute to their legacy as one of the foundational pillars of American society.
I am the proud owner of what has to be the badassiest pick-up truck on the planet.
It’s a 1987 Chevy C-10, with almost 240,000 miles on the original engine and THE ORIGINAL TRANNY. Not a day goes by that someone does not offer to buy this truck off of me. Through good times and bad, I always refuse because it is worth way more to me than anybody else. It’s magic. It cannot die.
Every time something needs to be replaced, I foolishly think something like why put any more money into this thing, it’s gonna die as soon as you put new tires on it… But it never does, it just keeps on rolling.
Today, my buddy Ant (see 1060 creative for all your video needs) again begged me to sell him the truck. After I politely refused him for the tenth time in as many days, I realized that I have been selfish. I have used the power of the truck only for my own benefit and not that of the greater society at large.
As I was thinking about how I could share this with the world, I was reminded of a another buddy of mine who once borrowed the truck while his was being repaired. He and his wife had been trying to get pregnant for a while with no success. Within hours of his borrowing the truck, they conceived. Miraculous? I’ll let you be the judge. There is however, no denying the correlation between the proximity of the truck and their increased fertility.
With that in mind, I am going to offer the truck to any and all who are having trouble getting pregnant.
For $5.00, you and your significant other can hold hands and touch the truck for five minutes. For $15.00 you can sit on the tailgate and smooch. For $50.00 you can drive around holding hands for fifteen minutes. And for $500.00, you can keep it over night and do whatever you want in it.
I am so confident in the power this truck exudes that I will offer a money back guarantee. If you don’t get pregnant within three month of using the truck, I will refund your money, no questions asked.
So if you, or any one you know, has been wasting their money on herbal remedies and fruitless visits to specialists, step out in faith and email me today. What have you got to lose?
I have four of the most beautiful children on the planet. Trust me. It works.
I Just Called To Say Hello.
On Saturday night, I won a tidy some of money off of CRM Boy. He actually had the audacity to challenge me in the arena of music trivia. I know, I know, that’s sort of like challenging Mike Mulligan to a foundation digging contest, but discretion never has been the better part of his valor.
The wager came about when CRM Boy addressed the following question to the group assembled around the fire pit:
“What was the name of that Stevie Wonder song?”
I had no idea what song he was referring to and I suppose I could have gone old school but I went with the first thing that popped into my head, which was I Just Called to Say I Love You. (You Stevie Wonder fanatics can get over yourselves, I am sure you would have come up with something cooler, just let me finish my story.)
CRM Boy looked at me for a second and then blurted out, “that wasn’t Stevie Wonder, that was Lionel Ritchie!” He then proceeded to opine on how Stevie Wonder would never sing a song like that and how I was a donk for suggesting it.
Smelling blood in the water, I looked him straight in the eye, shot out my hand and said, “mister, I’ll bet you fifty bucks that it was Stevie Wonder.” Before I finished the word ‘fifty” he was out of his chair and shaking my hand. We drew our mobile phones and thumbed. Within seconds the truth was confirmed and I was fifty dollars richer. Kachow!
To add insult to injury he actually tried to argue that wikipedia was an unreliable source and shouldn’t be used for confirmation. I just smiled… and broke into a rousing chorus of Dancing on the Ceiling.
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