DO IT TREE!

Friday, September 17, 2004

Field Trip!

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Now, the zoo is a great place. There are animals all around, information-packed signs and even a few Germans. But, that’s not to say that the zoo couldn’t make some improvements. Here are my humble suggestions:

  1. The zoo stinks to high he11. Seriously, you know when a bunch of guys live together and maybe they have like a Madden football tournament and there are 8 or 10 of them in the living room for 36 hours and then you walk into the room and your eyes get red and you vomit a little, in your mouth, from the stench? Well, the zoo smells like that, but instead of guys it’s lower-order primates that NEVER shower or bath and defecate in their living rooms. What to do? Well, I don’t know if it’s possible (or wise) to Fabreze all the animals daily, but it’s something that should be checked out.

  2. The zoo has these little signs that give you a brief glimpse into each animal. Stuff like: “The tufted deer enjoys long walks on the beach and bathing while listening to some smooth jazz hits,” stuff like that. Sometimes it will say, “The Ostrich has been know to run at up to 30 MPH.” Yah, and I noticed that polar bears run about 30 miles an hour . . . realllllly? You know it! Polar Bear vs. the Ostrich, 1500 Meter Steeplechase. We all know the cheetah is nature’s fastest animal, but who’s taking the silver and bronze?

  3. This suggestion goes without saying so I’ll skip it.

  4. The zoo also likes to taunt animals and put them in cages next to their traditional predators/prey. So, the Fasso (this cool cat-looking type animal from Madagascar) shares living space in close proximity to the lemur (an old world monkey) who normally spends its time being hunted and sometimes eaten by Fassos. Now, at the zoo, they live next door (this has hilarious sitcom possibilities). You know the Fasso is walking around his cage thinking: “I know they’re here somewhere. The place reeks of lemur. Maybe the zoo should think about Fabrezing in here.” Anyway, how about a little steel cage Fasso/Lemur action? Huh? And since the Fasso normally eats the Lemur, the Lemur gets a mini steel chair with which to beat the Fasso and like a golden lion tamarin to be it’s manager/corner man.

  5. The zoo requires a lot of walking and that rhino doesn’t look like he’s doing anything right now . . . hmmmm . . . looks like it seats two . . .

I have sent the zoo a copy of this entry so they may implement my changes posthaste.

Friday, September 10, 2004

Step away from the mood ring!

You can still go swing dancing. People are still doing it at the Spy Bar, despite the fact that the fad ended LONG ago. Granted they've been banished to the bar's basement and lights out at the footy-pajama-wearing time of 11, but people still go. They look relatively happy. That's good. But I can't help but be struck by the fact that it's time for them to find something new. How about moving on to another dance style? Chicken Dance night? Hokie Pokie night? How about Robot Dancing night? Break Dance Night - BYOC? Do you think one day there will be a Moshing Night somewhere? People with practice their "pass the guy" skills for hours and hours? They'll go to the bar in their regular shoes and then Mr. Rogers it into a pair of Doc Martens boots. If that does happen, they won't be playing Glenn Miller. Swing dancing has (again) run its course. Put the pet rock down and find another hobby, please.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

thought . . .

Bad ideas never die; they get recycled by ever-dumber people.

Correction:
Bad ideas never die; they get recycled by ever-dumber people.

Sorry, I forgot that "thoughts" should always be
italicized
.

Practical Advice

On Writing . . .
Today is just like any other day and rarely am I inspired in writing until I force myself to have at it. The mind rarely thinks of clever things to write when one is not writing. The mind doesn’t work that way. When encountered by a difficult writing question, sure, sometimes it helps to step away from the problem to let the mind mull things over, “behind the scenes” so to speak. But otherwise, you won’t think of writing unless you ARE writing. Stop waiting; start writing.

That being said, I'm super-lazy.

Friday, September 03, 2004

thought . . .

Everything is worth something; some things are worth everything.

I've decided thoughts should be italicized. (Italicized isn't supposed to be a thought; I just wanted to visually represent italicizication.)

Would you like to meet my friend Harvey?

Two days ago (Wednesday for those of you scoring at home), I partook in that neo-classic of American events – the fantasy football draft.

Now before all the members of the fairer sex on the list delete this message without reading any further, let me assure you – Get off my freakin’ back! Gawd always with the bitching about me watching football all weekend! Could you leave me alone for 5 minutes?! Christ. Have Jimmy your precious work friend from work come over and clean the gutters!

Just kidding. No, I swear I’ll try to explain the phenomenon in a unisexual way.

Fantasy football was created by geeks (probably computer programmers) who decided they had a little too much free time and were tired of playing Dungeons and Dragons and chatting on BBSes. So, these brave pioneers decided to create an imaginary world. This imaginary world is filled with imaginary football teams. These football teams invariably have dumb or not-very-clever names. Names like, “Kevin’s Kreatures” or “The Louie Lewises” or “The Dave Stevens 9”. Names which you might courtesy chuckle if they told you about it, but secretly you’d think, “Nice name dumbass”. Once the imagineering for the league and the teams is completed (and they being dorks, the side game of Axis and Allies), the all-important draft is held.

At the draft, all the losers get together in one place OR (if they don’t have real human friends nearby) on the internet to conduct their imaginary league’s draft. During the draft, the geeks select REAL football players to be on their fake teams. These players are selected on their ability to do, what I like to call, “good football stuff”. They can run fast and far and get into the endzone (the part with the team name) with the football in tow. They are special individuals. Never mind that they see the geeks for what they truly are – geeks and resent the geeks for drafting and trading them like so much cattle. That doesn’t matter. Their feelings are inconsequential.

After the geeks pick some players (each choice of which is mocked by all the other geeks) they’ll generally eat some pizza and tell some jokes about COBOL or – better yet – PROGRAM some COBOL. When that’s over, they pick some more players . . . then it’s discussing if Bugs Bunny was hot in drag . . . more players . . . then attempts to discover if anyone knows any girls, anyone . . . besides your sister . . . anyone? . . . Bueller? . . . then more players. What I’m trying to indicate is the passage of time. Hours and hours and hours later, the draft is complete and the thumb wrestling tourney begins.

When the REAL football season starts, the imaginary one does as well. The geeks will spend the next 5 months yelling at real TVs with real football players on them because the real players are ruining the fake team’s chances of winning the imaginary league this year. Thanks a lot Shaun Alexander – I took you with my first pick – you ungrateful bastard! All this real yelling and nastiness tends to also alienate all the real people in the geeks’ lives sending them far away from that sad little dork and taking everything away from him, except his precious, precious fantasy football team.

THAT is what fantasy football is my friends.