The Mouse and Mrs. Rose

Oh dear, I’m in the shit at work again. Not my fault really…its my mouse. It’s a wireless and its too jittery. Sometimes you select one thing from a drop-down menu and by the time you click, the pointer has popped up to something else, and you get that instead. It can be really frustrating.

Seems the other day I was supposed to issue a contract for dear old Mrs. Rose to sign. She’s a lovely lady, does the odd bit of business with us, and I always tell her how pretty her hat is…she likes that. Anyway that stupid thing with the mouse again…and I was in a hurry so I didn’t proof-read it…well looks like instead of issuing a contract for Mrs. Rose I accidentally issued a contract on Mrs. Rose. Nobody caught it until this afternoon, but by then it was too late…she’d already been whacked.

Damn it, that’s the fourth client I accidentally had assassinated this year. With the price of hit-men these days my boss is freaking. I don’t know, maybe new batteries would help.

Oh no, now look what's happened!

Well the US appears to be surrounded by dope-fiends. The Drug Spot, an informative blog on all things druggie, reports that Mexico is de-criminalizing possession of small quantities of marijuana, cocaine, meth, heroin, LSD, mushrooms, and peyote. As you may know Canada has all but de-criminalized marijuana as well.

Of course the US government is not warm to the idea, but what they fail to see is that this should cut down on illegal alien numbers. You’ll notice Canadians hardly ever try to enter the US illegally, even though there are great stretches of un-guarded border. This is because marijuana is of good quality in Canada, and Americans are such buzz-kills. No its best to cross BEFORE you smoke, pick up some munchies and cheap beer, then get the hell back – if you really must go at all. Now the last thing I imagine a stoned Mexican wanting to do is cross a dessert on foot, or pack himself into a shipping container with 50 others and hope somebody on the other side remembers to come and open the door. My god, could you imagine trying to do it on LSD, mushrooms or peyote? Of course not, the sensible thing to do when whacked off your stump is to sit still, maybe watch a video. If you must be active, climb a tree.

Soon enough the tide will turn. Not only will people stop trying to enter the US, many US citizens will begin crossing the other way in search of the freedoms they had assumed they possessed at home. Those left behind will eventually eat each other.

…didn’t see that coming, did you?

Hell As A Gated Community

Ok so lets get this straight. If you do not fulfill certain criteria by the time you die, or the End Of The World, whichever comes first, you will spend eternity in hell.

Fine. But what’s the point? Forever being told “I told you so, look at you now.” by smug heaven-dwellers? I mean is that what the devil does…just torments souls forever and ever? I’m not being facetious when I ask this. Why would satan go to the trouble…what’s his motive? Seems to play right into god’s hands…punish the sinners. What if satan pulled a fast one…made hell a Club-Med franchise? - you know, tacky but comfortable, with free booze and a nightly buffet. Wouldn’t the heaven-lurkers, who had toiled and slaved and knelt and prayed and didn’t approve of girls dancing in short skirts (which can truly be a mystical experience), be a little pissed off? Where is that sweet feeling of smugness and superiority they were so looking forward to? Heaven is about revenge and self justification.

Religion needs a hell, needs bad people, to justify its own existence. The worse you are, the better I must be. Its like eliminating poverty by lowering the poverty line. You can make a university elite simply by declaring most applicants unworthy…doesn’t make the education any better though.

Gettin' all philosophical on your ass.

I found some religious literature on the hall floor when I got home today. I’d seen two guys in suits going door to door recently, wearing sunglasses and carrying leather man-purses, but I saw them coming in time and hid out on the back deck, whispering encouragement to my barking dogs. The men in black knocked once, twice, thrice and then went next door where they found knocking an extra fourth time... brought a groggy man to the door who told them to shove off.

Anyway I thought I had escaped until today. Cheeky monkeys, came back and slipped it under the door. Must be some sort of follow-up policy God is instituting to drum up sales. Its even printed on very thin paper, for tight fitting doors I suppose. Well I read one paragraph just to be sporting but when it said things like “It has been clearly demonstrated that rulership by humans apart from God can never succeed” they lost straight away on points.

Even if I wanted to believe that, I’m a realist, and that statement just can’t be supported logically.

What rulership? How do you “rule” nature? One big meteor strike and maybe the ants get a turn at being “ruler”.

Nothing has been “clearly demonstrated” either. Assuming there is a God, it can’t be said humans clearly do worse without God, until I suppose, we try going 100,000 years or so with God. Which god, by the way? They all look so good its hard to tell your Jesus’ and Jehovah’s apart.

And what do they mean by “succeed”? This implies a goal. Is there a time limit? If the goal is to get to God, then what are we doing in this shit-hole? If the goal is to improve, then aren’t we doing that? You know, medicine, science, human rights – we stopped torturing people for not believing in God, that’s something isn’t it?

All I’m saying is the above statement is false, logically. The technical term is ‘blather’. It is made up, its an opinion not a fact. It has no conclusions that can be proved or disproved, is supported by flawed premises. That shit annoys me.

It all may turn out to be true of course, but if it is then statements like this will only be correct by correlation – by coincidence.

We’re all just guessing. Someone’s bound to be right in the end, but we won’t really know till we know.

Now I gotta go rule my cats.

Meet The Neighbors

Lets see what’s going on next door…

Over at Tahitian Barmaid there’s some more poetry. His poems make no sense, but they sound good, this is why I like them…for both those reasons. Also a commentary on Paris Hilton encrusted in spider webs…or something like that and a video (of Neil Young, not Paris Hilton). Go have a look, we can wait.

Manuel Stimulation, everybody’s favorite Spanish/Irish catholic fascist, takes aim at beloved Irish children’s TV puppets Podge y Rodge.

At the renowned Center For Advanced Sarcasm there’s, well, there’s a lot of blowing going on. Nuff said.

Back in Toronto our ex-pat Sandra is Over Here. She’s apparently a doctor of some variety doing experiments in Canada for some purpose. I'm sure its something nice. Very nice photos of Toronto and possibly Ireland. This woman could have a career writing letters, such a fine style and very witty indeed.

More insider info from the world of comedy writing By Ken Levine. This time secretaries in stolen Porches, lunch-time abortions and a poke in the head with a sharp stick, are all covered in the latest post. He’s won awards, so it must be good.

There you go, another post all done. And I didn’t have to write a damn thing.

Awww, Dave

Awww, Dave

The New Feminist

Male desert baboons in eastern Africa have been known to attack and even kill females which stray too far, or fall under the influence of a rival male. Male lions will kill rival offspring, forcing the lioness into a breeding state against her wishes…without, even, a suitable grieving period. Some cockroaches, at least half of them male, in times of famine will resort to cannibalism - eating other males occasionally, but mostly females and juveniles as they tend to be slower. Male ring-tailed lemurs rarely, if ever, perform housework.

This outrageous behavior by males of other species has been overlooked for too long. In the past these barbarous acts have been dismissed as “nature” or “instinct” at work, evolution. This is baseless rhetoric fed to us by the patriarchal over-lords of science who deny the rights of all things, including rocks and sticks, to live a free and unfettered existence. Meanwhile every year millions of tons of stone are ground up and laid as road base, or spread around decorative water features. Most of this work is performed by men (and sometimes lesbians). They try to justify it by wearing fluorescent vests and calling themselves “construction workers”, but its really just another example of men dominating minerals…and its got to stop!

Its time we took action. All men are basically evil, or at least naughty, and should be kept together on an island where they are forced to perform the world’s ironing. Some of the more docile ones, and homosexuals, will be allowed out to get things down from high shelves, change the oil in the car, or re-format the computer after someone accidentally un-installed the firewall, downloaded 61 bits of spyware and two trojans, saved a WordPad file to the DIRECTORY and somehow installed two auto-dialers which tried to call Sweden at $11.99/min.

Well, seems to be working ok now... better get back to the island. I've got whites soaking.

sometimes you win

The timeless struggle between hunter and hunted, superior intelligence pitted against lightning speed, the cruel wheel of life turning… I give you

8888888 the quick 8888888

9999999 the dead 9999999

Aussie Slang #1

Flat-out like a lizard drinking: To be doing nothing, a lazy person, lack of effort.

This was a new one on me used by a co-worker the other day, refering to another worker, and it’s one of the more complicated ones. Slang within slang, with a local/country aspect. No, lizards do not necessarily drink in a prone position as at first I thought. “Flat-out” means working or moving at full speed (this I knew, but for some reason I kept thinking of a flattened lizard, as I have often seen in my rear view). I gave it some thought, but eventually I had to ask for a translation.

“How often have you seen a lizard drink?” he offered by way of a hint. Which then made me think perhaps lizards only drink at night, or in the morning or what the fuck does that have to do with it?

Well you never see a lizard drinking (like you never see lots of stuff - like sparrows copulating or the inside of a match factory). Therefore when you say someone is “flat out like a lizard drinking” you mean he may be working but you’d never know it, which may be reduced further to “a lazy person”.

…I think.

Told You

future monkey news

Archeologists digging holes by the sea uncovered what appear to be words constructed of stainless steel screws. Stainless steel screws were outlawed twenty thousand years ago by the Monkey Council because of the cost, so these runes are estimated to be more older than that. What monkey-scientists find aaaaarrrreeeeeek is that the words use the monkey-talk-talk. This is proves the old humanmen did live long ago but then monkeys taught them the talk-talk and they went ooorrrrack-akk-akk and started wearing pants and driving cars.

Long Term Screw

We have a customer at work who has specified his job to be constructed entirely with stainless steel screws Stainless steel screws are very expensive, about $1 each, and we estimate using 600 or so. They are also very hard to find and come in limited lengths. But this is what he wants, and accepts the additional cost with cheery cheerfulness. He lives by the sea, you see. Worried about the little buggers rusting. Which is ridiculous unless he actually lives in the sea…you see.

65,000 years from now monkey-archeologists will dig on that site and discover 600 pointed metal objects all arranged at right angles to one another, like runes from the ancients. And the monkey-archeologists will gather round in wonder at the incredible discovery and they will say “What a fucking dickhead. Used fucking stainless steel screws! Do you know what they cost?”

x

Ok, are you all sick of the rubber ball? Look, I thought of it in the shower, spent ten minutes on it and whacked it up there. Also it only works in Australia where the term “fully sick” was last year’s “cool”…but its now found its way into the mainstream and is, therefore, no longer cool. That was sort of the point…most advertising runs just behind the trend (and most sitcoms, several years).

I see by the weather thing it is 26c in Sydney, but it feels 29! And that’s really what matters isn’t it? How it feels. Toronto is only 6c but it also feels 6c…they are sensible in Canada you see. You can’t tell a cop “Well, I may have been doing 120km/h, but it felt like I was only going 50.”

And just who decides what it “feels” like anyway? Is it just one person, a local volunteer at the airport perhaps? Or is it a committee, a many-chambered black heart of bureaucracy not to be trusted? What happens when the person retires or dies? Does the weather feel different? Do you get to vote for the weather feeler? My mother would say it feels cold all the time. I wouldn’t vote for her. Not after that last scandal.

Tech News

Sony announced its latest contender in the gaming wars this week with the unveiling of the revolutionary Rubberball System at a Tokyo trade fair. Made from synthetic material the fully portable Rubberball is powered entirely by an internal gas reserve which gives the product an inherent springiness. The gas or “air” as the company calls it, is injected via a special gas pressure delivery system or “pump”. The pump is included with the system as well as enough air for 3-5 fillings.

The Wide Brown(shirt) Land

It is now illegal to stop work in Australia.

Some construction workers in Sydney recently stopped work for 15 minutes to hold a collection for the widow of a co-worker killed by a fallen slab of concrete. The owner of the construction company had no problems with the stoppage but, faced with fines of $20,000 from the government, had no choice but to dock the workers 4 hours pay. Nice.

Mine workers arriving at a job to find their quarters infested with fleas and feral cats refused to work until a clean-up was done, which took 3 days. The federal government fined each of them $20,000 and their union $100,000 for illegal stoppage of work. The government later backed down after protests and glaring media coverage.

Add these incidents to a long list of nationalist measures recently introduced: national ID cards, the all but complete dismantling of unionism in any form, powerful and secret anti-sedition acts – including incarceration without charge and limiting the press’ ability to report on anything deemed to fall under the act – and the recent announcement that refugees are no longer accepted in Australia, period. All people arriving in Australia by boat will now be processed off-shore and those found to be genuine refugees will be given sanctuary in a third country. Usually this means Australia has bribed some desperate Micronesian country like Nauru to take them off its hands in exchange for say, a new power generator or two.

Police are now allowed to inspect your mobile phone, read your text messages and look at any photos, whenever they like. This is because ‘terrorists’ might use text messaging too - and that photo of the Sydney Opera House may be in there because you plan to blow it up.

Note to self: remove all text messages referring to planned work stoppage in protest of immigration policy, and pics of family trip to The Big Banana fun park. Continue plans to blow up Big Banana.

Now, back to work damn it.

What's So Good About It?

Jesus woke after that last supper, looked around at the mess. Drunken apostles everywhere. Peter had been saying someone robbed him, and now Paul mysteriously had the money – all the while Judas is saying the money’s his - they all went at it and now Paul had a black eye and Pete was crashed-out in his own puke. There was no sign of Jude…probably gone off with his flash Roman pals. No sign of Mary either, the slut. She’d being giving Matt the eye all night. That’s it, he thought, she’s out of the book. Soon they’d wake up and be all ”Jesus, make some bread and fishes, Jesus can you heal my hemorrhoids? Jesus the Romans say you’re not the Messiah…”

‘God, I’ve got to get outta here’ he muttered.

Cat Arrives On Time, Catches Bird

A cat arrived for a breakfast meeting this morning and was horrified to find his business associate, a worm, being eaten alive by a bird, believed at this time to be a robin or small duck, who had apparently arrived early for the same meeting.

“I got there right at 7am, I was almost late because the car wouldn’t start, but I got there on time and saw [the worm] half way down the monster’s gullet!”, said the cat, it’s fur still poofy from fright.

The cat (who asked not to be named) then pounced on the bird and eviscerated it, leaving the body on the doorstep of a nearby home. By the time police arrived the cat had resuscitated the worm, although it is expected to lose several sections. “If it wasn’t for [the cat] and the fact I have multiple hearts, I’d be bird shit by now.” Said a grateful worm who also asked to remain anonymous - “I do underground work” was all he would say.

Police say no charges will be layed - "Its a cat. We can't arrest cats at this time." said a police spokesperson.

Caught

Caught

Commit a Crime, Win a Trip!

I was in jail overnight once. Actually it was a jail tour, where you get to sample several different cells in 4 different correctional facilities in 32 hours. In between there is a fun ride in a sort of armored truck, with little high-set windows. You get to see the roof tops of all the towns you pass. There’s a separate section where naughty prisoners have to ride by themselves, but I got to share with three others. One guy had been on the tour before…he could tell where we were just by the feel of the road, “Hexam Bridge coming up, then we turn left”…and he was always right.

That night I got to stay in a cell with the same 3 guys and they put us across from this dude who was up for murdering his girlfriend while she was starting her car at the mall…stabbed her in the throat. It was in all the papers, the trial was coming up and he was being transferred. The murderer guy was mad because we were keeping him awake so he and the Aboriginal guy who was in with us began a threatening match. I think the Aboriginal guy won, he was really funny anyway. I gave him my fruit cup from dinner. There was a TV bolted to the wall…they were showing Lethal Weapon 4. Nobody else found that ironic.

None of the other prisoners had done anything wrong, framed they assured me. Except the Aboriginal guy who was picked up for a kidnapping he had forgotten about…”oh yeah, must be that time I picked up that drug dealer who owed me money. I scared the shit out of him all night, then took him 40km into the bush and left him there. You reckon that’s what they mean?” He didn’t deny it, although he seemed astonished there should be such a fuss over it. I reckon he’s right.

At one of the other stops, a poor old man was in one group. That group was being transferred to new digs and they were asked to sign a form to say all their possessions were accounted for. The poor old guy, about 70, seemed lost and confused. “What do I do if something’s missing? Should I still fill out the form?” he kept asking guards. And sure enough when their stuff arrived, the old guy was missing his good suit jacket which he needed for court. He asked the guard about it and the guard said, yes it did seem to be missing…he would see about it. This seemed to satisfy the old man because suddenly he was standing straighter, looking clear of eye, and remarking to his companion “I lost that jacket 4 years ago, but I seen it was still on the list. Give me a smoke.”

Eventually I got bailed but by now I was 3 hours from home, so I had to wait for the wife to come and get me. The prison staff put me back in the little cell in the garage/receiving area by myself but they didn’t lock the door. I could just see the TV behind the reception counter and I watched The Simpsons and drank coffee while I waited.

Hours later, I was in my home, warm, smoking my medicine, sitting in the comfy chair watching the big TV, eating pizza. It was all a bit surreal, actually.

If your knees bent the other way, what would chairs look like?

When did I start making that little noise whenever I stand or sit? Not the rapid-fire cracking of my joints, not the faint sloshing from my head, I mean that little “oof” sound. It seems I’m requiring internal air pressure to keep me upright these days…the “oof” is the sound of air escaping to allow bending at the middle. Its opposite , “OOP”, is made when standing. The sound comes from the re-pressurizing of the system, though there is a lilt of sadness to it This is because standing up necessarily means the end of sitting, which I am beginning to enjoy on a par greater than was common in my youth. My youth ended in 2004 I think. Expired. I never got a renewal card in the mail, and when I called up they said the account was closed as I wasn’t keeping the minimum amount. Looks like its happened. I’m finally a grown-up, damn it.

I know! I’ll get a sports car…that’ll fix it. Forget the younger woman though, how would I explain the constant “oofing”?

x

And then it flew up
And saw itself spinning away down
Below the clouds underground

There was no place
Left to leave and everywhere
Was left to go.

And it was quiet and not
Warm or cold
And sleep was the same as waking.

Coffee Before Bed

Sunday evening, roast beef and gravy. After-dinner smoke and a cigarette, wish I could have a coffee, short, strong, sweet, black. Not if I want to sleep, work tomorrow, up at 5am.

Work tomorrow is like having just had two days off from trying to swim the English Channel…and now its time to strip down, grease up and dive back into that black water, cold as a witch’s left tit, thin oily film. Swimming becomes secondary to not drowning in meetings and forms and phone calls and messages and memos and questions and complaints. Somehow, despite this tide of mediocre-half-done-bullshit sucking me down, I manage to make a factory make things. And the young guy’s fiancé got sick and had to go back to Canada, and the other one is saving for a car and wants overtime. One not much older is having a baby and needs time off and the old guy wants a day off to take the Missus to the bagpipe tattoo down in Sydney and the French guy’s worried about losing his job and he should be but its not his fault and I can’t say fuck-all because it might not happen…

And it all starts at 6am and runs all day…and all night too if I have coffee before bed.

Video Interlude II

Just when you think you are winning, check again

Honeymoon's Over

Honeymoon's Over

Vote Now!

I’m not really happy with the sub-heading at the moment (the line under SkookumJoe at the top of the page). I quite liked “gritty, nothing like chicken” but its time was passed and I haven’t really thought of a suitable replacement. I was thinking I need something bold, yet not too controversial. Strong statements are hard to make without alienating some group or other. You can’t say things like “Women: Can’t live with ‘em, pass the gravy.” unless you want a fight from angry lesbians. Of course there’s a time and place for fighting angry lesbians, but its not now. You can’t say things like “Smack Your Kids, God Says Its OK!”. In that case you piss off lefty-hippy-pinko-commie beatnik parents, and God (copyright infringement). So I was thinking of this:

“Satan is a Cunt”

Can’t really argue that one can you? I mean even the satanists have to agree, that’s sort of why they’re satanists isn’t it?

What do you think?

Video Interlude

This is a video I spotted on another blog called Chase Me Ladies, I’m in the Cavalry...a very funny blog ...and a very funny video.

Mr. Fixit Returns To Factoryland

Well he’s back! Everybody’s favorite, Mr. Fixit. My bosses find they aren’t doing enough to fuck up my day on their own, they need outside help. You’ll remember in our last episode Mr. Fixit’s only suggestion was we reduce the distance one man walks from point A to point B in the execution of his duties. Although this would save time, he is right, it does very little to help with things like customers who add walls to their homes, without telling us, just before we come to install $40,000 worth of stuff which now does not fit. Hence we do not get paid, until we fix whatever needs fixed, no matter it was the customer’s fault…the contract says “paid on installation”.

I avoided Mr Fixit for as long as I could, trying to look like I was dealing with a crisis, walking quickly hither and yon, barking quick questions to the boys, pointing a lot. But eventually someone came to get me, “Mr Fixit has ‘improved’ your planning spreadsheet, wants you to come have a look.” My spreadsheet, current title NewDatabaseFb, which translates into version 6.1 and its not yet finished. I have put over 100 hours into this thing, finding ways to add all the new stuff everyone wants, making it completely idiot-proof yet user-friendly and dynamic, for a wide range of users. It is to become the central database for the entire network of 11 office staff, and two of the factory staff. We are also opening a second company, which will also schedule its work through this database.

And Mr. Fixit has, *swallow*, “improved” it for me. How nice. He said he DELETED the first 40 entries as they were “clogging it up”…there go the formulas also on those lines, which control other aspects. He GOT RID of my ‘buttons’ and the macros which they controlled. Macros which took me hours to write…so I wouldn’t have to teach people the complicated formulas that are used. He did all this so it would work with the pages he added…basically various types of graphs that are supposed to tell you if you are on track, production wise. I don’t need a graph to tell me what time it is, and they don’t even apply to this sort of manufacturing -where we do not make the same fucking thing over and over.

Of course he only butchered a copy. I don’t have to use the thing the way he left it. As a matter of fact, the way he left it makes it impossible to use. What pisses me off is that he obviously doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing, and I had to waste my time looking interested for my boss, while my other boss is screaming because A) He was left out of the meeting, B) The sky is falling because I am not there, and C) He was left out of the meeting.

Last I saw Mr. Fixit, he was measuring things again. No doubt if we cram everybody into the store-room, we can save anything having to move anywhere and what a beautiful world it will be. Hell, lets just get the raw material delivered to the customer’s house and we’ll build the damn things there.

Huxters and Charlatans

I heard a startling fact yesterday. And it was on TV, so I reckon its true. The fella said “Death happens often, and can happen unexpectedly.” Then he, wisely it would seem, recommended we all buy some life insurance. I did a little checking…turns out up until about 100 years ago every person born later died, that’s 100% ! It tapers off from about a hundred years ago, with fewer and fewer people dying, until we reach today where almost everybody is alive! If the trend continues I think it would be safe to say death had been eradicated…so there would be no need for life insurance…

tricky bastards, don’t fool me.

Clash of the Titans

Unless you live in Australia you cannot appreciate the significance of a Sunday afternoon baseball game. Rugby is king in Australia, followed by cricket. There are touch-football leagues, lawn bowling clubs, junior and senior cricket teams and every town, village and hamlet has a rugby team, just as every town in Canada has a hockey team. But not baseball. Baseball is looked on with suspicion by cricket players and old-timers who view it as some flash American aphorism destined to corrupt gentlemen’s sport. Of course as soon as an Australian becomes involved with a winning baseball team, everybody and their dog will know everything about baseball, and claim they always had.

And so it was with a sense of anticipation I went to the grounds at Harrington, on the Tasman Sea, with a fresh breeze and clear bright sky. This must be the most sophisticated baseball venue on the East coast…having both a backstop and vague baselines. There is of course no pitcher’s mound, as they need the grounds for ‘real’ sports most of the time. I had come to watch the team I am thinking of joining. The team was only formed last week, and is wearing borrowed uniforms from a defunct team, the Marlins. Word is new uniforms are on the way, and the team will next appear as the Titans. A fine baseball name, not too in-your-face.

The rules are interesting: Full hardball rules…small ball, stealing, sliding. Games last 2 hours, when 2 hours is up, they finish the inning and that’s it. It’s a mixed team with no set number of male to female players and ages from 14 years old up! So we had the most interesting spectacle of a huge (he looked like Jaws in the James Bond films) 40 year old man pitching to a 5 foot tall, 14 year old girl…who happened to be my daughter. This great lumbering bear of a man flung his left arm around in something resembling a cross between a cricket bowl and someone throwing a rock at a crow. I will say this throwing technique does generate a lot of speed, I’d say he was hitting 60-70 MPH, unfortunately his accuracy suffers and his first pitch hit my daughter squarely on the left foot. He walked 5 others before he was replaced in the 5th inning.

The Marlins/Titan’s only run in seven innings of play was off a homerun on the opening pitch and they lost 5-1. All five runs against were preventable errors. The players seemed to be under the impression that runners automatically advance when the ball is hit…I routinely saw runners jogging home, with opposing players in possession of the ball just standing watching them. Several times there was confusion and the umpire either had to take players off who were out, or put players back on who had mistakenly left the field.

Yes…this sounds like my sort of team. I might just go up to practice on Wednesday for a closer look.

Fatherly Advice

Fatherly Advice

Sports and Culture Edition

I turned 38 today and I’m thinking of joining a baseball team. There is a rational snippet of brain left after years of chemical modification therapy, and it’s saying “Baseball? Of course you can’t be serious, you can’t run across the street without hacking up smoke you ingested eight years ago…no no not baseball. Why not just have a nice lie down until it passes?”

Now soccer for me would be madness, and I can barely swim so that’s out, can’t ski anywhere around here (here being the whole bloody continent) and the rules and/or objective of Cricket confound me. But I know how to play baseball, a game of skill and strategy…with only short bursts of running, followed by long periods of sitting.

The girls took me to a play last night, Agatha Christie’s The Hollow. Wasn’t bad for a local production, except all the accents sounded like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, gov’ner. What did ruin it, besides running three hours, was the woman behind me who must have known the entire cast, because whenever anyone said anything she would chortle and laugh and then explain to her companions who so-and-so was on stage. Cripes sake, the guy got shot at the end of act II and this woman is cracking-up to the point where even the dying actor looked distracted. When I finally get the baboon army up and running, she's going down first...