Christmas Gifts That Keep On Giving

     My wife, the ever lovely Princess Consuela Bananahammock, is a real Christmas fanatic. In my home, Christmas carols play from Halloween through Valentines day. It is the last day of February, and I still have a few Christmas boxes that need to be put into storage. (I blame her, she blames me) 

    I must admit that it is also my favorite holiday. However, I have a strict rule that not a single Christmas decoration can go up until the day after Thanksgiving. I resent how Christmas gets earlier every year, and in my house we respect the bird!(Have you heard? It's the word!)

    Opening your Christmas gifts is the biggest moment for kids annually. As 'A Christmas Story' (an annual must for our family) says, "Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas,  around which the entire kid year revolved." I was no exception to that. I never slept well on Christmas Eve, waiting for Santa come with frenzied anticipation.

I WANT AN OFFICIAL RED RYDER CARBON ACTION 200 SHOT RANGE MODEL AIR RIFLE!

    When it came to Christmas presents, my favorite part was always the stocking. I always thought it was like opening dozens of little presents all at the same time. When Consuela and I first got married, there was a bit of a learning curve for her. Santa just didn't spend as much time packing her stockings as he spent on mine. The stockings always come first, and they symbolize the start of Christmas day to me since I was a kid.

    As a child, the bottom of my stocking was always filled with peanuts. My mother said it was traditional, and something they all got in their stockings as children. When I was younger, I remember I used to think of those peanuts as wasted space for extra loot. But as I got older, I actually looked forward to the peanuts at the bottom, and now it is a memory I actually miss. (Isn't nostalgia weird?) 

    I tried one year to fill my own kids' stockings with peanuts. It didn't go well. My daughter, Princess Buttercup, wrote Santa a dozen letters the next year, and in every one of them she explicitly requested Santa leave her no peanuts this year.

    This last Christmas, my two wonderful kids pulled a 'Calvin and Hobbes' and woke us up at 2:30 in the morning ready to go. It took quite the tantrum from Consuela to get them back into bed, but eventually they fell back asleep until the slightly more reasonable hour of 6:00.

    

This was me as a kid. This is my kids now. Genetics.

    This last year, Santa Bananahammock left a bunch of Wish(the weird Chinese gadget website) gadgets in my stocking. (which is an amazing idea if you are looking for one) among them was a great little device called 'The Toilight'.

    The toilight is a motion activated light that clips onto your toilet bowl and illuminates it, so that you don't have to flip on the light in the middle of the night when you have to go. It cycles through eight different colors! At least, it is supposed to. I installed the toilight right away, because, well I just described how awesome this thing is.

    However, I could not figure out how to get it to cycle through the colors, and instead I got it stuck on 'Portal to Hell' mode. It was on all the time, not just motion activated, and it was a bright, crimson glow from the bowl. When you walked in to the bathroom at night, it did indeed look like a portal to hell had opened around the corner of the shower. The first night I saw it, I stopped dead in the doorway before I remembered I had installed it.

    I have since figured out how to set the motion activation, and it cycles nicely through the eight different colors. But once in a while I'll walk in to the bathroom late at night to a bright red glow and it makes me remember that first time with a smile. For now, I think I'll go browse the wish app.

A Higher Look at Disney

     I have been a big fan of Disney movies my entire life. It's the kind of thing that I thought I would have eventually grow out of, cartoons are for kids, right? But thanks to full grown men like Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane, cartoons became acceptable, and even exclusively for adults. I still watch plenty of cartoons, and Disney is no exception to that. 

    You may have seen the recent release from Disney, a fantastic little movie called Encanto. What you might not know, is that Encanto has been destroying records since its release. The song "We Don't Talk About Bruno" (an earworm that burrows in deep and just won't let go) has shattered every record for a Disney song that has existed, leaving even "Let It Go" in the dust.

Actual picture of Disney execs in the green glow from all the cash they made off Encanto

    The success of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" has gone beyond the cartoon. Last week, it was the #1 song on the Global Billboard charts. I probably contributed to that a little, seriously that song gets STUCK in your head. In the last week I've woken up with lines of it in my head 4-5 times.

    But I am also a fan of the underrated and underappreciated Disney films out there. (Atlantis? Treasure Planet? C'mon Disney, give us the live-action adaptation we deserve!) And when it comes to music,  I can tell you with no doubt at all that the best score in a Disney film isn't Encanto, or Frozen, or any of the dozens of films scored by the great Alan Menkin (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid).

    No, like any hardcore man-child of the 90's, I know that the Disney movie that had the best score of them all was " A Goofy Movie" (No, really!). It didn't set any records, It didn't top international charts and set the internet ablaze.(It was released in 1995. Dial-up internet was very new.) But every song is a great, feel-good, catchy tune that adds to the story rather than interrupts it. In fact, I'm still waiting for a Powerline album. I would be all over that like white on rice.

On this, Disney and myself don't see I-2-I.

    I have watched A Goofy Movie probably 3 dozen times, with most of those viewing back in middle/high school. When my mom asked me once why I watched that movie so many times, I told her that I identified with Max. I remember this highly offended my dad at the time. But to set the record straight, my dad is no Goofy, and I wouldn't have dreaded taking a long road trip with him. (In fact we did at least once that I recall).

    The reason I used to identify with Max was because I knew what it was like to be invisible to my classmates, and the desire to make that one girl notice me. (I don't remember who the girl was, knowing me there were surely several) As an adult however, I find that I identify with Goofy more and more. Poor guy just wants his son to love him.

    So my new hobby, as an adult, is to get stoned and binge watch Disney movies. My (sometimes overly) ADD brain latches on to certain details and spins whole new meanings out of single lines, and it makes for entertaining viewing.

    Let me give you an example from the great A Goofy Movie that I caught recently. At the beginning of their road trip (just before the fantastic song 'On the open road') Goofy tries to get a despondent and pouting Max to play 20 questions. Goofy's guess? Walt Disney. Walt. Disney.

    That means that Goofy (and by extension all Disney characters) know of their creator. They know that they are from the mind of one man and do not really exist. (that was fairly terrifying and I had to pause the movie to calm down)

  

Just look at those cold, lifeless eyes.

    For a less extreme example, I want to bring up Zootopia (which by the way, might just have the worst score of any Disney film).  The tale is told from the perspective of Judy Hopps, but in my last higher viewing, I saw the story mostly from the perspective of Nick. Poor Nick is just a victim of society. He is a fox in a city where foxes are second-class citizens. He runs a hustle on an unsuspecting farm-girl because its the only way he can get supplies for his business.

    Think about it. He just wanted to buy a popsicle, and they wouldn't sell him one just because he's a fox. (remember the elephant pulls out a sign that says 'we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone'. might as well have said 'whites only') Once he manages to get the supplies to make his popsicles, he ends up being stalked by this rookie cop, despite having committed no crimes, once again because he is a fox(profiling!).

    This same cop continues to blackmail him and use him to go around procedure, even to the point of illegal search and seizure.(BTW, Midnicampum Holicithias, the night howlers from the movie, are real and super toxic to animals) 

    He was incredible businessman (imagine trying to make $200 a day, 365 days a year since you were twelve, just selling popsicles and popsicle sticks) that goes to extra lengths to protect the environment, (every popsicle stick gets recycled and reused) but he gets treated like a pariah by the others in his community. 

    I guess most of these high realizations so far have been pretty dark. Dang Disney, I thought you were supposed to be a family company. But that certainly isn't a reason to stop now. Until next week, and remember, don't talk about Bruno!

  

The constant struggle against entropy

     Several weeks ago, I quit my day job (despite the saying 'Don't quit your day job.') so that I could put more of my focus on my writing.  And sure, I've written some, but more of my time has been spent in constant battle with messiness.

     I hadn't realized just how much junk I had piled in corners throughout the house. I'm no hoarder by any means, (I had to stop watching episodes of hoarders because they made me too nauseous) but Marie Kondo would have an aneurysm if she came by.

Let's just say my closet doesn't look like this.

    It took two weeks and a ton of help from my wife, Princess Consuela Bananahammock, but I have finally caught up with the laundry. For months we have survived by scraping the top layer of dirty clothes into the washer and getting a load done here and there. Dresser drawers that used to be constantly bare are now overflowing to the point that our local thrift store will be getting a sizeable donation soon.

    I spent several hours everyday sorting, folding, pre-soaking, and softening. And of course, as fast as I could finish a load, the kids would create a load. That small feeling of accomplishment you get when you finish a basket of clothes gets shattered entirely when you turn around and see dozens of shirts strewn throughout the house. (I swear my kids change clothes 20 times a day)

    Laundry as an adult is like the punishment of Sisyphus. (Sisyphus cheated death twice and as a punishment, Zeus cursed him to push a boulder uphill for all eternity) No matter how much you do, there will always be more. Always.

So sad. So true.

    The sisyphean task(something that is both exhausting and futile is sisyphean. Made you learn something.) of laundry made me think long and hard about entropy. Entropy is a physics idea that says (very basically, don't lambast me physicists) nature always wants to keep things at their most disorganized state. This requires less energy, so it is most efficient on a system to just let things devolve into disorder.

    So every day I trudge about my house, combating the ever present creep of entropy into my home. It irks me no small amount that I spend so much time rallying against a basic physical property, but it has to be done. We can't all live like hoarders, and Mrs. Bananahammock would kill me.

    But in the interest of full disclosure, there is something I do hoard. In 1993, I started playing a little game that had been recently invented by one Richard Garfield. The game was called Magic: the Gathering, and I have been collecting ever since. (that's the last 30 years for those of you keeping track)

    I call it a hobby, but lately it has been more of a habit. I took a few moments to perform a quick guesstimate count of my collection, and it is fair to guess that I own at least 40,000 cards. That might sound big, but I don't suspect I'm even in the top ten among just the people I know. Thing is, my Magic collection falls prey to more entropy than the dirty laundry from all four of the people living in this house. It is no exaggeration to say that cards can be found in every room of my house, and probably every vehicle. 

    There is an entire industry built around trying to contain your card collection, and it helps, but it's also another drain on resources. Once Magic graduates from a hobby to a habit, it gets expensive fast. Doing another quick guesstimation, I think I spent well over $3000 on MtG last year (Don't tell Consuela). In addition to the money spent buying little pieces of cardboard, I've spent hundreds on big pieces of cardboard, to put the little pieces of cardboard into. When I step back and look at it, it's almost shameful. But of course, I don't sit back and examine it often, it upsets my worldview. Ignoring facts that are unpleasant to me is my right as an American.

    There is a very apt moment from the big bang theory, in which Leonard hates himself for buying yet another card pack expansion complete with collectors tin and sheriff's badge that doubles as a wand.  (s5e10 if you were wondering) He gives in and buys the collector's edition even though he knows they are just toying with his emotions and exploiting his addiction. That is me to a T.

Add 100 pounds to each of them and this actually looks a lot like my Sunday nights

    For now, I am content to just sit and wait until my wife reads this post, then I'm certain we will have a nice long talk about certain numbers listed here she wasn't fully aware of. But I think I'll be okay, I've seen her Amazon receipts.

    

    

Freaking COVID man.

    I've been tested for coronavirus at least ten times. I finally got a positive result.  I thought for sure I was going to dodge that particular bullet, but omicron is a contagious little bitch and after more than two years of this shit, people are going to congregate whether it's good for them or not.

    This is a story about getting way too high in Denver. I was going to tell this story for its comedic potential and just stick to that, but now it's also the story about how I caught covid. I want to insist to you that this is not a tale of recklessly licking doorknobs and coughing on people I sit next to. I did what I could to minimize the spread of the virus.

    I follow most of the covid guidelines. I wear a mask where it is mandated, I wash my hands frequently. I got both vaccine shots, and even a booster when I was due. But it apparently wasn't enough. Within a week  of our return from Denver, three members of my family tested positive for covid.

Fauci is so disappointed in me.

    I went to Denver to see Tool in concert. (In 2000 the band went from using all caps (TOOL) to all lower caps (tool). no one seems to know which is correct anymore.)

    It has been nearly three years since tooL released its last album, Fear Inoculum, and along with it, they released all of their music to streaming services for the first time. If you had asked me then what my favorite band is, I'd have told you Metallica. Since gaining access to streaming their music, my favorite band is most definitely TOol. (In fact, according to the stats spotify gives you about your streaming habits, I am in the top 0.2% of TOoL streamers. Listening to ToOl while writing this in fact.)

    Anyway, my lovely wife, Princess Consuela Bananahammock (names have been altered to protect the mostly innocent), bought me tickets to see this fabulous band in concert for Christmas last year. It had been planned for 3 months, and I wasn't about to miss it.

    Denver, Colorado. Capital city of the first state to legalize recreational marijuana. The concert was to be held at Ball Arena in downtown Denver, and there was no way I was going to be sober for the show. Early on the afternoon in question, I stopped by a local dispensary and picked up something I had never tried before, drinkable THC. I'd done edibles of course, but never a drinkable. The package was covered with warnings about not taking too much, and how to properly dose out yourself just enough THC. So anyway, I threw out the measuring cup and drank a little more than half.

    Then with testing-my-personal-limits-of-tolerance levels of weed in my system, I called an uber and set out for the concert.

    I knew it was going to be bad while I was still in the uber. I got paranoid. And I'm talking 'this driver is going to take me to a shack and harvest my organs' paranoid. More than once during the car ride in, I considered just having him take me back to the hotel. But this was TooL damnit, and I wasn't about to miss Tool just because of a little paranoia. 

    I managed to make it to my seat by sheer force of will, and it was a great seat. Once in my seat, I didn't leave it again until the end of the concert.(I was sure if I left my seat I wouldn't be able to find it again, and if I asked for help finding it, they would kill me and harvest my organs.) I sat for easily an hour before the concert started, getting higher, and more paranoid by the minute. 

    

Actual picture of the stage from my seat (why does it always feel closer than it looks?)

    By the time the concert started, I had a serious case of the "no touchies". Over the last hour, I'd watched literally tens of thousands of people file into the same one room. We had to provide proof of immunization to get in, but in my paranoia induced state I couldn't stop thinking: How many of these people faked their vaccine card? How many are asymptomatic carriers and don't know it? How many of these people are here just because they aren't willing to miss TOOl in concert because they've got the sniffles? I clutched that mask to my face and wished it was thicker.(And see, I ended up getting it in the end. It's not paranoia if they're actually out to get you.)

    The music was sublime. I danced, I sang, I headbanged, I pounded out drum solos on my chest. From the first note, I was lost in the music, and all was right with the world again. Though, I jumped a foot every time someone brushed against me, and I was constantly checking to make sure I still had my wallet. I made such a scene that the two people on either immediate side of me did not return after intermission. Well, it probably didn't have anything to do with me, but in my paranoia, I was certain it was just because of me.

    After another paranoia-fevered taxi ride, I finally made it back to Princess Consuela Bananahammock who'd stayed at the hotel. Turns out she'd had the other half of the drinkable and was every bit as paranoid as I'd been, but that's her story. Neither of us intend to drink it ever again.

Birds of a feather, am I right?

    

Why Kung-Fu Potatoes?

     Kung-Fu Potatoes. Pretty dumb idea right? Why would you name your blog that, especially when it has nothing at all to do with martial arts, or tubers of any kind? I will let 18-year-old me explain.

    That is the self-appointed 'Future Plans' that I wrote myself for my senior year-book. I never took a freelance writing course (not sure that Universities even offer something like that); I never became a stand-up comic (My stage fright is off the charts); and there will never be a best-selling book about Kung-Fu Potatoes (that ship sailed with the movie Kung-fu Panda, and anything similar would be a total ripoff).

    But there are some other things I would like to point out about this yearbook entry. A) one of the first careers I ever dreamed of, was being a writer. 2) Even though I wanted to be a writer as a senior in high school, I managed to use a run on sentence in my yearbook quote. And fourthly, please note the redacted nickname.

     I received an unfortunate nickname from a senior as part of my initiation to the soccer team my freshman year. Every freshman that year got a nickname assigned by the seniors, but unlike my teammates, my name stuck. Maybe someday that name will become more common knowledge, but no one said I had to be the one to post it on the internet for all to see.

    I did, at least, go to college. It took me 11 years from graduating high school to graduating college. One of the large reasons it took so long, was because I couldn't decide what I wanted to be when I grow up.  I knew that writing a book was always an option, no matter what career field I went into, so that ambition took a back seat as I tried to discover something I could do on a day to day basis without going crazy.

    I changed my major 4 times. I drove my parents to drink, and my wife to pull out her hair. But eventually, I graduated from the University of Montana Western with a Bachelor's degree in Biology. The major shifting went like this.

    My first semester of college, I was a Business Marketing major. This is what my dad did, and I had high hopes of someday making hilarious Super Bowl commercials that everyone would love. Things...didn't work out. I had lots and lots and LOTS of fun my freshman year of college. By the second semester, I had changed my major to English, but I didn't perform much better. 

    

    I picked sleep and social life. Being brutally honest, and sharing information that I've kept from my parents until this very moment, I finished my freshman year of college with a cumulative GPA of 0.6.

    Fast forward several years of horrible jobs later, I returned to school, still pursuing a degree in English. My next change in majors was to Secondary Education-English. Because that's people with English degrees do. While studying in this field, I discovered that the job market was positively flooded with English teachers, what they needed, was science teachers.

    So I changed my major yet again, this time to Secondary Education-Biology. This degree, I very nearly completed. But, I still tended to choose sleep and social life over good grades. My personal mantra then (and I still don't take it back) was "C's get degrees!". There is a law in Montana (the great state I was born, raised, and reside in), that says they will not offer teacher certifications to students who do not achieve a 2.5 GPA or higher, and I was not going to hit that particular landmark. So after a come to Jesus talk with my advisor, my major became Biology.

    I truly enjoyed all of my Biology classes, and I finally graduated in 2014. After 5 years working in the field, in which I met some truly wonderful people and made some of my favorite memories, I finally put pen to paper on one of my book ideas.

    The reason that changed everything, the reason I've started this blog and left the field of Biology behind (for good?) is because I finally realized what I want to be when I grow up. After all those years mucking about in the collegiate system and spending I-don't-even-want-to-think-about-how-much money, I discovered that what I want to be when I grow up is... a writer. Just like 18 year old me had declared.

    So now I'm writing, and I intend to keep doing so until the day I die. I have finished one book, and I am already working on the sequel. I started this blog, and I will update it with new content every Monday (Stay Tuned!).  With luck, you'll see my name on the shelves, and I'll even entertain some of you. I might even some day write about...Kung-Fu Potatoes.