The Great American Pastime

     Not another episode of my mini-series right now, but there is one forthcoming, I promise. I write a lot of blogs about my nerdy hobbies and favorite books and movies and the whole slew of nerd pop culture. But, I'm also a big sports fan. (thanks mostly to my father being in control of the TV remote my entire childhood.)

    I've lamented before on here about how I have never been an exceptional athlete, but I never let that stop me from enjoying the professionals at work. In face, I think knowing how much I suck makes me appreciate all the more the level of skill on display. Next time your team's kicker shanks a field goal, go out side, measure out 30 yards and try to kick a ball that far. (no uprights, no aiming, just try to make it 30 yards. You cant do it.)

    Baseball is one of those sports that's fun to play, but not so fun to watch on TV. Watching games live, however,  with a hotdog in one hand and a beer in the other, the crowd cheering and chanting, is one of my favorite things on the planet. I love the fellowship and the camaraderie you can form with perfect strangers sitting around you.

T-Mobile Park was sold out. 

    Last weekend, I had the privilege of being one of the fans that witnessed the first post-season home game for the Seattle Mariners in over twenty years. I am proud to be one of the long-suffering Mariners fans. A true die-hard, resigned to the constant rebuilds and losing seasons without once ever wavering in my love for my team.

    The ol' M's put a lot of hurt on us fans in that time. They not only had the longest playoff drought of any team in any American professional sport, (seriously, there are plenty of people old enough to drink that hadn't even been born the last time the Mariners made the playoffs.) but they had three 99+ loss seasons during that time. They made trades that made me pull out my hair. (A small part of me died when they traded Ichiro to the Yankees) They put ever lasting faith in bad players just because they cost so much. (every single one of the aging stars they bought underperformed spectacularly, and I still facepalm in dismay every time I think of Rodney taking the mound in the ninth with a slim lead)

    But as I said earlier, Mariners fans are long-suffering. Our woes extend well before this playoff drought began. Not going into long Seattle history, even just my own there are tales of Father-Son slugging duos that fell short of capturing the title, Hall of fame rookies abandoning the team early in their stellar careers, and perfect-game pitchers that won the world series with other teams.

    But that's sports. You can gripe about past seasons for the rest of your life (and we love to, don't we?), but all that history is forgotten when the team puts on a good show.  That is precisely what we got that Saturday night in Seattle. 

    Game 3 of the ALDS series ended in Seattle with the Mariners losing 0-1 in the 18th inning. That's 17 full innings with no score, and a solo homerun in the top of the 18th that finally ended the game. 6 and a half hours of baseball, two full games. And I sat through it all, with a 7 year old and a 10 year old along for the game (they actually behaved better than I could have ever hoped). The game tied the record for longest post-season game, and set a new record for most strikeouts in a post-season game. How many strikeouts? Forty-two. That's enough strikeouts for 14 straight innings where every batter strikes out.

    Boy did it feel like it toward the end. By the thirteenth inning, my wife and kids were asking me how much longer. By the fifteenth inning, they (not me) were beyond caring who hit the ball, just someone please hit the damn ball. By the time the solo HR came in the top of the 18th, even I was past the point of caring overmuch. 

    I did everything I could. I shouted myself horse cheering and jeering. I booed and heckled the Astros in the outfield near me. I wore my hat inside out, I even pulled off my shoe and put it on my head, which worked so well to rally the bats in the wild card series. But, having never been signed to the team, my contributions were minimal.

When I showed this picture to my sister she said (in her best deadpan serious voice) "Wow. I cant believe that didn't work." 

    And thus did the season end. As T.S. Elliot said, "Not with a bang, but with a whimper". When that ball landed just over the fence in left center field, The air went out of the crowd like a popped balloon. It was dead silent for a split second, before a lone Astros fan, sitting three or four rows behind me began screaming his joy to the heavens. I was truly concerned for his safety as everyone, myself included, stared daggers at him.

    The longest, most drawn-out pitching duel I've ever witnessed. 6 1/2 hours of nothing. 10 hour drive each way, and the price of the tickets meant no Christmas or Birthday presents for yours truly. Still worth it. May they not take another 22 years to make it this far again.

The Jury's Still Out

    Today I experienced a new first. Today was my first time I was called in for jury duty. I left the house full of pride for doing my civic duty. I was eager to see the American justice system at work,  and to experience for myself just what it is about jury duty that so many comedians over the years hated so much.

    Really, there isn't much to tell. I didn't make it through the jury selection process, in fact, they didn't even get to me before they had selected all the jurors they needed. It wasn't a criminal trial either, just a civil suit. So I wasn't privy to any enticing crime scene photos or stories of crimes of passion. In fact I'm sure I could post every detail I know about the case and not a single reader would care. (I'm not going to, that's like, super illegal)

This is what I thought jury duty would be like. TV has misled me again.

    I swear there is something about people waiting on you that causes you to want to make them wait some more. Think of every appointment you've ever had scheduled. Think of every plane you've ever flown on. Has a single one of them started on time? My experience has been no. But, I digress and will return to the jury duty story.

    I was informed (in the official summons they send) that my failure to appear on time could be considered contempt of court. So, I showed up fifteen minutes early for jury selection. Then, I waited for nearly an hour while the teams of lawyers, the judge, and a couple of aides milled around (in no big hurry mind you) setting things up.

    When they did start addressing the juror pool, I thought (with relief) that the waiting was over, but instead it just turned out to be waiting without my phone. (which we all know is much worse) I don't know how large a typical juror pool is, but there were 80 of us all put in the same room. We were numbered randomly, and told that only 23 people would be tentatively selected. (quick break-down: 12 people sit on a jury, 1 serves as an alternate. each team of lawyers gets to nix 5 jurors without giving any reason. 12+1+5+5=23)

    

That bench looks so much more comfortable than the folding chair I got.

    I was 'potential juror #59'. So, that meant 36 people had to be determined to be unsuitable jurors before my services would be needed. (the math gets a little difficult here: 59-23=36) So my experience with jury selection was sitting in a gymnasium (they cited COVID as the reason they were holding it in such a large room) for four and a half hours watching other people answer questions from the lawyers. 

    It was boring. It was tedious. But let me share a thought that the judge opened with (I'm paraphrasing here, I don't remember his exact wording): It is a vast privilege to be living in a country in which the common man has a part in the justice process. There are too many places in the world where the fates of the accused are decided by a handful of those in power.

    So I didn't have to serve as a juror in a full trial. (not yet anyway, my name is still in the pool for another 11 months) But I get to say that I did my civic duty, and that comes with a (ever so small) feeling of achievement, despite the fact that I sat on my ass all damn day.

The Eternal Quest for Comfort

     It seems to me that the entirety of human civilization has been spent in search of comfort. Biologically we have built in desire to avoid uncomfortable feelings. (Too hungry? I've got to eat something. Too close to the fire? Better back up quickly.) Ever since man has evolved past the point of subsistence farming and hunting and gathering, we've spent our efforts on technologies that make our lives more comfortable.

    Because, if we are really being honest about it, it is frequently uncomfortable being human. I am at the very beginning of what most consider 'middle age' and though I'm still young, I have started to notice the random soreness and stiff joints that come with an aging human body.

Ryan Reynolds is 45. I pray I look half that good in seven years.

    My personal definition of comfort is 'the least amount of pain I can manage to feel in this meat sack I'm forced to exist in'. So often times preferred activity is to just sit in my ridiculously massive and comfy  armchair and play video games. So it is safe to say that I've experienced more comfort than most, to the point its starting to be really harmful.

        I've become so sedentary that my body is malfunctioning out of pure sloth. For example, last year I was diagnosed with gout (you would not believe how much one single toe can hurt) and it is massively uncomfortable to live with. (I want to say that it was right here during the writing of this entry that I saved my work and went for a two mile walk)

    In this aging, ever expanding meat sack, I have reached the point were I now need to change my lifestyle to stay in that sweet comfort zone. (really I reached that point years ago) It takes a lot of willpower and self-discipline to entirely change every habit you have. Two areas I am sad to say I am lacking in.

Save room for dessert. Also, there will be no dessert.

 

    I can at least say I've been working on it. I have tried many times, many different diets. But it's a lethal (and I mean that literally,  this is slowly killing me) combination, being addicted to fast food and video games at the same time. 

More work to be done. In other news, it's almost back to school time, and I've never been looking forward to my kids being gone this much. Hopefully once I'm back on a regular routine I'll be writing more often.

Until then, eat healthy, and I'll try to also.

    

A Trip to the Farm

     So it's been a while since I've made an entry, for that I apologize. I've had a pretty serious bout of writer's block where it came to this blog. My main sources of inspiration for these entries, my dog ,the Dude and my son, Ricardo Shilley-Shalley have been behaving themselves for the last few weeks.

   But, as a part of our celebrations for the 4th of July, we took the dogs and the kids to my in-law's ranch in rural Montana. The ranch is a pretty quiet place these days. My in-laws have retired from full-on ranching, so now they only have 5-6 cattle and a couple of old horses that they adopted from other ranches when it came time to put them out to pasture. The ranch is a nice place to take the kids when they really need to unplug.

    And boy do they need to unplug more often.

    I live in Montana. It's a great place, full of wide open spaces, few crowds, and short bouts of pleasant weather. But despite our natural rural habitat, my children have become shockingly whiny about all things outdoors.

"Now I would like you to say, 'Big Floppy Donkey Dick' "

 

    While this totally proves they have my genes, it can be a bit much to handle. Every bug that nears them leads to a hysterical fit and any mud that they come across leads to a crying jag. I don't know where they got that particular reaction, because both of their parents grew up spending a whole lot of time playing outdoors. (Though my mother would surely declare that I would only do so when forced out of the house by her.)

    The Dude, however, had the time of his tiny little life. Half Chihuahua and half Pomeranian, a big dog he is not. When he stands on his hind legs, Dude can almost reach my knee, he's that small. In his mind, however, Dude is the proud descendant of the mighty wolf. He is just as fierce as a rottweiler, and don't you forget it.

Yeah, that's right ladies, I've got like 1,800 followers on TikTok. I'm kind of a big deal.

    This attitude of Dude's has gotten him into trouble several times now. When he comes face to face with larger doggos, his mouth tends to write checks his body cant cash. There was one memorable night when I was taking him out one last time before bed, and I didn't have Dude on a leash. (foolishly I thought 'how much trouble can he get into, he's so tiny) This particular night as was walking, a nearby door opened, and out came a black lab whose head was larger than Dude's entire body. Fearing Dude might do something rash, I moved to pick up Dude, only to find that he was already halfway toward this new dog, yipping like mad. Dude did not realize how foolhardy his actions were until he was inside Rocco's mouth. (I assume the lab's name was Rocco based on the screams from the young woman now trying to save Dude's life) I remember plainly seeing when the realization hit on Dude's face (about seven inches from Rocco's mouth) when he finally realized that he is not, in fact, the great ancient wolf or a Rottweiler.

    Dude had another bout of these illusions of grandeur at the farm, and surprisingly, he came away from this one unscathed. My in-laws have sold their herd, and are retired from ranching. They still keep a few cows around as pets, though. One of the kid's favorite things to do at the ranch is visit the cow pen and pet the huge docile animals.

    The second we opened the door at the cow pen, Dude shot out of the car like a bullet. The 6 pound chihuahua had it in his mind that he was going to round up 6 half-ton heifers. Dude yipped out his mighty warcry as his mother screamed bloody murder. She was concerned, you see, because much much much larger dogs than this one had received injuries from these cows. One misstep and Dude would be squished like a grape tomato.

    Would you believe they ran? Not only did they run, but they ran like the devil was on their heels, for surely this must be some demonic rodent of unusual size we had set upon them. Dude had chased them around the pen three times before he finally heeded the frantic calls from Princess Consuela. He positively strutted back to us, chest puffed out proudly.

And then he rolled in a fresh cow pie.

    

    

Esports - the dream profession of many a nerd

     I have written before about how much video games have changed from their inception. But there is another whole new kind of beast that is really just starting to make a splash in mainstream America, and that is Esports. 

    Video games have evolved with our culture. They've gone from vector graphic quarter-eaters that could only be found at arcades and pizza joints to something easily accessible in nearly every American household. Located in the pocket of every smart-phone owning citizen.   

    With this evolution came something that used to bore the pants off of me. Watching other people play video games.

One of Several Major Fighting Game Tournaments - Capcom Cup - draws a huge crowd, and only the top 32 players worldwide win a chance to play.

    Used to be a sort of personal hell, standing in line at the arcade, or waiting for my older brother to finish his turn so I could get my chance to get Luigi through those side-scrolling obstacle courses. (I was the younger brother, by default I was always P2) Video games were always boring to watch. But now, it's like watching a sport on TV that you used to play in your prime. And just like watching sports on TV, the more you understand about the game, the more you can appreciate the skills of the really talented players.

    I've played a lot (a lot a lot) of video games. But there were only two games that I have ever played that I would consider myself competitive in. The first was a game called Quake (released by Id software in 1996) but as I was maybe 14 when I peaked at that game, I don't have much to tell. I was a painfully awkward,  light-shunning gamer that stayed in my basement racking up frags and cursing LPBs that haunted my favorite servers. Less revealed about this time in history, the better.

    The other game I played competitively (though truthfully not very well) was Street Fighter 4. The street fighter series has a long popular history dating all the way back to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. I remember playing a lot of Street Fighter with neighborhood kids back in Kindergarten. That's over 30 years ago.

    I had stopped playing Street Fighter in grade school. But I was reintroduced to the game by a friend I met in college. This friend, Ken Masters (as always names have been changed to protect those who claim to be innocent), played street fighter at a level I truly didn't know existed, the Esports level.

    

Ken looking good after college

    It's a game where you try to punch the other guy more than he punches you. How competitive could it be right? As it turns out, very very competitive. There is a mountain of information to sift through once you decide to look very close at these games. To really play Street Fighter the way it's intended, you cant even use a standard controller, you need a fight stick. (kind of like the setup you see on arcade cabinets sized down to fit on your lap) And then you need to study frame info, spacing, throw tech strategies, negative inputs, counter hits, and a bunch of other stuff I cant even remember anymore. 

    The professional players in this game have memorized mountains of data and probably do more math than half of NASA.

    I learned what I could and reached a level that I was able to keep up with most of the other players in my play group. And one fateful winter, Ken and I decided it was time to go play in a tournament. We decided to take a road trip to Calgary to participate in Canada's largest fighting game tournament, the Canada Cup.

    The good news is that we got to explore another country and had a blast doing it. The bad news is we played Street Fighter. We were destroyed. I mean still-to-this-day-embarrassingly blown out of the water. There is even a YouTube clip on the internet (which I will not link or give any hints as to how to find) of our team getting pwnt by a semi-pro Canadian player while the commentators talked about how god-awful we are at this game.

    Going back to the High School sports analogy, it was like going from playing on the junior varsity team straight the Olympic Trials. We got owned that hard.

    I stopped playing Street Fighter shortly after my daughter was born. That was a pretty good reason to spend less than 7 hours a day practicing face punch, but mostly it was an excuse to get out. I was never all that good, and I was waaaaaay overly competitive. I rage quit a ton and I had a tendency to throw things and scream at people when I lost. Sad to say, I burned a lot of bridges and ruined a lot of friendships over this game.

    To everyone I've ever played with, know that I mean this sincerely:

    Sorry for what I said while playing Street Fighter.

The Worst Ever Way to Wake Up

     Previously in this blog, I have mentioned my two dogs. One is named Penny, (who gets her name from The Big Bang Theory) and the other is Dude. (See my previous entry on my eternal fascination with The Big Lebowski) I do not change the names of my pets in these blogs because dogs seem to be much less likely to complain about being mentioned online, and infinitely less litigious.

    Penny is a Border Collie - Griffon cross. She weighs maybe 45 pounds and is a decent sized pup. Dude is a Chiwienie. (chihuahua-wiener dog cross however you spell that word) He weighs maybe 5 pounds, and he is Princess Consuela Bananahammock's favorite thing in the world. (Names of humans have been altered to protect those who claim to be innocent)

    I never thought I would like having a small dog. They always seemed like bossy, yippy little things. (Don't get me wrong, Dude is both bossy and yippy) But what I didn't expect, is that, in the end, they are still dogs. They love you with all their heart, they are loyal, and they act as if nothing could ever make their day more than to greet you at the door, tail wagging like mad.

My favorite picture of Dude. As you can see, he's calm, cool, and collected.

    Since Dude is so perfectly travel-sized, we do just that. We travel with him. I am actually writing this from an Air B&B in sunny California. Dude has traveled with us several times without issue, but this particular trip - issue.

    We arrived in LA after a long day spent doing nothing but travelling. We hadn't packed any food for the Dude, intending to just buy some of his usual fare when we arrived at our destination. However, we arrived late in the evening, and as it turned out, the nearest place that was open did not have his usual brand of dog food.

    As you may have experienced, dogs do not adjust well to new diets. The digestive system of a dog baffles me. A dog can tear into a garbage bag that has been sitting in the sun for a week and be perfectly fine. But switch a dog from Iams to Purina and it become more like a perfect storm.

We've all known a dog like this.

    So my little dog Dude got a small bowl of a brand new dog food. He ate it up, and we all went to sleep, perfect storm a-brewing.

    When we are traveling, Dude usually sleeps in bed with us. At home, he's got a extra puffy rug on Princess Consuela's side of the bed that he sleeps on, but we don't bring it with on trips, so he just sleeps on the bed.

    This morning, early (and I mean early) I awoke quite suddenly to the sound of violent diarrhea. It was dog diarrhea, and it was happening ON MY PILLOW INCHES FROM MY FACE! 

    I do believe that is the fastest I have ever gone from dead asleep to wide awake in my life. I let loose a guttural yell-scream that is a completely involuntary sound. It's just the sound you make when you wake up because your wife's purse-dog is taking a dump on the pillow you are using.

    Luckily, I got the full sympathy of Princess Consuela, who immediately woke to the wild howling I was doing. She had the outstanding self-control to contain her laughter until after the dog had been punished and the mess cleaned.

    But then the laughing and the jokes started. And she kept it up for easily an hour. It's the hardest she has laughed since I walked in with my dyed facial hair. (see previous posts for that wonderful story) But after maybe an hour and a half of laughing at me (now probably 5 am) she was able to settle into a hearty chuckle, and we fell back asleep - on all fresh linens mind you.

The Robot Uprising is already happening. And Humans want it bad.

     The robot uprising is a great plot point for science fiction writers. The astounding rate at which technology has advanced in my lifetime has me philosophical about what could be coming next. I have spent some time toying with the idea of artificial intelligence, (I totally intend to write a sci-fi novel someday) and with all my research and brainstorming, I came to the terrifying realization that one could easily make the argument that the technological singularity has already occurred. (I am not alone in this, thousands of people discuss it through social media daily)

    For those of you who don't know, the technological singularity, usually just called the singularity, is the theoretical point at which technological advancement becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, forever changing the course of human society. So when exactly the singularity will happen (or happened) depends on your definition of technology. Most consider that moment to be the birth of AI, the moment when technology can act truly independent from any human influence. But I have also read arguments stating the singularity occurred the moment man first used a tool to till the earth.

This is a picture of the most advance artificial intelligence (so far), Sophia. Please note, they gave her (it) a human name and face.

    

    I think that humanizing the robots we create makes us feel more at ease with what we are doing. I can imagine its a lot easier to work to improve this gentile, feminine looking husk than if it looked like Ultron from Marvel. (BTW, the Avengers movie totally botches Ultron's origin story, but I digress) I recently noted something like this happening in my own home.

    My wife recently bought a Roomba vacuum. It is an extremely useful piece of technology, and our house has been noticeably cleaner since it was set up. But I also noticed my wife and kids (heck maybe even me to an extent) have been treating this vacuum like it's another dog. They affectionately watch it go about it's business while commenting things like "There he goes!"  or "Uh oh, he's stuck!"

    

    How the vacuum was determined to be male, I don't know. But more important, this is not something the manufacturer put upon us. No owner's manual or marketing ploy gendered this vacuum. We did it ourselves, to make ourselves feel closer to the vacuum. 

 

One of these will suck up anything you drop on the floor and improve every aspect of your life. The other is a vacuum.

    As consumers continue to demand technology that takes more and more tasks from our daily lives, what we don't realize is that we are becoming more and more dependent on these machines. Our every day activities are changing to accommodate these computers. I realized to my chagrin that I was doing this to my car. Our Subaru Forester has a new feature called the driver monitoring system. It is a safety feature they invented that gives you little beeps and warnings if it catches you doing something like looking at your phone, or looking into the backseat while moving.

    

    This radically reduced the amount of texting while driving my wife used to do, which is magnificent, but the other day I realized that I had actually changed my posture while I drive to get fewer of these notifications from the damn car. I actually changed the way I sit, the way I hold the steering wheel because a piece of software told me to. I now turn off that particular feature when I drive.

 

    The next terrifying step in technology is closer than you think. My brother-in-law, Canuckis Maximus (as always, names have been changed to protect those who claim to be innocent) pointed this one out to me. The next step in technology will of course be installing these devices inside humans.

    Think back to the 90s. If someone said they were going to put a computer chip into you, you would be horrified. It is the exact kind of thing conspiracy theorists have been spouting since the invention of computers. In fact, I once worked for a company called BioScience Laboratories, and as it turned out there was a conspiracy locally that in our labs we were chipping people for the government. (we weren't doing anything that cool.)

    These days however, people are lining up to volunteer as test subjects for this kind of technology. Elon Musk, the well known tech guru and richest man on earth, has a company called Neuralink dedicated to researching how to communicate telepathically with machines through chips in your brain.

This is not photoshop. This is real, and voluntary.

    And so to my final thoughts. In 1996, a domestic terrorists by the name of Ted Kaczynski (better known as the Unabomber) was caught after almost 20 years of bombings. He left behind stacks and stacks of coded journals laying out a manifesto decrying the advancement of technology and the loss of human independence. That was nearly 30 years ago.

    

    I've seen the manifestos of mad men (not first hand, research. I swear I'm not crazy) and they always come off as rambling and insane. But if you look at the stuff Ted Kaczynski was writing, not only is it disturbingly coherent for someone that did the things he did, it paints a very bleak picture of the future we are running into.

    I think that we have already passed the singularity. We have already reached a point that we cannot function without the technology we integrated into our everyday life. Put your smart phone away for a week and prove me wrong.

I'm Going on an Adventure!

    One of the great things about Montana is the incredible amount of options you have for outdoor recreation. In the winter, you're screwed, (see my previous blog complaining about the never ending winter in Montana) but from June to Early September, there are all sorts of amazing things to do and see under the big sky.

    Growing up, I did none of those things. My parents were not outdoorsy. In my youth I never went camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or any other sort of outdoor activity, and that was just fine by me. Outside is a messy place, full of things that can make you sore, uncomfortable, or late for supper. I used to spend every available hour of my time in a dark room, glued to a TV or computer screen. I was extremely pale, and spent so little time in the sun, my friends used to call me 'the vampire'.

I still use this line when I'm feeling particularly lazy.

    Since meeting my wife, the ever lovely Princess Consuela Bananahammock, (as always, names have been changed to protect those who claim to be innocent) I have gradually gotten over my phobia of all things out doors. I camp, I hike, I float the rivers, and I ride the trails on my four-wheeler.

    It is that last one that I am writing about today, because yesterday I went riding in the mountains, and things... didn't go well. Have you ever been in a situation where something happens and your brain switches from 'What will I do when I get home?' to 'How am I going to make it home?' 

    Maybe you were at the airport and realized you left your wallet in the taxi. Maybe you broke down on a rural backroad with no traffic. I have had that internal dialogue several times in my life, and it's never a fun scenario. 

    This was my first time out this year. The quad had been sitting in my garage all winter without being used. So, of course the first thing I had to do in preparation for the ride was to pull the four-wheeler out and jump the battery. (BTW, the battery on this thing is in the stupidest possible spot. Tremendous pain in the ass to get to.) It started right up, I drove around for maybe 30 minutes to make sure it was good and charged, then I loaded it up on the truck and headed to the mountain.

Delmoe Lake, just outside of Butte, where I went riding.

    As a point of safety, I want to point out that you should never, ever ride alone. I met my friend,  Duke Amazeballs for the ride. Things went great for the first three or so hours. We got a good 17 miles from the trucks before we encountered anything remotely treacherous on our ride. 17 miles up trails so narrow that it is only possible to ride single file. Then suddenly, for no reason either of us could discover, my engine dies. Dead battery.

    A lifetime of owning piece-of-shit vehicles, and a wife that loves to leave the lights on has given me the habit of always carrying jumper-cables with me. We were able to jump my quad using his, but as I said, my battery is in a god awful location, underneath the vehicle, and to access his battery, he had to take apart several components. All after maneuvering two ATVs side by side on a trail only wide enough for one.

    After the jump, we were all too eager to get back to the trucks. But perhaps maybe half a mile later, same problem. Dead battery. Dead four-wheeler. Right about then was when my brain did the switch. How could I possibly get this 800 pound vehicle back to the truck? Duke Amazeballs saved the day, that's how.

    Luckily, my ATV has a winch package on it. Of course, the winch runs OFF THE BATTERY! So we had to jump the ATV again, just so we could let the winch out. As it turns out, my winch has a length of eight feet. Duke towed me through seventeen miles of uneven, rocky terrain on an eight-foot tether. It was rough, and at times terrifying. Every pebble, every stick he hit got shot right into me.

    But I made it back. I am writing this from the comfort of my computer, inside my well-lit, temperature controlled home. I think I'll stay put for a while.

    

Beauty is Pain!

     Gentlemen, turn to your lady and give her a hearty thank you for all she does to make herself look good. She doesn't  do it for her, she does that for you. It's a part of American society that we don't really pay attention to, and it is ingrained in us from a young age. My daughter will dutifully sit in my wife's lap for hours getting curlers and product put into her hair; being tugged, pulled, and primped into the perfect hair style. If you so much as approach my son with a hair brush he runs screaming because, "It hurts my head."

    That is some gender inequality right there. And I won't even get into the crazy shit that grown women do for the sake of appearances.

If you don't think beauty is pain, take a look at any ballerina's feet.

    American women spend on average $3,756 a year on their appearance. Surprisingly, men aren't far behind. Men spend an average of $2,928 on their appearance. I can promise you I am well below the average. (Sorry, dear wife.)  So, when your wife or girlfriend comes home with a new look to show off, there is only one acceptable reaction, and that is "You look great, I love it."

    This is marriage 101 of course, but after 16 years of marriage, I sometimes forget the basics. (sorry again dear.) I was reminded of this because I recently made a change to my appearance, and things...didn't turn out well.

    I don't change my look. I don't know why, but once something is established and comfortable, I keep it as long as humanly possible. There have only been three times I can think of in my entire life that I have made a real change to my style.  When I was in Elementary School, I had a bowl cut. I looked nerdy and eerily similar to Alfalfa from Little Rascals. 

    

It's like looking into a nerdy little mirror.

    I kept that haircut all the way through 7th grade.  First day of Eighth grade I strut into class with a buzz cut, and received rave reviews. I got complemented on how good I looked by several girls I liked, and apparently that was all I needed to hear to rock that look for the next 24 years. I would style it here and there between cuts, but I always buzzed it back down when it got too long. Full disclosure - I did attempt to bleach my hair my Junior year. Eminem was new and SO COOL, I just had to try it. (As it turned out, my hair was too dark and the over the counter kit just left my hair an orange/bronze color. My friends called me copper-top for months)

    So for the last decade and a half, my wife has been living with me and my buzz cut, and she has been begging for me to grow it out, or to "PLEASE DEAR GOD JUST DO SOMETHING WITH IT!". So for the last several months, I have been growing my hair out, and just yesterday, I got a perm.

    

Not a picture of me. His perm looks way better.

    

    A perm! Big change you say. Well, as it turns out it was a lesser change that I made that ended up being the big news. I have always had dark head hair, and my facial hair has always been much lighter, almost blonde. It was a travesty when I was in high school, mourning that I would never have facial hair as dark as my head. I always wondered what I would look like if my facial hair matched my head hair. So, while I was getting my perm done, I had the stylist dye my facial hair too.

    After months of growing out my hair, after years of my wife telling me how much she likes curls and positively begging me to get a perm, I strutted confidently home for the big reveal.

    My wife laughed until she cried. My kids teased me, while howling with laughter. The dogs barked at me. They were so blown away by what I'd done to my facial hair that I had to point out I had gotten a perm. I gave it a day, I thought with time, they would get used to it and maybe even like it. Didn't work. I actually had to shave it clean to stop the tormenting.

    So back to the original point. When somebody you love does anything to their appearance, no matter how hideous, break it to them gently. As soon as the perm washes out, know what I'm doing?

Getting a buzz cut.

The Batman

     I have been a huge fan of comic books for most of my life, but my favorite has always been Batman. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think he seems more human and relatable than most comic book heroes. Batman can't leap tall buildings in a single bound. He can't run faster than a speeding bullet. He's a human man with human weaknesses. 

    Batman was first seen in May of 1939. It was Detective Comics, issue # 27. Written by Bill Finger and illustrated by Bob Kane, The dark knight would go on to create an entire superhero universe, years of animated and live action television series, video games, and dozens of movies - some of which are still considered among the best movies ever made. As the opening to the 2017 LEGO Batman movie says, "DC, the house that Batman built. Yeah, what Superman? Come at me bro."

I actually have a surprisingly large amount of batman art in my house.

    My personal obsession started in 1993 with the story of Knightfall, the story arc in which Batman is broken  and defeated by Bane. (DC comics got on this kick in the early 90s. The death of Superman storyline also happened in 1993) Bane is a criminal mastermind, one of the few villains to work out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. He is infused with an experimental drug called Venom which gives him superhuman strength. In film he is usually portrayed as a dim, even incoherent villain sidekick, which irks me to no end.

    Like most people who have read the books before seeing the movie, the inconsistencies between the two always bug me. When I see characters with grand story arcs that are completely ignored, I get hot under the collar. For example, I refused to watch Iron Man 3 because of what they did to the Mandarin and Iron Patriot. (I mean really people Iron Patriot isn't even a hero, he's a villain.)  And I haven't watched a single movie with 'Batfleck' (the common derogatory reference to Ben Affleck's time as the caped crusader) because he uses guns. The biggest rule about Batman is no guns. 

I can't fully explain how much this picture ticks me off.

    For me, the trilogy starring Christian Bale as the dark knight will always reign supreme, and rightly so. 2008's The Dark Knight is #3 on IMDB's top movies of all time. (Behind The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather mind you.) Tragically, Heath Ledger would not live to see the success of his portrayal as the Joker. When word released that Heath Ledger had died shortly after playing the Joker, my first thought (callously, I know) was how great this movie was going to be. In the comics, the Joker has a storied history of being so insane that he causes mental illness in those around him. So when I heard that the man playing him died from causes related to mental health, I knew we would finally see the Joker portrayed as he should be.(like I said, callous, but true. And he received a posthumous Oscar for the role.)

    I bring up all this Batman nostalgia because I just recently finished watching The Batman, the latest film adaptation starring Robert Pattinson as Batman. Like many fans, I was apprehensive at the casting of a man best known as a sparkly vampire to be the dark knight. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the Twilight books, but this is important stuff here.) But after seeing the film (twice) I've got to say, Pattinson kills it. He plays a darker, more violent Batman than other iterations, but it was his portrayal of Bruce Wayne that really got me.

    For the first time in movies or comics, I felt that this Bruce Wayne couldn't possibly be Batman. Bruce Wayne is usually portrayed as a ripped, charismatic socialite that spends lots of time in the spotlight of Gotham's elite. There have been many times when I see a Bruce Wayne and I think (with an eyeroll) 'Seriously, no one thinks that this guy is Batman?'

     

Really think this guy looks like Batman?

    Pattinson's sullen, emo Bruce Wayne is the first time I ever felt like this guy could never be Batman. I greatly enjoyed the movie, and I look forward to the next installment, which I think may be the 'No Man's Land' storyline based on the way the first movie ends. But no spoilers here! 

For more information on Batman, visit your local comic book retailer!

One Hour Photo

     Sorry for being late on this update, dear readers. I  was out of town for the week of spring break, Princess Consuela Bananahammock (as always, names have been changed to protect those that claim to be innocent) and I took the kids to Grand Forks, North Dakota to visit some old friends we don't get to see nearly enough. The second winter in NoDak sucks every bit as much as second winter here. (I find it ironic that I posted a blog about the weather in Montana only to immediately go visit someplace that turned out to be worse.)

    While we were out of town for that break, we had some renovations started in our home, and I returned to find the house torn to pieces and without access to indoor plumbing of any kind. Over the last few days, we have slowly been putting rooms back together, and the renovations are almost complete, but the last room to be finished is the laundry room. (long aside here. A quick google uncovered that the goddess of laundry, actually the goddess of cleanliness in general is Hygieia. [Her name is the source of the word 'hygiene'] So from now on, when you face a mountain of laundry, you can shake your fists at the heavens and scream "DAMN YOU HYGIEIA!!") 

Nothing says 'Hygienic' like feeding a snake on your lap.

    There is a perfect storm of laundry in my house right now. With the laundry room out of commission, four full suitcases of dirty laundry, and a week (or two) of procrastination on my part before leaving for NoDak, we are very nearly out of wearable clothing. (I am, in fact, at this very moment wearing basketball shorts as boxers because I have no underwear.) None of this has anything at all to do with the story I want to share today, just explaining why I'm so late posting this.   

    This particular event happened a few years after Princess Consuela and I got married. One thing that anyone who knows Princess Consuela will tell you, is that she likes to take pictures. Like lots of pictures. Of everything. She was taking pictures of her food before it was cool. 

    In late 2009, we were living in Havre Montana. Princess Consuela was doing her clinicals at the hospital, I was taking a few courses at the local University, but mostly just being useless. The princess had been contemplating getting her digital pictures printed for several months. (This was during that nebulous time with cameras when people would still print most of their pictures they wanted to keep, not just shuffle them from device to device forever.)

Gone forever is the dramatic reveal in the darkroom.

    At this point, we had been together for 6 years. That's six years of road trips, barbecues, birthdays, holidays, new outfits,  basically anything you could imagine, captured as ones and zeros on her hard drive. (to this day, one of her greatest fears is losing all her photos in a computer crash) One fateful day, Princess Consuela decides the time has finally come to have all of these pictures finally printed out, so that she can make a full encyclopedia's worth of photo albums and scrapbooks.

    So she does some internet searching, and she discovers that the local Walmart has a feature where you can upload your digital pictures directly, and pick them up printed from the store. (convenient right?) So Princess Consuela uploads all her photos to Walmart. Literally thousands of photos. Every. Single. One. Then she clicks the little box that says "One Hour Photo" and hits 'Submit'. No extra charge, no file size limit. Just arbitrarily promised to be ready in an hour.

    At this point, I can only imagine the photo department Walmart employee losing their shit. I don't know who put that button their website, but mistakes were made.

    We didn't show up at the store 60 minutes later, demanding our photos.  We watched some TV, we had a dinner out. Perhaps three hours later we walk into Walmart, ready to grab a few groceries and pick up these photos. But as we walk in, we are stopped by a young woman. She places her hand on my shoulder gently and says, "Your order isn't ready yet."

    This woman wasn't wearing a Walmart vest, she didn't have the khaki pants and blue shirt, nothing that indicated in any way that she worked there. My mind went blank trying to think of who this woman was, how she knew me and how she knew I had ordered anything at all. But slowly, it dawned on me, Oh! This must be the woman who works in the photo department. She recognized us because she has been staring at us for the last three hours. She knows us, man.

    

Your order isn't ready and you should go.

    Another hour later, we headed home with our photos, laughing all the way home about the poor woman whose night we had inadvertently destroyed. 

    I will try to get next week's blog out on time. In the meanwhile, I've got lots of laundry to do. DAMN YOU HYGIEIA!!