Wiiiiiii!!!

Good times at the neighborhood Wii party last night. While everyone else was playing, I was wondering by myself why it's called the 'Wii'? I think it's Chinese for, "We now have a console in every home. Advanced technology that is tracking every move your family makes, connecting you to our Communist regime to be used for future, utter control, disguised in a fun-loving video game action wand hybrid thingy. Hail Mao!”

I looked up the Chinese kanji symbol on no lesser source than the ‘internet’ and sure enough it said that almost verbatim. I don’t know about you but that creeps me out a little. Oh well. At least when we finally fall to the commies, we’ll be happily sticking a nine iron on the third green at Augusta National in 3D. That’s the way to go as far as I’m concerned.

Then I realize that Nintendo is a Japanese company. Good thing I don’t let facts get in the way of anything I believe, or I’d be playing right into their hands. I stand by my theory.

New respect for pain

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something”

~Farm boy

Now that my back is feeling much better, my respect for those people I know that are always in pain has grown by…um..well, it’s at least doubled, but it’s a little hard to put an exact measurement on it. It’s more of a general feeling of adoration and empathy than a precise percentage. Anyway, after being nearly crippled for the past two month, I’m in love with living pain free. Madly, deeply in love.

I don’t know how others cope. Especially, those getting on in years. Pain makes every little aspect of life more…painful. If you try to turn your head quickly. Pain. If you try and pick up your kids. Pain. If you try to clad yourself in spandex from head to toe, lather yourself in Crisco and hide in the bushes ready to spring on ill-intentioned intruders. Pain. So many aspects of daily life are so dramatically altered.

Nobody is happier to have me back in the game than Annie. After mowing our lawn, putting in our garden and pulling all the weeds by herself, she is ready for me to feel better. Of course, it didn’t help the situation by having me lay in a lawn chair sipping a cherry lime concoction while pointing out how “I usually push the mower in an angled pattern for best results.” No, looking back, that wasn’t the best way for me to “just try and help out where I can.”

Well Annie, I’m back and ready to contribute more than non-essential, albeit insightful and family moral building, blog posts.

Little something to embarrass Annie

With Annie's birthday coming up soon, I wanted to start the procession of world wide celebration by uploading a video thing I made her for Christmas. It is too long for youtube, so I had to break it into three parts. It includes music, so remember to pause my streaming blog music at the bottom.

I love you to death, Beautiful!

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Why do I enjoy thinking people misunderstand me?

Seems that I kinda get kicks off being the mysterious misunderstood guy. For instance;

• Personality tests. I’m not a big fan of them and feel threatened when they think they know me and who I am. To me it seems like someone is trying to take a short cut. An easy way for them to understand me. If you want to understand me then pay the price! Years of toil and conversation, that’s what it’s going to take ;) You aren’t going to read my “cliff notes” then feel like you can communicate with me better. No fast food relationship here. There were never any short cuts in the lunch line in grade school, that pickle nosed old coot would hit me on the head when I cut in line, and no shortcuts in getting to know me either (IMHO). What can I say, emotionally, I play hard to get.

• Labels. I hypocritically can’t stand when others label me, or anything that even remotely approaches a label. It doesn’t even have to open the door, if it even approaches a label, I politely turn it away. Even if they are good labels. I’m always grumbling to myself, “How do you know that I’m introverted/impatient/quiet/durable/not a good joke teller/too talkative/shorter than you? Are you with me all the time? Have you known me in all possible situations? No? Then shut your big Dr. Phil face!” But, when I say this to myself I add a little mental winking emoticon ;), so it doesn’t come off so harshly.

• People are always asking me what I “do”. I don’t like this. It seems like this is always in the top three questions someone asks a person when they first meet. As if ones work defines and illuminates who they are. It doesn’t, so when people ask me that now I sometimes respond with random, unexplained answers, like;

“I recruit overweight babies for diaper testing at the 3M facility in Sugarhouse. We use only an FDA approved non-rear-staining blue fluid that I concocted. Well it was a group effort, really.”

“I roll burritos in my basement and sell them to Lynn Wilson knock off companies. There is good money to be made if you’re dexterous and nimble.”

“I look for craters in large bodies of water, so the energy oozing from underwater earth holes can be harvested and sold online. One simply downloads it.”

I usually don’t tell them that I’m kidding. If they catch on then they play along. If not, they are either very impressed or simply confused. Either way, I’ve taught them a valuable lesson about what truly defines a man.

• Tell stupid jokes. Then when nobody laughs I can justify it by saying they just don’t “get me” or my “intellectual” humor. (Note: using lots of quotations in your writing makes others think they should know exactly what you are talking about and they feel thick when they don’t)

Why I do these things? Don’t answer, it was rhetorical. But now that I know I do them, I will either:

1. Stop.
2. Convince myself it’s just a lovable funny thing I do (see my post about everyone getting a social quirk freebie ).
3. I’ll post it in my blog and thus feel that it’s something I’ve identified and will eventually fix, in due course. After all, I am the “type” to do that.