Chlamydia's Corner

2008-05-12T21:08:00.001-05:00

A true hero died today. A Polish woman by the name of Irena Sendler passed on in a hospital in Warsaw at the age of 98. She was, I suspect, the world's greatest living hero – and I'll bet that you've never even heard her name.

The era around the Second World War, perhaps by necessity, produced a lot of heroes. American fighting men like Audie Murphy, who received the Medal of Honor for risking his life to save 19 other soldiers in his unit. The list is long and distinguished but I'm left wondering if any of the over 200 CMH recipients from that era begin to hold a candle to the steely tenacity and dedication to a mission in the face of incredible odds of Mrs. Sendler.

This is her story. At the beginning of the war she was a low-level social service worker for the city of Warsaw. She was able to retain that position when the Nazis invaded Poland and took over the city. In keeping with their policies of the extermination of all Jews, the Germans established the "Warsaw Ghettos" which were walled-off sections of the city that served as holding camps from which Jews were systematically shipped to the labor and death camps throughout Poland and Germany.

Throughout the existence of the Warsaw Ghetto (which the Nazis burned down in 1943 – with people still interned there), the 29-year-old and several of her collaborators used her position as a social worker to gain access to the ghettos working tirelessly to smuggle infants and children out then placing them with foster families for the duration of the war. Only being able to smuggle out one or two at a time she managed to save an estimated 2500 children. Think about that for a minute. It's hard enough to smuggle one person away from the Nazis, let alone place them in some sort of foster care system in a Nazi-controlled country– but 2500 people, and only a few at a time? Amazing.

If caught, the common fate that would have befallen her and her family and friends was summary execution. She would certainly have known that, yet she regularly risked her life, day after day to save the Jewish children of Warsaw from extermination at the hands of the Nazis. When the Gestapo finally caught up with her she was interned and tortured at Pawiak Prison yet she never revealed any names of her accomplices nor the people she saved. She miraculously escaped from the prison and continued her work trying to save Jews.

If another person regularly risked as much for so long I'm not aware of them. Had Mrs. Sendler been an American soldier, her heroics would have warranted the highest accolades this country gives. Sadly, with the occupation of Poland by the Soviets after the war very few people were ever aware of her efforts.

I think it's a sad commentary on our values that Mrs. Sendler's efforts didn't receive more recognition. She was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 but as you know the committee, in their infinite wisdom, awarded that prize to former Vice President Al Gore for making a documentary on global warming.

I wrote Mr. Gore earlier today and asked him to review Mrs. Sendler's accomplishments and consider abdicating the prize to her. I'll let you know if he gets back to me.

2008-05-08T13:20:00.001-05:00

This is what I intended to write today:

SO, Tuesday's primaries pretty much put the last nail in the coffin of Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton. Read 'em any ol way you want, the truth is Obama did better than projected in Indiana showing that his popularity actually rebounded faster than expected from the Rev. Wright attack. (yeah, that's right, I called it an attack, if you don't think that debacle was orchestrated from behind the scenes then you really need to pull your head out.)

The thing about elections, which are basically mathematical models, finite, limited outcome models, with all these extraneous factors is that the longer they run, the fewer factors will affect the outcome. At some point, say about… now, when the scenario has run long enough, the outcome isn't rationally changeable. At that point there are no longer trends, there are only the cold hard numbers. Run the numbers any way you want to, there's no freakin' way the Clinton campaign can pull this one out.

So why, you might be asking yourself, is she still in the campaign? Denial? Well, that's always a desirable quality in a president but there's something else going on here. There's the convention and before the convention there's the rules committee meeting on May 31st. The rules and bylaws committee, you see, is made up of 30 high-ranking party officials, 13 of whom work for the Clinton campaign.

But Dan, didn't you say a minute ago that at some point in the model that factors and trends can't affect the outcome? Well, yeah, I did. But if you change the model, by changing something like, oh, I don't know… THE RULES AND BYLAWS then you have an entirely different model.

Keep your eyes open kiddies, expect some crazy, underhanded shit to go down starting May 31st at that meeting. Hillary Clinton may not be ethical, but she's not stupid. She knows the numbers as they stand today and she'd drop out now if she didn't have something up her sleeve.

======

That's what I was going to write, then the Clinton camp fired off this little nugget this morning. Below is a real quote; I didn't even paraphrase for dramatic effect:

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” (citing an article by The Associated Press).

It “found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here.”

Ok, first off, that statement fundamentally says: "stupid people think I'd make a good president." An emerging pattern? Um, no, no pattern at all, just white sheets (with little eye holes cut out of them). WTF? Really, is she expecting "W" cross party lines and vote for her? I know Rove is looking for a job these days. I guess she's courting the 23% of America that still approves of the Bush administration.

By the way, in case you don't think that the Clinton political machine has the press in their pocket. That quote has been pulled off both the NY Times and the CNN feeds this morning since they noticed how poorly it was playing…

2007-10-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a few months since I blogged. I just finished up what seemed like the longest move in history. Rebecca had to start work early and our stuff came almost a week late -- you'd think that for almost ten grand they could at least be on time! At least nothing appears to be broken or lost!

So we're officially Phoenicians now. The weather has been unbelievably nice thus far and the neighborhood seems like a good one. We're about 500m from the bar that the Phoenix Hash uses for its mismanagement meetings. Serendipity.

Spare bedroom is open for business so give us a call.

On-On,
Chlamydia

2007-02-28T17:05:00.000-06:00

God hates me and so I'm in Iowa

You know things are pretty fucked up when the best news you've had all week comes from Fish!

Well, if things had gone according to plan I would be in warm Austin, TX right now drinking a margarita on the patio of Eddie V's with a couple of hot Harriettes. Tomorrow I'd be eating some kickass sushi at Chon Som and on Friday I'd be kickin' back in the Carousel listening to the sounds of the Mad Cowboys -- getting my Lone Star fix and trying to sneak a beer from the bar without Stella catching me. On Sunday I would be doing the second annual Chuck Norris Hash. Big if.

But god hates me and so I'm in Iowa. Let me tell you about Iowa these days; Iowa City is a bi-polar mess of slush soup by day and ice obstacle course by night. When you walk out the door in the morning you don't know if you're going to fill your shoes with ice water or slip and fall on your ass. The choices kinda suck but the suspense keeps things interesting.

All the more reason to head south, right? Unfortunately, wrong. You see as it turns out there are three flu viruses out this year. I already caught one of them for Christmas so I should be home free -- but this weekend I managed to catch another one. For those of you who haven't ventured north of the Mason-Dixon line, let me just tell you that you haven't really lived until you've walked a hyper German Shepard through an ice storm at midnight with a fever of 103. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Rebecca just had foot surgery last week so there's only one dog walker in the family.

Boo hoo for me. I'll stop bitching now, it's not really that bad. Besides, Fish shot me some good apple news yesterday and next week I'll be in Austin where the only ice I touch will be when I reach into the beer cooler.

On-On!

2007-02-23T14:40:00.000-06:00

A 70-year-old American tourist killed his would-be mugger in Costa Rica earlier today.

The U.S. Army vet put one of the three knife-wielding attackers in a choke hold breaking his clavicle (and probably his neck) when the other (also seniors) tour members began fighting back the two other assailants fled the scene.

This is a great propaganda campaign for the Middle East: US Army, even our senior citizens will kick your Haji ass!

2007-02-22T15:23:00.000-06:00

Jeez, and they say that I'm an asshole.

I just looked at Sprinkles' blog from the other day and he compared me some poor girl he knows who happens to have a name phonetically similar to mine (no, her name isn't Chlamydia). Talk about guilty by association... then again she is a friend of Sprinkles so she can't care that much about her reputation!

Well I've never met the other Dani Davis but I can assume there are quite a few differences besides her being obviously way better looking. So in deference to David Letterman here are the top ten ways Dani Davis is different than Dan Davis:

10. Dani still thinks Brownie is straight.

9. Dani doesn't call Brownie "Sprinkles."

8. Dani doesn't make Brownie always be "the Bottom."

7. Dani probably wonders why the Crack Whores all seem know Brownie's name.

6. Dani hasn't seen Brownie throw up as many times as I have.

5. Dani probably doesn't suspect that the reason that Brownie left Austin is because he had to.

4. She has probably never written on Brownie's forehead with a sharpie (but that would make her one of the few people).

3. Dani still thinks that when Brownie talks shit to girls he can actually back it up.

2. Dani has never made a song up about Brownie.

1. Dani probably thinks that rash he has is from his running shorts.

2007-02-22T09:01:00.000-06:00

A Good Thing to Know:

Today I learned an helpful piece of information. Did you know that the Colorado Springs Postal Service will not deliver mail addressed to anyone named "Sprinkles the Wanker"?

I'm not sure how he's going to get his mail when he legally changes his name but I guess he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

On-On!

2007-02-08T16:42:00.000-06:00

Vickie Lynn Hogan, better known as Anna Nicole Smith died today at the ripe old age of 39. Ancient tycoons all over the world shed a collective tear -- at least they would have if their lacrimal ducts hadn't ceased to function long ago.

2007-02-01T18:44:00.000-06:00

In the dictionary under the listing for "Shitbag"

In San Francisco this afternoon, mayor Gavin Newsom (who is currently running for re-election) admitted to having an affair with his campaign manager's wife. In his news conference the mayor called his actions a "lapse in judgment."

Just so everyone's clear on how this works: Politicians, lazy fucks that they are, don't even get themselves elected, their campaign staffs do that for them. Politicians just show up and read a script that someone else who's way smarter than they are wrote for them about subjects that the politicians neither understand nor care about. Then they go home until the next appearance. Meanwhile their staffs go back to the office and work into the wee hours of the morning researching the issues, refining the platform, getting the word out. I know this because I worked on a campaign briefly in college. It wasn't pretty.

Basically what annoys me about this story is that it went down like this: Alex Tourk, the campaign manager was out working his ass off to get his friend Gavin Newsom elected. Gavin, being a parasitic bottom feeder (read: politician) thought he'd use the opportunity created by Alex's absence to go over and bang his buddies wife. He'd still be doing it today but he got caught.

I understand, Gavin's a politician, all that success that people worked so hard to get for him went to his head. He got a big ego, messing around is forgivable (at least by me -- he'll have to run it by his wife, but Hillary understood, so...) But look, even the lowest form of life (a politician) has to have some sort of moral compass. Don't fuck over your campaign workers.

/end rant

2007-01-31T15:44:00.000-06:00

Newsflash; dateline Quebec:

New immigrants to the small town of Herouxville, Quebec, about 90 miles from Montreal, have been given fair warning: You are not allowed to stone women to death, burn them or circumcise them, by order of the town council. They even posted this decree on the town's website.

Not to be outdone, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal responded that the declaration had "set back race relations decades."

For the record there is thought to be only one immigrant family living in Herouxville. No word on their country of origin.

2007-01-29T14:49:00.000-06:00

A Generation of Swine

Microsoft, the technological touchstone for all things internet, is in hot water with Wikipedia for breaking their rules. For those of you who don’t know, one of the few rules for posting at Wiki is no marketing companies and no conflict of interest posts. It’s what keeps the site from becoming just a big sounding board for every dope with a message. Pretty much everyone who uses Wikipedia knows this rule (and even a lot of people who have never even looked anything up there). Why, then, Microsoft thinks its ok to pay bloggers to shill for their company on entries describing open-source (read: Microsoft competition) products is completely beyond my grasp. Microsoft, for their part claim to be “baffled at Wikipedia’s response…”

Dick (Dick Cheney, that is) says that the idea that blunders were made in Iraq is “hogwash.” He went on to say “I simply don’t accept that.” Considering that his boss (ok, does anybody really believe that Cheney takes orders from Bush??), the President had just admitted to mistakes having been made the night before Cheney called the idea hogwash… I’m left believing that the source of this administration’s strategy of: “If we say it, then people will believe it’s true!” is likely Dick Cheney. That might work on the Christian right Dick, but some of us can read. Dick.

A twenty-nine-year-old pedophile enrolled in an Arizona school as a seventh grader. They caught him on his most recent attempt because they thought his “guardian” (a former cell mate, doh!) didn’t look trustworthy but a nearby school system said he was enrolled there for several months. He probably would have been there longer had he not been dropped for poor attendance. I would have thought that if the prison tats didn’t give him away that the razor nicks surely would have.

And perhaps the most amusing thing I’ve seen of late is that Barack Obama is calling for universal health care. Who was the last person to propose that? Oh yeah, that chick from Arkansas, what’s her name? Hillary.

2007-01-24T16:06:00.000-06:00

Stock up on the hard stuff now boys and girls 'caus it's gonna be a long election.

Which story should we believe? The week before last I got an email blurb about Barack Obama having gone to a muslim school called a madrassa. A madrassa is the kind of place where young muslims are inculcated with the kind of fanaticism that breeds suicide bombers and crazy-freaky jihadists. The story pondered what the reaction of the islamic community would be (because in the muslim religion an apostate is the very worst kind of infidel --worse, even, than the jews or Americans).

A couple of days later I was directed to an article in The Washington Post's sister publication Insight Magazine which reiterated the story that Obama had gone to a madrassa (although in his book The Audacity of Hope he claims to be a practicing christian). This article while maintaining the original contention that he had in fact gone to madrassa goes on to claim that the source who uncovered this was in fact in the campaign staff of Hillary Clinton.

Most recently CNN has broken the story that Obama didn't attend a madrassa at all and that although he went to a muslim school it was in fact much less radical. As for their part in all of this Hillary's staff disavows any knowledge of said madrassa and claims that this is clearly the work of the right-wing republican party (because they have what to gain by this?).

In the end, only time will tell. Obama's name is now conveniently associated with fanatical muslims making it a lot more likely that Hillary will get the Democratic nomination for president.

So what are we to believe? In light of this, unless the Democratic party pulls its collective head out of its ass then the smart money is betting on Cheney-Rove ticket in '08.

2007-01-23T16:24:00.000-06:00

More Hypocrisy in the News:

I am laughing my friggin ass off over here.

A movie called Hounddog made it's debut at the Sundance Film Festival this week. In it 12-year-old Dakota Fanning plays a young woman of about the same age. In one scene she is violently raped.

Ok, I'll admit, I raised an eyebrow for about half a second. Admittedly, it might be kind of heavy material for a 13 year old to be dealing with but, call me an optimist, I'm fairly confident that Ms Fanning was in fact properly counseled by her guardians and the producers of the film and that she's probably pretty ok with it. I mean, she played Lilo from Lilo and Stich and she doesn't appear to believe she's a cartoon character so I think she can separate her self from her roles.

So what's so funny? Here's the punchline: apparently the Catholic League is calling for a Federal investigation into the making of the film. They feel that even acting out a rape scene is unsuitable for a 12-year-old girl and that the Feds should step in on this.

I guess it's only ok if its a 12-year-old boy and the person doing the raping is a priest. Remember, these are the same champions of justice who secretly moved several pedophile priests to other parishes to keep them from being investigated.

My mother still wonders why I won't go to church.

2007-01-19T17:09:00.000-06:00

I'll take this opportunity to breathe a little life into this near-dead blog by noting a funny article I read in the Times today. Apparently the group CAIR (the Council for American-Islamic Relations) is protesting that they are being portrayed as the "bad guys" on the Fox Network's hit show "24." This isn't the first time American television has run afoul of CAIR --in the past they have threatened action against CBS's show NCIS and various other television shows for having portrayed Islam in a bad light.

This has to be the ultimate definition of irony. CAIR has a hissy fit, calls a press conference, and threatens legal action every time an American television show portrays a Muslim terrorist killing people. But they have never once publicly criticized Muslim Terrorists who kill innocent civilians.

It seems to me that if they're so concerned with their public image that maybe to ACTUALLY STOP KILLING PEOPLE would be a good place to start.

2006-09-22T10:13:00.000-05:00

Well this doesn’t happen very often, so listen up kiddies. I, Chlamydia, agree with the Pope. No, I’m not talking about “The Pope” who’s a Hasher from Singapore, I mean the Pope, his holiness, queen of the silly hats and king of the Catholics.

Don’t worry, I’m still a good little atheist --but I do have to give the Pope his props, if only for publicly quoting Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus --a man who, in my opinion, knew a thing or two about Islam.

No big deal, right? All he did was to quote someone else who had a dim view of Islam. Let’s put this into context though, on the stage of world leaders not even GW is willing to stick his neck out far enough to risk pissing off the Muzzies. The Pope, Nazi youth thug though he may be, at least had the balls to repeat someone who was willing to “tell it like it is.” It doesn’t seem like much until you look at what’s happened to other people who have done the same.

In case you’re wondering what it was that Manuel II said that was so offensive to Muslims; it was only this: everything the Prophet Mohammed brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Well, in my opinion that’s not a bad start, but it falls a little short of the truth.

A few weeks ago I finished up a little project of mine which was to read the Koran (or Qur’an if you prefer) and because Muslims are often heard proclaiming that one cannot read an interpretation of the Koran and understand it, and since I have no desire to learn Arabic, along with the Koran I read a few different commentaries.

I re-read (ok, I didn’t really get through very much of it the first time around) a painfully boring little tome called Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (which, to be clear, is not an historical text nor is it non-fiction but it’s significance will become clear in a minute) Additionally, I read another book called Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings.

Besides those two books (and the Koran itself) I read what is perhaps most informative book I’ve read in years: What the Koran Really Says; Language, Text and Commentary by Ibn Warraq.

If you have any desire to understand Islam, I highly recommend Warraq’s book. It’s a book on the Koran that cuts through the PC bullshit and tells you how the Muslim world is interpreting their holy book. To be clear here, the Koran doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for interpretation. Besides all the silly bullshit it borrowed from the Torah and the Bible it makes one other thing abundantly clear: It is the duty of all Muslims to kill all infidels. It goes on to identify infidels as pretty much everyone who isn’t a Muslim as well as all Muslims who aren’t fanatical enough. An example of a non-fanatical Muslim would be, for instance, a Muslim that has the chance to kill some infidels and doesn’t do it.

Now what I just wrote is a paraphrase, and it probably sounds pretty extreme –and it is, but it’s also true. Don’t believe me? Pick up a copy of the Koran and read it for yourself. It’s all there in black and white.

A lot of Islam’s defenders would be quick to point out something along the lines of “to really grasp the beauty and kindness of the Koran, one must be able to read it in it’s original Arabic…” Right you are, and that’s where Messrs. Rushdie and Warraq come in. They’re both former Muslims, both from the Middle East, and both scholars of Arabic, having studied it in an historical context and both having a far greater understanding of the language than the vast majority of so-called “Clerics.” In both of their books that I read, they were clear, the Koran calls for the destruction of all non-Muslims.

“Not true!” Say the proponents of Islam. Then, why, I ask, have fatwas been issued on both of these men? This isn’t some bullshit ex-communication; this is murdering people for speaking freely (and the truth). The leader of Islam in Iran clearly stated that it was the duty of all Muslims everywhere in the world to kill Salmon Rushdie and everyone associated with the printing of his book. And they’re still trying.

To date they have killed the man who translated the book into Japanese, as well as having seriously injured the Italian translator and the Norwegian translator. Salmon Rushdie has spent the last nearly twenty years in hiding. For his part Ibn Warraq knew what he was getting himself into and was careful to conseal his identity from the outset. Although there is a fatwa on Warraq, to date no one has been killed over his book.

That brings us back to the Pope. Considering the muslim communities predilection for issuing fatwas against anyone and everyone who has the slightest negative comment on their religion, I think it took a lot of balls to stand up there and (IMHO) tell the truth. Already there are Muslim “clerics” who have publicly stated that they are of the mind that the pope should be put to death for his having repeated these negative words regarding Islam. Take a second to consider this, the pope quoted someone who said negative things about Islam and they think he should surrender his life for it –it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out in the end.

2006-09-05T20:16:00.000-05:00

B.G.S.F.H.

Aah the Bastard Operator from Hell, highly recommended reading. The man I would have been if only I had had more recourses at my disposal. But where does a boy go to get a bulk disk eraser or a mains plug that patches into Ethernet (ok I could have made one of those) in Fairfield Iowa?

Instead I hacked. The vernacular has changed since then, now it's called "cracking" but back then I was called a hacker. I tortured the school system's limited resources. I phreaked the local phone company in my little po-dunk town so hard that to this day I'm fairly certain that the resulting anomalies mandated their complete system overhaul in 1983. That poor old switch was just never made to handle 30 calls a minute coming from a residential branch… those, as they say, were the good old days.

I saw what happened to KM and I'm not stupid enough to report on line (or elsewhere) any of my little escapades but here's an interesting little story about other kinds of fun than can be had with a war dialer and a couple of sophomore punks.

In the basement of the house I lived in in grad school (the first time) lived three 19-year-old "dudes." They were all right kids; I actually kind of liked them but they were young and stupid and full of energy. A lethal combination.

One Thursday night, while I was trying to grade papers, they decided to have a party. Not a real party but a couple of girls over, play the music real loud, order pizza and mooch beer (because they're underage) from upstairs neighbor (me) party.

That's cool, I'm generally a live-and-let-live kind of guy, to a point, so I went off to my favorite pub to grade my papers. When I returned close to 2 am, however, they still had the tunes cranked. I was too tired to go and make them stop so the noise went on for a couple more hours before they decided to pipe down for the night. Needless to say I was tired and cranky a few hours after that when I had to get up at 8 to go to class.

I had a half an hour to kill before class and decided that a little reciprocation was in order. I thought about playing the stereo loud but had to consider the other people in the house so I settled onto a slightly more subversive plan. I logged on to the university phone directory and pulled up their phone number -bonus, they had two lines. Then I set my computer to call their numbers at random time intervals from 5 to 45 minutes (meaning that there would never be more than an hour and a half between calls), I set it for bad line quality so it would screech like hell double-checking for a modem at the other end. Sweet dreams punks. Ring, ring, ring… ", I got it, hello? aah! Damn computers!"

After enjoying the first couple of minutes of my little plan I took off for class in a decidedly better mood. By lunchtime I'd already forgotten all about my little revenge tactic so when I went back to my apartment for a few minutes at three and threw some things in a bag and headed out the door for a weekend in Chicago I never thought to turn off my computer which was still happily dialing away.

On Sunday I returned to find two of my young neighbors sitting outside on my steps. "What's up guys?" I sat down and joined them for a few minutes before heading inside. "Nothin' much, dude. Just hanging out."

Just then I heard their phone ring and in a split second I realized why they weren't inside, one of them winced when he heard the sound and I had to bite my tongue to keep from smiling. "Aren't you going to get that?" I asked. "Nah, someone's crank calling us - been going on all weekend." Clueless.

I looked into their faces, there were bags under their eyes. My plan had worked much better than I thought. But how?

"You could just unplug your phone." I offered. "We unplugged ours," they simpered, "but it's Jason's phone too, he's been out of town since Thursday afternoon. He locked his room and we can't get to it…"

I excused myself and went inside to keep from laughing my ass off. I let the computer continue to dial them a few more hours so they wouldn't associate my return with the end of the calls. Then at around 9 I pulled the plug on my little game, checked my email and went to bed early. Things were amazingly quiet around the house that night

Don't mess with the Bastard Grad Student from Hell, (L)users.

2006-09-04T17:46:00.000-05:00

Some people just shouldn’t procreate.

Last night Rebecca and I went out to try a new Asian restaurant here in town. The menu was good and the food excellent but our meal was practically ruined by a family sitting in the next booth.

Here’s what happened: A mom and dad are talking across the table. The mom and the little boy are in the seat that shares a back with my seat. The booths aren’t huge; the little boy is at most about two feet from his mother.

About one minute after we sat down the little boy sticks his hand through the small space between the back of the booth and the seat and taps me on the side. Some people might have found that annoying, others would have found it cute; I guess it all depends on your disposition towards kids. As for me, I’m thinking its kind of cute and he’s a playful kid but I’m here to have dinner with my wife and I really don’t want to play --so I just ignored him and I scooted over about a foot so he couldn’t reach me.

His little hand came through the back of the booth a few more times over the next five or ten minutes and then he quit. I want to stress here that he really wasn’t being annoying, he was just six or seven and bored and since his parents weren’t paying any attention to him he decided to play with the people at the next booth.

Unfortunately, he was also persistent and since I moved out of range of his hand he turned around and blew on the back of my head over the seat. Ok, that’s a little more annoying. He did it a second time and I turned around and asked him not to do it. He did it again and I asked him a second time not to do it. The fourth time I went back to his parents’ table and told him in front of them that I was serious that he needed to stop it. His mother started to lay into him and I told her that she bore some of the responsibility as well since this was all happening just two feet from her head and that the dad, if he had looked at his son for even a second should have seen that he was turned around in the seat blowing on the head of the guy in the next booth.

Well that really did it. They lectured him what a rotten kid he was for always embarrassing them that way for the next half hour, maybe forty-five minutes. My dinner, although the food was excellent, was pretty grim. The thing is the kid wasn’t doing anything that bad; it’s just that his parents weren’t paying any attention to him at all. He was bored and wanted attention.

I thought about going back and telling the parents that they were the real culprits but I knew that would have only made matters worse for the little guy. They would have blamed him for that too.

As we got up to leave they made him come and apologize to me. I wanted to tell him to run for the door, run, I’ll keep your parents from getting you. Instead I told him it was ok. “Don’t tell him it’s ok!” Squawked his mom, “he does this every time we go somewhere.” I was kneeling when I was talking to him so I stood up, and looked her square in the face, and as menacingly as I could told her “he was apologizing to me, I can accept it if I want to.” I hope I scared the shit out of her.

I guess the best I can do is to hope they don’t fuck that little boy up too much over the next ten years and that someday he’ll marry a wonderful person and have a happy life.

2006-08-29T13:43:00.000-05:00

Too Creepy even for Republicans.

Ok, let me start out by saying that I am NOT a Democrat. I’m not a Republican either. I’ve always felt that I can figure out where I stand on issues all by myself, I don’t need some wanker who got a lower GPA than I did (both wankers in the last Presidential election) telling me where I should stand on the issues that affect my quality of life, thank you very much. And frankly I don’t care much for either party, especially these days. But that’s a blog for another day.

The reason for this little tirade of mine is a woman from Florida by the name of Katherine Harris. Ms Harris is a Republican Representative currently seeking election in the US Senate.

If the name sounds familiar it might be because she’s come across the country’s radar before, but more on that in a moment; here’s what caught my eye most recently:

When asked for a statement by a religious journal she responded with a real gem. She stated that the separation of church and state is "a lie" and went on to say that God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." (God?! When the hell did god weigh in on the subject?)

The amazing thing is that it doesn’t stop there.

She went on to say, and this is a direct quote: “If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin…"

Now, I’m torn. I can’t figure out which quote I find more offensive, that the separation of church and state is a lie, or that if you don’t elect Christians you’re legislating sin. They’re both pretty deplorable, actually.

By the way if Katherine Harris’ name sounds familiar it’s because she was the spunky little Secretary of State in Florida who beamingly handed over that state’s electoral votes to W back in 2000. Now I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist but in light of these very worrisome little glimpses into her psyche I have to say that it does give one pause.

The Bushes, meanwhile, are having none of it. Harris is apparently such a loose cannon that several months before this last round of comments Jeb (currently the Governor of Fla) “distanced” himself from Harris by publicly supporting a different candidate for the Senate seat. It is perhaps worth noting that the man he supports is not, in fact, running.

Makes me kind of glad I don’t live in Florida.

2006-08-22T14:19:00.000-05:00

Ok I’m being lazy and swiping this from DNA Princess.

1. How old do you wish you were?
I don’t really mind being 40 and surprisingly most people seem to think I’m much younger (although that probably means I’m just immature). Although when I think about my heart attacks or when it isn’t as easy to do the things I used to take for granted I wouldn’t mind having my 21-year-old body back!

2. Where were you when 9/11 happened?
I was in my living room in Austin about to leave for work. I had time reserved at the shooting range that evening but it was so totally swamped with crazy people that I went to Barb and Tony’s house and drank on their back porch instead.

3. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?
Report it to the people who own the machine, they’re usually pretty receptive.

4. Do you consider yourself kind?
I think I am although some people would disagree.

5. If you had to get a tattoo, where and what would it be?
I’d probably get something across my upper back along the lines of a large Celtic knot.

6. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be?
Chinese –it just seems like it would come in handy.

7. Do you know your neighbors?
Yes, but I don’t like them.

8. What do you consider a vacation?
A trip out of town that isn’t for work.

9. Do you follow your horoscope?
No.

10. Would you move for the person you loved?
That’s why I’m in Iowa!

11. Are you touchy feely?
Not even a little.

12. Do you believe that opposites attract?
That depends on how you define attraction. I believe that opposites might initially interest each other but over the long term they are basically incompatible.

13. Dream job?
Once I dreamt that I was a train conductor and I was driving the train into this tunnel on the side of a lush mountain…

14. Favorite channels?
CNN, MSNBC, Food, Comedy Central.

15. Favorite place to go on a weekend?
Austin.

16. Showers or bath?
Shower.

17. Do you paint your nails?
No, but occasionally naked women paint them for me. Although my wife thinks that’s fine, it disturbs a woman named Amanda a great deal. I don’t know why, but then again I don’t really care.

18. Do you trust people easily?
Nope.

19. What are your phobias?
I don’t like snakes.

20. Do you want kids?
Nope.

21. Do you keep a handwritten journal?
Nope.

22. Where would you rather be right now?
Maybe Hawaii.

23. What makes you feel warm and safe?
A sleeping bag and a .45

24. Heavy or light sleep?
Usually very light.

25. Are you paranoid?
Nope.

26. Are you impatient?
I’ve gotten better over the years --but it would be inaccurate to describe myself as being a patient person.

27. Who can you relate to?
Rebecca, a couple friends from college.

28. How do you feel about interracial couples?
Like I said, I’m not a “feely” person.

29. Have you been burned by love?
Duh.

30. What's your life motto?
It’s a toss up between “Sua Sponte” and “do unto others, then run.”

2006-08-17T14:19:00.000-05:00

I was out walking our dog Kuma the other day by the river. It was a hot day and Kuma seemed like he was getting pretty overheated (he wouldn’t even chase rabbits) so I stopped on a bench under a tree for him to rest.

We sat there for a little while when the local Air Force ROTC kiddies came jogging up in a group that might possibly have been a formation, if a formation was oblong and had no rows or columns.

“Excuse me Sir,” says a kid whom I presume to be the Ex-O, “would it bother you if we did our P.T. here in the shade?”

I couldn’t resist.

You mean you’re going to do Air Force P.T.?

“Yes, Sir.”

No, it won’t bother me… unless one of you snores really loud.

2006-08-15T18:18:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a shitty week.

After moving all of our shit (and we have A LOT of shit!!) over to the new place by myself (the guy I was going to hire to help me decided he didn’t really need the money), things were starting to settle down and I was finally starting to get a few things un packed. Mostly everything was still on the floor in boxes though. Thursday night at about seven I was sitting at my computer when I heard what sounded like water running, I followed the sound (and the really big puddle) to the corner where there is a kind of utility closet, and there to my dismay is water coming out of a cracked pipe!

Normally that wouldn’t be too hard to deal with but as it turned out the hole was between the wall and the shut-off valve for the house. To put that another way, there was no way to shut off the water inside the house. But being a good boy scout I’m prepared for this kind of thing so I went and got my water meter key and headed outside to find the junction box between the main and the house. After looking around for a while I found what appeared to maybe be a junction box but quickly ascertained that there was no way my Texas-style water box key was going to shut off an Iowa-style water valve. In Texas they bury the box and the meter together about six inches underground since there’s no danger of the frost line getting that deep. (It turned out that the box here was about six feet deep). Realizing that I was in over my head (figuratively and perhaps literally) I went inside and called a plumber who said yeah, he can shut it off he’ll be right out. About an hour or so later he shows up and says “shit, that’s pretty bad” then goes out and tries for about twenty minutes to shut off the water with no success. Mr. “I’ll be right out” then recommends that I call the city and maybe they can do something but he doesn’t think they can and meanwhile he’s going to go back to his shop and see if he can find some tape to tape up the hole.

It is at this moment that two things occurred to me. One is that the plumber that I called doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground; and two is that all our stuff is pretty much fucked.

So at this point in the story it is almost nine o’clock. The flow from the pipe has grown to that of a garden hose on full blast and the water level in our apartment is between three and five inches depending on where you’re standing. It also bears noting that the entire time I haven’t been able to contact the woman who owns the house. I figure she’s out on a date and won’t answer her phone.

After three or four tries I finally got the city emergency shut off crew’s number and after talking to two different people they finally agreed to come out to the house to “take a look.” When they got here their response was the same as everyone else who had seen the place –oh, shit.

So the city people called into their dispatch desk who radioed them back with the coordinance of the junction box. In case you’re curious, it was 41 feet south of the south house line and six feet east of the west house line. The box we found the first time wasn’t a shut-off box at all (just confirming that as I suspected, the first plumber really didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground). They got our their metal detector and swept it around in the suggested area until they got a strong tone then dug down under the grass a few feet and voila, a junction box. Why the hell couldn’t I have found that?

By then there was a huge city truck and the truck of a passing plumber who stopped to lend moral support (it is, after all, Iowa) not to mention a strong contingent of curious neighbors standing around looking. And just about the time the first plumber showed back up the lady who owns the house turns up too –woo-hoo, it’s a party! To her credit and to my relief she didn’t freak (and why should she, none of her stuff was ruined). I just didn’t want to deal with hysterics after all that.

But the story doesn’t end there. As it turned out, even with the proper key, the valve wouldn’t turn (it was, by all accounts, over 100 years old) so in came the backhoe to dig up the junction box. One really-huge-fucking-hole-in-the-front-yard later and we had the water turned off and our apartment slowly began to drain.

By the next morning there was only standing water in a couple of low spots although the wool Persian rugs were holding several hundred gallons a piece and all the boxes that were on the floor were pretty much soaked.

Now it’s five days later and the dehumidifiers and the fans are still running (although at this point I suspect that its just a matter of Servicemaster™ padding their bill to the insurance company. I’m sleeping on a friend’s couch and I’m still waiting to see just what all is lost. I guess it could be a lot worse but lately I’ve definitely had a lot of those days where I wake up and think to myself “Why the hell did we ever leave Austin?!”

The moral of the story: given the choice, it’s better to have a flood before you move, that way you don’t have as much shit to carry!

2006-08-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

Hey, WTF? Where did all of my posts go?! First it was half of my last post now its half my whole damn blog. Has this happened to anyone else?

2006-08-02T17:20:00.000-05:00

For the last five days I've been moving. Moving sucks and we have way too much shit. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the move.

Meanwhile, Rebecca has been on vacation in Yosemite. I think my buddy Dave (also Jewish) summed it up in a pretty amusing way when he noted: "She doesn't try to be a Jap, but sometimes it just comes naturally..."

The whole time I was moving I kept thinking of things and making mental notes "that would be a good subject on which to blog." Now that I have a little down time I can't think of a damn one of them.

One of my upcoming blogs is going to be about the unique mental pathology of ivy league grads. A good friend of mine from college has been living in Iowa City for a few months and it's been really interesting seeing some similarities between him and other people we went to school with, yours truly included. But those ideas haven't yet gestated to the point that they're ready for prime-time consumption so they'll have to wait for another day. I know you're all a titter with anticipation on that one.

One amusing little episode over the weekend was that Girls Gone Wild, those whacky purveyors of soft-core porn on late-night-t-v were in town looking for, ahem, "talent." Anyway, after a long night of trolling for trollops they somehow managed to drive their bus over a bicyclist.

Beyond that details are a bit sketchy. Imagine every possible scenario, then add a few impossible scenarios and that gives you a rough idea of the number of first-hand accounts there are going around. Nothing this exciting has happened to IC since half the town was blown away by the tornado. For some reason I find this all absolutely hilarious in spite of the poor schmuck who got run over. I do hope that at the very least that GGW provides him with some DVDs to break the monotony of his recovery.

Ok, time to go figure out which box I put the silverware in.

d

2006-07-24T11:42:00.000-05:00

One Bad Night, Twenty Years Ago.

Living back in Iowa (I grew up sixty miles from here) is kind of cool. I run into people I know from home pretty frequently here. I don't know why but it always makes me feel good when that happens, like I have roots here, which is something I guess I've never really thought about before. I went to a boarding school in high school and as soon as I graduated I went to the Army. After the Army I lived on the East Coast while I was in college and I was only back in Iowa for a few years for grad school before we moved to Texas. By then most of my close friends and family had moved out of the state... I'm rambling.... My point is I never really though much about having roots anywhere but it's interesting running into people I know because it makes me feel connected back to Iowa it reminds me that I have a history here.

The other day I was in my favorite local coffee shop standing in line to place my order when a voice I hadn't heard for close to twenty years spoke my name. I knew who it was in an instant --it sent chills down my spine, but not because I was happy to see someone from my past but because I knew I was about to be face to face with someone whom I fairly loath. It's kind of surprising to feel that way after all these years and to be honest I've had a hard time sorting out exactly why, but more on that in a bit.

Anyway, all of that is a somewhat odd, roundabout way to preface this story:

My friend Jim is more like a member of my family than a friend. In fact when I was away at boarding school he lived with my parents (his dad passed away his junior year and his mom had moved to Chicago to get a better job). Since second gra de we've been best friends; from then till now he's always been a major part of my life.

I know what you're thinking, what the hell does that have to do with the woman in the coffee shop? Well, the voice behind me in line was his childhood sweetheart Liz. Liz and Jim dated from the 6th grade until college. Exactly when the relationship ended is up for debate and it's part of the reason why I find hearing her voice so unnerving.

I guess this isn’t really uncommon as these kind of stories go. Jim was totally in love, totally committed to Liz, and for all intents and purposes it appeared that she felt the same about him. They were the quintessential high school couple, he was a star football player, she was the cute cheerleader. I don’t think they were prom king and queen but they would certainly have been in contention. All the same, shortly after graduation I began to hear rumors that Liz was, um, stepping out on Jim with some guy from another town. It eventually got bad enough that I mentioned it to Jim, he said he’d asked Liz and that she’d said she was faithful, and that was good enough for him. Shortly after that I headed to Basic Training, Jim headed to one college and Liz to another. And that was the last I considered their relationship for more than a year –and if I had any common sense the story would have ended right here.

But… Late the next summer I came home on leave. I had already heard from various sources that Jim and Liz and parted ways but on the ride home from the airport Jim filled me in on his side of the story. Seems Liz had hooked up with some frat guy at school that year and never bothered to tell Jim. When they both got back to town for summer break she matter-of-factly informed him that she didn’t want to see him anymore. Details were sketchy on what had ensued since then but what was clear was that Jim wasn’t handling things well.

He wanted allies, he wanted information and he wanted me to help. For my part, what I wanted, after 15 months of military schools was to eat some good food, drink a lot of beer, play some golf, sit by the pool and hopefully to get lucky a few times in the next couple of weeks before I had to g back to the army. But a friend is a friend, and so in spite of my reservations I found myself making dinner plans with Liz’s best buddy Martha the next night. The plan was that I would surreptitiously find out from Martha whatever I could about Liz. That turned out to be a lot easier than I had feared since Liz invited herself along.

I had dated Martha on and off through school, truthfully I probably would have looked her up anyway. And of course after years of her dating my best friend Liz and I had a lot of good history together. Sitting there eating pizza with the first friendly faces I’d seen for months I quickly abandoned my quest for info and resigned to tell Jim the truth, Liz has moved on, nothing is going to change that and that it was time for him to move on too.

And that was an excellent plan, but… Just as we were paying the bill and making plans to head to the next bar, Jim came into the restaurant and sat down by Martha and began quietly ranting at all of us. He was throwing ridiculous accusations around, at Martha and Liz and seemingly most of all at me. At first I’d felt sorry for him, it must have been a bitter pill to have to take, that the town where he and Liz had enjoyed their best times was now the place where she was no longer taking his calls. But as he ranted more I quickly lost whatever patients I had with him. It was a strange feeling, I had the thought even in the midst of all his going on, that for the first time since second grade I wasn’t on his side.

We sat there and took his abuse for entirely too long, I think perhaps we were in disbelief. Then, finally, as if we all simultaneously had the realization that we could leave, we got up and walked out. Jim followed us into the street, ranting louder, getting less rational and more accusatory as we went. Liz and Martha weren’t having any of it, they hopped in their car and drove off leaving Jim and me standing in the street.

If I had been a little older and a little wiser I could have seen where Jim was coming from. Maybe then I could have given him some sort of wise counsel or diffused the situation. But as it was I was young and impetuous and more than slightly annoyed at him, and so I told him exactly what I was thinking at that moment: “no wonder she left you.”

Again, if I had been older and wiser I would have had some idea what response a remark like that would elicit from a guy who had just spent the whole summer half-crazy with unrequited love. (But like I said, young and impetuous;) as it was I never saw it coming, As I was looking down the road at Liz’s taillights trailing away he blindsided me with a left that about knocked me off my feet. I remember thinking what short work I could make of this soft, drunk civilian in front of me, but instead I made the first and probably last good decision I’d made that night, I gave him a ride home.

Later on that night as I lay in my bed, fairly pissed at how I had spent my first night on leave and thinking what a moron my best friend was turning out to be, I heard a footstep on the back stairway. My first reaction was annoyance that Jim was coming over expecting to cry on my shoulder after all that, but I quickly realized that the footsteps were far to light to be Jim. Just as I was thinking that my evening was not at all a total loss and that maybe this leave won’t be so bad after all what with Martha dropping by like this --the door to my room opened and it wasn’t Martha at all… it was Liz.

I’d like to say that I hesitated, even for a second. I’d like to say that I didn’t enjoy it or that I at least felt some sort of remorse afterwards. I’d like to say that she didn’t spend the night and most of the next day… But if I were to be honest about it I couldn’t say any of that.

The first time I wrote this story I ended it differently. I went on to say that Jim and I are still friends and that after some consideration I realized that the reason I was so loath to see Liz after all these years was not so much that I had anything against her, but instead that she reminded me of something that I wasn’t particularly proud of.

But since writing it I’ve had several people who read it while it was still up there tell me that they didn’t understand what I thought I had done wrong.

I’ve been out of the dating pool for a long time now but I’ve always sort of believed that when it comes to friends and girlfriends 1. Unless she’s the girl you’re going to marry, your buddies trump your girlfriend any day. And 2. The cardinal rule of friends and dating is: you never date a friend’s ex.

So now I’m curious, bloggers, what’s your opinion? Was I wrong or is the old conventional; wisdom about never dating your friend’s ex just quaint, antiquated drivel?

2006-07-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

List Time;

Here's a list of things I've observed over the last few weeks that occurred to me might be blog topics. Most of them don't really have enough substance to actually fill a whole day's blog so I decided to pile them all together into one long list of things that I've noticed.

Bumper Stickers, OK, the election is over. If you drive a Ford Expedition or Lincoln Navigator we all know that you support W. If you drive a 1988 Toyota or VW, then we all know you voted for Kerry. No need to be redundant, especially since the NEXT election is right around the corner.

Bicycle Helmets; Yes, you look oh so euro-suave making the two mile bike commute in your $180. Lance-in-Paris replica helmet (or whatever helmet you happen to wear). I applaud your social responsibility in not splattering your grey matter all over the streets where the rest of us drive. Helmets are good --on a bike. So when you get to the coffee shop or the office or the grocery store or wherever you're going, take the damn thing off. Here's a tip: wearing your helmet anywhere but on your bike you look like the kid who rode the short bus to school and liked to head-butt the lockers. Everyone will still be able to tell that you ride your bike, your pants are rolled up and you smell a little funky.

i-pods are not destroying our youth. I had the ipod back when I was in school 20 years ago, we just called it a walkman.

If you were an art history major and now you're working at a coffee shop three years after graduation, it isn't my fault --a little less attitude with my double espresso would be nice.

If you work in an organic grocery store you are not morally superior to everyone else. I guarantee that (insert color here) hair dye you use was animal tested and it took two cattle and a whole family of kids in a sweat shop somewhere to make those jack boots you wear. Give it a rest Gandhi.

This probably isn't real big outside of university towns but here's a suggestion to an observation I've made: I think it's great that you have a lot of opinions about the war and everything but f you aren't a vet and haven't been to the gulf don't go around telling people how the soldiers feel about things over there. I'm a vet but I'm keeping my mouth shut since I haven't been there.

Patchouli smells worse than BO. Go ahead and stink but don't try to cover it up with that shit. I feel like I'm at a Dead show.

Drum circles. Why?

I understand the mechanisms of supply and demand about as well as anyone, but if you're an oil company and you raised the price I pay for gas and oil, supposedly because the availability of crude oil is curtailed by a storm or a war or a cranky middle eastern country, I want you to explain to me why the fuck your revenues went up 350%!

And with that happy little thought I think I’ll say good night.

2006-07-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

My dog cracks me up!

Kuma loves to chase squirrels. Rabbits are even better but there just aren't as many of them and mule deer are the best of all, but they're only in Texas. So squirrels get the brunt of Kuma's aggression.

A lot of times I've wondered what exactly he'd do if he actually caught one --kill it? Eat it? Who the hell knows... but one thing I learned today is that whatever it is it probably won't be good.

I was walking Kuma off leash this morning and as we rounded the corner there was a squirrel munching away on a big old mushroom (never mind that I thought they were poisonous). Kuma looks at me for permission to case and I told him to go ahead and so he charges at the squirrel and chases it up the nearby tree.

The Squirrel is chattering away with Kuma standing on his hind legs at the bottom of the tree then he turns around and goes back to the mushroom and takes a big ol whiz all over it.

Yes I know I have a sophomoric sense of humor but that totally cracked me up. I just imagine Kuma saying: "Yeah, maybe I didn't catch you but enjoy your mushroom there buddy!"

2006-05-05T00:06:00.000-05:00

Thirty-six reasons I love Rebecca:

She's smarter than I am and still pretends that I amaze her with my mental prowess.

It bums her out when I won't let her kiss me because I have a cold.

She writes poems about my cooking.

She looks hotter than her classmates who are more than ten years younger than she is!

She lettered in two sports in college --simultaneously.

She once told Bong Head that she'd kick his ass and it scared him.

She moos at the cows when we drive by farms.

She loves to dance even though she can just barely hear the music.

She doesn't put up with people she doesn't like.

When she sleeps she furrows her brow.

She's an excellent shot.

She can read Hebrew but won't ever tell anyone because she doesn't want to have to lead the Passover Seder.

She puts puts vegetables in her salads that I've never even heard of.

The first thing she does when we wake up in the morning is smile at me.

She loves dogs as much as I do.

She graduated from the most prestigious writing program in the world and still considers writing a "decadent distraction."

She couldn't hear until she was four years old and couldn't speak until she was almost six but most people never even know she has a hearing impairment.

She grew up in Malibu with a view of the ocean but she thinks that the farms and rolling hills in Iowa are just as beautiful.

I've seen her read three novels in a day.

Even though she went to a college that's generally accepted as being a feminist institution, she can't stand what she calls "men bashing."

She likes to drink a beer while she does yoga at home.

She is modest to a fault.

She was first published at 15 when she wrote an op-ed piece that the LA Times ran.

When she reads something she finds interesting she always asks to read it to me.

She insists we celebrate christmas every year, she says she waited all her life to have an excuse to. We still go out for Chinese on christmas night though.

She takes all the covers when she sleeps then tries to cover me back up in the morning.

She is both a little girl and the most composed adult I know at the same time.

She thinks like an engineer.

She always likes the food on my plate better than hers.

Her two best friends from grade school are still her two best friends.

When she feels guilty for buying too many shoes for herself, she buys me a pair.

She's become friends with a few of my old girlfriends.

She's the only person I totally let my guard down with.

Her sense of humor is even more abstract than mine.

She often does the dishes when we're in a hurry to go somewhere, she has no idea why.

She is really lousy at telling lies.

Happy Birthday Rebecca!

2006-04-13T15:40:00.000-05:00

Earlier today DNA Princess asked where Sprinkles came from so here is the story of Sprinkles:

Well, several years ago in Austin Smegma Balls laid a hooker... wait, that’s a different story. No, on this particular night he laid a Full Moon Trail which started at a bar called The Rainbow Cattle Company. If the word Rainbow didn’t already give it away, the RCC is a gay bar. The instructions were that we were running in boxers and JT being of good Midwestern stock showed up promptly and in the appointed attire. JT hadn’t hashed much before then so the concept of Hash Time (that is to say that The Hash always runs about 45 minutes late) was a bit new to him; and not being so familiar with Austin’s Gay scene (or so he says) he was also unaware that the Rainbow Cattle Company was a gay bar. So for about an hour before the hash JT hung out in a gay bar in a tee shirt and boxers.

None of that is really relevant it’s just the amusing start to the night that he got his first hash name. Later that night, I believe the last bar was Hooters, JT nursed his bruised masculinity (and some say a dilated sphincter — he did, after all, spend a very long time in the bathroom at the Rainbow Cattle Company) over beers and football. Just to let us all know that he was a red-blooded-hetero kind of guy he cheered extra loud for his favorite Steelers who happened to be playing against the Browns that night. So when we all went outside the bar and held the hash circle we named him Brownie for his favorite team... or maybe it was Brown-eye for his other favorite team, nobody really remembers for sure.

Now all of that is well and good (and even fairly accurate) and the stuff of a good hash naming EXCEPT it was a Full Moon Hash, and therefore it doesn’t count as an Austin Hash Name. So a few weeks later we named him Jism Taster which was a more fitting name anyway., Unfortunately though, the name didn’t stick and folks went back to calling him Brownie or Brown-eye but it all pretty much sounds the same when uttered by and/or heard by a drunken hasher.

Over the years hashers came and went but Brownie became a bit of a fixture in Austin (some would say not unlike a syphilitic rash or genital wart) —except for his short stint as a clerk at the Baghdad AAFES Post Exchange.

Then one day it came my turn to leave Austin and life took me away to the land of frozen engine blocs and women named Inga who can crush walnuts between their thighs and who look at me askew and ask: ist dat jour vife? She ist juden, ja? But I digress. Stuck up here in Iowa it always kind of gnawed at me that “Brownie” didn’t have a real hash name. Kind of like a bit of unfinished business.

But what do you name someone like Brownie? Salad-tossing Prison Bitch was already taken. I thought about Sparkles since he once dated a crack whore named Glittoris, I thought about Twinkie —for being such a, well, Twinkie. As you can imagine, lots of other names came to mind as well but none was the “perfect name.”

Then one day while visiting Austin I happened to hash one of “Brownie’s” trails and at the start I was thinking to myself this will give me a great opportunity to come up with a name. But my optimism was short lived because as per usual on a Brownie trail I spent all my time trying to find the thimble full of flour he used to mark it. I was looking at the ground thinking to myself there’s no flour WHAT A WANKER! when I noticed something. Every so often there were sprinkles of white stuff on the ground and it was clear, surely “Brownie” must have come this way. Sure enough the sprinkles led us right to the circle.

Now it was initially our intention to name him Onan for spilling his seed all over the place but since innuendo has never been Brownie’s strong suit (and we wanted him to be able to enjoy his name too) the name was tabled it in favor of Sprinkles.

Either that or it has something to do with him peeing himself on a campout.

On On
Chlamydia