News from the Baby Front

Oh my. The sleep. I remember the sleep.

I've been grabbing an hour's sleep here and there, while the wifely friend takes her shifts. Mostly, I've been watching just remarkable amounts of television, with the kid on my lap or next to me in her bassinet, my mouth hanging open, my chin and neck region a scraggly mess. Surrounded by burp cloths, Boppys, onesies, and empty coffee mugs.

I've also spent a lot of time marching around the room rocking her in my arms, which I highly recommend, and singing whatever song I can think of. Winners so far are:

• Johnny Cash - Sunday Morning Coming Down
• Social Distortion - Ball and Chain
• Lou Reed - Walk on the Wild Side (edited for tender ears)
• Brazil
  

The sleep deprivation is worth it, of course, because it gives you complete justification for doing really amusing things to your newborn daughter. When the newborns are asleep, they are really asleep. You can play with their arms, Walk Like an Egyptian style. You can flap their lower lip so it makes a nice little pop noise. You can, of course, call her humiliating names like Poo Commando, El Dribblo, and more.

So far things are as tiring as I expected, very occasionally more stressful than I expected, and overall just awesome.

We are keeping her.

I Guess We're Going to Have to Take Control

So, something recently happened. I became a dad for the first time. My daughter was born at 6.10 yesterday morning, and damned if she isn't the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

This probably explains why I'm sitting in a hospital, trying to keep my eyes open, watching Ghostbusters 2. I always seem to end up in front of the tv, viewing marginally amusing comedies at important life moments. The day I got married my best man and I sat in a hotel room, as the minutes ticked down until the big moment, watching My Blue Heaven. I regret to this day not saying to my wife during our vows "You could totally melt all this stuff!"

Or maybe the thread that links my important life moments is Rick Moranis. Could be worse, I guess. Could be Martin Short.

But back to the matter at hand. The Ghostbusters just animated the Statue of Liberty somehow, and I find myself with a little person sucking my finger. A little perfect person with long fingers and toes and grey-blue eyes, wearing a hat that makes her look like GloWorm.

I'm tired, and in love, and I see my wife in a new way. I'm so proud of her and our new daughter.

Can't wait to see what the next big life change will be. I better check the listings for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids just to be on the safe side.

Swearing

I wanted to say a few brief words about the inauguration today, besides "sucks to be the guy behind the big hat". That, I think, goes without saying.

What I really wanted to say was that I forgot how it felt to have a president that can make it through a speech without smirking. Who sounds like he believes the words he's speaking. Like maybe he even had a hand in writing those words. Who mentions Islam, Judaism, and even those who don't believe in any religion, and the importance of recognizing all those beliefs.

Look, I don't think Obama is some savior. I just think that he might among the best of us, someone wise, and that's who I want guiding the country. Not someone looking to line the pockets of his friends, fiddling as we burn.

For God's sake, not some simpering, smirking asshole. That's what I forgot about. How it feels not to have an asshole representing us to the rest of the world.

So, for now, until proven otherwise, let's enjoy the moment of seeing Barack Hussein Obama sworn in. Of seeing a non-white family there on the stage, for the first time. Let's just mix it up, and let ourselves hope, for a change.

A Brief Confession

I subscribe to Word of the Day emails only so I can feel superior when I already know the word.

Just In Case

So a bunch of crazy Swiss types think it's a good idea to tamper in God's domain and start accelerating particles all willy-nilly (not to get too technical for you). To me, it seems like they're just asking for some janitor to stumble into a vortex and be given supervillain powers, but do they care? No.

In case you would like to check if the Large Hadron Collider has destroyed the world yet, check out everyone's favorite site (and make sure to view the source):

hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com

I sometimes think of Clippy, and where he is now. Maybe selling pencils down on skid row. Following passers-by, his breath reeking of Jasco. "Hey... mister..." he slurs. "It looks like you're trying to get away from me! Here are some options you might try."

And as his victim hurries away, the tears roll down Clippy's face. "I just want to help. Only to help."

The Napoleonic Wars

I have had a deep and abiding need for a Napoleon since last week. Not the pint-sized French general kind, but the pastry kind. My usual go-to pastry destination, Whole Foods, left me Napoleonless, in a "not much call for them around here, squire" interaction. Another luxury grocery store which shall remain nameless (but is in fact named Draeger's) also failed Napoleonically and has snotty clerks to boot.

If I don't get a Napoleon soon, I can't be held responsible for the consequences. I might have to build a doomsday machine, lug it to a remote island location called, I don't know, let's say Skull Island, and threaten the world supervillain style until my demands are met.

I bet that's how Dr. Doom got started. And the real tragedy is that he probably got his Napoleon right after they put that metal mask on him, so one of his henchmen had to push the Napoleon through the tiny mouth-slit.

The Return of Large Oily People

As you may have heard, NBC is basically admitting defeat and complete lack of imagination and bringing back American Gladiators, the finest program ever produced in recorded history. Of course, I've been in talks with the network. They want me to return to the field of battle, and once again become what, in my heart, I've always been: an American Gladiator.

But I pause. I wonder. Would it be fair to subject the soft and pliant contestants to the full brunt of my awesome 5'11", 160 lb. frame? Let's not forget that I was the only American Gladiator to projectile vomit in the Atlasphere--and finish the match, as the vomit whirled around me, making purchase difficult, and resulting in me laying prone on the sphere's floor, crying like a little girl. That historic moment struck fear, and not a little pity, into the hearts of my foes.

But whether or not I decide to return to former triumphs, you should watch this show with something approaching regularity (incidentally, regularity was not something the American Gladiators themselves experienced, with the massive quantities of anabolic steroids and body oil those guys were ingesting). Because it makes America strong.

if I could suggest an American Gladiator viewing strategy to stop you from slipping into unconsciousness as enormous beefslab individuals wail on their hapless opponents, it would be this: wager. American Gladiators is made much more interesting when you've got a five-spot riding on that ingratiating turd from Ohio who wants to win the competition for his dying mother/sister/puppy.

And let's not forget the drinking. You can't make it through an episode without imbibing heavily. Why not make it a game? Take a drink any time:

• One of the Gladiators poses, "Gun Show" style


• A contestant is shown getting choked up about his or her family in a gratuitous "up close and personal" segment


• Hulk Hogan (star of Suburban Commado and Mr. Nanny, who is commentating this time, by the way) says "Hulkamania!" or any "BAM!" type phrase that means "Oh my, that large person hit that small person quite well!"

Anyway, here's the canned blurb some incredibly misguided publicist sent me. enjoy:

NBC's classic competition show of the early 90s is back. "American Gladiators" which pits the strength and agility of both male and female contestants against each other, will be taping at the Sony Studios (Culver City, CA) from Nov 28th-Dec. 12, 2007. The host is Hulk Hogan.

For groups of 10 or more (from a registered organization), who attend a taping, NBC will write a donation check. The more people, the higher the payment. For details, please call: 1-866-515-4950

Online reservations for individuals can be found here:

http://americangladiatorstickets.com/form.html

The Wisdom of Bob Dylan

How many songs could a tambourine man play, anyway? And why would you want to hear one, no matter how alert and directionless you might be? Because really, no matter what song the tambourine man might play for you, it's going to sound like kss! k-kss! k-kss!

I guess it's better than Mr. Triangle Man or Mr. Kazoo.

Eight (or Ten) Arms, No Waiting

I can't believe I missed International Cephalopod Awareness Day this year. Beside the fact that I've surely offended some of my favorite cuttlefish, I've probably moved up the list for grisly disembowelment when the Old Ones show up. Let's hope Cthulhu sleeps in.

You Have to Have Goals

The wifely friend is driven. She has near-term and long-term goals. She has a planner. She knows what Franklin-Covey is. I thought it was a Peanuts character. She has goals like "become an executive by 35" or "save money". And--this is the amazing thing--she actually does them.

For me, goals are a little less impressive. For a long time they were along the lines of "eat the biggest sandwich possible", "try not to sleep past noon more than three days a week" or "juggle".

One goal I've always had, though, was very simple: "own a pinball machine".

It's not the most ambitious goal, and it sure isn't the most sensible one. No job interview is going to swing your way because, "Sure, boss. The other guy was valedictorian at MIT, but this guy has his own pinball machine. I bet if we hire him we get to play!" No supermodel ever dated a guy solely because he had a Twilight Zone machine in his basement.

There are only about four pinball machines I've really wanted to own, and they're all Williams machines. Williams made the best machines, and abruptly stopped making them in the 90s, when pinball just couldn't compete with video games any more. They turned to making lucrative slot machines instead. The four machines I wanted were: High Speed, Earthshaker!, Black Knight 2000, and Indiana Jones.

For years I'd talked about getting a machine, but I felt like it was a little selfish. I mean here is this giant machine that's going to take up space in the garage, cost a fair bit of money, and monopolize a lot of my time. Every year, I'd go to California Extreme, which is a pinball and video game show in San Jose, play eight to ten hours of pinball, and come back all revved up to get a machine. Months would pass, and I'd let my goal drift away. But after this year's show, the wifely friend said "Jeez, will you just buy one already?!"

And so I did. I won an auction on eBay for a Black Knight 2000 machine. It needs a little bit of work, like replacement of the lower display for player 3 and 4 scores, but it plays great. My good friend Chimmychanga helped me pick the thing up and drive it back home. Even brought along his reciprocating saw and helped me carve my workbench in half to make room for it in the garage. Actually, he did most of the work.

But now I've finally got a pinball machine. Reaching a goal, you cant beat it.

One Squirrel's Quest for Collectible Toys

In Helsinki, Finland, there is a squirrel who runs into a grocery store a couple of times a day and steals Kinder Eggs. It then unwraps them and makes off with the toy inside.

"It removes the foil carefully, eats the chocolate and leaves the store with the toy," Lindroos said. However the tiny delinquent -- who clearly has no social conscience -- leaves the wrappers behind.

I can't blame the squirrel really. People are nuts for the toys contained within the chocolatey goodness of Kinder Eggs. Like this person, who has a nice site about his collection.

Incidentally, Kinder Eggs are contraband in the US, because they represent a choking hazard. Strangely, you don't hear reports of Euro kids choking every day on a some-assembly required plastic frog dressed like an army man, but there you are. American kids are dumb little monkeys just waiting for the chance to lodge something in their windpipes. No two ways about it. Like turkeys in the rain. And yes, I know turkeys don't drown in the rain.

More information about why Kinder Eggs are not available in the US.

Star Wars Kinder Egg toys, which for some reason are hippopotamuses dressed as various Star Wars characters.

The Kinder Surprise Experiment, which studies "Geographical variance of toy quality in Kinder Surprise".

The Returnering, Part Two

I've been gone for a while, I know. But things in the world in general have been going, let's face it, pretty poorly since I stopped writing here. Also, the stock market fell three hundred points yesterday, and that can't be a coincidence.

So what have I been doing these many months?

What happened was, I got really into that Deadliest Catch show on the tv, so I joined up. For half a year, I stood on the deck of The Time Bandit with other known felons and reprobates, while 40-foot waves slammed me around like a rag doll. I learned from these gentle, aromatic individuals how to hold mighty crustaceans aloft and say, over and over again, things like "Red gold!", "Now that's crab!" and even, when I couldn't help myself--when the sheer unadulterated joy of freezing to death and hurting tasty sea life got the better of me--"Hoo!"

Good times, I tell you. They don't show you all the hijinks we get up to out there on the high seas, either. Somehow, no matter how many times you see a naked man running out of his bunk with a five pound crab dangling from his nose, it just never gets old.

But all that's over now.

It's time for a return to My Life as an American Gladiator, America. It's time for rambling diatribes about inconsequential things, more untrustworthy reviews of 1970s horror movies, more clams, more Cthulhu and, god damn it, more Jurgen Prochnow.

Not every day or anything. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Not a Dry Eye Patch in the House

Did anyone watch the premiere of Pirate Master last night? I'd like to pretend I'm above that sort of thing, but I admit to you freely, I watched almost half of it. It was so terrifyingly poor that I don't know if I could stomach another episode. It's even less interesting than Survivor...on Pirate Master, a bunch of tools in eyeliner sit around with nothing to do in between curiously uninvolving challenges wherein they have to do things like row boats around papier-mache skeletons. At the end of the season, one person will be left and will get his or her hand chopped off and replaced by a hook or something. I don't know. The show's producers are obviously aware it's a little tedious, and so put in some stringent rules about the women on the show needing to wear very revealing tops at all times. Good thinking, there.

One of the eyeliner-wearing would-be pirates gets voted as captain of the ship, and immediately sets about being super-annoying by talking in a pirate voice, and taking things seriously despite the fact that everyone is clearly just this side of giggling. In the voting at the end, the pirate crew can vote off one of the captain's nominees, or declare a mutiny, in which case the captain is kicked off. It all seems needlessly complicated.

Not to spoil it for you, but the most enjoyable contestant was kicked off in the first episode. I only caught the second half, but every time they showed him, his tagline was Scientist/Exotic Dancer, which I guess is kind of like Fighter/Magic-User without the magic missiles.

I picture him straining over a microscope, struggling to isolate that elusive strain of euglena that explains everything. Enraged, he sweeps the microscope aside and shakes his fist at the uncaring nature of the universe: "If only I could prove to these fools that their methods are unsound! I ... I.... I gotta dance!"

"Strokin'" starts up on the tinny speakers of the lab as scientist/exotic dancer gyrates in a revolving petri dish, pulling off his chemical-spattered smock. Middle aged women rush at him, but he holds them at bay, in awe of his equations.

If only I could have Scientist/Exotic Dancer on my business card!

PS if you must, check out his ridiculous website, where you can learn annoying things like the fact that his dog is named Machiavelli.

Turkey Time

Internet reprobates subject themselves to torment for your potential pleasure, screening the IMDB worst-100 reviewed movies and reviewing them for you. Thrill to the majesty of "3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain", starring Hulk Hogan, amongst others.

Passive-Aggressive Notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers.

Particularly enjoyable are the desperate pleas for bathroom decency and the plaintive "You Must Wear the Unitard Provided".

Note: Some swears may lurk within. If you are of the type who flee from the swears, flee now. Away, into the night, swear-free. The little swears may be caught in your hair, or clinging to your linty sweater like cat hair.

Goodbye Blue Monday

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.

He gave up writing novels a few years back, when it seemed he had said what he wanted to say. But he left us beautiful books like Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions. When I was a completist teenager (as opposed to the obsessive completist thirties person I am now), I would obsessively eye my Vonnegut collection and think to myself "I only need Happy Birthday, Wanda June. Why don't I own that?" Thinking that I had to own every little word, even if it meant there would be no more books to discover, no new words.

I read his work slavishly, and I hope some of the wisdom within those pages sunk in somehow.

Vonnegut's writing was morose and melancholy but, like Twain, he seemed to believe in the secret goodness of people. There were always transcendent moments of beauty in his short, blurby style, like the moment that Circe Berman sees Rabo Karabekian's secret for the first time in Bluebeard. I won't ruin it for you.

And there was a large sense of our own ridiculousness. His often glib, "Go take a flying f*ck at the moon" philosophy betrayed a conscience that was deeply concerned with man, and especially with America. His outrage at the path of America these last years was a much-needed voice. While he seemed to say that all men are just animals, just living out lives alone, he was warning us against the greedy and dangerous men who are harming America so greatly, and the apathy with which the country is letting it happen.

Hopefully, old Kurt hasn't come unstuck in time, and isn't being bothered reliving the past.

Let's remember him with the Tralfamadorian greeting from Slaughterhouse Five:

"Hello. Farewell.

Hello. Farewell."

So it goes.

Fear of Skeletors

Deep down, in my heart of hearts, I'm afraid I'm starting to look a little like Rumsfeld.

What a Country

Yesterday, we spent a few hours wandering around San Francisco, on a quest for Japanese snack food. You see, we went to Japan on vacation a few weeks back, and now we miss being in a country whose obsession with soft drinks and snack foods borders on the insane.

San Francisco's Japantown, in case you're wondering, is pretty much exactly like being in Japan. There are a couple of big buildings there that house large indoor malls that are chockablock with noodle shops, bookstores, video stores, and craft stores where you can buy the ever-important tiny glass animals. And I don't use the word chockablock lightly, so you know this is true. Just like in Shinjuku in Tokyo, the big stores are Kintetsu and Kinokuniya.

Anyway, Japan was a crazy good time. I ate fried crickets, raw horsemeat, grated mountain yam which is frankly hideous and Lovecraftian in its snottiness, and (accidentally) whale. I hiked the old Nakasendo Road (which, in the 16th century, nobles would travel yearly from Kyoto to Tokyo at the behest of the Emperor) between two towns restored to their Edo period appearance. I went to a Yomiuri Giants vs. Yakult Swallows baseball game in the Tokyo Dome, where the singing and dancing fans put our own baseball audience to shame.

In Kyoto, I saw the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kinkakuji, the subject of Yukio Mishima's novel about a deranged Zen acolyte; the Zen rock gardens at Ryoan-ji and Daitoku-ji, which are so austere and beautiful I couldn't believe I was seeing them; the eighty-foot giant Buddha at Nara, where sacred deer roam the temple complex grounds and surround you if you show the slightest inclination to feed them; and the Rashomon Gate at Tijo (it rained just like in the story and movie.)

Anyway, I'm trying to write a travelogue about the vacation, but we miss it already, and we were in Japantown trying to recapture some of the tastes and feel of the country.

We ended up finding a good place stocked with rice crackers, cold green tea, Pocky, and shrimp chips. The best moment of the day by far, though, came when we were walking by a tea shop next to a Japanese video stall. An elderly Japanese man was proudly brandishing a new VCD to show to his family, and as we passed I glanced down to see what his prize could be:

Yakov Smirnoff on Broadway.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Honestly, I'm a little tired of Talk Like a Pirate Day. Pirates have overstayed their welcome. I don't mean my pirate houseguest who's been staying with us since early June, infecting us all with beardmites and eating all our limes. No, you're fine, Blind Pete. I mean conceptually.

Every once in a while we must, as a culture, reexamine the hierarchy of these core comedy concepts, presented here in random order, and judge which will reign supreme for the coming year:

Pirates
Zombies
Monkeys
Aliens
Robots
Salad

The top three are the comedy premiership, if you will. The lowest three are relegated to the conceptual second division, where they must fight it out with newcomers, or risk falling forever into comedy limbo, where it is only a matter of time until they are referenced on a family sitcom.

Pirates, as I said, are pretty much crapped out. As enjoyable as The Pirate Movie was, let's put away the shiny pants for a while. Monkeys, much as I hate to say it, are too easy. Even when they're smoking cigars. And aliens. Well, how many times can you make probe jokes?

I propose the comedy trifecta for the coming year:

Zombies, Robots, and Salad.

These three concepts grow all the more impressive when combined. Thus: "Jesus Christ, get a load of that robotic salad zombie!"

Sorry, pirates.