Shopping in Absurdia: Hardware and Halloween Edition

I took my cameraphone shopping again, so you might want to log off right now.

OK, don't say I didn't warn you. This time we're going to visit Ace Hardware and Spirit Halloween. First up: My new favorite toy that I can't afford: a life-size animatronic Jason!

I think he'd look great on our front porch, menacing door-to-door salesmen with his bloody machete. Then, when Halloween is over, we could decorate him for other holidays. Just imagine: Jason with a Santa hat, Jason with red silk boxers and a heart-shaped box of candy, Jason with a leprechaun hat, Jason with bunny ears, Jason with an Uncle Sam top hat... how awesome would that be? If we wanted to be really warped, we could dress him in an evening gown and have transvestite Jason! I'd be seriously tempted to do all that, but I'm not sure his electrical innards would stand up to a Portland winter. I suppose I could move back to California. I hear there are some great deals on real estate down there.

As if transvestite Jason weren't ridiculous enough, we're going to cruise by Ace Hardware now to take a look at a product they're featuring by the checkstand:


Yes, someone is actually marketing a product called Anti Monkey Butt Powder. I didn't realize there was a medical condition called Monkey Butt. I wonder what the ICD-10 code is for that? And will my health insurance cover the treatments?

Monkey butts and deer anuses... I can't wait to see what kinds of hits I get on this blog now.

Nerd day afternoon

As I've mentioned before, I've learned to embrace my nerdiness. Saturday afternoon, though, I was forced to confront the fact that not only am I a nerd, but I'm raising a nerdling. For some reason, my son and I started arguing about whether or not it's possible to divide by zero. I did my best to explain why n/0 doesn't equal 0 (how do you explain infinity to a 10-year-old, anyway?) After about ten minutes, my son gave up and went back in the living room to...

wait for it...

watch Star Trek.

Yes. Really.

I, on the other hand, was doing something much cooler--playing games on Facebook.

At least we haven't started hosting D & D tournaments. Maybe there's hope.

Movie quotes: Men in Black

So I took a break from the deer anuses to watch Men in Black for the umpteenth time. No matter how many times I watch this movie, I laugh my butt off. There are so many great lines! Here are a few of my favorites:

"Put up your hands and all your flippers" -- K

"We're not hosting an intergalactic kegger down here" -- Zed

"We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor that we're aware of" -- K

"Elvis is not dead; he just went home" -- K

And from the sequel--not as good as the first one but still pretty funny:

"You are the man who would be king of the train locker" -- J

And my favorite:

"I'm about to attack one of the most feared aliens in the universe with four worms and a mailman" -- J

Deer anus update

Yep, here we go with the deer anuses again! A couple posts ago I mentioned a product called "Butt Out," a handy tool designed to remove a deer anus in just a few seconds. At the time I contemplated who might stumble across my post by Googling "deer anus," so this evening I mustered up the courage to Google "deer anus" myself to see how my post ranked in the results. Check this out!


(click to see a larger version on Flickr)

My humble post is the third result! I'm just bursting with pride. Who would have guessed that deer anuses would be my ticket to internet success?

When I wrote that post, I also wondered what kind of ads Google Adwords would display alongside it. Here's the answer:


The hunting-related ads make perfect sense, but what's up with the laser eye surgery ad on the right? Are there a lot of nearsighted hunters out there? That's a scary thought! If you're nearsighted enough to pay someone to laser your cornea, you probably don't need to be using firearms or crossbows. I'm just sayin'...

Bring on the psychosis...

Every now and then, a line will strike me for some reason. This week I've encountered 2:

From a comment on a Salon article about Sarah Palin:

"I have an uncomfortable relationship with reality right now."

I think I've had an uncomfortable relationship with reality for most of my life. That sentence really needs to be on a t-shirt.

Then there was J's line from an email earlier this week, referring to "a healthy dose of psychotic." I guess that's what I need when my relationship with reality becomes too uncomfortable. Pass the psychosis, please...

Shopping in Absurdia: Outdoors Edition

So I ventured into Wal-Mart today (save the lectures--I'm not a big fan either, but it was our most convenient option today). Every time we get near Wally World, Hubby marches off to the sporting goods department to check the price on ammo. It's really pointless, because Wal-Mart never staffs the sporting goods department, so there's no one to unlock the ammo cabinet. We stand around for about 10 minutes while several employees take turns paging for help in sporting goods, then we give up and leave. But I digress...

So I'm wandering around the sporting goods department, killing time until Hubby decides it's time to leave, when I spot this product on the shelf:

No, this picture has not been photoshopped or altered in any way. This is a real product. Now I've never been hunting (the need for products like this has a lot to do with why I've never been hunting... cleaning fish was obnoxious enough), so maybe I just don't get it, but is removing a deer anus really that big of a problem? (OK, I don't even want to know what kind of person is going to stumble across this post by searching for "deer anus" in Google... Hey! Maybe it'll be the first result, and my hit count will skyrocket! And I really can't wait to see what kinds of ads Google Adwords puts up next to this post. But once again I digress). Now, where was I? Oh, yeah... deer anuses. I would love to know who developed this product and what inspired him (oh, c'mon... you know it had to be a guy). And how did he explain the project to his wife?

Budding Edison: Hey, honey! I have this great idea for a new product! It'll look kinda like a corkscrew, and it will let me pop out a deer's anus in just a few seconds. Isn't that cool?
Mrs. Edison: Put down the deer rifle. You need psychiatric help.

After our intrepid but lazy hunter has washed the deer entrails off his hands and is back in camp, relaxing around the fire, he can put this next product to use:

Funny, but when I picture hunters gathered around the campfire, I imagine them drinking beer or passing around a flask of Jack Daniels. I do not imagine them whipping up some 'ritas with a rechargable, portable blender. Is this a campsite or a dorm room? But then if these were real men, they wouldn't need a special gadget to remove a deer anus, would they?

Hmm... I wonder if I can work the phrase "deer anus" into this post one more time. Nah... that would just be gratuitous.

They could be talking about ours!

Seen near my son's school last night:



That could refer to some pedestrians I've encountered recently too.

Myers-Briggs alphabet soup

So I went to a gathering with co-workers last night, and the subject of Myers-Briggs came up. Then, I logged into Meebo today, and the Meebo blog post of the day related to Myers-Briggs. I usually make an ugly face when someone mentions personality testing in general and M-B in particular, but since I got the M-B double whammy, I decided it was time to take the test again. I'm cynical about this test, because every time I take it, I get a slightly different result. Most versions of the test ask you to choose between opposites ("Would you rather go to a party or read a book?"), when I want to provide a nuanced answer ("It depends on my mood, what I've done all day, how tired I am, how good the book is, what kind of music will be played at the party, and how many hot guys will be there."). It's just like an English major to answer a yes/no question with an essay.

Anyway, the Meebo blog post included links to two different unofficial Myers-Briggs questionnaires: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp and http://www.kisa.ca/personality. I took both, and sure enough, I got different results. On the first one, which offered only yes/no options, I scored an ENFJ. On the other, which offered an "in between" option, I scored an ENFP. Based on the temperament descriptions, I think the ENFJ is more accurate. In each case, the strength of the preferences wasn't especially strong. That fits with what I already know about myself, that I seek the middle ground and am adaptable in most situations--or, as my critics would say, I'm wishy-washy and a flake. But I like my version better.

I wonder how I'll score the next time I take one of these silly things.

Are you sure about that?

Today in the cafeteria, I saw a guy with a t-shirt reading, "It's my lucky day!" He was bent over, picking up his spilled onion rings off the floor.

Catching up: California trip, etc.

OK, dear readers, you've had a couple weeks vacation from my ramblings, but now the party is over. Hope ya missed me--I'm baaaaacccckkk! Seriously, I've been working, traveling, working, resting, and working, all while trying to enjoy the last days of what passes for summer in these parts (Rainy and 60?? In August??? *Sigh*). I did write a post while I was on vacation, but I've misplaced the paper I wrote it on (again... *sigh*). So, this post will summarize what I've been up to, with some pictures for space filler visual interest.

When last we left our faithful blogger, it was mid-August, and I was busy planning my trip home to California. The trip was very low-key and relaxing. I carpooled down with E, who was visiting people near Sacramento. We were worried about how to amuse ourselves during a 10-hour drive, but that turned out not to be a problem. We managed to yak nonstop! Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to hear that.

Here are a couple scenes from the road. First, this cute little bat was snoozing under the eaves of the women's restroom at the rest area just over the CA border:

I thought he was adorable. E disagreed, but then she doesn't like bats.

Next, Mt. Shasta, which was surprisingly bereft of snow:


Once I got to Tracy, I hung out with a couple of my closest friends from the good ol' days, Diana and Kristy. We didn't do anything major, just talked, shopped, wandered around, and talked (I tell ya, it's a miracle I didn't blow out my vocal chords on this trip!). Diana and I roamed through the UOP campus, reminiscing about our years there. I walked around parts of Tracy, thinking about old times and marveling at how many years have passed. Inside I still feel 16, but they grey hair and wrinkles tell a different story. In case you've always dreamed of wandering around Tracy with me, listening to me reminisce about the Good Old Days (tm), here's a brief sample of what that would be like:

Lincoln Park, where I spent lots of time playing, walking my dog, and generally hanging out:

I remember when that gazebo was built, probably sometime in the late 70s. The building to the right of it is the public library, where I had my first ever library job, as a volunteer when I was about 12.

Tracy High football stadium:

I have lots of happy memories of that place, but I haven't been in it since Homecoming 1984. Was that really almost 24 years ago? Damn.

I guess I was on quite the nostalgia trip this time, because I even went to the Tracy cemetery to visit my grandparents' graves. I hadn't been there since not long after my grandpa died in 1976. I discovered that my aunt and uncle are buried right next to them. I never knew that.
Grandma and grandpa:


Aunt Verna and Uncle Louie:


Then I was off to my favorite part of the Delta, Trapper Slough.




Why it's bad to dump water hyacinths in waterways:


Kristy and I drove through Locke on our way to Sacramento:

Sunset in the Delta:


The historic village of Locke:


So there ya go. Other people visit cool, exciting places on vacation. I go back to Tracy.

Next time I'll post some pictures from the Oregon State Fair and Poison concert. For now, though, it's time to sign off. G'night!

A thoughtful, detailed analysis of my mental status

Courtesy of the What's Your Mental Age quiz, part of the Likeness application on Facebook:

Result: 7 Years Old
You're all about energy, fun, and not really caring or even thinking about the future. Basically, you're seven years old. The good news is, you've got a youthful spirit that others envy. The bad news is, you still wet the bed. Sometimes. Only when you've had too much soda late at night.

Yeah, that's pretty much it except for the bedwetting. Can I go to the amusement park now?

Accurate description of my work day

I was asked just now to prepare a bulleted list of what I do -- part of my department's introduction to our new director. Here's what I came up with:

• attend meetings
  
• email
  
• more meetings
  
• more email
  
• write stuff (usually email)
  

Yes, I did a real one afterward, but I think this one is an accurate summary of most of my work days.

Trip to Seattle, a/k/a being a tourist in my old backyard

I've lived in several places over the years, and each time I have a similar experience: While we live in a place, we travel to other places in the region or beyond, taking lots of interesting trips. We see a few things in our home area, but we never approach our home city as tourists. We don't study what's there and choose interesting things. Instead, we hit the obvious sites and a few other things sort of randomly. Then we decide to move, and we realize how much we haven't seen and done. By that time, though, we're busy with packing and planning our move. You would think we'd learn, but you would be wrong. We've lived in Portland for 12 years, and there's still a ton of stuff we haven't seen or done.

So why am I writing about this now? Are we planning to move? Nope. I've spent the last three days in Seattle, where I went to graduate school and therefore lived for the better part of two years. I've spent most of my time at a conference, so my exploring has been limited, but I did get out and about a few times. We took the Duck tour, seeing part of the city from a WWII amphibious vehicle. I used to watch them when I lived in Seattle, but I could never afford to do the tour in my student days. Then last night we went to Discovery Park, which is on a beautiful peninsula overlooking Puget Sound. We watched the sun set over the Olympic Mountains, and Jerry played on a small sandy beach, throwing driftwood in the water and covering himself with sand from head to foot (oh, to be 10 again...). I kept thinking how neat it would have been to go there while I was a student. It would have been a great place to relax and get away from the busyness of the University District -- and it's free, which would have fit my starving student budget perfectly. Yet I missed it, along with lots of other Seattle attractions. Ah, well... better late than never, I suppose.

Here are a few pics of our Seattle adventures:

Obligatory picture of the Space Needle:

I believe it's the law that all visitors to Seattle must take at least one picture of the Space Needle.

If you take your husband to Seattle Center, he will want to throw darts at balloons. If he throws darts at balloons, he'll win a prize. If he wins a prize, he'll pick out some hideous bunny ears and wear them for the rest of the evening. Just call him the Playmate of the Month... from hell.


Ride the Ducks!


The bunny ears have been replaced by a duck bill. This is not an improvement.


This is Seattle, so Everyday Music needs to have a statue of native son Jimi Hendrix out front:

I suppose if Kurt Cobain had been a native, there would be a statue of him out there too.

West Point Lighthouse, Discovery Park:


And a slightly fuzzy night shot of the dreaded Space Needle. I really need to get a tripod!


I spent today driving to Sisters and Bend with Laurel. Pics coming soon.

More beach pics

Till a few weeks ago, I hadn't been to the beach since September. Now I've gone twice, and I'm probably going again tomorrow. On the last trip, we drove to the Surfrider south of Lincoln City, then drove back up the coast to Tillamook on the way home the next day. Here are a few pics:

Jerry jonesing for coffee (yeah, they start young here in the Northwest):


Cape Meares lighthouse and one of the clearest, bluest skies I've ever seen on the Oregon coast:


This was a throwaway shot through the lens of the lighthouse, but it turned out sort of cool with my shadow and the view of the coast through the lens.


Ah, to be 10 again...


Chowin' down on some shellfish:


Next up: some pics from the trip to Seattle this week, then whatever pics I take at the beach tomorrow. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I even bother unpacking my suitcase in the summer.

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Beach pics

Last week I posted some pics of funny signs I saw on the way to Seaside and Cannon Beach, and I promised I'd post some pretty stuff later. Well, now it's later, so here we go:

Series of wave pics, all taken on Indian Beach in Ecola State Park:










Heart in the sand:


Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock from a viewpoint in Ecola State Park:


View from overlook above Sea Lion Rocks:

Interestingly, there wasn't a sea lion in sight.

Plaque at the overlook with a beautiful quote:

In case you can't read it in the pic, the quote says: "I dropped a tear in the ocean. When it's found, is when I'll stop loving you." It might be sappy if it weren't on a memorial plaque.

That's about it for that trip. I'm heading back to the beach tonight, this time to Depoe Bay, so I should have some new pics to post soon.

8:00 in Boise, Idaho

OK, it isn't 8:00, but I've been dying to work that Lynyrd Skynyrd lyric into a blog post ever since I touched down in Boise. Let's just call it journalistic license. Oh, and I had to look up the spelling of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Let's just call that pathetic.

I'm here for a library meeting on the next generation of integrated library systems (that's library catalogs to those of you who didn't get your library school indoctrination). It's been a good meeting, a nice mix of presentations and group discussions. I've been impressed with the energy and ideas of the attendees, all of whom seem ready to make some big changes to deliver better services. I'll be interested to see if the momentum generated at this meeting translates into anything real. I think it just might.

Interesting though the meeting has been, two days of butt planted in chair makes me restless, so I'll be glad to get off the airplane in Portland and get moving. At least I got out of the hotel last night. It turns out that there are a few graduates of my high school here in Boise (interesting since I went to high school in Northern California). Last night I had dinner with one of them and his family. I hadn't seen this guy since about 1983, so it was a lot of fun to chat and share old stories. I love reconnecting with old friends, and I always come away with new insights on life, growing up, aging, adolescence, and how we all got to where we are now. It's funny how a bunch of small-town kids have traveled some twisted roads in life. There's fodder for at least two books in the lives of my friends and me, though I have no talent for writing fiction, so someone else will have to do the honors or let these stories go untold.

I've spent two days in a meeting devoted to the effects of technological change in libraries. That, along with getting reacquainted with a bunch of old friends over the last couple years, has me reflecting on the connections that are possible through today's technology that were virtually unthinkable 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, I would have kept in touch with two or three old friends, and my only option for reconnecting with the others would have been a high school reunion. We would have sat around the table, drinking and reminiscing and promising to keep in touch. Then we would go back to our lives and forget to call, write, or visit. Then 10 years later we'd repeat the process at the next reunion. Now, each time I find someone online (or he/she finds me), we can keep in touch easily and connect each other with other people we know from back in the day. There are very few people I hung out with in high school that I haven't had some contact with over the last few years -- and I live 700 miles away from my hometown. Sure, Classmates has tacky web ads and makes you pay to contact someone -- but they also provide a valuable service for millions of users. Yes, MySpace and Facebook are in the news regularly, portrayed by blow-dried local newscasters as havens for pedophiles and cyberbullies. But they also provide a way for us to be part of our friends' lives, even when those friends are far away. Now we can share the kind information we used to share while dashing to our lockers or hanging out at lunch: the movie we just saw, the latest news about our families, what we're reading or listening to. Trivial? Sure. But that kind of smalltalk builds connections between people, whether face-to-face or online, separated by a few city blocks or a few states.

As I write this, people are talking about how libraries can build communities--and use technology to do it. I suppose that's the theme of my trip: building community through technology. Lately I've been griping about how my generation was sold a bill of goods, with movies, TV shows, and magazine articles promising us the ultimate in futuristic technology: hover cars, teleportation, and time machines. I'm still waiting for those--especially the time machine and teleportation. Boy, I could get in trouble with those! But I have to admit, no one predicted a global computing network that would link us together across space and time, enabling me to hang out in person with an old friend I could never have found otherwise. I still want my time machine and transporter, but I don't think I'd trade away the internet to get 'em.

Today's funny spam subject line is...

"Reality porn"

An oxymoron if ever I heard one.

There's funny stuff everywhere

Now that I have either a camera or a camera phone on me most of the time, I notice my surroundings more--especially when they're funny. Check out the latest oddities to cross my path:

You'll remember a couple posts ago I was laughing at the AC/DC and Metallica lullaby CDs? I suspect this baby bib, seen in Spencer's (where else?) is aimed at the same audience:

They had a couple others that were even more obnoxious, but the sales clerk told me I couldn't take any more pictures. Oh, well, then they won't get any more free advertising in my blog. Nyah nyah nyah!

Friday afternoon Tony and I decided to go to the beach for a few hours. Beach trips always seem to include some absurdities, and this one was no different. Here's one along hwy 26 outside of North Plains:

I never knew North Plains had an elephant garlic festival. North Plains to Gilroy: Our garlic is bigger and smells better! Nyah nyah nyah!

Further down hwy 26, we encountered this fine dining establishment:

It was actually a roadside stand with jerky, fruit, and pop. We got some excellent buffalo jerky there, along with some raspberries that were infested with some sort of bugs. Since said bugs were hiding inside the berries where the stem goes, I'm pretty sure I became an inadvertent insectivore Friday afternoon till I finally noticed the little, um, buggers. I wonder... Would the Inadvertent Insectivores be a good name for a punk band?

When we finally got to Seaside, we encountered a car dealer with a sense of humor:


There's a longer, funnier version of this joke, which I heard for the first time last winter, courtesy of my husband's somewhat-manic anesthesiologist:

Q. What did the bra say to the hat?
A. I've got these two covered. You go on ahead.

Hey, don't blame me. Blame the guy with access to the good drugs!

That's about it for now. I'm typing this from gate B2 of the Portland airport, and my flight is due to start boarding in a few minutes. When I have some time I'll post more pictures from the beach trip. The next batch will actually be pretty instead of ridiculous.

Librarian innuendos

A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette posted something about library-related innuendos, which led to a long list of comments suggesting more innuendos and dreadful library-related pickup lines. We librarians may be nerdy, but we aren't dead!