I have been a homeowner for about four months now. I intentionally joined the ranks of the literally dozens of other happy homeowners across the United States, but I’m also beginning to understand how a perfectly content homeowner can quickly turn jaded and miserable. We’ve dealt with more than our share of surprises since moving in: the heater blew: $1,000; leaky tub: $650; new springs for the garage door: $275; new caulk for the ashram: what exactly is an ashram, and why does it need caulk?
The first time I saw the house that ultimately became mine I nearly fainted. I attribute this to a combination of the house's natural beauty, the excessively hot temperature outside and the blow dart in my neck. It seems the guy who lives across the street bought some “toys” for his kids on a recent business trip to Namibia. Having traveled for work myself, I made a habit of bringing home local knick knacks for the kids, but I question whether poisonous darts make good gifts. Kids will... use..... theeese..... oibnwarvrl.leaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Sorry - blacked out there. So anyway, after seeing the house, I knew it was “The One.” Real estate agents know when they're taking you to The One. They spend all that time showing you dozens of surprisingly decorated houses that make you wonder whether the current owners are visually impaired, and question their motives where it relates to what qualifies as presentable.
Working closely with the existing owners of The One – all of whom are played by local out of work actors – they make sure that everything is in order, that the house looks perfect and that the colonies of insects living within the walls of the house are properly wrangled and fed.
When my agent brought me to The One, I knew it immediately. As soon as I walked in, I felt at home. The open floor plan was exactly what we had been looking for; the kitchen was fully updated with stainless steel appliances that would sit idle, but would look pretty, until we sell; the huge yard gave me no indication that it would work in concert with my finicky ride-on lawnmower to ultimately become my biggest nemesis. This was definitely it.
The first night in the house was great, assuming you don't mind desert-like heat and a complete lack of furniture. The central air conditioning system, which was invented for the sole purpose of breaking down on oppressively hot days, was unwilling to cooperate with the simplest of commands.
Me: Set temp to 74.
Air conditioner: No.
Me: Set temp and hold at 74.
Air conditioner: No.
Me, getting really agitated: (click, click, click, click) Set temp to 60.
Air conditioner: Listen, dude. You're the new guy here. Why don't you go find a floor to sleep on and leave me alone?
This led to my very first service call as a homeowner… to the air conditioner repairman who kindly only charged me double for coming out for an emergency appointment on a Saturday night. He explained that while he technically knew what was wrong, I would have to pay an additional $1,000 in order to properly fix the unit. That was a relief considering we were just in the process of endangering our own lives by setting all our extra money on fire.
Fast forward two weeks. If you do not yet own a house, take note: The ‘American Dream’ is not a term meant for the actual home owner. If you want a good taste of the American Dream, I encourage you to get a job servicing any of the million things that will go wrong in some new unsuspecting homeowner’s house.
In the two weeks following our closing, I contributed more to the state’s revenue stream, by way of the Georgia contracting community, than the combined value of every Van Gogh painting ever sold at auction. This phenomenon clearly explains why new homeowners typically find themselves in the most debt they will ever be in. It’s like a homeowner hazing ritual designed and perfected by real estate agents, the contracting community and credit card companies.
Worst of all, it’s perfectly legal. As I read back through the hundreds of papers I had to sign at the closing, I found a paper headlined “Ha Ha, You Idiot!” that details a requirement on my part to single-handedly employ at least half the population of the City of Atlanta, including suburbs, for a minimum of 14 months, but not to exceed greater than half the net value of the assets of the electorate, based on the accrual method of accounting. Since nobody has ever taken the time to actually read every single document at a closing, lawyers have a long-running joke about slipping in insane documents like this one that are perfectly legal and binding once you sign them.
We’ve finally worked through the pain of actually becoming homeowners and we’ve accepted that the dozens of contractors we have employed will be part of our lives for the long-term. With every mortgage payment we make, we realize that for every penny we build in equity, some random contractor will earn two, courtesy of the Merritts.
Now we just have to learn to deal with neighbors. Speaking of which, does anyone know of a good antidote for Namibian blow dart poison?
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Legal White Powder Found in Atlanta
Where I used to live in New York, snow was a welcome addition to the dreariness of winter. For about five minutes. That’s about how long it took for all the frolicking adults to realize it was the start of months of shoveling, skidding across multiple lanes of traffic (note, this particular problem is not limited to snow and ice on Long Island), dodging wayward snowballs, and constantly chasing after smaller kids and trying to explain why they shouldn’t eat yellow snow.
One of the reasons we chose Atlanta as our new home is that it doesn’t really get any snow. Until now. As soon as we arrived, someone came up with the novel idea – an idea so crazy it’s a miracle Ted Turner isn’t involved – of covering a giant hill at Stone Mountain Park (named after native Georgian Civil War General Stone M. Park) with the powdery white stuff. After taking measurements, officials decided using snow would be easier and “slightly more legal.” Thus Coca-Cola’s Snow Mountain was born.
I’m not one to brag about my foresight, considering I haven’t had any since I was a seven days old (shout out to Rabbi Yehoshua Krohn!), but it seems obvious to me that this plan was flawed from the start.
For one, I loosely understand the physics of ground temperature and snowfall (no I don’t), and I’m familiar with what constitutes cold enough weather to sustain snow outdoors (it has to be really, really cold). Okay, I’m not even sure the rules are considered part of physics – they may be calculus or pharmacology, but the point is that according to the most recent Farmer’s Almanac, “Not only does Atlanta get maybe a dusting of snow at a time, if that… the city shuts down like a bathroom after Rosie O’Donnell stops in for a number two when any trace of snow is in the forecast, so everyone can go to Publix to get milk and bread.”
In order to create this winter wonderland in the heat of the Bible Belt, organizers imported a battalion of snow-making machines – the same kind you’d find on a mountain in Vermont or New Hampshire during the ski season, which generally comprises fall, winter, spring and most of summer. They do not use these machines during the two weeks known locally as ‘Quick: we can swim’ when temperatures are likely to reach as high as 62 degrees.
The blowers were fired up on October 2, which happened to be the same day that Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue declared October "Take a Shorter Shower" month due to the current drought. He also suggested not running the water while brushing your teeth, but that one seems to be pretty well covered already here in Georgia. According to statistics, the average person can save between three and seven gallons of water by skipping their legs below the knees while taking a shower. Over the course of a year that amounts to more than 2,000 gallons – which can be used by Pepsi, Coca-Cola’s biggest competitor, to fill 12,810 sport bottles of Aquafina water.
In spite of the drought, the snow machines were firing full-fledged snow, which when mixed with the 80 degree weather that day turned into full-fledged water before hitting the ground at a rate of 38 gallons per minute, in effect creating the world’s most elaborate lawn sprinkler system.
Finally bowing to the public outrage of wasting a total of 1.2 million gallons of water as the community deals with a drought of epic proportions, the park has decided to halt its lawn-watering program. Displaying a profound understanding of the situation, Stone Mountain Park’s public relations manager Christine Parker said, “We've already sold tickets, and we can't just stop. That would be like a water park just deciding to turn off the faucets.” (Humor writing is easy when you have quotes like this to work with.)
After paying the equivalent of the combined annual tourism revenue of the entire Caribbean to promote Snow Mountain, Coca-Cola publicly endorsed the decision to call it off. In related news, Stone Mountain Park is in sponsorship talks with other soft drink companies.
Now disappointed children across the Atlanta region will be forced to wonder what getting snow caked under your shirt collar, head first at a high rate of speed feels like and they’ll never know the joy in getting knocked over by a snow-tuber who has gone astray as they try to climb back up the hillside in the slippery snow, but they will always remember the time when politics got in the way of a good time, thanks to Governor Sonny Perdue – a man who wasn’t chicken to say what he felt. (Come on, how can I let a name like this slip by twice without saying anything?)
One of the reasons we chose Atlanta as our new home is that it doesn’t really get any snow. Until now. As soon as we arrived, someone came up with the novel idea – an idea so crazy it’s a miracle Ted Turner isn’t involved – of covering a giant hill at Stone Mountain Park (named after native Georgian Civil War General Stone M. Park) with the powdery white stuff. After taking measurements, officials decided using snow would be easier and “slightly more legal.” Thus Coca-Cola’s Snow Mountain was born.
I’m not one to brag about my foresight, considering I haven’t had any since I was a seven days old (shout out to Rabbi Yehoshua Krohn!), but it seems obvious to me that this plan was flawed from the start.
For one, I loosely understand the physics of ground temperature and snowfall (no I don’t), and I’m familiar with what constitutes cold enough weather to sustain snow outdoors (it has to be really, really cold). Okay, I’m not even sure the rules are considered part of physics – they may be calculus or pharmacology, but the point is that according to the most recent Farmer’s Almanac, “Not only does Atlanta get maybe a dusting of snow at a time, if that… the city shuts down like a bathroom after Rosie O’Donnell stops in for a number two when any trace of snow is in the forecast, so everyone can go to Publix to get milk and bread.”
In order to create this winter wonderland in the heat of the Bible Belt, organizers imported a battalion of snow-making machines – the same kind you’d find on a mountain in Vermont or New Hampshire during the ski season, which generally comprises fall, winter, spring and most of summer. They do not use these machines during the two weeks known locally as ‘Quick: we can swim’ when temperatures are likely to reach as high as 62 degrees.
The blowers were fired up on October 2, which happened to be the same day that Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue declared October "Take a Shorter Shower" month due to the current drought. He also suggested not running the water while brushing your teeth, but that one seems to be pretty well covered already here in Georgia. According to statistics, the average person can save between three and seven gallons of water by skipping their legs below the knees while taking a shower. Over the course of a year that amounts to more than 2,000 gallons – which can be used by Pepsi, Coca-Cola’s biggest competitor, to fill 12,810 sport bottles of Aquafina water.
In spite of the drought, the snow machines were firing full-fledged snow, which when mixed with the 80 degree weather that day turned into full-fledged water before hitting the ground at a rate of 38 gallons per minute, in effect creating the world’s most elaborate lawn sprinkler system.
Finally bowing to the public outrage of wasting a total of 1.2 million gallons of water as the community deals with a drought of epic proportions, the park has decided to halt its lawn-watering program. Displaying a profound understanding of the situation, Stone Mountain Park’s public relations manager Christine Parker said, “We've already sold tickets, and we can't just stop. That would be like a water park just deciding to turn off the faucets.” (Humor writing is easy when you have quotes like this to work with.)
After paying the equivalent of the combined annual tourism revenue of the entire Caribbean to promote Snow Mountain, Coca-Cola publicly endorsed the decision to call it off. In related news, Stone Mountain Park is in sponsorship talks with other soft drink companies.
Now disappointed children across the Atlanta region will be forced to wonder what getting snow caked under your shirt collar, head first at a high rate of speed feels like and they’ll never know the joy in getting knocked over by a snow-tuber who has gone astray as they try to climb back up the hillside in the slippery snow, but they will always remember the time when politics got in the way of a good time, thanks to Governor Sonny Perdue – a man who wasn’t chicken to say what he felt. (Come on, how can I let a name like this slip by twice without saying anything?)
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Useless New Crimes Coming Soon to a City Near You
Question: What is the most dangerous crime currently plaguing our nation? If you guessed “terrorism,” you probably spend too much time in front of the TV, reading newspapers or breathing. You need to wipe the crumbs off your chest, get in the car and drive straight to the nearest house of worship, because right now you don’t have a prayer. The most dangerous crime today, at least in the forward-thinking and open-minded metropolis of Atlanta is… you guessed it: baggy pants.
Atlanta used to be a town with plenty of social problems like homelessness and poverty, and the crime that goes along with them. It also used to have a traffic congestion problem due to the highway infrastructure that became outdated slightly before the invention of the Conestoga wagon. But that’s all history now.
A city council edict in 2006 ruled that homelessness and poverty would officially be called ‘cultural gems’ in Atlanta, thereby putting an end to the problematic aspect. And traffic ceased to be a problem when urban planner Harold Morland spilled his coffee on the only existing copy of the latest traffic study - just before he was to present it to the traffic board and instead diverted attention by somehow managing to get OJ Simpson arrested again.
If you’re any kind of American, you’re probably wondering why parachute pants weren’t banned back in the 80s. Well, smarty-pants (ZING!), it turns out that native Atlantan and Atlanta City Councilman Clarence "CT (because the M doesn’t work on my keyboard)" Martin, the person responsible for thinking up the baggy pants ordinance, was too busy inventing the “Youthmobile,” a fleet of innovative vehicles designed to jam up the city’s traffic even worse than before.
Councilman Martin said he's tired of seeing “these young whippersnappers” wearing their pants down around their knees. His ordinance would make exposed underwear and sex in public equivalent offenses. I hate to agree, so I won't. When you think about it, you realize that these two offenses truly are nothing alike. Going out on a limb, Martin shocked the city by alleging that, "It kind of doesn't make sense. It is hard for people to walk."
Case in point: according to a story in the New Orleans Times Picayune, a 16-year-old Louisiana kid decided to go on a robbery spree. He managed to elude authorities on several occasions, but was finally caught only after his baggy pants fell down - which caused him to stumble and fall as officers chased him. I think the moral of this story is obvious: if you don’t wear baggy pants and you are a criminal, New Orleans is where you want to be.
Breaking new ground for Georgia, Councilman Clarence “The Cactus” Martin is including both sexes in the proposed legislation.
“But Scott,” you must be asking, “Aren’t baggy pants a predominantly male thing?”
To which I reply: That’s why the ordinance also outlaws “whale’s tails” for women. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m guessing it has to do with the grotesquely obese.
As the debate drags on endlessly, older residents are forming what is described as a “belt brigade” that could one day patrol the streets to urge kids to pull up their baggy pants. (Brief off-topic reminder: Ted Turner is still the more insane Atlantan, but Clarence “The Enforcer” Martin runs a close second.)
Imagine the choices police would have to make if Councilman Clarence “Product-of-the-Georgia-publick-schol-sistem-and-prowd-of-it” Martin gets his way: An old woman is being mugged in a coffee shop parking lot while an otherwise law-abiding, but baggy-panted, youth is inside purchasing a jubmino double-shot decaf caramel mocha stoccato libretto frappe (cost: $106.88 per gallon). If you’re a cop witnessing all this lawlessness, how do you decide which kind of doughnut you should get?
Silly as it may seem, the baggy pants problem is seemingly reaching epidemic proportions. A quick glance at the news reveals that proposals to ban baggy pants are starting to ride up across the nation. Concerned citizens in fashion Meccas like Mankato, MN, Charleston, WV, Trenton, NJ and Pine Bluff, AR are all seeking similar ordinances.
Support for such a ban is spirited. Johnnie Doctor, Sr., a Miami pastor whose quote I am including simply because I love his name, suggested that Miami consider the baggy-pants ban, saying “who the hell wears pants in Miami, anyway?”
So as the debate rages on, Atlanta's poverty-stricken homeless cease to be poverty-stricken homeless, and the traffic here still remains gridlocked between the hours of 3:30 am and 11:55 pm, Monday through Friday and on alternating weekends, we can all think about how insane you must have to be in order to be a city councilperson.
In the meantime, I’ll be tightening my belt and wearing a red baseball cap. They outlawed blue last week.
Atlanta used to be a town with plenty of social problems like homelessness and poverty, and the crime that goes along with them. It also used to have a traffic congestion problem due to the highway infrastructure that became outdated slightly before the invention of the Conestoga wagon. But that’s all history now.
A city council edict in 2006 ruled that homelessness and poverty would officially be called ‘cultural gems’ in Atlanta, thereby putting an end to the problematic aspect. And traffic ceased to be a problem when urban planner Harold Morland spilled his coffee on the only existing copy of the latest traffic study - just before he was to present it to the traffic board and instead diverted attention by somehow managing to get OJ Simpson arrested again.
If you’re any kind of American, you’re probably wondering why parachute pants weren’t banned back in the 80s. Well, smarty-pants (ZING!), it turns out that native Atlantan and Atlanta City Councilman Clarence "CT (because the M doesn’t work on my keyboard)" Martin, the person responsible for thinking up the baggy pants ordinance, was too busy inventing the “Youthmobile,” a fleet of innovative vehicles designed to jam up the city’s traffic even worse than before.
Councilman Martin said he's tired of seeing “these young whippersnappers” wearing their pants down around their knees. His ordinance would make exposed underwear and sex in public equivalent offenses. I hate to agree, so I won't. When you think about it, you realize that these two offenses truly are nothing alike. Going out on a limb, Martin shocked the city by alleging that, "It kind of doesn't make sense. It is hard for people to walk."
Case in point: according to a story in the New Orleans Times Picayune, a 16-year-old Louisiana kid decided to go on a robbery spree. He managed to elude authorities on several occasions, but was finally caught only after his baggy pants fell down - which caused him to stumble and fall as officers chased him. I think the moral of this story is obvious: if you don’t wear baggy pants and you are a criminal, New Orleans is where you want to be.
Breaking new ground for Georgia, Councilman Clarence “The Cactus” Martin is including both sexes in the proposed legislation.
“But Scott,” you must be asking, “Aren’t baggy pants a predominantly male thing?”
To which I reply: That’s why the ordinance also outlaws “whale’s tails” for women. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m guessing it has to do with the grotesquely obese.
As the debate drags on endlessly, older residents are forming what is described as a “belt brigade” that could one day patrol the streets to urge kids to pull up their baggy pants. (Brief off-topic reminder: Ted Turner is still the more insane Atlantan, but Clarence “The Enforcer” Martin runs a close second.)
Imagine the choices police would have to make if Councilman Clarence “Product-of-the-Georgia-publick-schol-sistem-and-prowd-of-it” Martin gets his way: An old woman is being mugged in a coffee shop parking lot while an otherwise law-abiding, but baggy-panted, youth is inside purchasing a jubmino double-shot decaf caramel mocha stoccato libretto frappe (cost: $106.88 per gallon). If you’re a cop witnessing all this lawlessness, how do you decide which kind of doughnut you should get?
Silly as it may seem, the baggy pants problem is seemingly reaching epidemic proportions. A quick glance at the news reveals that proposals to ban baggy pants are starting to ride up across the nation. Concerned citizens in fashion Meccas like Mankato, MN, Charleston, WV, Trenton, NJ and Pine Bluff, AR are all seeking similar ordinances.
Support for such a ban is spirited. Johnnie Doctor, Sr., a Miami pastor whose quote I am including simply because I love his name, suggested that Miami consider the baggy-pants ban, saying “who the hell wears pants in Miami, anyway?”
So as the debate rages on, Atlanta's poverty-stricken homeless cease to be poverty-stricken homeless, and the traffic here still remains gridlocked between the hours of 3:30 am and 11:55 pm, Monday through Friday and on alternating weekends, we can all think about how insane you must have to be in order to be a city councilperson.
In the meantime, I’ll be tightening my belt and wearing a red baseball cap. They outlawed blue last week.
Monday, September 17, 2007
What the Helsinki? Is This for Real?
Today’s guitarists just aren’t made like they used to be. When I was 11, I showed an interest in learning to play guitar. After months of prodding, my parents bought me a second-hand Martin six-string acoustic that acted as my springboard to complete failure as a rock star. I spent years practicing, plenty of money on equipment and lessons, and an inordinate amount of time trying to ‘make it’ with girls who I knew were into musicians.
Today’s award-winning guitarists don’t spend the money on lessons, the time on practicing, or even the money on equipment. In fact, they don’t even use guitars when they perform. Welcome to the world of competitive air guitar.
I know what you’re thinking: Competitive air guitar? What’s next, the imaginary World Series? Nascar while running and making engine sounds like ‘whaaaaaaaaaaaa (shift to a lower octave) whaaaaaaaa?’ Get serious. This is big business, though it makes you long for the days of Tiptoeing Through the Tulips with the likes of Tiny Tim.
The official governing body of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships is appropriately named U.S. Air Guitar. Their aim it is to “take our nation’s unofficial pastime out of the bedroom and put it up on the world stage.” According to the website, “In a time when U.S. military and economic leadership faces unprecedented criticism around the world, it is our belief that air guitar represents one endeavor our country can dominate without controversy.”
So in short, watch out Osama. America won’t be taken down without a fight. And as long as we have a solid championship-level air guitarist competing on the world stage, America will no longer be the subject of the world’s criticism.
U.S. Air Guitar is also responsible for maintaining the Air Guitar Hall of Fame, which includes legendary figures like 2003 U.S. and world champ David “C-Diddy” Jung, who is known for wearing a backwards Hello Kitty backpack on his bare chest, and 2006 U.S. champ Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeier, whose style is a postmodern mix of punk, flamenco and metal.
When I think of the hours my friends and I spent ‘jamming’ and ‘getting tight’ in the garage with our real instruments, it seems such a colossal waste of time. All we needed to do to get some notice was to put on a cassette of our favorite band and play imaginary instruments just as well as the real Motley Crue.
This year’s fake guitar playing championships were held at real New York City concert venue Irving Plaza. Inexplicably, the ‘event’ was held in front a sold out crowd of screaming fans, dozens of photographers and news cameras from all three major networks, MSNBC, CNBC and FOX News. With all those photographers on site, it’s a wonder nobody caught Rod Serling on film.
Just prior to the competition, crowd favorite Andrew “William Ocean” Litz said, “If I don’t walk away with the U.S. title and at least 3-4 broken bones, I haven’t done my job tonight.”
After a tough evening of pretending to play guitar, New York’s own Litz somehow defeated defending champ Hot Lixx Hulahan and Rockness Monster to take the title and represent the United States at (lord, forgive me for the fact that this is not a joke) the Air Guitar World Championships. On a related note, Litz did not break any bones, but his pride is probably plenty damaged.
At the end of the competition, all the pretend rock stars took to the stage to perform what was described as an ‘all-star rendition’ of Freebird – a song that’s overplayed even by those who don’t really play.
As an aside, I always thought that my best chance at ever representing my country on the world stage was to be on an Olympic curling team. Now that air guitar is an option, I have officially changed my tune. My real talent, however, lies in steering wheel drumming. Once someone sanctions that, I will definitely enter the competition.
As “William Ocean” travels to Finland to represent Team USA in the giant pretend guitarists of the world competition, all the other fictitious fingerpickers have to hang their heads in shame for not being able to win a contest that requires exactly no skill whatsoever to win.
As for me, I have to head out to the store to pick up a few things: a DVD copy of ‘Air Guitar Nation’ (a documentary described as “very good” by Joel Siegel, just moments before he decided to give up in his fight against cancer), a new set of strings for the real guitar I’ll be strumming while pretending to watch, and a block Finlandia Swiss to remind me of the utter cheesiness of the Air Guitar World Championships being held in Helsinki.
Today’s award-winning guitarists don’t spend the money on lessons, the time on practicing, or even the money on equipment. In fact, they don’t even use guitars when they perform. Welcome to the world of competitive air guitar.
I know what you’re thinking: Competitive air guitar? What’s next, the imaginary World Series? Nascar while running and making engine sounds like ‘whaaaaaaaaaaaa (shift to a lower octave) whaaaaaaaa?’ Get serious. This is big business, though it makes you long for the days of Tiptoeing Through the Tulips with the likes of Tiny Tim.
The official governing body of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships is appropriately named U.S. Air Guitar. Their aim it is to “take our nation’s unofficial pastime out of the bedroom and put it up on the world stage.” According to the website, “In a time when U.S. military and economic leadership faces unprecedented criticism around the world, it is our belief that air guitar represents one endeavor our country can dominate without controversy.”
So in short, watch out Osama. America won’t be taken down without a fight. And as long as we have a solid championship-level air guitarist competing on the world stage, America will no longer be the subject of the world’s criticism.
U.S. Air Guitar is also responsible for maintaining the Air Guitar Hall of Fame, which includes legendary figures like 2003 U.S. and world champ David “C-Diddy” Jung, who is known for wearing a backwards Hello Kitty backpack on his bare chest, and 2006 U.S. champ Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeier, whose style is a postmodern mix of punk, flamenco and metal.
When I think of the hours my friends and I spent ‘jamming’ and ‘getting tight’ in the garage with our real instruments, it seems such a colossal waste of time. All we needed to do to get some notice was to put on a cassette of our favorite band and play imaginary instruments just as well as the real Motley Crue.
This year’s fake guitar playing championships were held at real New York City concert venue Irving Plaza. Inexplicably, the ‘event’ was held in front a sold out crowd of screaming fans, dozens of photographers and news cameras from all three major networks, MSNBC, CNBC and FOX News. With all those photographers on site, it’s a wonder nobody caught Rod Serling on film.
Just prior to the competition, crowd favorite Andrew “William Ocean” Litz said, “If I don’t walk away with the U.S. title and at least 3-4 broken bones, I haven’t done my job tonight.”
After a tough evening of pretending to play guitar, New York’s own Litz somehow defeated defending champ Hot Lixx Hulahan and Rockness Monster to take the title and represent the United States at (lord, forgive me for the fact that this is not a joke) the Air Guitar World Championships. On a related note, Litz did not break any bones, but his pride is probably plenty damaged.
At the end of the competition, all the pretend rock stars took to the stage to perform what was described as an ‘all-star rendition’ of Freebird – a song that’s overplayed even by those who don’t really play.
As an aside, I always thought that my best chance at ever representing my country on the world stage was to be on an Olympic curling team. Now that air guitar is an option, I have officially changed my tune. My real talent, however, lies in steering wheel drumming. Once someone sanctions that, I will definitely enter the competition.
As “William Ocean” travels to Finland to represent Team USA in the giant pretend guitarists of the world competition, all the other fictitious fingerpickers have to hang their heads in shame for not being able to win a contest that requires exactly no skill whatsoever to win.
As for me, I have to head out to the store to pick up a few things: a DVD copy of ‘Air Guitar Nation’ (a documentary described as “very good” by Joel Siegel, just moments before he decided to give up in his fight against cancer), a new set of strings for the real guitar I’ll be strumming while pretending to watch, and a block Finlandia Swiss to remind me of the utter cheesiness of the Air Guitar World Championships being held in Helsinki.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
…And the Home of the Braves
After more than three months living in Atlanta, we finally ventured out to do things the locals do. Our first activity was attending the Atlanta Braves vs. New York Mets baseball game at Turner Field, which is named for modest, wealthy businessman and local Lunatic Laureate Ted Turner. The fact that they were playing a New York team, albeit not the good New York team, was at least comforting.
As is the case with most new stadiums, Turner Field features all sorts of activities and diversions designed to make you forget how much you paid for the seats that are undoubtedly too far from the field to see any of the actual action, not to mention the parking fee that allows you to park in a lot that requires you to walk only slightly further than if you had left your car in your own driveway.
We managed to ignore most of the pre-game activities and elected to go straight to the field-level front row for an opportunity to get up close to and possibly meet members of New York’s second-best baseball team. Armed with official Rawlings Major League Baseballs purchased just an hour prior, my two kids and I pushed our way to the front. Just then, a buzz began to our left: autographs were being signed. Not officially knowing anyone on the Mets’ roster, we jockeyed for position to get our baseballs signed by some random Hispanic guy in a Mets uniform. From what I gather, his name is “O~~ﮟ~D.” I don’t think he played that day, but then my seats were far enough from the field that I was able to actually see Shea Stadium, so I’m not the best person to ask.
After getting O~~ﮟ~D’s signature, we were asked to find our seats, which required an uphill hike, a camel and a sherpa. The ambient southern-laced calls of “cold beer!,” “wieners!” (which I think is funny to yell in a baseball stadium), and “cotton candy!” were beginning. Which of course reminded my kids that they were rapaciously hungry.
Any person who ever sees us at a baseball game would think we never feed our children. When they are at home they barely eat enough to survive, but at a baseball stadium they have tapeworms. Not wanting others to think I’m starving my kids, I invariably wind up spending the equivalent of the gross domestic product of Belgium on snacks, drinks and other sundry items. What’s worse is that Turner Field is the one stadium in the free world that actually allows you to bring in food, drinks and snacks. Judging by my cash-flow that day, I single-handedly covered their losses for everyone in my section who brown-bagged it.
Before this game, my only experience with Braves fans was when I watched the Yankees sweep the 1999 World Series in person at Yankee Stadium. But it was the televised games on TV where I became familiar with the Tomahawk Chop, a ‘chopping’ arm-wave, accompanied by a droning chant, made by Braves fans to support the team when they rally. I always hated the Tomahawk Chop, but now that I’ve witnessed it in person performed by some 45,000 Braves fans, I can appreciate how truly irritating it is.
Silly as these traditions may be, I realized every team’s fans have them. In The Bronx, we tend to yell out crazy things like “Let’s Go Yankees” followed by a foot-stomping bum, bum, bum-bum-bum. Where do they come up with these things?
As the Mets took the lead, and we as a family rooted them on (lesser of two evils), some Tomahawk Chump got into a verbal spat with my wife:
HER: Yay!
HIM: Yeah.
HER: YEAH!
HIM: We’ll see.
HER: Yeah. We will see.
HIM: Huh…
HER: Yay!
In the midst of all this, I had my first experience on the big screen. I’ve attended countless games at various New York stadiums, but it’s at my very first game in Atlanta that I finally make the Diamond Vision screen cut. Yet everybody in my family managed to miss it because of the heated exchange happening at precisely that moment. So now I had a decision to make: do I tell my family that I miraculously appeared on the screen at exactly the moment when nobody was paying attention? Or do I simply bite my lip and avoid the perjury card that will surely be thrown my way? I had no choice but to avoid my family altogether and instead tell the stranger sitting to my left.
Plenty of other people made the screen that day. Mostly people wearing the team’s colors or holding homemade signs supporting the team. Lucky for us, there were several times the cameras caught a large group of fans who had created single letters to spell out an entire thought. This never works. Especially when they are baseball fans that are dumb enough to have gotten drunk on stadium-purchased alcohol. At different times, while being broadcast on the Diamond Vision screen, their signs said “O-G- -B-R-A-V-E-S” and “G-O- -B-R-A-V-S-E.”
Every Sunday, the Braves allow kids between the ages of 4-14 run the bases after the game for free (cost of photos every parent will purchase from the Braves website: $12.99 and up). So with the score 3-1 Mets, we left in the bottom of the 9th inning so we could stand on a line with what amounted to the combined population of all the US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico (including The Bronx and the entire Major League Baseball roster).
Judging by the amount of Tomahawk Chanting we heard, either Hank Aaron himself had come out of retirement to reclaim the Home Run title or Osama bin Laden had been captured on the field. I left the line to see what was happening. The Braves managed to rally one run in, making the final score 3-2.
When I got back to the line (with a mile-post marker that said the wait would be 70 minutes), my family was nowhere to be found. I can only hope that the person who posted those signs was fired.
I caught up with the family, walked onto the field and my imagination ran wild. I never really dreamed I’d be a baseball player, so other thoughts of childhood rushed back into my mind… getting in trouble for hitting my sister; being grounded for turning the TV knob too fast; being hit in the face with a line drive that nearly required reconstructive surgery. It was still cool to be on a real Major League Baseball field – and my son, who firmly believes he’ll play on a team with Derek Jeter one day, was in all his glory.
We left lighter in the wallet and a little daunted by the whole Tomahawk Chop thing. Regardless, it was a fun day out and we’re lucky to have moved to a town where they have a baseball team. But we learned a lot. Next time we’ll bring our own snacks, our own sherpa and a sign that says “B-A-R-V-E-S- -T-S-I-N-K.”
As is the case with most new stadiums, Turner Field features all sorts of activities and diversions designed to make you forget how much you paid for the seats that are undoubtedly too far from the field to see any of the actual action, not to mention the parking fee that allows you to park in a lot that requires you to walk only slightly further than if you had left your car in your own driveway.
We managed to ignore most of the pre-game activities and elected to go straight to the field-level front row for an opportunity to get up close to and possibly meet members of New York’s second-best baseball team. Armed with official Rawlings Major League Baseballs purchased just an hour prior, my two kids and I pushed our way to the front. Just then, a buzz began to our left: autographs were being signed. Not officially knowing anyone on the Mets’ roster, we jockeyed for position to get our baseballs signed by some random Hispanic guy in a Mets uniform. From what I gather, his name is “O~~ﮟ~D.” I don’t think he played that day, but then my seats were far enough from the field that I was able to actually see Shea Stadium, so I’m not the best person to ask.
After getting O~~ﮟ~D’s signature, we were asked to find our seats, which required an uphill hike, a camel and a sherpa. The ambient southern-laced calls of “cold beer!,” “wieners!” (which I think is funny to yell in a baseball stadium), and “cotton candy!” were beginning. Which of course reminded my kids that they were rapaciously hungry.
Any person who ever sees us at a baseball game would think we never feed our children. When they are at home they barely eat enough to survive, but at a baseball stadium they have tapeworms. Not wanting others to think I’m starving my kids, I invariably wind up spending the equivalent of the gross domestic product of Belgium on snacks, drinks and other sundry items. What’s worse is that Turner Field is the one stadium in the free world that actually allows you to bring in food, drinks and snacks. Judging by my cash-flow that day, I single-handedly covered their losses for everyone in my section who brown-bagged it.
Before this game, my only experience with Braves fans was when I watched the Yankees sweep the 1999 World Series in person at Yankee Stadium. But it was the televised games on TV where I became familiar with the Tomahawk Chop, a ‘chopping’ arm-wave, accompanied by a droning chant, made by Braves fans to support the team when they rally. I always hated the Tomahawk Chop, but now that I’ve witnessed it in person performed by some 45,000 Braves fans, I can appreciate how truly irritating it is.
Silly as these traditions may be, I realized every team’s fans have them. In The Bronx, we tend to yell out crazy things like “Let’s Go Yankees” followed by a foot-stomping bum, bum, bum-bum-bum. Where do they come up with these things?
As the Mets took the lead, and we as a family rooted them on (lesser of two evils), some Tomahawk Chump got into a verbal spat with my wife:
HER: Yay!
HIM: Yeah.
HER: YEAH!
HIM: We’ll see.
HER: Yeah. We will see.
HIM: Huh…
HER: Yay!
In the midst of all this, I had my first experience on the big screen. I’ve attended countless games at various New York stadiums, but it’s at my very first game in Atlanta that I finally make the Diamond Vision screen cut. Yet everybody in my family managed to miss it because of the heated exchange happening at precisely that moment. So now I had a decision to make: do I tell my family that I miraculously appeared on the screen at exactly the moment when nobody was paying attention? Or do I simply bite my lip and avoid the perjury card that will surely be thrown my way? I had no choice but to avoid my family altogether and instead tell the stranger sitting to my left.
Plenty of other people made the screen that day. Mostly people wearing the team’s colors or holding homemade signs supporting the team. Lucky for us, there were several times the cameras caught a large group of fans who had created single letters to spell out an entire thought. This never works. Especially when they are baseball fans that are dumb enough to have gotten drunk on stadium-purchased alcohol. At different times, while being broadcast on the Diamond Vision screen, their signs said “O-G- -B-R-A-V-E-S” and “G-O- -B-R-A-V-S-E.”
Every Sunday, the Braves allow kids between the ages of 4-14 run the bases after the game for free (cost of photos every parent will purchase from the Braves website: $12.99 and up). So with the score 3-1 Mets, we left in the bottom of the 9th inning so we could stand on a line with what amounted to the combined population of all the US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico (including The Bronx and the entire Major League Baseball roster).
Judging by the amount of Tomahawk Chanting we heard, either Hank Aaron himself had come out of retirement to reclaim the Home Run title or Osama bin Laden had been captured on the field. I left the line to see what was happening. The Braves managed to rally one run in, making the final score 3-2.
When I got back to the line (with a mile-post marker that said the wait would be 70 minutes), my family was nowhere to be found. I can only hope that the person who posted those signs was fired.
I caught up with the family, walked onto the field and my imagination ran wild. I never really dreamed I’d be a baseball player, so other thoughts of childhood rushed back into my mind… getting in trouble for hitting my sister; being grounded for turning the TV knob too fast; being hit in the face with a line drive that nearly required reconstructive surgery. It was still cool to be on a real Major League Baseball field – and my son, who firmly believes he’ll play on a team with Derek Jeter one day, was in all his glory.
We left lighter in the wallet and a little daunted by the whole Tomahawk Chop thing. Regardless, it was a fun day out and we’re lucky to have moved to a town where they have a baseball team. But we learned a lot. Next time we’ll bring our own snacks, our own sherpa and a sign that says “B-A-R-V-E-S- -T-S-I-N-K.”
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Headline Hogs: Atlanta Edition
Every city has something special it’s known for: Seattle has the Space Needle, Starbucks and grunge rock; Chicago has deep dish pizza and Al Capone; New York has celebrities like Regis and the Naked Cowboy; and Atlanta gets stuck with all the social misfit headline hogs.
You name the crazy headline, I guarantee someone from Atlanta is involved – most likely Ted Turner. Ted is one crazy old coot – and Atlanta’s most successful businessman. He is both wealthy beyond imagination and certifiably insane. He has a habit of saying downright ludicrous things such as “Jimmy Carter was a great President”; he launched a campaign to get rid of some harmless fish in a Montana lake just because he wanted different fish in it; and he casually donated $1 billion to the United Nations because “They do good stuff.” But perhaps the most telling insane character trait he possesses is the fact that, according to Wikipedia, he has always had a special place in his heart for professional wrestling.
But Teddy isn’t the only headline hog in Atlanta. Just this week, 44-year-old Atlanta resident Richard Jewell made headlines for his untimely death. Jewell, for those of you who don’t remember, was wrongly accused of planting a bomb in Atlanta’s Olympic park in 1996. Unfortunately for Jewell, Ted Turner’s CNN led the media charge in eviscerating him.
Fortunately, when he was cleared, Turner extended an olive branch to Jewell in the form of two obstructed-view, upper reserved level tickets for any Atlanta Braves weekend day game, played on a Wednesday night, where the starting pitcher is knuckleballer Phil Neikro, who won a team record 23 games in 1967.
Another of our headline hogs stole the spotlight from Julia Roberts to become the first one Americans think of when they hear the term ‘runaway bride.’ Proud Georgian Jennifer Wilbanks is the perennially surprised-looking woman who faked her own disappearance in 2005 just so she wouldn’t have to marry her fiancé, John Mason. Wilbanks said she was “scared to marry John Mason because she is afraid of an imperfect world” - which she would see really, really vividly. Incidentally, Wilbanks was also cast as an understudy in the Gwinnett County Players’ production of ‘The King and I.’ (Zing!)
While no Richard Gere, Mason’s less-than-ravishing Southern looks and questionable sensibilities make you wonder whether her eyes are bigger than his brain. He vowed that he would remain with Wilbanks even after she made national headlines for running from him. Even the Dalai Lama would take a spot in line to beat some sense into this idiot.
Last year, Wilbanks and Mason officially broke up, after which she promptly sued him for $500,000, which includes a share of royalties from a book deal he never would have gotten without her story. If she wins, I just hope she uses the money wisely and hires a plastic surgeon to take her ‘surprised’ facial expression down a few notches to something like ‘really interested.’ As a side note, Ted Turner sued her for “not staying on the lam long enough” and for “robbing CNN of valuable redundant news reports.”
If there’s anything we’ve learned from TV programming over the years, it’s that a good medical thriller sells. Andrew Speaker, a.k.a. the TB guy, is another headline hog that calls Atlanta home. He’s also the target of a smear campaign by Ted Turner for drawing more attention to TB in Atlanta than he ever did with Turner Broadcasting. Speaker, as you may recall, is the newlywed who honeymooned in Europe Jason Bourne-style. He then flew back under the radar and crossed the U.S. border - all the while being infected with tuberculosis (which is widely known to be fairly harmless if you’re already dead).
When he found out about the severity of his illness, Speaker did what any rational person would do: he boarded a pressurized airplane full of people and pretended to be healthy for six hours. He did this because, as he claimed later, he had been fearful of dying if he didn’t return to America. Apparently, Speaker thought that ‘the Al Qaida method’ was infinitely better: Take out a whole airplane full of people instead of just dealing with your insanity by yourself.
After all this drama, it was later discovered that the tuberculosis strain Speaker actually had was just MDR, not XDR, which begs the question: Which satellite radio provider really is the best? I mean, one has Howard Stern, but the other has all the baseball programming. Decisions, decisions….
Now that I have first-hand experience with living and working in Atlanta and dealing with the locals on a regular basis, I’m beginning to understand why this town is such a hotbed of controversial headline hogs. Things are usually so slow and polite here that people, sooner or later, are bound to lose their minds - in the spirit of Michael Douglas in the movie ‘Falling Down.’ Case in point: it took precisely 7 hours and 43 minutes of living here before this transplanted New Yorker dropped his first F-bomb at a four-way stop sign where every polite participant insisted someone else go first. It’s no wonder why Atlanta needs some headline hogs to shake things up a bit.
Clearly, Atlanta is rife with insanity of all sorts. There are plenty of people doing plenty of stupid things here, and there’s no telling who the next big headline hog will be, or when their story will break. But a word of advice to those looking for the notoriety: No matter what you do, be prepared for Ted Turner to be crazier.
You name the crazy headline, I guarantee someone from Atlanta is involved – most likely Ted Turner. Ted is one crazy old coot – and Atlanta’s most successful businessman. He is both wealthy beyond imagination and certifiably insane. He has a habit of saying downright ludicrous things such as “Jimmy Carter was a great President”; he launched a campaign to get rid of some harmless fish in a Montana lake just because he wanted different fish in it; and he casually donated $1 billion to the United Nations because “They do good stuff.” But perhaps the most telling insane character trait he possesses is the fact that, according to Wikipedia, he has always had a special place in his heart for professional wrestling.
But Teddy isn’t the only headline hog in Atlanta. Just this week, 44-year-old Atlanta resident Richard Jewell made headlines for his untimely death. Jewell, for those of you who don’t remember, was wrongly accused of planting a bomb in Atlanta’s Olympic park in 1996. Unfortunately for Jewell, Ted Turner’s CNN led the media charge in eviscerating him.
Fortunately, when he was cleared, Turner extended an olive branch to Jewell in the form of two obstructed-view, upper reserved level tickets for any Atlanta Braves weekend day game, played on a Wednesday night, where the starting pitcher is knuckleballer Phil Neikro, who won a team record 23 games in 1967.
Another of our headline hogs stole the spotlight from Julia Roberts to become the first one Americans think of when they hear the term ‘runaway bride.’ Proud Georgian Jennifer Wilbanks is the perennially surprised-looking woman who faked her own disappearance in 2005 just so she wouldn’t have to marry her fiancé, John Mason. Wilbanks said she was “scared to marry John Mason because she is afraid of an imperfect world” - which she would see really, really vividly. Incidentally, Wilbanks was also cast as an understudy in the Gwinnett County Players’ production of ‘The King and I.’ (Zing!)
While no Richard Gere, Mason’s less-than-ravishing Southern looks and questionable sensibilities make you wonder whether her eyes are bigger than his brain. He vowed that he would remain with Wilbanks even after she made national headlines for running from him. Even the Dalai Lama would take a spot in line to beat some sense into this idiot.
Last year, Wilbanks and Mason officially broke up, after which she promptly sued him for $500,000, which includes a share of royalties from a book deal he never would have gotten without her story. If she wins, I just hope she uses the money wisely and hires a plastic surgeon to take her ‘surprised’ facial expression down a few notches to something like ‘really interested.’ As a side note, Ted Turner sued her for “not staying on the lam long enough” and for “robbing CNN of valuable redundant news reports.”
If there’s anything we’ve learned from TV programming over the years, it’s that a good medical thriller sells. Andrew Speaker, a.k.a. the TB guy, is another headline hog that calls Atlanta home. He’s also the target of a smear campaign by Ted Turner for drawing more attention to TB in Atlanta than he ever did with Turner Broadcasting. Speaker, as you may recall, is the newlywed who honeymooned in Europe Jason Bourne-style. He then flew back under the radar and crossed the U.S. border - all the while being infected with tuberculosis (which is widely known to be fairly harmless if you’re already dead).
When he found out about the severity of his illness, Speaker did what any rational person would do: he boarded a pressurized airplane full of people and pretended to be healthy for six hours. He did this because, as he claimed later, he had been fearful of dying if he didn’t return to America. Apparently, Speaker thought that ‘the Al Qaida method’ was infinitely better: Take out a whole airplane full of people instead of just dealing with your insanity by yourself.
After all this drama, it was later discovered that the tuberculosis strain Speaker actually had was just MDR, not XDR, which begs the question: Which satellite radio provider really is the best? I mean, one has Howard Stern, but the other has all the baseball programming. Decisions, decisions….
Now that I have first-hand experience with living and working in Atlanta and dealing with the locals on a regular basis, I’m beginning to understand why this town is such a hotbed of controversial headline hogs. Things are usually so slow and polite here that people, sooner or later, are bound to lose their minds - in the spirit of Michael Douglas in the movie ‘Falling Down.’ Case in point: it took precisely 7 hours and 43 minutes of living here before this transplanted New Yorker dropped his first F-bomb at a four-way stop sign where every polite participant insisted someone else go first. It’s no wonder why Atlanta needs some headline hogs to shake things up a bit.
Clearly, Atlanta is rife with insanity of all sorts. There are plenty of people doing plenty of stupid things here, and there’s no telling who the next big headline hog will be, or when their story will break. But a word of advice to those looking for the notoriety: No matter what you do, be prepared for Ted Turner to be crazier.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Pistachio Ice Cream Industry Should Say “mmm goy sai”
Being a New Yorker, I know that every culture’s dining experience is unique. Every cuisine has its own set of outstanding attributes. Among the best is Chinese food. Take-out or dine-in, no matter which Chinese restaurant option you choose, you know you’re in for a delectable delight - as long as you don’t mind skipping dessert.
As far back as I can remember, a Chinese food dining experience was an event to behold. After sitting down in the restaurant’s dining room, I always enjoyed taking in the view. The usual decorations always were ever-present: the dragons, the red paper lights (with what was purported to be actual Chinese writing on them) and the panoramic Chinese vistas living on too-old posters hanging behind shoddy picture frames. One has to wonder if the Chinese culture really is so greasy, old and insipid – or is that just how it’s represented here in America? Having visited Mainland China myself, I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is the single kitschiest country on the planet.
From the beginning to three-quarters of the way through, a Chinese dining experience is terrific. Fried appetizers are the standard: egg rolls (the contents of which nobody should ever really ask about), shrimp toast and the pu pu platter – which, once you get past the ridiculous name and the fact that you could potentially use it as a weapon – is the coolest appetizer on Earth.
Speaking of fried foods, it should be noted that dragons were the first creatures to fully succumb to the effects of LDL, which electronically savvy readers will recognize as the technology which allows you to watch Iron Chef in high definition.
Eating the main course of a Chinese meal is an event in and of itself. The entrees are artful and colorful, and always floating in some kind of a salty, randomly-colored sauce. Beef with broccoli and pork lo mein are always delicious (the latter being, inexplicably, the root of a longstanding cold war between the Chinese and the Italians about who invented spaghetti and what it should be called. It’s tough to conjure up an image of what ‘lo mein and meatballs’ would look like).
When it comes time to undo the top button on your pants, however, everything in the Chinese Restaurant Play Book and Operating Manual really falls apart. The single Chinese contribution to the dessert forum is a sugary piece of cardboard wrapped around a piece of paper.
Think of the other cultural offerings for capping off your meal: Italians have cannolis; the French gave us crème brulee; America has apple pie. Even the Greeks stepped up with baklava. The Chinese? The fortune cookie, which is easily the worst invention in the history of edible food.
How can a culture so well rounded in its other gastronomic offerings concurrently be so abysmal at dessert? The most surprising part about the fortune cookie is that nobody who has ever gotten one has actually looked forward to the cookie part. The fortune inside is always the attraction. Isn’t it strange that a culture like ours, which goes out of its way to “save room for dessert” is more interested in reading a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or vague prophecy than it is in actually eating the miserable confection? For added amusement, it helps to add the words “in bed” to the end of whatever fortune you get. So you wind up with “To move a mountain, one must begin with a single pebble – in bed,” which makes no sense at all, unless you’re about five or six zombies deep. Then it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.
The words of wisdom in the cookie are often attributed to Confucius, the esteemed Chinese thinker and social philosopher who was the first to recognize the need to do something to make the fortune cookie palatable. Coincidentally, upset by the unpleasant dessert placed in front of him, Confucius was also the first to ask, “Do you have Jello?”
Thus began the tradition of Chinese restaurants offering decidedly bland desserts in place of anything truly inspirational. If you are looking for dessert at any given Chinese restaurant today, your choices will be fortune cookies, Jello, oranges or one of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla or PISTACHIO??
By offering these unexciting desserts, the Chinese are all but admitting to their complete failure as a people to develop an edible dessert they can call their own. They have dropped the ball and are now calling it to our attention.
In terms of the ice cream, chocolate and vanilla make total sense. But who ever eats pistachio ice cream outside of a Chinese restaurant? I’ve never seen pistachio ice cream in a supermarket freezer aisle, let alone being able to order it at a good ice cream counter. Yet, at the Chinese restaurant, you’d think it was among the more popular flavor choices. The pistachio industry is evidently guilty of selling the Chinese a bill of goods.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about the ice cream at the Chinese restaurant is the presentation. A silver dish with a single scoop of your flavor of choice - but no syrup, whipped cream, cherries or nuts. You just get the lone, boring scoop of ice cream. And what do they do with it? They stick a fortune cookie on top.
In spite of it all, I will still crave my visits to Chinese restaurants. I’m conditioned to know that, while the bulk of the meal will be second-to-none, the dessert will leave much to be desired. Which is a good thing, because when I’m hungry again in an hour, I can go to the Italian restaurant three doors down. It’s at this point that I will think back to the words of wisdom from the last fortune cookie I received:
“If you want a really good dessert, I recommend Giuseppe’s down the road. Try a fresh cannoli.”
As far back as I can remember, a Chinese food dining experience was an event to behold. After sitting down in the restaurant’s dining room, I always enjoyed taking in the view. The usual decorations always were ever-present: the dragons, the red paper lights (with what was purported to be actual Chinese writing on them) and the panoramic Chinese vistas living on too-old posters hanging behind shoddy picture frames. One has to wonder if the Chinese culture really is so greasy, old and insipid – or is that just how it’s represented here in America? Having visited Mainland China myself, I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it is the single kitschiest country on the planet.
From the beginning to three-quarters of the way through, a Chinese dining experience is terrific. Fried appetizers are the standard: egg rolls (the contents of which nobody should ever really ask about), shrimp toast and the pu pu platter – which, once you get past the ridiculous name and the fact that you could potentially use it as a weapon – is the coolest appetizer on Earth.
Speaking of fried foods, it should be noted that dragons were the first creatures to fully succumb to the effects of LDL, which electronically savvy readers will recognize as the technology which allows you to watch Iron Chef in high definition.
Eating the main course of a Chinese meal is an event in and of itself. The entrees are artful and colorful, and always floating in some kind of a salty, randomly-colored sauce. Beef with broccoli and pork lo mein are always delicious (the latter being, inexplicably, the root of a longstanding cold war between the Chinese and the Italians about who invented spaghetti and what it should be called. It’s tough to conjure up an image of what ‘lo mein and meatballs’ would look like).
When it comes time to undo the top button on your pants, however, everything in the Chinese Restaurant Play Book and Operating Manual really falls apart. The single Chinese contribution to the dessert forum is a sugary piece of cardboard wrapped around a piece of paper.
Think of the other cultural offerings for capping off your meal: Italians have cannolis; the French gave us crème brulee; America has apple pie. Even the Greeks stepped up with baklava. The Chinese? The fortune cookie, which is easily the worst invention in the history of edible food.
How can a culture so well rounded in its other gastronomic offerings concurrently be so abysmal at dessert? The most surprising part about the fortune cookie is that nobody who has ever gotten one has actually looked forward to the cookie part. The fortune inside is always the attraction. Isn’t it strange that a culture like ours, which goes out of its way to “save room for dessert” is more interested in reading a piece of paper with words of faux wisdom or vague prophecy than it is in actually eating the miserable confection? For added amusement, it helps to add the words “in bed” to the end of whatever fortune you get. So you wind up with “To move a mountain, one must begin with a single pebble – in bed,” which makes no sense at all, unless you’re about five or six zombies deep. Then it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.
The words of wisdom in the cookie are often attributed to Confucius, the esteemed Chinese thinker and social philosopher who was the first to recognize the need to do something to make the fortune cookie palatable. Coincidentally, upset by the unpleasant dessert placed in front of him, Confucius was also the first to ask, “Do you have Jello?”
Thus began the tradition of Chinese restaurants offering decidedly bland desserts in place of anything truly inspirational. If you are looking for dessert at any given Chinese restaurant today, your choices will be fortune cookies, Jello, oranges or one of three flavors of ice cream: chocolate, vanilla or PISTACHIO??
By offering these unexciting desserts, the Chinese are all but admitting to their complete failure as a people to develop an edible dessert they can call their own. They have dropped the ball and are now calling it to our attention.
In terms of the ice cream, chocolate and vanilla make total sense. But who ever eats pistachio ice cream outside of a Chinese restaurant? I’ve never seen pistachio ice cream in a supermarket freezer aisle, let alone being able to order it at a good ice cream counter. Yet, at the Chinese restaurant, you’d think it was among the more popular flavor choices. The pistachio industry is evidently guilty of selling the Chinese a bill of goods.
Perhaps the most troubling thing about the ice cream at the Chinese restaurant is the presentation. A silver dish with a single scoop of your flavor of choice - but no syrup, whipped cream, cherries or nuts. You just get the lone, boring scoop of ice cream. And what do they do with it? They stick a fortune cookie on top.
In spite of it all, I will still crave my visits to Chinese restaurants. I’m conditioned to know that, while the bulk of the meal will be second-to-none, the dessert will leave much to be desired. Which is a good thing, because when I’m hungry again in an hour, I can go to the Italian restaurant three doors down. It’s at this point that I will think back to the words of wisdom from the last fortune cookie I received:
“If you want a really good dessert, I recommend Giuseppe’s down the road. Try a fresh cannoli.”
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Help Wanted: Space Shuttle Astronaut / Tile Mason
Is it just me or do they launch the Space Shuttle these days for the sole purpose of repairing what went wrong on takeoff so there are no catastrophes upon reentry? I’m all for safety, but nowadays the phrase “Let’s light this candle” – famously said week after week by Rabbi Mordechai Goldfarb of Congregation Beth Shalom in the quaint Connecticut suburb of Old Saybrook - takes on a whole new meaning.
The Space Shuttle program launched, with much fanfare, in the early 1980s - presumably by a group of engineers who thought that 80s electronica music was so bad that they couldn’t even stay on the same planet with it. The world simultaneously welcomed Soft Cell and bid goodbye to a handful of lucky astronauts who were protesting the death of rock music.
The Space Program was all but dead, and out of the public eye, after a successful series of missions in the 60s and 70s which brought human beings to the surface of the moon. Of course, this WAS the heyday of LSD, so whether or not man actually flew to and walked on the moon remains a true mystery. The only thing that we know for sure is that Tom Hanks was THIS close to walking on the moon but missed his opportunity (as illustrated in the Hollywood blockbuster film, appropriately titled, Tom Hanks Never Walked on the Moon).
In any case, the Space Shuttle program was the next revolution in space travel. The orbiter was able to launch, reenter and launch, again and again. Unless, of course, someone forgot to tighten a screw somewhere along the way.
Such was the unfortunate case with the Space Shuttle Challenger, which completed just nine missions before disintegrating on January 28, 1986 - just 73 seconds into the launch of its tenth mission. This disaster could have been avoided had the O-rings, which in this case were shaped like rhombuses, been shaped like actual O’s. Seven lives, and a vehicle almost as cool as a De Lorean, were lost as a result of a shape problem that could have been solved by any random nursery school teacher.
This disaster brought the space program to a grinding halt – until someone indiscriminately suggested that they build another Space Shuttle and give it a much cooler name. Thus were born the Discovery, the Atlantis and the Endeavour (the last one, by the way, while an American spacecraft, was inexplicably named by a Brit called Reginald Huggins, III – thereby explaining the randomly placed “U”).
Over the years, space shuttle launches became passé, and coverage of launches and landings moved from national broadcast networks to the pages of the Weekly World News, which covers the latest breaking space news you won’t read anywhere else. Included is news like in this actual passage from an article about the planets:
“Last year, the fifty-four-year-old astronomer claimed that not only was Pluto still a planet but that it was inhabited by Irish sheepdogs.”
You can’t make this stuff up. This is clearly news you will see nowhere else.
All remained boring with the shuttle program until February 1, 2003, which was when Cuban percussionist Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría passed away unexpectedly as a result of a stroke. Ironically, it was his music that was playing at mission control that day when the Space Shuttle Columbia burned up upon reentry. NASA scientists determined that a hole had formed on the shuttle’s wings when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier.
It is unfortunate that the only way NASA can get headlines anymore is to have a major catastrophe that involves a Space Shuttle. They could probably take a lesson or two from English entrepreneur Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, the world’s recognized King of Self-Promotion.
The end result, however, is that NASA has turned into a bunch of overprotective kindergarten mothers when it comes to its space program. Every single time a shuttle is launched, the cargo bay is filled with heat-resistant black replacement tiles, concrete, grout, a Costco-sized container of Tang and several cases of those diapers the crazy astronaut lady wore when she drove clear across the country at a rate of speed faster than a Space Shuttle, in order to “talk to” (read: kill) a flight attendant who was making whoopee with her imagined astronaut boyfriend. (For the record, I believe her insanity was founded. I mean, who WOULDN’T go crazy with a car full of dirty diapers? Anyone who has kids can vouch for this. But I digress….)
The tiles in a shuttle’s cargo bay are there to replace damage sustained by the tiles on the orbiter when it takes off. Which means, by my calculations, that the space program has essentially turned itself into the world’s most costly unnecessary repair shop. In fact, I’ve been informed by insiders that the bulk of the training that new astronauts undergo involves replacing various parts of the Space Shuttle while in space.
It does seem to be a waste of a space program to simply fix what goes wrong instead of really ‘living on the edge’ like the old astronauts used to do. That’s why they were so revered. They stared death in the face and, in most cases, died doing so - but not without the everlasting acclaim of the American people.
I think our resources are being spent foolishly in space. Case in point: The Jetsons first appeared on TV in 1962 – 45 years ago! – and we STILL do not have flying saucer cars that convert into suitcases. What a waste of technology.
I think noted sci-fi author Larry Niven put it best when he said, “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" He said that in 2001, which makes me really wonder whether or not he had been conscious for the past 40 years.
Needless to say, the NASA space program will forge ahead. There’s a space station that isn’t going to build itself, there are astronauts in diapers training for their next tile-replacement mission, and there are science fiction writers who need to obviously ignore reality and say ridiculous things about why dinosaurs went extinct.
The Space Shuttle program launched, with much fanfare, in the early 1980s - presumably by a group of engineers who thought that 80s electronica music was so bad that they couldn’t even stay on the same planet with it. The world simultaneously welcomed Soft Cell and bid goodbye to a handful of lucky astronauts who were protesting the death of rock music.
The Space Program was all but dead, and out of the public eye, after a successful series of missions in the 60s and 70s which brought human beings to the surface of the moon. Of course, this WAS the heyday of LSD, so whether or not man actually flew to and walked on the moon remains a true mystery. The only thing that we know for sure is that Tom Hanks was THIS close to walking on the moon but missed his opportunity (as illustrated in the Hollywood blockbuster film, appropriately titled, Tom Hanks Never Walked on the Moon).
In any case, the Space Shuttle program was the next revolution in space travel. The orbiter was able to launch, reenter and launch, again and again. Unless, of course, someone forgot to tighten a screw somewhere along the way.
Such was the unfortunate case with the Space Shuttle Challenger, which completed just nine missions before disintegrating on January 28, 1986 - just 73 seconds into the launch of its tenth mission. This disaster could have been avoided had the O-rings, which in this case were shaped like rhombuses, been shaped like actual O’s. Seven lives, and a vehicle almost as cool as a De Lorean, were lost as a result of a shape problem that could have been solved by any random nursery school teacher.
This disaster brought the space program to a grinding halt – until someone indiscriminately suggested that they build another Space Shuttle and give it a much cooler name. Thus were born the Discovery, the Atlantis and the Endeavour (the last one, by the way, while an American spacecraft, was inexplicably named by a Brit called Reginald Huggins, III – thereby explaining the randomly placed “U”).
Over the years, space shuttle launches became passé, and coverage of launches and landings moved from national broadcast networks to the pages of the Weekly World News, which covers the latest breaking space news you won’t read anywhere else. Included is news like in this actual passage from an article about the planets:
“Last year, the fifty-four-year-old astronomer claimed that not only was Pluto still a planet but that it was inhabited by Irish sheepdogs.”
You can’t make this stuff up. This is clearly news you will see nowhere else.
All remained boring with the shuttle program until February 1, 2003, which was when Cuban percussionist Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría passed away unexpectedly as a result of a stroke. Ironically, it was his music that was playing at mission control that day when the Space Shuttle Columbia burned up upon reentry. NASA scientists determined that a hole had formed on the shuttle’s wings when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier.
It is unfortunate that the only way NASA can get headlines anymore is to have a major catastrophe that involves a Space Shuttle. They could probably take a lesson or two from English entrepreneur Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, the world’s recognized King of Self-Promotion.
The end result, however, is that NASA has turned into a bunch of overprotective kindergarten mothers when it comes to its space program. Every single time a shuttle is launched, the cargo bay is filled with heat-resistant black replacement tiles, concrete, grout, a Costco-sized container of Tang and several cases of those diapers the crazy astronaut lady wore when she drove clear across the country at a rate of speed faster than a Space Shuttle, in order to “talk to” (read: kill) a flight attendant who was making whoopee with her imagined astronaut boyfriend. (For the record, I believe her insanity was founded. I mean, who WOULDN’T go crazy with a car full of dirty diapers? Anyone who has kids can vouch for this. But I digress….)
The tiles in a shuttle’s cargo bay are there to replace damage sustained by the tiles on the orbiter when it takes off. Which means, by my calculations, that the space program has essentially turned itself into the world’s most costly unnecessary repair shop. In fact, I’ve been informed by insiders that the bulk of the training that new astronauts undergo involves replacing various parts of the Space Shuttle while in space.
It does seem to be a waste of a space program to simply fix what goes wrong instead of really ‘living on the edge’ like the old astronauts used to do. That’s why they were so revered. They stared death in the face and, in most cases, died doing so - but not without the everlasting acclaim of the American people.
I think our resources are being spent foolishly in space. Case in point: The Jetsons first appeared on TV in 1962 – 45 years ago! – and we STILL do not have flying saucer cars that convert into suitcases. What a waste of technology.
I think noted sci-fi author Larry Niven put it best when he said, “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" He said that in 2001, which makes me really wonder whether or not he had been conscious for the past 40 years.
Needless to say, the NASA space program will forge ahead. There’s a space station that isn’t going to build itself, there are astronauts in diapers training for their next tile-replacement mission, and there are science fiction writers who need to obviously ignore reality and say ridiculous things about why dinosaurs went extinct.
Friday, August 10, 2007
More Pizza Fun
The phone rang last night. It was a woman who was looking for the pizzeria for which we get more calls than they do. My simple "Hello" wasn't enough for this lady. She demanded to know whether it was Papa John's that she reached. When I told her she had the wrong number, she insisted that she didn't and demanded to speak to my manager.
I had no choice but to return to the phone, using the very same voice, and say "Hello this is Mark, how can I help you?"
She explained that she had called earlier and asked for another location's number - but that number wasn't working. I suggested, "You might want to consult the Internet."
"THE INTERNET? I DON'T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION! WHY WON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME THE NUMBER," she insisted. I explained that we were "super busy" and that if she didn't have an Internet connection, she might want to let her "fingers do the walking" and look in her telephone book. I even explained that the poor telephone books have experienced such a downturn in popularity that they would be thrilled to be used. She was not amused.
"Are you serious???" was all she could muster up. I told her yes, and asked if she planned to place an order.
She asked if we delivered to Buckhead. Stifling raucous laughter, I said, "Oh no. That's too far. We don't deliver there." That's when she really lost it.
"Your address is Buckhead - and YOU DON'T DELIVER HERE?"
I didn't expect that. It became impossible for me to keep a straight face. I had to hang up.
All I wanted to do was take an order. I didn't plan on THIS. Managing an imaginary pizza joint ain't easy.
I had no choice but to return to the phone, using the very same voice, and say "Hello this is Mark, how can I help you?"
She explained that she had called earlier and asked for another location's number - but that number wasn't working. I suggested, "You might want to consult the Internet."
"THE INTERNET? I DON'T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION! WHY WON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME THE NUMBER," she insisted. I explained that we were "super busy" and that if she didn't have an Internet connection, she might want to let her "fingers do the walking" and look in her telephone book. I even explained that the poor telephone books have experienced such a downturn in popularity that they would be thrilled to be used. She was not amused.
"Are you serious???" was all she could muster up. I told her yes, and asked if she planned to place an order.
She asked if we delivered to Buckhead. Stifling raucous laughter, I said, "Oh no. That's too far. We don't deliver there." That's when she really lost it.
"Your address is Buckhead - and YOU DON'T DELIVER HERE?"
I didn't expect that. It became impossible for me to keep a straight face. I had to hang up.
All I wanted to do was take an order. I didn't plan on THIS. Managing an imaginary pizza joint ain't easy.
Don’t Cut Off Your Armature Despite Your Flux Capacitor
It’s official: I have no mechanical skill whatsoever. This is no big secret. I’ve never really understood how people know how to fix cars, engines and the like. In fact, I’d be better at tying my shoes while wearing boxing gloves.
I am good at simple tasks. Changing light bulbs? Piece of cake! Filling my gas tank? No sweat! Plugging in new household appliances? Probably easy if it’s a normal shaped plug. I’m also good at math, which is how I know that when something does go wrong, I’m going to bounce a check. (Apologies in advance to the first lawnmower repairman who agrees to come to my house.)
It began two days ago – my problem with Bessy, my beloved, ride-on lawnmower. After two weeks of neglect, I finally decided to cut my grass and force my ticks to find a new home. That’s when I discovered that Bessy, who I have taken for a ride exactly three times thus far, has decided to take the rest of the summer off.
When I purchased the mower in question, I knew she needed a new battery. Hence, it has become my custom to use actual jumper cables connected to my actual car battery to fire up ole Bessy. It worked fine – until this week. Upon arriving home from work, I lovingly walked the mower from the garage to the car. Then I gently connected the cables, sat down, and turned the key: nothing. My girl didn’t respond. Her engine screamed, “whawhawhawhawha,” over and over, in vain. She wasn’t moving. I tried again. Turned the key, heard her tease: “whawhawhawha,” but she just wouldn’t turn over. This routine continued for approximately 30 minutes. I’m from the school of thought that says: as long as something has a key, it will start working sooner or later.
Recognizing that my logic was probably not sound, I reluctantly opened her hood and looked for something marked ‘press here if engine will not start.’ This mower didn’t come with that feature. (Note to self: it always pays to buy the more expensive model.) I tinkered with a few things under the hood. Her gas tank was more than half full; her oil looked okay, I guess – for as much as I know about oil; and I think I found her air filter. Feeling like staring at the engine might have done some good, I sat back down and tried to start her again. Inexplicably, my technique did not have the desired effect.
Having had enough, I finally called Paul, a gifted mechanic who is also my brother-in-law. I figured I could have him talk me through what to do. Just like trying to talk a six-year-old through building a Stradivarius. The first question from him was “Does she have gas?” (Note: Paul knows me well). I did double-check, but I confirmed that the Middle East was slightly richer thanks to my laziness and frugality in hiring a landscaping company. The next question was, “Is her battery connected?” Now I have to admit, I may be a mechanical disaster, but these are softball questions.
Jumping directly from questions from Mechanics for Morons to those found in Master Technician Journal, Paul asked me to locate the spark plug. The spark plug? No problem. Just search for something that looks like it could plug a spark, I reasoned. I embarked on a fruitless journey through every engine part, even after receiving a very good tip on how to find it. Paul had pointed out that a thick black wire would connect the spark plug to the Flux Capacitor, in order to create the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity necessary to drive Bessy the amazing three-miles-per-hour I relied on for her to move me across my field of dreams. After looking for a while, I located one thick black wire that really seemed more like a tube to me, so I claimed there were no thick black wires and suggested maybe a red one might have been used in its place. For a guy who really never gets agitated, I sensed that Paul was on the verge of calling me a complete putz.
Living up to his reputation, Paul calmly held back any anger he might have felt towards me at the moment. Instead he patiently explained to me that an engine needs three things to start. If I remember correctly, he said they are: a key, fluids and noise. I seemingly had all the pieces in place. He finally grew frustrated enough to take a drive over to my house and look at it himself – my mission was officially achieved. I was off the hook.
As Paul began disassembling the engine, which appeared to have way more parts than necessary, I stood by and watched in much the same way I used to watch my dad replace wiring in the house when I was a kid. I learned quickly that my role as “the helper” was to stand around and try to look busy helping, or at least appear interested in doing so. I was neither, then or now.
Like a skilled surgeon performing a complicated procedure, Paul made single-word demands for tools. I was right on top of the easy ones, like wrench and screwdriver. It was when he asked for the “12-volt tester” that I began to panic. My best approach to find this mysterious tool was not to simply ask him what it looked like. No, it was instead to systematically rule out anything that I knew WASN’T a 12-volt tester and make a guess based on what was left.
So I began to rifle through the toolbox, a man on a mission. Roughly 90 seconds later, Paul sauntered over, gently pushing my amateur ass aside. In one fell swoop, he fished out the little light with the two wires attached to it (the 12-volt tester, I concluded), giving me one of those “How do you remember to breathe?” sideways glances.
After pulling apart every piece of the lawnmower, Paul decided that the problem was the armature – or the opening in the lawnmower that lets in the light. He also described it as a magneto, which I honestly thought was exclusively the brainchild of a writer for Marvel Comics. None of this seemed to make any sense to me. How any of this has anything to do with why the lawnmower wouldn’t start is beyond me. Luckily for Bessy, Paul was right on top of her, so to speak. He seemed to know exactly how to make her purr for him.
Throughout the process of “helping” Paul, I did manage to get myself filthy and covered in motor oil. Let this be a lesson to you: make sure the cap is on the oil tank BEFORE you turn the ignition key. To an uninformed passerby, I certainly gave the appearance of having worked really hard on this mystery machine. I may not have been able to get her motor running, but it sure looked like I gave it everything I had.
As an aside, I hate going to a parts counter where I’m expected to know every spec of every item I’m looking for, or risk looking like a complete idiot. Today I went down the complete idiot road. Figuring I could get what I needed with the model number of the lawnmower, I found quickly that I was entirely unprepared. And Joe-Bob with the four teeth in his mouth was snickering at my total ignorance. Regardless, we figured it out.
So now all I need to do is switch out the old part with the new one I purchased today. Then I’ll be back in the saddle, ready to transform my property into the lush greenscape I intended for it to be, and proud of a job well done. Which of course is all dependent upon whether or not Paul minds fetching his own tools.
I am good at simple tasks. Changing light bulbs? Piece of cake! Filling my gas tank? No sweat! Plugging in new household appliances? Probably easy if it’s a normal shaped plug. I’m also good at math, which is how I know that when something does go wrong, I’m going to bounce a check. (Apologies in advance to the first lawnmower repairman who agrees to come to my house.)
It began two days ago – my problem with Bessy, my beloved, ride-on lawnmower. After two weeks of neglect, I finally decided to cut my grass and force my ticks to find a new home. That’s when I discovered that Bessy, who I have taken for a ride exactly three times thus far, has decided to take the rest of the summer off.
When I purchased the mower in question, I knew she needed a new battery. Hence, it has become my custom to use actual jumper cables connected to my actual car battery to fire up ole Bessy. It worked fine – until this week. Upon arriving home from work, I lovingly walked the mower from the garage to the car. Then I gently connected the cables, sat down, and turned the key: nothing. My girl didn’t respond. Her engine screamed, “whawhawhawhawha,” over and over, in vain. She wasn’t moving. I tried again. Turned the key, heard her tease: “whawhawhawha,” but she just wouldn’t turn over. This routine continued for approximately 30 minutes. I’m from the school of thought that says: as long as something has a key, it will start working sooner or later.
Recognizing that my logic was probably not sound, I reluctantly opened her hood and looked for something marked ‘press here if engine will not start.’ This mower didn’t come with that feature. (Note to self: it always pays to buy the more expensive model.) I tinkered with a few things under the hood. Her gas tank was more than half full; her oil looked okay, I guess – for as much as I know about oil; and I think I found her air filter. Feeling like staring at the engine might have done some good, I sat back down and tried to start her again. Inexplicably, my technique did not have the desired effect.
Having had enough, I finally called Paul, a gifted mechanic who is also my brother-in-law. I figured I could have him talk me through what to do. Just like trying to talk a six-year-old through building a Stradivarius. The first question from him was “Does she have gas?” (Note: Paul knows me well). I did double-check, but I confirmed that the Middle East was slightly richer thanks to my laziness and frugality in hiring a landscaping company. The next question was, “Is her battery connected?” Now I have to admit, I may be a mechanical disaster, but these are softball questions.
Jumping directly from questions from Mechanics for Morons to those found in Master Technician Journal, Paul asked me to locate the spark plug. The spark plug? No problem. Just search for something that looks like it could plug a spark, I reasoned. I embarked on a fruitless journey through every engine part, even after receiving a very good tip on how to find it. Paul had pointed out that a thick black wire would connect the spark plug to the Flux Capacitor, in order to create the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity necessary to drive Bessy the amazing three-miles-per-hour I relied on for her to move me across my field of dreams. After looking for a while, I located one thick black wire that really seemed more like a tube to me, so I claimed there were no thick black wires and suggested maybe a red one might have been used in its place. For a guy who really never gets agitated, I sensed that Paul was on the verge of calling me a complete putz.
Living up to his reputation, Paul calmly held back any anger he might have felt towards me at the moment. Instead he patiently explained to me that an engine needs three things to start. If I remember correctly, he said they are: a key, fluids and noise. I seemingly had all the pieces in place. He finally grew frustrated enough to take a drive over to my house and look at it himself – my mission was officially achieved. I was off the hook.
As Paul began disassembling the engine, which appeared to have way more parts than necessary, I stood by and watched in much the same way I used to watch my dad replace wiring in the house when I was a kid. I learned quickly that my role as “the helper” was to stand around and try to look busy helping, or at least appear interested in doing so. I was neither, then or now.
Like a skilled surgeon performing a complicated procedure, Paul made single-word demands for tools. I was right on top of the easy ones, like wrench and screwdriver. It was when he asked for the “12-volt tester” that I began to panic. My best approach to find this mysterious tool was not to simply ask him what it looked like. No, it was instead to systematically rule out anything that I knew WASN’T a 12-volt tester and make a guess based on what was left.
So I began to rifle through the toolbox, a man on a mission. Roughly 90 seconds later, Paul sauntered over, gently pushing my amateur ass aside. In one fell swoop, he fished out the little light with the two wires attached to it (the 12-volt tester, I concluded), giving me one of those “How do you remember to breathe?” sideways glances.
After pulling apart every piece of the lawnmower, Paul decided that the problem was the armature – or the opening in the lawnmower that lets in the light. He also described it as a magneto, which I honestly thought was exclusively the brainchild of a writer for Marvel Comics. None of this seemed to make any sense to me. How any of this has anything to do with why the lawnmower wouldn’t start is beyond me. Luckily for Bessy, Paul was right on top of her, so to speak. He seemed to know exactly how to make her purr for him.
Throughout the process of “helping” Paul, I did manage to get myself filthy and covered in motor oil. Let this be a lesson to you: make sure the cap is on the oil tank BEFORE you turn the ignition key. To an uninformed passerby, I certainly gave the appearance of having worked really hard on this mystery machine. I may not have been able to get her motor running, but it sure looked like I gave it everything I had.
As an aside, I hate going to a parts counter where I’m expected to know every spec of every item I’m looking for, or risk looking like a complete idiot. Today I went down the complete idiot road. Figuring I could get what I needed with the model number of the lawnmower, I found quickly that I was entirely unprepared. And Joe-Bob with the four teeth in his mouth was snickering at my total ignorance. Regardless, we figured it out.
So now all I need to do is switch out the old part with the new one I purchased today. Then I’ll be back in the saddle, ready to transform my property into the lush greenscape I intended for it to be, and proud of a job well done. Which of course is all dependent upon whether or not Paul minds fetching his own tools.
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