Field Trip: The Toledo Zoo

As a rule, I always prefer the Detroit Zoo, but for what it is, Aiden & I had a great time South of the Border today. He rode down on the bus w/ his friends & I went w/ his friend's mom, Barbara. The 2 of us had a nice time chit-chatting on the way down & then we each got a 2nd kid w/ whom we were to check stuff out. I got this kid, Donald who was lovin' (even more than Aiden & me) to stick his fingers in the assholes of the animal statues that are found everywhere you turn. At 1 point, he rubbed 1 w/ 2 fingers like he was really going to town on it. Of course we told him to stop, but behind his back, Barbara & I were cracking up. She then mentioned it to their teacher who laughed & then said, "Andre, maybe you could have that talk w/ the kids." My immediate response was "Which talk is that? The anal talk? I don't think I'm ready to explain the thrill of ass-to-mouth to a bunch of 6 year olds." That was a pleasant conversation & it confirmed my belief that Ms. Peterson may be a bit more of a freak than she lets on in the classroom. Other funs things included the great ape make-out session, the bear-sloth that was anything but slothlike, & the veggie burger, onion rings & pudding we had in the centeral restaurant place. Before you settle in for the season finale of Lost, take a look @ a few snapshots from the zoo. The kids in our group

A pretty sweet dude w/ whom I had a staring contest... he won
What's the name of the eagle on the Muppet Show?
2 elephants in a space much too small for 1 elephant
Hey you... on the other side of this glass... piss off!

It's...

Monty Python's Flying Circus
Here's a little heads-up for y'all. BBC America has started a Flying Circus festival. They're airing them all in order on Fridays in Huge blocks. The prints have been cleaned up and remastered so they're in fantastic condition. I'm DVRing them and we watched a couple last night... awesome as always. We got to see the Kamikaze Scotsmen, the Exploding Penguin, & How to Recognise Different Parts of the Body, which has always been a fav of mine... "Margret Thatcher's brain..." With this in mind, I thought I'd give y'all a little extra Python and then you can feel free to discuss your favorite sketches from the show. Here are what I consider to be the 5 best... I know a lot of people will point to the Dead Parrot as the pinnacle of their comedy, but I'll give you these instead:
Philosopher Football Match I love that Marx argues offsides
Cheese Shop It's runnier than you like
Bicycle Repair Man No ordinary man! (complete w/ Spanish subtitles)
The Ministry of Silly WalksIt's not really that silly at all, is it?
The Fish LicenseHe is an halibut

Moving Day
Things are coming together well and we've picked the beginning of next week for the big move. If you happen to have the time & want to stop by and help out I'd be greatly grateful. I would like to have the beds and other main things done on Monday, but Tuesday & Wednesday are fine too... anytime you can stop by would be awesome.The Perfect Alibi
Now that I'm moving and I have 15 years of vegetarian animal loving under my belt, I think I have the perfect cover story for when I see to it that the monstrosity next door joins the barking choir invisible. I've never hidden the fact that dogs aren't my favorite animimals, but it's gotten ridiculous. It has gotten to the point that this shit-head is outside backing for at least 15 hours a day. Maybe it doesn't spend the whole time barking, but it's damn close. (I know, I know... it's not the dog's fault... well it wont be my fault either because after a year & a half of this, I'm sure the psychological trauma is obvious). I've thought of knifing the mother fucker, or just jacking it upside the head w/ a shovel, but I think poison will be the best plan. There are only 2 holes in otherwise watertight plan. 1) the raccoon story & 2) the fact that I had a couple coney dogs a& some chili cheese fries a couple years ago. If we can keep these 2 little facts under wraps, I think the plan should work & we'll be less 1 annoying asshat mutt. (I suppose this post might be used against me too.)

Indiana Jones Post #3: I want to see an animal kiss a girl

That was Solstice's rationale for wanting to see Nim's Island rather than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yesterday. At which point I suggested a couple web-sites I knew of... that didn't go over too well. Solstice's feat that a PG-13 Indy film might scare her led Stephanie to take her to the other film while my parents & I took Aiden to Indiana Jones. Before hand, I talked to Jeanny who saw it the other day and suggested it was a lot better than The Phantom Menace, but no where nears as good as the original 3. This is about what I figured, but I didn't figure in the joy of watching Aiden watch it. He was @ the edge of his seat the whole time. My love for this film is definitely filtered through this Aiden experience. He wore his Indy hat & hung on every single moment. Then again, I hung on every moment too.

Overall, Lucas & Spielberg did a great job w/ the homage to '50s B Sci/Fi films. The Cold War stuff was great w/ a nice little comment on current political issues & the importance of academia in terms of our ability to speak up about the problems w/ the government... something the '50s films had to keep rather veiled under the watchful eye of Joe McCarthy. As bad as things might be under GWB, @ least Spielberg & Lucas won't be getting blacklisted.

Of course, there are a few holes in the plot, but having seen more than my fair share of the '50s B movies, I'm willing to accept the problems as part of the genre. My only real complaint is about the use of CGI ants. The snakes, the bugs, & the rats were all real in the 1st 3 films... I suppose it would have been tough to find the millions of real ants they would have needed though. Overall, there were many stand-out scenes like the sword fight, car chase through campus, the nuclear test site, the waterfalls, etc, & as Jean claimed, Marcus Brody was used to great effect. Stand out performances by Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Jim Broadbent, & Kate Blanchett are all noteworthy. I was a little underwhelmed by Shia LeBeauf though. He's a lot better than Sean Patrick Flannery, but he's no River Phoenix. Overall, I'll definitely be seeing this one again soon. (As for the animal kissing the girl, apparently Nim is kissed by her friend, a seal.) Thanks to The Etch-a-Sketch Artist

Odds & Ends & Douchebags

I have little to talk about right now, but I have a lot to give you none the less: bloggable stuff I haven't been able to make entire posts about, so you'll get this little hodge-podge before we return to our regularly scheduled Indiana Jones stuff. 1st, we have this fun little story about the alligator in the woman's kitchen. Of course there is also this nugget about the Spiderman Window Cleaners at the Shanghai Sheraton Hotel. While we're on the subject of China, let's not forget about the 60,000 people who died in Sichuan Province earlier this month. 60,000!!! That's a lot of people. Not the 1,100 from Hurricane Katrina or the 3,000 in the World Trade Center... this is 60,000 people. Unfortunately, that's nothing compared to the more than twice that dead in Myanmar, but when we think about it together, 60,000 + 128,000 = a Hell of a lot of people died in natural disasters lately. At this point, I don't know how to pin this on George W. Bush... but you can believe I'm working on it.

OK, maybe it isn't his fault, but I needed a good transition into douchebaggery so as to bring up these asshats. This family is suing Little League Baseball, Sports Authority, and the bat company after because their kid was hit w/ a line drive a couple years ago and has suffered brain-damage. It wasn't even in a little League game, but since Little League officially endorses the bat, I guess they figure they can get a piece of them too. So while the line drive is the kid's excuse, it seems the verdict is still out on the parents. I mean, come on... when you play a sport the chance of injury is always there. It sucks for the kids that his was so bad, but suing the store that sold the bat? Give me a fucking break!Speaking of Douchebags, you can check out this story about the guys who vandalized Stonehenge last week and then read this little update about myself. Namely, I've gotten a ton of free-shit in the mail lately. I suppose it's bad timing since I'm just gonna have to pack more stuff this week, but getting free stuff is always fun. 1st of all, I finally got my Utilikilt. You may remember that a number of friends, all of whom I'd like to take this moment to thank, got me a gift-certificate for my b-day. I've spent the last 11 months attempting to use it, but they were always out of my size. However, as it turns out, they weren't out of it, it's just that the directions for measurements on the web-site are wrong, so I was measuring an odd size. Once I finally talked to a dude on the phone he explained that I shouldn't follow the directions. This company is as shady as they come, brah. The conversation went like this:
"utilikjfg;khj"
"Is this Utilikilts?"
"Yeah, brah, that's what I said..."
Oh, well, I have a gift certificate, but the web-site says you've been out of my size since June."
"Since June? wow, bro, that's a long time."
"No kidding. I was wondering if you have different things than just what's on the web-site."
"No, brah, just what's on the site. But we do have an outlet in Michigan; you could try that place, bro."
"Well, the gift-certificate says it can only be used @ your location or over the phone."
"oh, yeah bro, I forgot about that."
It went on like this for a 1/2 hour, but in the end, it turned out, they not only had my size, but in fact that had a sale going on so I was able to up-grade from the Original to the Workman's & it ended up being 10 bucks less.The other stuff I've gotten recently is thanks to Amazon.com. The search-portal on my side-bar is supposed to yield a small finder's-fee in gift-cert. form, but over the last few years I've never seen a gift-cert. I looked into it the other day & realized they owed me over 160 bucks so I e-mailed I got the information. Apparently, they'd e-mailed it to me, but it went straight to my junk folder & I missed it. W/ this free cash, I finally got the new Flash Gordon: Saviour of the Universe Edition along w/ a bunch of other stuff: a France soccer shirt & scarf for Euro '08, a memory stick & car charger for my phone, a breast-pump for Stephanie, a Hannah Montana CD for Solstice's b-day, & a book by Umberto Eco: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Thanks to all of you who have actually used that portal to get your Amazon.com shwag... keep it up.

The final little up-date about douchebags is that Douchebag FC, my fantasy team, won my league in a hotly contested battle w/ Jason, Jean, my father, & Solstice. She joined 2 weeks late so even though she didn't win, she may have had she been involved all along. Speaking of her, be sure to check out her poem on her blog.

Indiana Jones Post #2: Leonard Nimoy

The release of the new Indiana Jones film has created a sort of mass hysteria surrounding these crystal skulls. Even Archeology Today, the pop-archeology mag has jumped on the band wagon, so I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised by The Sci/Fi Channel's absurd documentary the other night. For 2 hours, I let myself get suckered into this crap. I was hoping for some historical info, yet the fact as presented by some Archaeologist (to whom we will refer as Dr. ___), were only given about 2 minutes towards the end. The rest was dedicated to this asshat who had married the 80 year old daughter of the dude who led the expedition during which the 1st skull was supposedly found. In fact, the daughter was the person who supposedly found it. (Dr. ___ made it pretty clear that the whole thing was nonsense, but with only a few minutes for her to speak, she was easily forgotten.) Asshat (who also runs a Karate school in Indiana) believes he can sense the presence of the skulls so he's searching the world for the remaining few. It was basically an episode of In Search Of w/o the star power of Leonard Nimoy. Some people believe that some Mayan prophecy suggests the world will in in April of 2012 & that the 13 skulls need to be brought together in order to save us. (In which case, I think we could have used more than 4 years notice to get looking for the rest.) Others believe that they were made by aliens, going so far as to suggest the Moon was an ancient outpost & one of the skulls in on the Moon (& can be seen in a NASA photo.) All of these people (save Dr. ____) agree that the skulls "could be, possibly, up to 75,000 years old." I can't believe I watched this shit. But, I guess w/ the new film opening today, I shouldn't be too surprised.

Growth Spurt

I woke up this morning 'round 7ish to take a nice early morning #2 after which I came to a strange realization about myself. Obviously, like most men, my best thinking is done while partaking in that activity, but this epiphany came afterwards. I stepped foreword for the customary washing of the hands (my fingers didn't go through the paper or anything, there was in fact no hand to ass contact), when I noticed I had to bend down a little further than usual @ the sink. I looked in the mirror & noticed that my head seemed closer to the top than usual. Later, while making tea, I seemed to be looking down on Stephanie more than ever before... not in the smug, I'm better than everyone way, but in the I'm taller than I was way. I can't imagine how this sudden growth is possible, & I haven't actually grabbed a yard stick to verify this, but everything seems different today. Maybe we're talking about a late puberty. I just don't know, but I suppose I may finally be growing into my name. I don't know how to use this to my advantage yet, but maybe it'll help my in my games... which brings me to my other issue for the day (this part of the post is mainly for the KY and Japan people). I got 2 goals in our 3-2 loss on Sunday. In general, my team played pretty well, but there are a couple new guys who may not be long for the team. The 1st pissed me off over & over & over; the 2nd showed up drunk & unable to really play until he sobered up for the 4th quarter. Now, I have no problem w/ inebriation on the field, but when it interferes w/ the play I won't stand for it! As far as my 2 goals go, we were down in the last quarter when Pat laid the ball off to me about 45 yards out. I don't usually do this, but I beat a defender and let it go. I noticed the goalie was out, & it actually worked. This may be my 1st goal from so far out ever. They immediately scored which put us 3-1 down, but w/ a couple minutes left, Ben laid it off to me in the D, I beat the same defender, but to the left this time, & slotted it in from about 12 yards. Overall, it was pretty sweet, but as I'm going to have to miss the next game for a wedding in Chicago, the team may have to find a different, slow defensive mid-fielder to start getting some. That's right folks, I've got 4 in as many games. It seems as though playing on that shitty indoor team really helped my confidence... I'm just like Cristiano Ronaldo... but not as gay.

Indiana Jones Post #1: A Very Indy B-Day

Along w/ the other new links on the side-bar, you may have noticed the counter to the new Indiana Jones movie. Tis marks the 1st of what will obviously be a slew of Indiana Jones posts this summer. Aiden had his b-day party yesterday after their soccer game & a great time was had by all. Before the kids showed up, Elizabeth called from Japan. It was only the third time I've talked w/ her since they moved... so that was pretty awesome. She chatted w/ the Solstice & Aiden for a while & then the kids started showing up. Stephanie made a sweet sweet Indiana Jones Snake Cake (not a cake out of snakes, but a cake with a snake pit in the middle into which Indy & Sulla had to avoid falling. In keeping w/ the Indiana Jones theme, he got tons of cool Indy toys (I may even finish playing w/ them some time while he is still a child). We put together his multitude of Indy Lego sets yesterday evening while watching The Parent Trap (the Hayley Mills version from 1961 not the 1998 version w/ Lindsey Lohan... only the original... only the best). Speaking of Indy, if you're as excited as certain members of my household about the impending release of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, I have a few links for you to check out: McSweeneys Indiana Jones Tenure Rejection Letter
Indiana Jones Lego Movie
The Mystery of The Crystal Skulls
Trailer for The Kingdon of the Crystal Skulls
After The Parent Trap, we'd planned to watch Planet of the Apes (again, not that shit-ass remake, the shit-ass original), but my DVR wasn't working properly which meant I couldn't get the audio to work so we settles on Soylent Green, a different, equally problematic Charlton Heston sci/fi film. I hadn't seen it in about 15 years, The last time I watched it was w/ Stephanie's dad when we 1st started dating which is ironic because the last time I saw The Parent Trap was w/ him about the same time. SG is a much better film than I remembered it being.... and of course, it's people. Speaking of people, w/o further ado, here are photos of people from the party yesterday:

This is not a non-soccer post

W/ the Premiership finale last weekend & the FA Cup final tomorrow, I thought this would be a good time for a short overview for all of you footy-faithful readers. To start things off, Man U won the league, 2 points a head of Chelsea & 4 points clear of Arsenal. While Arsenal dropped a lot of points after Eduardo's injury, they still ended up 1 place & 15 points better than last year & w/ a winger & a new goalie they should do even better next year. Rumor has it that Ben Arfa from Lyon may be joining soon which would be a big boost, plus the chatter suggesting Wenger will replace Flamini w/ Yaya Toure is fantastic. I certainly hope that goes through... Kolo getting to play in the center w/ his lil bro would be great. Here's a nice little highlight reel of Arsenal's best goals from the season followed by some highlights of Cristiano Ronaldo, the FA player of the year:


In other not non-soccer news, Aiden turned 7 yesterday & got a pretty sweet soccer book as a present. I think he's going to post some pics from yesterday on his blog today before he goes to his 1st sleep ovr party tonight & then has a game tomorrow morning before his party. Be sure to check out his blog & wish him a happy b-day.

You Tube Alert: Breakin' & Poppin'

You remember Alfonso Ribeira looking like this, but there was a time before he hitched his wagon to Will Smith's star, a time when he hitched it to Michael Jackson's, & once it was hitched, history was made. I always wondered if he really loved Jacko or if it was just his agent's way of promoting his dancing ability to the masses. Either way, we were treated to his hi jinks on Silver Spoons & sweet sweet Pepsi commercials. He made a lot of other commercials too, but I know I never saw this ad because if I'd seen it, I'd own it.

Moving Day

You may recall that I said I've been thinking about moving; well, the day is near. To paraphrase Phil Lesh, minor technical difficulties merged to create 1 major technical difficulty which has lead to this need to move this year (I'll explain the whole situation person, but not on here). I've been going over my options & for a while I considered a trailer, but that would have meant 1 of 2 things: a long drive or a shitty place. A nice trailer would put the kids a long way from school & me a long way from work. A close trailer would have meant moving to an area where I just wouldn't have felt comfortable & into a rather dilapidated home... so that option was out. I then thought about the save cash & move in w/ my parents option. I wasn't happy w/ that choice so that option was out. I looked into renting a 3 bedroom apt. in Ypsi, but they were way to expensive for what they were so that was out. Then the other day, I was driving through Depot Town & came upon this sweet, sweet house for sale or rent on Oak St. I called the # immediately & put things in motion. The owner lives in FLA & planned to use this house as a summer home until the economy took a shit. Before that happened though, he overhauled the whole place, putting all sorts of new stuff into this historic house from 1850: duct work, wiring, plumbing, appliances, roof, bathrooms, windows, insulation, & even the walls. We checked it out last week & Solstice was ready to move in that day... she is freaking loving it. It's a bit smaller than where we are now, but it's still plenty big: 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, a huge kitchen, dining room, & living... plus an enormous back yard w/ room for a nice garden & a soccer goal (not to mention the horseshoe pits & the nice flower/rock garden that is already there). I even found some morels in the yard. The rent is good & there's an option to buy on a land contract next year. My lease starts June 1st, but I'll be out of town for a wedding that weekend, so I guess I'm gonna try to get major stuff moved during the week (let me know when you can help). I might have to wait until the following Sunday, but the Normal Park garage sale will be that week so I'd like to be out by then in order to sell lots of stuff. Of course, if you know anyone who needs major appliances, let me know. I'm always willing to hook up a friend w/ a good low price... otherwise they're going onto Craig's List: kitchen stuff, washer/dryer, ceiling fans/light fixtures, & a few pieces of furniture. While we checked it out the other day, I didn't think to take pics of the interior, but here are a few pics of the house & yard.

God Hates Being Stood Up

Yesterday, 'round 10ish, I heard that Fred Phelps was planning to be on campus 'round noonish & others were planning a counter-demonstration. Since I'm always up for a counter-demonstration, we walked over there & continued to walk around for about 20 minutes before finally settling in @ the new student center w/ about 60 others who were looking for something to protest. For those of you not familiar w/ Mr. Phelps, those of you who have lived under rocks since Matthew Shepard (no relation to Jack) was killed about 10 years ago, he's the guy w/ the God Hates Fags site. I just checked the site & was a little saddened to see he no longer has a picture of Shepard burning in Hell. It does have a list of the other things... other than those friends of Satan, the Gay community, Phelps claims God hates... Sweden, Mexico, The US Military, & Canada. I can understand Canada... those clean bastards, but but what the Hell did Sweden ever do to anyone? All I know about Sweden is ice & Freddie Lundberg (& aside from leaving Arsenal for West Ham, he seems like a pretty decent guy). Apparently, he planned to protest the EMU chapter of the LGBT Resource Center because other chapters have been outspoken about The Day of Silence. I'm still unclear on the use of protesting a chapter that hasn't said anything about the issue, but regardless, that was his plan. As it turns out, however, he never showed which left 60 of us w/ nothing to protest. I suppose it's for the best, but when someone makes plans to be somewhere, that person should follow up on said plan. It's just proper etiquette. Furthermore, I'd like to take this moment to announce that we @ Visions of Ypsi hate no one regardless of gender, race, sexuality, ethnic background, religion, political beliefs, age or otherwise. Here are a couple pics from the non-protest:Also, be sure to check out Aiden's new blog. We've been scanning his drawings & I've helped him put them on-line... partly to cut down on the amount of paper that sits around my dining room. You can fins it here.

Hitchcock

Hitchcock is a lot like Shakespeare & The Rolling Stones: I'm willing to tolerate the crap (& there are mountains of it) because the good so is so fucking good (well, I won't tolerate Some Girls, that is just downright awful). I DVRed Marnie a few weeks ago & finally got around to it last night which got me thinking about all the Hitchcock films I've seen. Of his 34 films, I've seen 1/2 of them. Here is a quick overview of each 1... & be on the look out for my little Hitchcockesque cameo.*Family Plot (1976): I love Bruce Dern as Joe Danby in Support Your Local Sheriff which makes me more tolerant of other Bruce Dern films, but for Hitchcock's swansong, one would expect a bit more.
*Torn Curtain (1966): My dad will tell you this is the best Hitchcock film... I'll tell you he's wrong.
*Marnie (1964): Straight from her success in The Birds, Tippi Hedren (or as she is listed in the credits, 'Tippi'... why the quotation marks? Your guess is as good as mine) made another mediocre film. It takes a while to get going, but it's definitely worth the wait. The ending is pretty intense. Oh, & Sean Connery's character isn't quite the rapist the poster makes him out to be.
*The Birds (1963): Ehhh. Mel Brooks did attack-minded birds funnier in High Anxiety, & they were even funnier when they attacked us on the Diag 15 years ago.
*Psycho (1960): Unlike North by Northwest, this one deserves every little bit of praise it gets. Don't be fooled by the money... it's a red herring. Something ain't right w/ that Bates dude.
*North by Northwest (1959): Loved by millions... tolerated by me. It's better than most movies, but it's not as good as its reputation would lead you to believe. The airplane scene was story-boarded in the Intro to Film book I had @ Schoolcraft College in 1993. It was one of the best classes I had there.
*Vertigo (1958): See this movie... NOW! It is by far my absolute favorite. I would go so far as to put it on my list of the 10 best films of all time. I watched this in my Film Theory class in Grad School & have loved it ever since. It's got everything I want in a Hitchcock film: weird suspense, deranged sexuality, a hot chick, & a fantastic plot (like Rear Window on acid). It also has some of the very 1st CG effects. This is the movie that made me realize that James Stewart is really good... not just that drivel bullshit in It's a Wonderful Life. *The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956): if it weren't for all the others, this would be my favorite of the James Stewart/Hitchcock films.
*The Trouble with Harry (1955): The 1st Hitchcock film I ever saw. It's funny & oddly disturbing. A corpse keeps turning up & everyone in a small New England town thinks she or he is responsible & proceeds to hide it.
*To Catch a Thief (1955): In general, I like Cary Grant & heist movies so I like this film, but really, it's not that great.
*Rear Window (1954): I wrote about this one on the old Leshlush blog. I dig it. James Stewart pulls off some hilarious masturbation jokes that seem way, way ahead of their time.
*Strangers on a Train (1951): The best thing about this film is that it made Throw Mama from the Train possible.
*Rope (1948): I watched this based on a recommendation from one Mr. Barry Hall. The sexuality is interesting & the real-time plot is cool, but it's not his best film, that's for sure.
*Notorious (1946): A stylish thriller w/ Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, & Claude Rains. Although if I'm gonna watch a stylish film w/ Ingrid Bergman & Claude Rains, I'll take Casablanca any day of the week.
*Suspicion (1941): Probably my least favorite of all the Hitchcock films I've seen. Joan Fontaine's character thinks her new husband played by Cary Grant is a murderer. 90 minutes later we find out she was wrong & all of the drama & suspense end in them having a little chuckle about it.
*Foreign Correspondent (1940): I watched this while in college and high on pain-killers after having wisdom teeth removed. Even that didn't help this rather boring film.
*The Lady Vanishes (1938): I got the 2 disc Criterion set for my dad for X-mas. I don't think he liked it very much, but I dug it. It's pretty goofy. Not The Trouble w/ Harry goofy, but for his early films, goofy none-the-less.

Bicycling & Gender Roles... or No Pain, No Gain

Aiden went to his friend's house after school yesterday which gave Solstice & me the chance to go for a bike ride. Aiden's bicycling proficiency isn't really up to snuff so we have to take these opportunities when they come, & she was so excited about it that she was talking about it from the moment I saw her after school. We decided to take a cruise around the 'hood before ending up @ the park which is where things went awry. We passed Kristen & Natalie & then turned into the parking lot. As I attempted to mount the curb & go to the swing set, my front tire had other plans. I caught the curb & went sailing over the bars & onto the grass. I was almost able to stop myself, but I realized sticking the landing would do more harm than good so I let myself roll over my right shoulder... the whole time Solstice staring w/ mouth agape & eyes wide. I took a hard knock on my left ankle, messed up the left bicep, & did something to my 3 center toes on my right foot. As I looked back to ensure K & N didn't see, Solstice asked if I was hurt. Pissed @ myself, I said, "Obviously... what do think?" To which she responded, "Well, you're not crying & you are a MAN so I thought maybe you aren't hurt." As I picked myself up, I asked her what she meant, & as it turns out, she meant exactly what she said. I had to explain that even her seemingly indestructible father gets hurt once in a while. Furthermore, we got to have a little talk about gender identity & the roles we fill in society based on our gender associations. We hung out on the swings & then went to the other park in the neighborhood where we continued this little talk. She asked me if a man could be a house-keeper. "You mean like Alfred Pennyworth? Of course, although they're usually referred to as 'butlers.' That distinction isn't necessary." People can do whatever job they want, regardless of gender. I asked her what jobs she thought women couldn't have & she said construction worker (luckily, she didn't say drag-queen... or that only women could be Tub-Girls, I don't know how I would have responded). I explained that many women work in the construction industry, & over all, it was a nice opportunity to turn pain & humiliation into a teacherly moment.

Art from an Etch-a-Sketch

This dude is pretty amazing. I never even realized people do this sort of thing. Be sure to scroll through the site too. He has lots of topical stuff like election coverage & themes for holidays... plus the sweet, sweet Straight Outta Compton cover & Dylan from the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video. Of course, I like this one because we share a name.

Gear and Links

Not to bore you w/ a soccer post, but the other day @ a little neighbor hood kick-around I broke my glasses. I showed up and then realized I'd forgotten my sweet sweet soccer goggles. I said to myself "I'll just take it easy & this should be fine." W/in 5 minutes, I went up for a header & saw my former glasses explode in 4 different directions. I have an appointment for next week, so be sure to stay tuned & find out about the new pair... you can count on me to report back as soon as I get them, & if you're lucky, there will be some crazy optometry hijinks to boot. Until then, @ least you can enjoy this fantastic shot of the now defunct official eye wear of Visions of Ypsi.In other gear news, I the George Bush treated me to a new printer & as my 1st order of business, I've started making t-shirts. I have 2 shirts but 4 images so I might need a little help here. Of the 2, 1 will be an Arsenal shirt featuring Arsene Wenger & the other will feature 1 of these 2 images: here and here. I know they're both rather nerdy, but I'd appreciate it if you could look beyond the nerd-factor & cast a vote for the image that should adorn the shirt. W/ this in mind, I'd also like to announce the beginning of the new Visions of Ypsi t-shirt line: for 15$ you get a t-shirt (L, XL, XXL) w/ a picture of Tub Girl & the Visions of Ypsi URL. If sales go as expected, I'd be happy to introduce shirts w/ other images too. Come to think of it, the sales of the bumper stickers never really took off (go figure), so this could really open things up to a whole new market. BTW, here's the Arsene Wenger shirt I'm making (I don't know what's happening w/ his thumb, but it can't be good): Trust Arsene
Speaking of opening things up to a whole new market, here's the first of a few links I have for y'all today: If you like cereal in a way completely different from how I like cereal, than you might just like this. Then, of course, in other body image news... or for those of you interested in Children's Literature, there's this, My Beautiful Mommy. It's a children's book about how to explain your new boob job or your tighter ass or your fuller, cock-sucking lips to your kids. Dr. Michael Alexander Salzhauer is quite the author... I smell a Newbery! Finally, in an attempt to come full circle, check out this Darth Vader hot air balloon. The link is about a year old, but posting it while I'm considering a Darth Vader shirt seems mildly apropos. Last, but not least, when I got the new printer, I also scored a couple new hats that will join the Moonlight BBQ hat in helping get me through the awkward, growing out phase of my hair. (It's definitely past the product stage now.) You're going to have to settle for a phone-cam pic though because suddenly my camera isn't working. If I can't get it working, George Bush may be treating me to a camera too.