Things I have learned this week

That's my dog, Gus. He's a Great Pyrenees. (Sometimes, he's just a pretty good Pyrenees) I have two other dogs. One more dog, and I'll be the crazy dog lady. I didn't learn anything about Gus this week, but he was a good boy so I put his picture on the interbay. Here's what I learned:

*Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't super short. He was 5'6", average height for a man in his day. The British made up stories about him being 5'2" to try to literally belittle him.

*The Prime Minister of Canada is Stephen Harper.

*The Padres just got a whole lot cuter.

*Mitch Canham is dating a girl named Marlis, and she is stunning. Possibly better looking than he is. She looks really smart and funny, too.

* If you are planning a wedding in the Seattle area , check out Gerald Pope photography. Lovely work.

*If your hangers keep complaining about being cold, you can buy them charming handmade ponchos here.

* (4/09-sadly, your hangers will have to tough it out, the ponchos are no longer available.) Carnegie Deli brand pastrami from Costco is not nearly as delicious as it looks. It's just okay.

He wants to be your President.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is running for President. I don't know much about him, other than he organized the Salt Lake City Olympics and he seems to be somewhat impaired in the smarts department.

I swear this is true. In 1983, he loaded the presumably large Mormon family into the station wagon and set out from Boston on a 12 hour trip to Ontario. The Romney kids couldn't leave the family dog behind, so he packed Seamus the Irish Setter into his PetPorter....and strapped it to the roof of the car.

At some point during the trip, Russ, or one of the other Romney kids, noticed Seamus diarrhea running down the windows. Mitt pulled in to a service station, hosed down the car, (problem solved!) and headed for Canada.

Oh, he also used the incident to illustrate his "emotion free crisis management" in an interview with the Boston Globe.

I pray he doesn't have an Aunt Edna.

source

Joey Almighty

In 2001, then- 39 year- old Joey Salvati was in the shower when God spoke to him. The Lord did not ask Joey to make sure he wiped the pubes off the soap, He asked Joey to manufacture and deliver wooden paddles designed for spanking kids.

Click here to read the article.

Of course this pathetic loser lives with his mother.

Why is it that God never tells anyone how to cure cancer?

No Authority Yet

A good way to learn about blogging is to read other blogs. I've discovered that blogging is a very popular subject among bloggers. Since I've only been at it for a week, I don't feel qualified to dispense advice- but I am happy to share what I have learned.

1. Get a counter. I got mine from statcounter. I got it because Tony Pierce told me to. I didn't think I would need it, because I didn't think anyone would read my blog, but...

2. People will read your blog if you blog about a hot athlete.

3. There is a thing called technorati . I am not exactly sure what it is, but it has put itself in charge of dealing out Authority, and it hasn't given me any yet. I don't know if that's important or not, but I want some Authority.

4. Blogging is harder than it looks.

5. Blogging is more fun than you would think.

Bittersweep

Mitch Canham has likely played his last game for OSU. He made it a doozy- he went 2 for 4 and had a couple great plays at the plate...oh, and the Beavs are NCAA Champs for the second year in a row. They went undefeated in the tournament.
I am really happy for the Beavs, but sad about Canham. He has been drafted by the Padres, and even though he could come back and play his Senior year in Corvallis, he probably won't. There is a chance he could play A ball in Eugene for the Ems on his way to the bigs- but the Ems aren't on TV. Now I am left to wait for Mitch to get to the show... and I can only hope he plays in the AL. Until then, our romance will probably cool off a little- and by "romance" I mean "me blogging about him", which is too bad, because an incredible thing happened last week. People came to my blog! Somehow, they searched for Mitch Canham, and they got here.
I'm almost certain they were sorely disappointed by what they found. Especially if they googled "beaver pictures".

Jobu delivers

Today could be the day that the Beavs become National Champions for the second year in a row.

Oregon State- fight, fight, fight.

I ask Jobu to come

One of the fun things about baseball is voodoo. Some may call it superstition, or ritual, or whatever... but it works like this:

If something works for you, don't change it. If you don't know what it is that is working for you, don't change anything.

Did you see what my boyfriend did on Wednesday? He tore. it. up. as the Beavs dominated the UC Irvine Anteaters on their way to the CWS final series.

Here's where the voodoo comes in. Although the Beavs crushed Arizona State on Monday to get to UCI, Mitch was...quiet at the plate. Then I told the world about our relationship on Wednesday... and he had an incredible game- he went 4 for 5 with one HR and all kinds of RBI.

I don't want to detract from Mitch's talent. I am not so vain as to think that he stepped his game up just because I blogged about him. However, voodoo being what it is, I made damn sure to get a Mitch post in today.

This would never happen in woodshop

Savannah Larson is 13 years old. After a solo at her final choir concert at Monticello Middle School in Longview, Washington, she approached the microphone and addressed the auditorium.
She said, " Oops, I totally forgot to thank my wonderful choir teacher Miss Noakes. She has taught me over the last two years, and she always knows the right thing to say in a bad situation, like, ' God Dammit, get your ass out in the hall, Why won't you fucking listen, and I don't care whether you learn or not, I get paid either way."
Savannah says she took the drastic step after complaints to the school about Noakes' potty mouth were, in her opinion, ignored.
Savannah was suspended for 10 days- the rest of the school year- and excluded from her 8th grade graduation ceremony. The teacher in question has been suspended as well, after a school district investigation revealed that Savannah wasn't making things up.

Who could have imagined a pair of balls this huge would be found on a thirteen year old choir girl?

article, article with video

Two ways to improve your conversation skills

1. Refrain from ending your sentences with "So..". "So" is not an ending. "So" indicates a conclusion is coming. Either conclude your thought, or lose the "So...".

Annoying: Me: Would you like to listen to me play guitar?

You: I'd like to, but I'm sort of a music snob, so...

Better: Me: Would you like to listen to me play guitar?

You: No.

"So..." is the conversational equivalent of the Sopranos finale. I am left to use my imagination as to what should come next. Enough with the cliffhangers.

2. Please, please stop over-enunciating. I'm sure what you are saying is fascinating, but I'm too distracted by your percussive Ts to listen anymore. Here's how to tell if you over-enunciate: Say "want to". If your tongue hits the roof of your mouth twice, you are guilty. If you make sure to say "and" instead of "'n" or "an", your diction coach is probably proud, but I am annoyed. Perhaps you think your ex-cell-ent dic-tion makes you sound educated and important, but the truth is, you sound like Madonna.

My New Boyfriend

My husband says that he knew I was "the one" when I recognized an uncaptioned picture of Jerry Tarkanian. To this day, I don't know why I know who Jerry Tarkanian is- I have absolutely no interest in college basketball, or UNLV- but the fact remains that I fooled my husband into thinking I cared about sports.

Back when we were newlyweds, and I was still trying to impress him, I dedicated myself to learning to appreciate baseball. It wasn't easy- those were the days before Fox regional coverage. We lived out-of-market, so we couldn't watch Mariners games on tv. So we listened to them on the radio.

Listening to baseball on the radio takes focus- but you can learn a lot. For a couple seasons, I paid close attention to the action and listened to my husband explain pitching matchups during the commercials. It was not for nothing- baseball is 50 times more interesting when you understand the small nuances. Bonus- I can say I know the infield fly rule.

DirectTV and FoxSports Northwest changed everything. Now we could watch almost every Mariners game. We watched the miracle 1995 season. We went to a playoff game at the Kingdome and watched Edgar Martinez bring Ken Griffey Jr home with that double. I think I saw a tear in the corner of my husband's eye. We suffered through 1996, and our suffering paid off in '97.

Then in 1998, the M's acquired middle reliever Jose Paniagua. He was my baseball boyfriend for three years. Jose's eyes are the color of blue masking tape. I first noticed him as he was looking in to get the signs from Dan Wilson. I wanted to be Dan Wilson. The problem with Jose was that he had The One Good Angle. He looked really good from the home plate camera as he was looking in. He looked kinda goofy from every other angle. I had to break up with him when he got traded. We parted amicably.

With Jose gone, the Mariners were left with a whole lotta ugly.I had to look elsewhere in the league for my new boyfriend.

I didn't pay much attention to Johnny Damon when he was with the A's. When he went to Boston, he let his hair grow and stopped shaving and confused me. I was confused because I had always maintained that any guy can double his attractiveness by getting a good haircut and a clean shave, and wearing sunglasses and a good baseball cap. Johnny turned my theory on it's ear. There was something oddly compelling about his mix of Jesus and Grizzly Adams and Jerry Garcia. I made him my second baseball boyfriend, which in turn led to the Red Sox breaking the Curse of the Bambino and winning the World Series.

Then he did the unforgivable... he signed with the Yankees. Now, with his smooth face and short hair, all I can hear is that lisp. Johnny broke my heart a little. Baseball was dead to me.

Like Annie Savoy in Bull Durham (I wonder if she is related to Bobby Savoy from the Natural?) I found I couldn't stay away. My husband has always been an Oregon Sate fan, but the baseball team is rarely on TV. Two years ago, they made it to the NCAA tournament. Last year, they won the College World Series. There is a good chance they will do it again this year. The good thing about post season play is that it gets televised.

My current baseball boyfriend is OSU's Mitch Canham. It's a little scandalous, because he is a good 12 years younger than I am, but we will make it work. Unlike Jose, he looks good from just about any angle. He doesn't strike me as a deserter like Johnny. Probably the best thing about Mitch is that he is a catcher. Catcher's gear is hot. I think because it looks like armor. Mitch Canham is the knight in dirty armor who saved baseball for me.

My new favorite word

Amy Winehouse fascinates me. I want to bring her home, give her half a dozen cheeseburgers and a shower, and just listen to her talk about anything. I also wanna get a good look at those tattoos and see what's under that wig. My guess is it isn't pretty- the junk does nasty things to one's scalp and hair.


I also want to thank her for introducing me to my new favorite word- fuckery. As in, "What kind of fuckery is this?"


I don't know if she coined it, or if it's a British term, but I love it. I love it because it adds a new dimension to "fucker", which I also enjoy. I reserve the term for occasions when those dear to me cause me aggravation or otherwise inconvenience me- I only ever use it in mock anger. The dogs are fat fuckers, or fat lazy fuckers if I'm in a hurry and they aren't. I've been known to call annoying kids little fuckers under my breath. We had a cat once, and it was a noisy fucker.


I use it sparingly- I have probably used up this years' allotment on this post- so that it retains its power. Also, it's a funny word. My husband chuckles a little every time he hears me say it.


Amy took fucker to a whole new level by adding the morpheme -y. It's the only word on the whole Back to Black cd that she enunciates. She sings it loud and proud, slow, clear, and just a little staccato to make her point. I smile every time I hear it.

I join the Nerd Patrol

So here it is, my first blog post. I've always wanted to write a book called "Things Everybody should know", but the fact is I'm never gonna do it, so this will have to suffice. I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm pretty sure I'm not all that interesting...but the good news is that in all likelihood nobody will read this.

I googled "How to blog", and I found this great post by Tony Pierce, who sounds like he knows what he is doing. Plus, he advocates the use of strong language, which is fun. I'm a believer.