Tying one on

Sometimes my shoes come untied.

I have one pair in particular that doesn't cooperate. It must be something about the consistency of the laces. Perhaps they are too slick? I did not specifically seek out these laces, nor did I effort to avoid them. (BTW - I hate that usage of the word "effort" and will enterprise not to go there again.) They came with the shoes.

Shoes, incidentally, that make me appear taller. They have thick soles but they're not a soldier.

Anyway, once upon a time one of my shoes became untied, so I leaned down and tied it. A friend observing commented, "you tie your shoes like a little kid."

Astonished and insulted, I asserted that the knots I use are totally different when I tie up little kids.

After an uncomfortable silence, a moment of realization and an awkward, "ha, just kidding," I asked him what he was talking about? And what was the "adult" way? It's not like my shoes were rockin' Velcro (well, not this pair, anyway).

What I should have said was, "Oh yeah? Which one?!" I mean, if we're talking Dakota Fanning, OK. But an Olsen sister from back in the day? Then we got problems.

Which reminds me, this kid Matt I lived next to in kindergarten (well, to be more accurate, we happened to be in kindergarten during the period of time in which we lived next door to each other) had these cool Spider-Man shoes. So I wanted my own pair. My brother, then a wise 9 or 10 years old, urged me not to, saying the consequences could be dire. But I sold mom on it and got 'em anyway.

One day... after chillin' at Matt's ... I went back home through the trees ... and realized ... I WAS WEARING HIS SHOES! THE HORROR! Don't judge another 5-year-old until you've walked a few dozen feet ...

My brother, for perhaps the last time ever, was right. Actually, he also was right about me not being able to beat his trip-7's the other night. But I further digress ...

Something you should know about Matt. Field trip. To the middle school. In the cafeteria. He's eating an apple. He sneezes. Small piece of apple shoots out of his nose and onto the table. He picks it up and eats it again.

I'm not kidding.

What reminded me of all this shoe nonsense was an odd sight seen at the big work complex today. Two guys kneeling down, about two feet away from each other, facing each other. Another man looming above them, staring at his watch. The men on the ground were tying their shoes. Apparently this other man was timing them. It was some sort of crazy, tie-off deathmatch.

I didn't have my camera with me, but this artist's rendering is more or less what it looked like.

Horrifying.

Now one can understand Joe Jackson's motivations without reading it in the Sunday papers -- especially since, as mentioned here earlier, nobody reads the papers anymore.

"You can read it in someone's blah-og."

Some other random thoughts

• Garfield minus Garfield is a bit funnier than Garfield minus Garfield minus Garfield.

• After blowing off Earth Day, I walked to work four of the next six days and also walked to the Promenade. Just trying to be green – and improve my on-base percentage.

• Dear President Obama: I hereby submit my name as a candidate for Omega Supreme Court Justice.

  • I am proud to say that I have no idea who the hell Heidi and Spencer are.

  • Do Jews even have to worry about Swine Flu?

  • Meanwhile, this guy's knife has filed for divorce on grounds of adultery.

  • Also seen in the premises of the wacky shoe tying folk: A dude in an old Van Halen shirt. Or a dude in an old-style Van Halen shirt. If it's the former, almost have to give him credit for keeping the shirt all this time. If the latter, it's just cheesy and he sucks.

For Van Halen was cool at the time. Looking back, the DLR years were cool ... but cheesy. Pledging allegiance to DLR's VH 20-25 years later with a new shirt that looks like it's from the cheesy '80s ... well, that sucks.

Next time (maybe): I can tie my shoes, but what about tying a tie? And what does all this have to do with Kate Mara and a quote board somewhere in Australia?

Let's ask Win Lyle ...

Or just go to Vegas and watch a couple of people beat the crap out of each other. One or the other.

Blog blog

Trying to help my sister set up a blog. It's taking a while. Program has been extracting forever. I may be here late.

So in meantime, figured I'd start arduous process of resurrecting this blog. Because I thought it'd be funny to toss up a few posts while we waited to do just one in the new blog.

Random thoughts:
*Pirated captain's plane back to Vermont home hijacked and redirected to Cuba. Not really, but would be funny in an unfortunate way.

*Fox better not cancel Dollhouse. Would be nice to keep Sarah Connor Chronicles, too. Otherwise, they join the list of all the other good shows Fox never gave a chance to, including Firefly, Wonderfalls, Andy Richter ... and just blame them for Pushing Daisies, too, even though they have nothing to do with it.

(Can't Fox cancel Fox News instead?)

*Brother in law is all fired up about something political. He wants a blog, too. I may be here all night.

*If Facebook is useful but ultimately an underachiever, what does that make twitter?

*If I am useful but ultimately an underachiever, what does that make [insert person I wish to mock here]?

*If you worked for a company that was owned by another company that was run by your father, would that be your parent's parent company? Or would that be the company that owns the company your father works for? What if it was the same company?

*I have 14 minutes left, according to my computer. No way I'll complete my bucket list in that little time -- especially considering item no. 1 is "create bucket list."

*Ever go to sportsjournalists.com? If 75 percent of the folks on there make up the braintrust of newspapers, it's no surprise that industry is imploding. Too bad, because there are so, so many great people in newspapers. And great newspapers.

*Brother in law says he checks google news every morning. He's not getting my help with any blog.

*Had turkey burgers made from ground turkey meat. Wonder if air turkey meat tastes different.

*"You bought a record player just to store in the desert?" -- something I just overheard. Can't really imagine what it means.

*Is planning a trip for the primary purpose of being able to blog it a worthy motivation? Methinks perhaps.

*Me: "Is this your Coke Zero?" Sis: "I don't do that!"

*Extracting (not the military kind, fortunately -- or the vanilla kind, unfortunately) finally done. Time to post this and get back to work on sister's blog.

Next time: EWB Baseball for iPhone -- coolest thing ever in the history of everything?

Out of 'Practice'

I have no intention whatsoever of this becoming some sort of voyeuristic celebrity blog. But I can't help if it I see one.

Especially if he steals my hair gel.

That's right, Dylan McDermott. I'm calling you out.

OK, so he didn't actual steal the gel. But due to security line confusion at LAX a couple days back, he very well might have ended up with my one-quart plastic bag full of dude bathroom stuff (OK, toiletries. Whatever).

The toothbrush? Replaceable. Though not by the hotel. Sure they have all I need in case I "forgot" something. All I needed was a damn toothbrush, some paste (which they did have), arguably deodorant (they had that too), the nearby bridge to actually cross the highway and some hair product.

Managed to get the brush, paste and deodorant, but the bridge across the highway still is in ruins, I lost a since-refilled/replaced prescription, and my clay and spray might now be in McDermott's stupid actor hair (while I had to "borrow" gel from a coworker one day, try to use hotel-issued moisturizer the next before spending upwards of $10 on a tiny bottle of hairspray at the Atlanta airport).

(Incidentally, on an ensuing trip, that coworker ended up having to borrow gel from a bald coworker. Dylan never would stoop to such depths.)

All this after I caught his falling luggage. Seriously!

So, what to do. As far as I can tell, my choices are:

1. Let it go and move on with my life.
2. Write a letter to Entertainment Weekly.
3. Contact Mr. McDermott's publicist.
4. Stalk ol' Dylan and steal his damn hair product
5. Forget about this post, only to come across it a few months later and finally finish/post it

Guess I went with No. 5. Oops.