Yet Even More Small Things

While attending the IU-Kentucky basketball game a few weeks ago, I was blessed with the comedy of the following individual, who was trying to get the attention of a friend apparently sitting on the other side of the stadium:

This gentleman, who must have blind friends, got on his cell phone on no less than nine different occasions during the game while standing up and waving into the distance off to his right. His conversation, although I could not hear it, definitely was:
“Hey! Are you at the game? Me too! Where are you? I’m over here!”
[Waves arm frantically.]
“Over here! I’m wearing red and waving! In the stands!”
[Waves both arms momentarily, then puts cell phone back to his face.]
“Over here! No, here!”
[Hangs up phone, waits, twitching, while ten minutes pass. Makes another call, again waving non-phone arm franticly.]
“Hey! Yeah, I’m still here! Over here!”
[His wife leaps from the upper deck in embarrassment.]
“Over here!”

Let’s get this straight. There is “damn it” and there is “dammit.” These are different, as in:
Oh, damn it, I put too much balsamic vinaigrette in that marinade!
Get that moose off my truck, dammit!

Please enjoy the following artistic stacking of Lake Michigan beach-rocks as collected and constructed by my father, who puts my own stacking abilities to shame:


A gentleman at my place of employment has quite a few autographed baseballs on his desk. The other day while he was at lunch, I spent some time trying to figure out whose signatures were on all of them. Since the professional autograph is slightly less legible than a smear of pigeon poop, this was pretty challenging. These are the results of my honest efforts to discern the name on each baseball:

Whaverin Havlisch
Gloria Stinker
Bello Lewtsky
Lard Slothi
Hubris Proin
Liderica va Stadi
Si Na Parliuy
Mail Dog In Car

If you make the life choice to purchase and drive a minivan, you can not, no matter how hard you try, make it cool. This is as impossible as sampling a Yanni track on your forthcoming thugged-out hip-hop single. Don’t waste your time. Case in point:


On the other hand, there are some automotive alterations that are so absurdly over the top that the final product is just damn impressive. When I was at the semi-in-the-hood audio electronics shop getting my partially-burgled car stereo replaced, I saw this beauty in the back of the shop. Because of the enclosed space, I was only able to photograph part of it:

Those are twenty-four inch rims (I asked the owner), and the interior had been done up in immaculate white leather (or possibly vinyl, I didn’t ask the owner). A few minutes later, while I was on the opposite side of the store, the audio equipment was being installed in this lime monster was sound-tested. It consisted of approximately sixty-seven subwoofers at roughly eight million watts apiece. I have never in my life experienced such a level of bass, not even at standing three feet away from the speakers at a concert. “Experienced” is more appropriate than “heard” because my ears were only one of the many organs that were directly influenced by the levels of sound that also shook the entire store. Insanity.

Football fans, I ask you this: how hard is it to kick a field goal? The answer: very, very, very hard. NFL kickers have the job security of a lemming, and college kickers frequently can’t hit a freaking extra point! Why is kicking so hard? I have no idea. And to further the madness, consider that the hash marks on a football field, which limit the distance from the center of a field from which a field goal must be attempted, are progressively narrower in high school, college, and the pros. This means that sweaty terrified teenagers, by far the least skilled group of kickers, have the greatest likelihood of being forced to take a kick from a high angle of difficulty, while the steely-nerved pros are given a much straighter shot. True, the uprights are wider in the lower echelons of football, but still, none of this makes any sense to me.

If you are going to make holiday-colored Rice Krispy Treats and sell them at your coffee shop, please consider that while a pile of red and green Treats certainly looks like Christmas fun, a pile of only red Treats looks like ground beef:


Progressive Concepts, a division of the Department of Redundancy Department:


Oh, and the Shins are my new favorite band. Yes, two years after they were discussed in “Garden State.” I’m slow picking up on things. Give me a break. At least I’m not a slave to trends. At least not immediately.

There are a number of things that are true:
1. College students have way too much time on their hands.
2. There are a lot less pretentious poses that could have been selected here.
3. This might be going slightly overboard as far as dorm room door-art is concerned.
4. But, you have to admit that this is pretty cool:


Another gem from O’Dell’s Annals of the New York Stage: From the 1885 theatre season, a two man team of female impersonators called Our Swinging Beauties. The performers’ names? Retardo and Shaw.

And finally, please submit in the Comments area an appropriate caption for this photo: