How Can You Not Make Fun Of That?

West Virginia is my home state's much-maligned neighbor to the south.

Perhaps it's the isolation of the Appalachian mountains, the coal mining traditions, and now the post-industrial poverty that gives West Virginia its bad reputation. But for whatever reason, West Virginia is known as a land where duct tape is suitable for repairing cars; a lawn chair, six-pack, and wading pool is how you spent your summer vacation; and to figure out how many dogs or children you have you have to look under the porch. A land where Monongalia County was named by a governor who couldn't spell Monongahela.

It is quite beautiful, actually. A lot of my outdoorsy friends spend their weekends driving out there to climb or bike around on their mountains and frolic in the woods. They even have Bridge Day, where they close the bridge over the huge New River Gorge to let people base jump off it. And at some point in American history, West Virginia was progressive enough to forbid slavery, which is why we have a West Virginia and a Virginia in the first place.

But I digress. The reason for this post was this article in the Post-Gazette today: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08238/906798-455.stm. Turns out, Weirton, WV, has a problem with feral chickens. Feral chickens.

Feral chickens. And they seem to live on Wall Street.

Now, how can you not make fun of that?

(Photo above copyright 2008 Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette)

Olympic Fencing Brush with Fame

At about the last national fencing competition I went to, I was chatting with some folks in the over-40 division. I had pretty much realized it wasn't worth traveling to national tournaments any more since I could only ever enter one event. And I wasn't all that good at that event either. So it's lots of trouble and expense for a half day of fencing. But I was 38 or 39 at the time, and I realized that once I was over 40, I could enter the masters category events too.

But before I could make it over 40, I lost interest in local competitions and pretty much chucked the fencing thing. But I do plan to get back to it, still.

One of the people I was watching fence in the over-40s foil was a Canadian woman. There were a lot of reasons she caught my eye. First, she was a pretty kickass fencer, and I wondered why she was in the masters competition instead of one of the open divisions. (She might have been entered in multiple divisions.) Also, she had a Chinese accent but her jacket said she was Canadian. And she was pretty: long black hair, graceful and powerful looking. She made a nice contrast to the slightly nerdy older guy who was chatting me up trying to talk me into how cool the over-40 division was.

Earlier this week, I checked out the Olympics for the first time and found out the women's Foil competition was live online. So I go to the website, watch some video, and cruise through the earlier results, and there's a familiar name. Luan. Who is this woman I saw at the tournament years ago. She's 50 now, and on the Canadian team. She made it through the first round of eliminations in the women's foil competition, which is not too shabby.

Turns out Luan Jujie won China's first and only fencing gold medal in 1984. When I saw her she was probably getting back into shape to make the Canadian team.

There's even a human-interest article on the NBC website about her. (OMG! She's old! And female! And she fences! And she used to be a Communist!)

So I guess over-40 fencing might not be so bad after all.

Just for Fun...

Well, I had some deep topics I wanted to blog about, but apparently I've lost all ability to focus. I'm thinking it's a combination of the heat and brain atrophy from watching 5 hours of the Tour de France every day for three weeks.

So instead, I bring you this:

Two-legged dogs!



Actually there are two interesting things to learn from these videos. First, dogs really don't seem to care much when they lose limbs. They just get up and get about their business. Second, the biomechanics are pretty cool; they use their core muscles to adjust their balance and it's pretty interesting to watch.

So. Better content later, I hope.

Hey, I Paid for That!

In case you were wondering, this is what shows up in your dryer filter if you pre-wash and dry 10 yards of white linen all together.

If I were crafty, I could make a really small quilt. (Maybe Barbie-sized.)

Whoah, I'm blogging about lint. Have I really sunk so low?

Reduce, Reuse, Re-read

Reduce, Reuse, Re-read
Originally uploaded by erink

At a garden center near Pittsburgh.

In related news....

This appeared on the home page of my local newspaper this afternoon.


I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

More Evidence that Hockey Players are Not Normal

Hell of a game last night. This morning.

Actually, it was more like two games, since it took six periods to finish.

The Penguins can definitely play with the Red Wings, but they keep forgetting that. In game four, they came out flying and kicked butt - including a breathtaking penalty kill where every time Detroit brought the puck across the blue line they lost posession within three seconds. Then the Pens gave up a goal - and it really was just a lucky shot, not an especially great play - and their whole outlook changed. They couldn't pass, they couldn't set up an attack, and every time a Detroit player skated near them they lost the puck.

I'm particularly happy that Maxime Talbot got the game-tying goal. He's one of the guys who is least susceptible to this performance funk. He always plays hard and never gives up. It's one thing to say that, but it's another thing to watch him behind the net in what everybody thinks is the last minute of their season, chopping at the loose puck - not once, not twice. Three times. And the third time, it goes in.

I came across this bit in the Post-Gazette story about the game. As I said before, hockey players are not like other people.

The power play that led to his goal was made possible when Detroit forward Jiri Hudler smacked Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi in the face with his stick and received a double-minor.

"I was just praying for blood," Scuderi said.

He got his wish, and a nice scab on his chin. It matches the one on his upper lip where he got hit by a teammate in game two. And what did he say then? "It's unfortunate that it wasn't [Detroit], because it would have been four minutes."

Stoicism is pretty much a requirement in the NHL, but the playoffs do bring out remarkable feats of pain tolerance. Sergei Gonchar helped set up the Pens' winning goal. Gonchar crashed hard, head-first, into the boards at the end of the second period and left the game at the beginning of the third. But by the start of the third overtime, he said, he was feeling better. So he suited back up and thought maybe he'd try taking a shift if they got a power play (he had the most power play goals of any defenseman this season).

So Wednesday night we get our last home game of the season, win or lose. I can't complain. Hell of a season.

Though the cup would sure be nice.

Venture Bros is Back! Yaaaaaay!!!!

I happened to be up late enough last night to catch the first new episode in a year and a half when it aired. It was pretty sweet, despite the near total lack of Brock.

The "murderous moppets" did unleash some Brockworthy kickass moves on the Monarch henchmen to assert their dominance. That was fun.

This episode was all Monarch/Dr. Girlfriend. They even redid the opening credits to be all Monarch instead of the Ventures. You do get to see some of the other characters, but they don't speak. Except for Helper.

Excellent line: "I am not interested in doing a theme based on my voice!"

Which leads into this little scene:

Watch (guild henchman): Then let's work on a mutation. The Ocelot Woman! Basically, a mutated ocelot. We let it bite you and bang: ocelot powers!

Guild Henchman 2: They are fierce and super-territorial. Form-fitting costume with ears and a tail that, uh, grabs ... things.

Lady Au Pair: Uhh, no.

Watch: Okay. [Opens door number two.] Mink DeLovely. Take a quick dip in a vat of boiling minks. They have been skinned, pureed, and belted with gamma rays.

GH2: Verrrry sexy costume with this option.

LAP: I was thinking of something that plays off my abilities more than my sexuality.

Watch: Say no more. You want to number two for a woman. [To GH2: ] The feminist type. Done!

GH2: [The den of ?] murderous Betty Rage!

And also this:

Phantom Limb: Shadowman Nine!

Shadowman 9 (secretly the Monarch): Quit shoving! What? Oh, am I 9? [Looks down at number on uniform.] I thought I was Shadowguy 6.

And there are t-shirts! For every episode they're releasing a limited-edition t-shirt based on the episode; you can order it for one week only. This pushes my buttons on so many levels ... and the first shirt is one I've wanted ever since I first saw the Guild logo (was it in Fallen Arches or earlier?). So of course my order is in already.



You can get yours here. Dude.

Revenge of the Orange Crush

Pittsburgh 6, Philadelphia 0
Next up, the Stanley Cup!

Revenge of the Orange Crush
Originally uploaded by erink

Maybe the bible really does have all the answers...

I found this very modern bit of reassurance at the end of an e-mail announcing the birth of my cousin's daughter:

Psalm 139:13-14

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
No virus found in this outgoing message.
...

Adventures in Good Writing

The TV was tuned to Cartoon Network when I turned it on this afternoon, and I heard this line on the Mr. Men show:

"Hello, Miss Calamity. Exciting news. You are the grand prize winner in the Dillydale sweepstakes. You win a collection of extremely breakable glass animals."

Sweet.

Kasparaitis Tough

I figure I should get around to posting something about the hockey playoffs. It's kind of a big deal in my life, I've been scheduling around the games for weeks, and watching them has been pretty exciting.

But I hadn't been inspired yet. I mean, there was the miracle of the pretzel in Game 1 versus the Rangers, but you kind of had to be there.

And things have been going so well, you don't want to jinx it. (See, as soon as I finished that sentence the Rangers scored and went up 2-0 in game 4. I might have to finish this later....)

Things changed today when I learned that two of our players turned up this morning wearing boot casts from blocking shots with their feet on Tuesday.

Which put me in mind of the 2001 playoffs.

It was game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, and the Pens were battling the New Jersey Devils to get to the Stanley Cup round. Darius Kasparaitis, who hits harder than anyone I've ever seen play hockey, blocked a shot with his foot in the first period. It hurt, so he went to the locker room. The doctor told him he had broken bones in his foot. And he put the skate back on and went out and played the rest of the game.

I can't find this version on the InterWeb anywhere, but I distinctly remember Kasparaitis telling the story this way:

I took off my skate, and it started to swell up. I didn't want to leave the team with five guys [on defense], so I put the skate back on.

In the versions I can find, he talks about how the skate is like a cast, and skating keeps the swelling down. He didn't rule out playing the next game until after the morning skate that day. It was even reported that he skated at practice that day, though I'm not sure how since there are quotes from his teammate Jaromir Jagr about how his foot was too big for a human-sized skate.

But maybe he was riding a high streak. A few days earlier, he'd scored a goal - a very rare event for him. And it was a game-winning goal. In overtime. In game seven. Against Dominik Hasek.

I still have that goal saved on my old TiVo.

Found this quote from him.

If I can get the boot on, I will play. A normal person couldn't do it, but hockey players are not normal.

Thanks, Darius.

Vintage Kaspar:
http://www.dariuskasparaitis.com/articles/art74.html
http://www.dariuskasparaitis.com/articles/art120.html
http://www.dariuskasparaitis.com/articles/art79.html
Post-Gazette: Kasparaitis will attempt to play in Game 3 despite broken toes
Modern Kaspar - do you read Russian?:
http://darius-kasper.livejournal.com/

Tougher Dog Laws

Tougher Dog Laws

Found this on a memory card I swapped out at Christmas time and never unloaded until today. This was the (front page of the) newspaper we found in the coffee shop on the way home from visiting my pseudo-in-laws.

The wiener dog photo is completely unrelated to the "tougher dog laws" story. Somebody at the Oil City Derrick was having a fun time working on the holiday.

Advice from Writers

I'm not a writer, but I do occasionally associate with them. They're always getting asked for advice. This week Neil Gaiman posted this great story on his blog about the best advice he ever got from another writer:

In the shower today I tried to think about the best advice I'd ever been given by another writer. There was something that someone said at my first Milford, about using style as a covering, but sooner or later you would have to walk naked down the street, that was useful...

And then I remembered. It was Harlan Ellison about a decade ago.

He said, "Hey. Gaiman. What's with the stubble? Every time I see you, you're stubbly. What is it? Some kind of English fashion statement?"

"Not really."

"Well? Don't they have razors in England for Chrissakes?"

"If you must know, I don't like shaving because I have a really tough beard and sensitive skin. So by the time I've finished shaving I've usually scraped my face a bit. So I do it as little as possible."

"Oh." He paused. "I've got that too. What you do is, you rub your stubble with hair conditioner. Leave it a couple of minutes, then wash it off. Then shave normally. Makes it really easy to shave. No scraping."

I tried it. It works like a charm. Best advice from a writer I've ever received.

Advances in Toaster UI

Dream Toaster
Originally uploaded by erink

Came across this toaster in a shop window. It has the functions you actually want when making toast: "Lift and Look" and "A little More" are groundbreaking.

Well at least they're pretty darn cool.

One problem, the shop was Williams Sonoma and the toaster is ridiculously expensive.

But it sure is pretty.

Pretty Important

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

Todays' random quotation on my Google homepage.

Yes, I am avoiding finishing my taxes, why do you ask?

Missing the Point

When making a recent ThinkGeek order, I noticed they had these OpenX package opening gadgets for pretty cheap (like $2 or $3) so I got one. It's for opening those horrible plastic clamshell packages that won't tear and then cut the shit out of your hands when you do get them halfway open.

So I was pretty surprised when I got the gadget and it was packaged in one of those horrible plastic fused clamshells. What were they thinking?


I would like a bit more of an apology - instead they're actually kind of smug:


Oh well. If I ever get it open I'll let you know how it works.

The ThinkGeek order, by the way, was inspired by their April 1 newsletter, which is always awesome. Check out this year's version at http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/2008.shtml

Magically Delicious

My parents didn't let me have crap cereals. We would beg and beg, but no go.

Mom did let us pick out cereal at the grocery store but there was some rule that we had to find ones that didn't have sugar as the first ingredient. (Although, looking back, I can't believe those existed, so it must have been sugar as the first or second ingredient.) Sucrose and corn syrup and all that stuff count as sugar too, of course. Somehow, King Vitamin and Frosted Flakes passed, but no Frankenberry or Fruit Loops or Coco Puffs.

That last bit might have had something to do with the fact that my dad liked Frosted Flakes....

So I had to learn about sugar cereals in college. The dining center had these huge bins of breakfast cereal available at every meal. (I remember a bet at my table once that you couldn't distinguish different colored Fruit Loops by flavor.) That was how I discovered Lucky Charms.

I really like Lucky Charms. They're oaty and sweet. Not too sweet. And they have two flavors that you alternate back and forth: oaty cereal and sweet marshmallows.

In college I learned the marshmallow trick. I never liked Lucky Charms much because the dehydrated marshmallows were chalky and squeaked on my teeth. In college I discovered that if you made sure to get the marshmallows all wet right away, they soften up and don't scrape your teeth so much.

The marshmallow shapes have got totally out of hand, though. When I was a kid they had "pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers." Then in a media blitz they introduced a new marshmallow: blue diamonds. Soon it was "pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, blue diamonds, and purple horseshoes!" Then they realized they could do "special editions" with different marshmallows. Now the marshmallows are all multicolored (new technology from a few years ago), and much bigger than the originals. Of course, Wikipedia has an exhaustive article on Lucky Charms' "marbits" through history....

As an adult, I buy Lucky Charms every few months. Whenever I open the cereal cabinet not knowing what I want, I see it and get all enthusiastic about having Lucky Charms. I don't know why. But you have to go for those small moments of joy.

There is one thing I never understood. The oat cereal pieces are shaped exactly like dry cat food. Does General Mills make cat kibble too?

Creepy Products I Have Known

Better Than Ears

I found these at a grocery store years ago. They're supposed to replace the boiled pig ears that you can buy in huge bags to feed your dogs (which are another creepy product themselves). Which is worse, ears or pseudo-ears?

But you get 50% more free!




Wee Block

I'd heard of these when I was with two new moms who were talking about baby products you shouldn't buy because they were stupid. This is a cup-shaped sponge you put over your baby boy's weenie while changing him so he can't squirt urine very far when the diaper is off. I'd never seen one for real so when I was shopping at a local baby superstore (site of a relative's shower registry) I sought this one out.

The other one I heard of had a better name: "the pee-pee teepee"

But the "tinkle tinkle lil' star" embroidery is a creepy touch....

Resurrection Eggs

This was in the Easter section of the Mississippi Sprawl-Mart where we went to buy camping supplies. (I held out on buying stuff there as long as possible, but when you're stranded in the south and on a time budget it's difficult....)

These are plastic eggs with mysterious symbols inside that somehow are supposed to teach the story of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection.

Yeah, we're really supposed to believe that this kid is happy to find a bloody crown of thorns in that egg instead of a chocolate?

Over 1 million sold!

Oops! Disposable Panties

Almost forgot the creepiest one: emergency panties.

"Ideal for camping and travelling[sic]!" it says. (Actually, I've seen normal undies at way less than $2/each, and since this two-pack cost $3.99, I think the cotton still wins out.)

"Keep a pack handy for those Heavy Flow days!"

It could have been worse - I found these in a hotel gift shop (where I suppose I was buying "emergency" hosiery, since I was getting a foot blister and the drugstore was several more blocks away), not in a nightclub toilet or highway rest area.

They're ingeniously packed into a compressed disc about 2" diameter and less than an inch high. And the sizing? "Free size," it says. But not so free as you could be.

Statistically Improbably Phrases

My best one for this week:

"That's a cross-check, you piece of poo."

According to Amazon.com, "Statistically Improbable Phrases" are phrases that occur in the text of one book but not very frequently in other books. The phrases don't have to be rare in that particular book, just in books in general.

Which kind of makes sense, because I'm pretty sure I've said something close to that before. But hey, it was a 3 p.m. game. You have to tone it down.

P.S. Here's everything you need to know about hockey penalties

Classy Leftovers

My dinner from a couple weeks ago - all out of the fridge and reheated in about 10 minutes prep time. My beau started the Japanese cooking experiment a few weeks back, and it's getting pretty good.

Clockwise, we have: plain rice; a miso-based soup with mushrooms, tofu, and fresh watercress; and pickled cabbage (two colors). The green stuff sticking out of the pickles is kombu. (And it's probably been used three times before it went into the pickles, because kombu gets recycled a lot in this cuisine.)

The inspiration was the book Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen by Elizabeth Andoh. A friend gave it to us for Christmas last year. So the beau finally cracked it open, studied up, made lists, and we headed out for ingredients.

It turns out, Japanese home cooking is pretty complicated. The food is simple, but you have to make all these broths and such from scratch. There were some misfires in the beginning - I think he accidentally skipped a step where you leave the broth overnight and then take half the ingredients out before adding the soup ingredients - but even the mistakes weren't too bad.

We did get props from the clerk at the local Japanese food store. She saw the dried anchovies, asian mushrooms, and fresh yuzu (which were like $7! are they ever in season?) and said "what are you making?" We explained we were learning to cook Japanese food. As she rang up the large bag of flaked bonito, she said "This is good. The young people don't use this any more, they just use the powdered dashi."

I have to say, after seeing how long it took to make dashi from scratch (not to mention smelling that bag of bonito when it was opened), I can understand that!

And I finally tried umeboshi, which is one of those Japanese foods that foreigners aren't expected to like. Ume are a small fruit that's like a plum. They're pickled in salt. So the result is salty and sour and pretty intense. Here's how it went:

• Umeboshi 1: Uh, eeew. Ack. Whoah. But the saltyness is kind of nice with my head cold.


• Umeboshi 2 (days later): That's not as salty as I remember.


• Umeboshi 3: Mmm, umeboshi!

Knee Update

Greetings from week 11.

Turns out I did get to walk at my four-week appointment, but it was seven days before Christmas when that happened and I was just too busy to blog about it.

Or take pictures. These are from week 9, and it's been looking pretty normal as far as musculature goes. I should have got some pictures at four or five weeks when the thigh was all skinny and caved in on the sides. I stepped on the scale at some point and I had lost about six pounds. I am pretty sure I didn't have a huge fat loss by lying on my couch for five weeks eating peanut butter sandwiches and Chef Boyardee ravioli for five weeks!

So, back on December 18 I went to see my doctor. My surgeon, who is known even among surgeons for being brusque, breezed into the room with his fellows and put me through the paces: Show me your quad set, show me your heel slide, show me a straight leg raise. I guess I did everything right, because he basically pronounced me healed. He said to stop using the brace completely, go to 100% weight bearing, and use the crutches for another week or so. And I could bend my knee as far as I wanted.

It was actually pretty weird, because I walked in to the doctor visit feeling all disabled, trying not to put any significant weight on my leg and worrying about overflexing my knee and busting out the stitches - and then an hour later I was supposed to walk out not worrying about that stuff? I sat in the room for a little while thinking about that and then decided to put the brace back on to walk out. After all, it would be troublesome to carry it. And I ended up wearing it for a few more hours, because I wanted to go out to Ikea and I only had one stocking on, and that would just have been weird without the brace for context.

The MD also said the next two months would be when I did my most intense physical therapy. Too bad my insurance only covers 15 visits per calendar year! On the bright side, I got to go two or three times a week in December. But I've been doing pretty well with once a week in the PT gym and lots of homework. It takes about an hour to get through all my home exercises, and I do that twice a day (occasionally feeling guilty because I'm not doing three sets a day). It's pretty annoying that it takes me an extra hour now to get out of the house after I get up.

So, a lot of things work now. Going up stairs is okay; going down stairs is a little harder but not too bad. I can walk almost as much as I want - a few weeks ago my knee started aching after walking in the park for 45 minutes, but I haven't tried anything like that since.

Still forbidden: running, jumping, mountain biking, falling, and any activity that could result in an unplanned descent. Road biking in a controlled environment I could probably do, but I haven't tried it yet. I might try climbing on a top-rope too, if I get a sports jones before the weather gets nice.

Oh, and limping, limping has always been forbidden. Apparently it's hard to retrain a limp, so they really want you to walk normally. Which I still don't do 100%, but I try hard!

So now I'm just impatient. I feel okay, but I have to keep doing PT. I have to do all these boring exercise but I'm not allowed to do fun sports. Sucks. But I have to be good if I want to play outside this summer....

I hate cats...

But this, I like.

The Return of the King

King amazed the world when on November 2nd, seven days after awaking from a 30-year coma, he showed up to vote in the 2000 presidential election. He was turned away due to voting irregularities.
- The Boondocks

I'm rewatching the Boondocks animated show episode The Return of the King. They seem to play it every year around the King holiday. It's f'king brilliant.

In the episode, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was injured in the 1968 assassination attempt, but survives to wake up from a coma in 2000. Despite his discomfort with modern "urban" culture, everything goes moderately well for him - until September 2001, when he says on a talk show that we should love our enemies and turn the other cheek. Shunned as unAmerican, he ends up staying with the Freeman family, where Huey encourages him to restart his activist career.

Partly it's cutting social commentary, and partly it's funny to hear King say things like "I'm staying at a Holiday Inn Express. I feel smarter already."

How I spent my Winter Vacation

Winter Classic post-game revelry Originally uploaded by erink

Or, outdoor hockey is a really good reason to visit Buffalo in January.

The game was great. It was hard to follow the action (we could hardly hear the announcements and the video screen was on the opposite side from the rink for us), but I'll get to watch it on my TiVo later. It wasn't too cold, but I was getting a bit wet by the end - somehow, it only stopped snowing during the period breaks. The snow was pretty. Score-wise, it couldn't have gone better - Crosby wins in the last round of a shootout? Unbelievable.

We sat in a section that was mostly Penguins fans - I used our season ticket holder code when I ordered them, so I expected that. But the guy next to me was a Sabres fan, and he was a real jewel - kept saying the players should break more guys' legs and threatening to "come up there and fuck up" the guy behind him when he heckled back. He quieted down after a while - apparently he had snuck in beer in in his pants but he somehow lost all but one can on the way in.

The "title sponsor" was this Amp energy drink (which I don't think I'd ever heard of before - but after a poor experience with guarana in the 90s I haven't really followed the energy drink market). But we saw an Amp Energy Airstream trailer on the highway home, which gains style points in my book, and they played this awesome ad on the stadium screen a few times:



The Sabres goalie is Ryan Miller, who's played very well (but lost) both times we've matched up this season. Judging by fan jerseys, he's pretty popular. The Kings man is former Pens goalie J-S Aubin, nice to see him again.

Another moment at the game was when a Pens fan was coming back to his seat. He yelled to his buddy from the aisle: "I went looking for Superbowl trophies and I couldn't find any!"

Back to the arena on Saturday (we sold our tickets for the 3rd). It won't be the same, but my toes will be warmer!

Waterfront Views...

Pittsburgh has the reputation of being stodgy, but actually it's changing all the time. Like today. Where we once had a road, now we have a pretty little canal.

The Tenth Street Bypass by Lake Fong 

(copyright 2007 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

This is the Tenth Street Bypass, which parallels the - uh, Allegheny? river (a true Pittsburgher never knows the names of any streets, why should rivers be any different). The baseball park is just across the real river, which is on the right in the photo. 

This street is low. And sometimes when it's wet, it floods. It's got these nice walls on either side, and that dip at the bottom. They call it the "bathtub".

You don't think a lot about floods when you live here, although we had a few really destructive ones about three years back. Most of the housing is not along the riverside, because that was used for industry, and people generally lived up the hills a bit. But every few weeks when there's a heavy rain, you'll hear on the traffic reports that the Mon Wharf is closed to parking. That's because the Mon Wharf is a little parking lot that is basically on the riverbank. The river goes up a few feet, it floods. No big deal. People usually move their cars if there's an unexpected storm. Not always. The first time I ever parked there, there was sludge and puddles on the pavement, and it was only after I got back that I put the two things together. (But I felt pretty safe, because my office building at the time looked out onto that river. I always thought that company should rig webcams for the people who worked across town.)

I also remember a strange incident when I was a child. My family was parking downtown, in a parking garage. Dad drove down a ramp, and at the other end, there was a lake. He acted like it wasn't a big deal, which was kind of confusing at the time, but was probably exactly how I would act today.  You just turn the car around.  We decided to park on a higher floor.

At any rate, back to today's flood. I almost never drive on this road, because it only connects downtown to the highways to the south suburbs. It's not for my people. But it is scenic, at times.

Online Shopping - A View from 40 Years Ago

Sweet. How do I get that "counterpart console" where the husband pays for the things I pick out?



Some more info about this video is on Snopes at http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/year1999.asp

Six More Weeks of Winter

Tuesday morning I went to my follow-up doctor visit. They took out some stitches and took x-rays and re-fitted my brace. I get to bend my knee now! I get to shower, and I get to take off my brace to do exercises and to sleep.

The only down side is I still can't put weight on my left leg - and that won't change until I see the MD in three weeks! Ack!

The really big problem with only having one leg that is I can't carry anything, except in a bag or a backpack. A cup of coffee and bowl of cereal don't fit in a bag or backpack. Making food is like doing ballet, because I can only move food as far as I can reach by leaning. If my beau's not home, I only get to eat in the kitchen. No coffee at the computer. No dinner in front of the TV. Luckily, my kitchen workspace is relatively cramped: about three feet between the fridge and the sink/island/breakfast bar, and four or five between the stove/microwave/toaster counter and the island.

So making the morning coffee goes something like this:

• Hobble over to the coffeemaker and set the crutches down carefully so they won't slide onto the floor.


• Lean over to the sink across the way to get the coffeepot out of the draining rack.


• Grind coffee and put it in the filter. Set the pot in the coffeemaker.


• Lean over to the sink counter to get the Brita pitcher.


• Pour in water and push the button to make coffee.


• Get a coffee cup out of the cabinet. (This is the part where I'm really happy I decided to store the coffee cups all in the tiny cabinet over the coffeemaker.) Pour coffee.


• Lean over to the sink counter again and set the coffee down as far to the middle as possible.


• Pick up crutches. Hobble around to the other side of the counter where the barstools are.


• Stretch over the counter and get the coffee from the other side. Sit and drink and rest.

Apparently the big deal is the meniscus repair. Ten years ago I didn't have anything done to my meniscus, so I was able to start walking a bit the second week. The P.A. I saw Tuesday said I could put up to 30 pounds on my leg. I measured 30 lbs with my bathroom scale and it's nothing. I didn't mention to her the two times I slipped and weighted my foot a little by accident (both Saturday, once at the hockey game and once on the way home). Hopefully nothing bad came of it...

Also I can't drive, because I can't step on a clutch, and we don't have any cars without a clutch! (Actually, I don't have a fit car at all just now, but that's another story....) But I can't push a grocery cart or carry anything either once I get somewhere, so it's just as well! Hello Amazon Christmas shopping!

PT at the gym starts next week!

*NIX humor

In honor of my temporary return to my former employer, which makes Linux things.

Really, it's funny. Trust me.

Once more into the breach

Before and after photos of my latest project:

11/18/2007

11/20/2007

The after photo looks a little more gruesome than it is; there is a discernable kneecap under there, just the photo doesn't show it very well because it's on the inside.

Yes, I jacked up my knee playing Ultimate again. This is the other knee, I jacked up my right knee playing Ultimate ten years ago and got it fixed, then played for ten years until this July. Ironically, my mantra for Summer League this year was "it'll grow back." Twisted ankle? Wonky hamstring? It'll grow back, probably before our next game. Well, as it turns out, not everything grows back.

This injury was much more glorious than the last time. This time, I was open in the end zone, and trying to catch a long throw that was coming down at a weird angle. My defender was back at mid field, and one of her teammates peeled off his man to cover me. We both went up for the disc, and we knocked together. And then I screamed like a soprano (this part was not very glorious) and my knee hurt a lot for a minute, and then it didn't hurt any more. I only wish I had caught the disc and scored.

I was a spectator for the last few Summer League games, and limped through Pennsic a week later, but felt pretty good by the end of the week. Then for the next three months, things pretty much stayed the same. I was doing PT exercises every day and I could walk as much as I wanted, but I had trouble going down stairs (or stepping off a bus) and although I got some rail-trail bike riding in, I couldn't do any other sports. My knee was sore every day.

The doctors diagnosed a completely torn ACL and a tear in the meniscal cartilage. I think it might be the miniscal tear that gave me so much trouble - when I messed up my other knee, I didn't do much damage to the meniscus, and I remember my knee being pretty normal after the first few weeks. Not this time.

I was interested to see if the surgical technology had changed in 10 years. Turns out, it hasn't changed very noticeably. I'm sure it's progressed, but the major outline is the same.

There are three main options for replacement ACLs: patellar tendon, hamstring tendon, and cadaver graft (more euphemistically called an allograft). When my first friend had an ACL repair (in the late 80s or early 90s), he had a hamstring tendon, which was the new thing at the time and they thought it would replace patellar tendon. Well, it didn't, and they still use all three. My surgeon said they all have benefits and drawbacks. The patellar tendon leaves a bigger scar (which is almost a benefit to me, since I think I should have something to show for my trouble) and has the risk of persistent front-knee pain. The allograft has a slight risk of disease transmission, but recovery is faster (no graft site to rehab) and they get to choose a graft instead of having to use whatever they find in your leg.

When I had my right knee done in the late 90s, they used a hamstring tendon. It worked pretty well, but the graft site was very painful and to this day, that hamstring muscle is weaker than it should be (it's noticeably weaker than the other, and it occasionally cramps under stress). My surgeon was inclined to use the hamstring again, because it had worked well in my right knee, but I easily talked him into an allograft. An Ultimate player friend of mine recently had a knee re-done with an allograft and said it was the way to go.

Of course, as soon as I decided my mom told me a story about a childhood friend of mine who almost died from a bad allograft...something about a bad donor that made a bunch of people sick. She didn't have any data to back it up, though.

Anyway, I have a plenty big scar now because the meniscus repair is a separate 3" incision. I'm happy to have it, because they weren't sure they would be able to do anything with the meniscus but they ended up repairing it.

I did have something new: the anesthesiologist did a nerve block in my leg before the procedure. It's supposed to help with pain the first day, and it did. Of course, it wore off in the middle of the night, but the anesthesiologist told me to expect that so it wasn't a big deal. I also had a cryo-cuff this time around, which they had 10 years ago but my HMO wouldn't pay for it. It's a nylon thing that goes around your knee and fills with ice water. Pretty spiff. And I have different drugs this time, oxycodone for pain (I hardly took any because it didn't hurt much) plus an antibiotic every six hours for like forever (6 days!), plus they have me taking two tylenol and two ibuprofen together every eight hours - supposedly for inflammation more than pain. I also got an anti-nausea drug before anesthesia, since it tends to make me puke. No puking this time!

So I'm hanging out in my TV room and Jake is bringing me food every few hours. I can't bend my leg (except doing exercises), which is annoying, and I don't get to shower until next week. I don't know why everyone says sponge baths are sexy...I guess I need a hot nurse and less self-respect. I missed one hockey game but plan to go on Saturday (not sure how I'm going to fit in a seat, but we'll figure something out). It take three minutes to go to the bathroom, and hands and armpits are really not suited for locomotion. I probably can't wear normal pants until the brace is off (four weeks or so), but I ordered $50 worth of cool thigh-high socks and legwarmers! I can't even be tempted to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving.

And I'm catching up on blog posts...more later!

More random crap I saw downtown

Part 1: Accessories for the modern wooden man?

Part 2: Because everything is better fried....

That time of year...

Safety and Convenience

Old office buildings rock!

My new favorite website

"Jikatabiya.com's English site is under construction. But this can use a little. If you hope old version, click here.
Please visit here in another day. You will find something change."

http://jikatabiya.com/indexe.html

I think machine translation would be more accurate. But this is lots of fun:

Spike Jikatabi is for workers in forest,
mountain, or any other tilt ground.
But nowadays, They are used for gardening, Afforestation,
& for The Earth.

They're like little, accidental poems.

Jikatabi is Japanese footwear.
So, their strainge Metal fittings
"HAZE" is disliked from foreign peaple and young japanese.
Velcro solved this problem.

NEW!
Jikatabi in colors
Many people wants them.
To Fashon, To Dance,
To Sports Training!!

Holy cow, I'm wearing Bermuda shorts.

Kennywood Memories (for a small price)

Every now and then I run a "Kennywood" search on eBay, and the last time it turned up this. Wow.



When I was a kid, Kennywood Park had these Peanuts themed height signs. If you were as tall as Linus you could ride some rides, mainly the kiddie rides. Then I think Lucy or Snoopy was the intermediate level, and Charlie Brown was the tallest height limit. I think you can see in the photo that it says if you're that tall you can ride the Thunderbolt - that was always the most advanced ride in the park.

After the Peanuts signs they used signs with Kenny the Kangaroo. There's one of those up from this seller too. I also vaguely remember another height sign, it was a boy and I think it looked like Howdy Doody - I don't think it was him, just some redhead with a cap or something. But I did almost all my measurement on the Peanuts signs.

I didn't go on the Thunderbolt until I was about 15, though. I was way taller than Charlie Brown by then, I just thought it was scary.

Since I moved to a different neighborhood two years ago, the right way to go to the Homestead Waterfront shopping area is to go over the Rankin Bridge. As a kid the only reason I went through Braddock and over that bridge was to go to Kennywood. Even now I think of it as the Kennywood bridge. At the end there was a big yellow Kennywood sign pointing left. Same as the small wooden signs you would see all around the city directing you to the park.

I would love to have the Charlie Brown, but it's probably not a $2000 investment for me. Maybe not for other people either, since it didn't sell the first time it was listed. I wonder if I can find an old Kennywood direction sign for a more reasonable price....

Seller's other items:
http://myworld.ebay.com/djcuffin/

Here's a great Kennywood tribute page with lots of old stuff:
http://piacasdad.tripod.com/id84.html

Avatar Sociology 101

NPR has discovered online avatars: Alter Egos in a Virtual World
The story is a little cursory, but it has its moments.

Like the bit about the woman who made her City of Heroes avatar "the biggest, blackest guy I could find" and found out that her fellow players gave her a lot more respect and less lip than when she played with a female avatar. I'm fascinated because it's like a controlled experiment on how people automatically discount what women say just because of how they look.

It makes me wonder about men who use female avatars. Do they think that people discount what they say and do, or are they just too busy staring at their character's boobies to notice? Or do they get caught up in "acting like a girl" and think that's part of the fun? Apparently it's hard for people with privilege to see discrimination even when it's directed at them.

There's also a picture in the story of significantly disabled man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who plays Star Wars Galaxies as a mysterious, armored (possibly robotic?) fighter. His online avatar is ironically like his real body, except that it's hard metal that hides the avatar to its eyes instead of twisted, immobile flesh encased in medical equipment. Online gaming is a unique social interaction for him, the player says, because he gets treated like an average person online.

This wasn't a new concept for me, but I still feel I should apologize for my somewhat uncharitable reaction: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

Our Quarterback Throws Like A Girl

A passion flower I photographed at the Pittsburgh Zoo a few weeks ago. I'm posting it in honor of the Pittsburgh Passion football team, which just finished off its undefeated season with a blowout 32-0 championship game against the Columbus Comets to win the National Women's Football Association title.

I'm really no football fan at all - actually I think football is kind of silly - but I think it's pretty cool that people were interested and committed enough to start and support a professional women's football team around here. Chicks should be able to play football if they want to.

And any time my local team can totally crush the teams from the rest of the league, well, that's worth noting.

Rock on, ladies.

News about the championship: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07203/803626-66.stm
Team website: http://www.pittsburghpassion.com/
They really do sell a bumper sticker that says that: http://www.cafepress.com/pghpassion.38081973

Snap Down Only To Eat Child

Snap Down Only To Eat Child
Originally uploaded by erink

Parked next to this in the Home Despot lot the other day.

Phase One: Snap Down Seat. ...

No iPhone? No Problem!

Today's Post-Gazette brings us a detailed story on how inmates at the Allegheny County Jail use their toilets as a telephone system.

Clever little hoodlums, eh?

Here is the Post-Gazette's fabulous explanatory graphic. I bet the artists fought over this assignment.



I especially like the person at the bottom of the picture who is lounging comfortably and listening to his toilet.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07179/797810-85.stm. (It's worth clicking through just for the potty puns in the headlines.)

Been There, Done That

Or maybe Been There, Been That. If I do say so myself.... This is an Australian comedy band named Tripod; you can download their album from iTunes (or buy it on Amazon for three times more).

P.S. Definitely Spiderman.

Eat'n Park Goes Smoke Free

Smiley
Originally uploaded by erink

After a court ruling ended our 12 hours of smoke-free bars and restaurants in Allegheny County, I was bummed. But now I have hope. One of the biggest regional family restaurant chains has voluntarily gone smoke-free.

Eat'n Park is a Pittsburgh institution. It has good breakfasts and huge salad/brunch bars and some locations are open 24 hours. They have nice blueberry pancakes and this amazing thing called "grilled stickies."

The smoking ban apparently affects 68 restaurants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They also have restaurants in Ohio, where there is a statewide smoking ban. They serve 350,000 customers a week in southwestern PA.

I'm not sure where all the pouting teenagers will spend their weekend nights now, but I'm sure some of the waitstaff is not mourning their business.

I went in specifically today to buy baked goods because I thought I should reward them with some business. I realized that I haven't sat in the left side of the Squirrel Hill restaurant in about 20 years. Once they get it cleaned up I'll have to try that.

Here's their press release. http://www.eatnpark.com/newsDetail.asp?NewsID=117
And more info about the county smoking ban: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07143/788180-85.stm

What's Up

In the absence of actual inspiration, here's a random sampling of what I've been up to recently.

Reading Sandman.

I'm finally reading the Sandman comic series, for the first time. Yes, even though I collected comics all through the 80's and 90's I never managed to read Sandman. I don't know why, maybe because it was a DC book and I was a Marvel girl; it was expensive and I was cheap; it was pretentious and I favored mutant super heroes in primary-colored costumes. I picked up a bunch of the collected books at Pittsburgh Comicon and I've got through the first few now and ordered more from Amazon. It's keen.

Wearing Geta.


I bought a pair of these traditional Japanese sandals in San Francisco on a recent trip, and now I'm practicing wearing them so I can wear them with my Japanese outfits at Pennsic in August.

These are a bit big for me, but I was happy to find them at a reasonable price ($12) since I'll never get around to making any myself.

Running.

I'm in the worst shape I can remember, and without an ultimate frisbee team to whip me into shape I'm on my own. I have two more out-of-shape buddies and we've been guilt tripping each other into running a few times a week. Last night was the least horrible, and it actually was quite pleasant, but the other three times I was sucking wind big time.

Feeling Lush-ous.

I ordered some of these froofy natural-handmade-boutique skin care products from Lush. No bath bombs (I don't remember having a bath in my adult life), but I was intrigued by the solid shampoo and I ended up also getting a pretty soap and a facial scrub and a moisturizer. True to form, I chose the one moisturizer designed for men. The face scrub and moisturizer feel a little oily but they seem to be working out.

Ironically, I've been getting Lush catalogs since I moved (the previous homeowners apparently were fans), but it all seemed too neo-hippie pretentious until I heard actual People Who I Can Vouch For As Reasonable Folks gushing over their products.

Thinking about Buying a Mac.

The idea of switching teams is kind of scary, but I do need a new laptop, and they just seem like less work and more fun. They're big and heavy (same size as my 6-year-old Sony Vaio) and they have a funny shaped screen, but I hear they can run all the apps I need now....

Meeting Chewbacca.

At the aforementioned Pittsburgh Comicon, Peter Mayhew was one of the guests. Not that he has anything to do with comics, but hey, maybe I wouldn't have gone if he wasn't there. I paid $20 for an autographed photo, which is silly, but whatever. He seemed like a swell guy.

He told a nice story about playing Chewbacca in Revenge of the Sith. Of course since it was 20 years later they'd improved on the original Chewbacca costume, and they'd added all these robotic/remote control elements in the head and face. So they had puppeteers running facial expressions for all of the Wookies, and Mayhew said the whole time they were running film all he could hear was the whirring and buzzing of the robotics. They finish up their action scenes and they go to shoot the close-ups with Chewbacca. They start shooting and all of a sudden the motors stop making noise. Mayhew says hey, what's up, the gadgets stopped working. And George Lucas says no, we turned them off. You don't need them.

Mayhew is actually quite knock-kneed, which you can see in Chewbacca too. I was wondering if he has medical problems from being so big (and he's over 60 now), but he seemed fine.

Go Sens!

Ottawa is within a game of eliminating the Sabres in the Stanley Cup semifinals.

Not to jinx it, but actually they're within a game of sweeping the Sabres.

The Buffalo Sabres. The juggernaut of the 06-07 regular season. The team that dominated the entire league from day 1, winning their first 10 games. By mid-December they had just seven losses on their record and had not lost consecutive games. Yeah, they came down to earth a little at the end of the season, but they still won the Presidents' Trophy, and they beat the rest of the Eastern Conference by six points.

And Ottawa? A team that's named after politicians. How tough can they be? Apparently, pretty damn tough. Tough enough to knock out New Jersey, who finished at the top of our division (and second to Buffalo in the conference).

At any rate, Pittsburgh's elimination (by Ottawa, in round one) is looking better and better.

P.S. In other hockey news, Colby Armstrong scored the gold medal game-winning goal for Team Canada in the IIHF World Championship yesterday. Go Armpit!

Maybe We Need a Safe Word

ThinkGeek, purveyor of geek cultural accessories, always puts out a nice April 1 edition of their advertising newsletter. It gives us such wonderful products as the Lonely Guy Dream Vacation Photo Frame, the USB Desktop Tanning Center, and many more that I can't find on their website any more.

So today, safely in mid- to late April, I get their latest newsletter. The first product is something called a Flying Alarm Clock. Supposedly, it's an alarm clock with a little helicopter thing on the top. When the alarm goes off, the little helicopter thing flies off, and you have to get out of bed and find it and put it back to turn the alarm off.

Yes, it's very similar to Clocky, which I hear is now on the market (http://www.nandahome.com/).

Ridiculous, maybe, but apparently the Flying Clock is an actual product. So how can I tell when they're serious and when they're joking?

Worse, one of their joke products from this year, the 8-Bit Tie, was apparently so popular they're now making it.

I mean, in a world with LED faucet lights and the Personal Area Network (PAN) fleece pullover, and the USB Aquarium who can tell?

On the other hand, this is just really cool.

Links (these will open in this window):

April 1 2007 newsletter - http://www.thinkgeek.com/edm/20070401.shtml

April 25 newsletter - http://www.thinkgeek.com/edm/20070425.shtml

Flying Clock - http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/9171/

Wipes

Presumably there's a GL on there somewhere but I can't see any. Either way, a streak-free shine seems like a win.

Wildlife Service Says Mullet is Not Endangered in Pittsburgh

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the US Fish and Wildlife Service just denied a petition to add the Monongahela Mullet to the Endangered Species list. Apparently they were talking about a fish, though. I suppose it's hard to sell a fish called the "bottom-feeding longneck sucker."

From the Post-Gazette:

If you thought a mullet was a hairstyle for bottom-feeder guys stuck in the 1970s, you're half right. It's also the commercial name for the bottom-feeding longneck sucker. This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied a petition to protect longnecks in the Monongahela River drainage under the Endangered Species Act. The petition, filed in 2002 by the Pennsylvania Biological Survey, cited water quality concerns and asserted that Monongahela longneck suckers are a distinct population separated from the rest, qualifying them for special treatment. The FWS ruled, however, that while Mon longnecks are geographically separate, the petition didn't prove they are genetically distinct.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07070/768524-358.stm

"Yume o Taberu"

I was at a Japanese language conversation group on Saturday discussing animal names. The discussion leader had brought in a picture from the back of a box of Japanese animal crackers, and it had a long list of animal names in Japanese and English. But some of the names were odd. There was "peafowl," and "fur seal." There was parrot, which is common, and macaw, which is not. And there was a really strange term for rooster - can't remember it just now. I pointed out "tapir," which I'm not sure I've even seen in most zoos. I asked the Japanese people at the table if it was a common animal in Japan. You never know what's trendy.

So we were talking about tapirs, how big they are, trying to figure out if we're all thinking about the same animal, and the one Japanese man says to the other, "Yume o taberu."

Now, I wasn't having the greatest day for hearing Japanese, and a lot of Japanese words sound like other words - but those words are pretty easy. Yume - dreams. Taberu - to eat. It didn't make any sense, so I thought I'd misheard the words. I guess I was just staring at him, so they asked if I'd understood. I had the words right, they just didn't make sense. "It eats your dreams," he had said.

Turns out there's Japanese folklore about tapirs that eat dreams. When a child has a nightmare, the tapir can come and eat it to make it go away. You can put pictures of a tapir on your pillow. One of the men at the conversation group said it can go the other way too, if you're having a nice dream the tapir can come and eat it and make you unhappy.

Tapirs, huh? Who'da thunk.

Wikipedia entry for Baku

A Mean Pinball

Tales of the Arabian Nights,
originally uploaded by erink.

The beau was out looking at a pinball machine for sale, and I was thinking he had been gone a long time when I heard from him. He was on his way home and he needed help with two things. He had actually bought the machine and needed help getting it inside. But first, he had cut a big gash in his hand and needed first aid.

I was only slightly surprised that he'd bought the thing. His buddy from back home had come to help, and he has a new pickup truck and a lot of expertise in the field, so given the right price and condition there was no reason not to do it.

The gash was rather more surprising. Apparently the house they were moving the machine from had dogs, and instead of opening the gate the guys had just taken to vaulting over the fence. They each made it, once. The second time my beau tried it he hit something nasty on the fence and sliced his thumb open pretty good.

Did you know trucks come with first aid kits now? At least this one did. So they tied up the wound and drove home and it had not quite soaked through the 5 layers of gauze by the time they got here.

We washed it off and found some scissors to remove the 1" thumbprint-shaped flap that was hanging off - I would have left it, but it was pretty dirty and washing it wasn't very easy. Or pleasant. It was kind of still dripping, so we used most of the rest of the roll of gauze to wrap it so we could move the machine inside and get it set up.

If you have never moved a pinball machine, well, here are some things you might not know. The legs come off. It's fairly heavy. The top folds down onto of the playfield area. The standard procedure is to get a set of sawhorses to substitute for the legs while you're moving it. Once you get the machine pretty close to where it's going you put the legs back on. Being the smallest and weakest of the three, my job was to run around with the sawhorses while the guys carried the pinball machine up the steps to the house and up to the second floor where we keep such things. If we ever move the pinball room to the third floor we're going to have to hire someone. My job also included running back and forth between the second floor and the basement to get tools we needed, and actually measuring the spaces where we wanted to put it. So, you see, this way I get some sweat equity without doing anything hard.

We probably should put that door back on the hinges sometime.

While I was helping put on the legs I got a nasty metal splinter. We joked about how the machine wanted blood, but I felt it was only fair that it bite me too, since we were all going to be living together. And I actually didn't bleed, though I did need to take the splinter out before I did more work.

So, fine. The men tinker with the machine for a few hours and get it all set up. We get some dinner. We play a few games. It's fun. The buddy heads home.

We spend some time orchestrating high-tech band-aids for the long-term dressings on the thumb. Band-Aid makes these "advanced healing" ones now that are thick and you're supposed to leave them on for a few days at a time. On his thumb they keep peeling up after a day, but we figure they're probably the best bet. 3M makes some "Nexcare waterproof" bandages that are also good for hands because you can typically wash over them without getting them wet on the inside - these are the step-down plan.

So Monday comes, my beau goes to work, and Monday afternoon I lose a ball deep in the back of the machine. I'm a little intimidated about pulling the glass out (the glass is big, and breaking the glass is bad) and the machine won't play until it finds the ball, so I wait for him to come home. The first step in opening the machine up is to open the coin door and release the latch to take the glass off, so he reaches in front to open the door.

And then he says a bad word and goes to the bathroom. (I wanted to say "pulls back a bloody stump" but it wasn't really that bad.) He's got a deep cut in the side of his index finger, right on the side of the nail. See, the lock on the door is missing, and he reached in to the empty hole to pull open the door. There's a sharp edge on the inside and it sliced right in. It bleeds pretty good. Luckily we already have all the first aid stuff out....

So now we're both a little nervous about this new machine. How often will it demand a blood sacrifice? Why was the previous owner so eager to get rid of it? Are we secretly in a Night Gallery episode? (If we had bought the Twilight Zone machine we looked at earlier, would our mystery have a better script and classier themes?)

I hope you can see this, Mayor Menino

Because I am doing it as hard as I can.

Albuquerque

Hanging at ABQ. Among its amenities are free wireless and this workstation with a billion outlets. (Yeah, my cell phone camera sucks, but still it's cool that I can post from it.)

Another innovation is their "cell phone waiting area" where people can hover in their cars waiting for their travelers to arrive. In Pittsburgh we use the side of the access road, and some people even pull over on the highway before the exit (both illegal). I saw about 8 people stopped on the highway on my way home, and they hadn't even bothered to turn out their headlights.

Albuquerque airport has distributed security checkpoints - one for two sets of gates. I had a nice short line. The coffee stand sells zip-top bags for 50 cents in case you forgot to bring one for your carry-on toiletries. All their rental car agencies share one site - and one shuttle.

I even found a bathroom near the ticket counter with stall doors that open out. Posh!

Dozen

Cupcakes!

The cupcake store has opened. Film at 11.

So for a couple weeks this hole-in-the-wall shop in Squirrel Hill (local urban shopping area) has been remodeling and promising something about "premium cupcakes." I parked near there Thursday and they were open, so I went to check it out.

Apparently there are "premium cupcakes." This is a new thing that any classy city is supposed to have, like $4 coffee and Ethiopian food and hookah bars.

Dozen cupcakes is apparently an independent business. They sell froofy cupcakes. When I was in they had four or five flavors available, like mocha, peanut butter chocolate, and vanilla. A little small for my cupcake taste, but with a big swirl of buttercream icing I'm sure they make up for it in caloric density. The staff recommended I try the day's special, which was something called mint meltaway.


Mint Meltaway

It was pretty darn good. A dark chocolate glaze, mint buttercream filling in the middle, and nice cake. The only problem was that it was pretty intense. I split one with my beau and he had to run downstairs for an emergency glass of milk. Bring a friend.

I think I can get over thinking the icing on top of the regular cupcakes kind of looks like a dog turd.

The funny part was when my beau came home from work. We were chatting and he said "Did you know about premium cupcakes?" And I got to say "Did you see what's on the counter downstairs?" Apparently a friend at work had brought some in and they were fabulous. (I swear we'd been talking about this in our social group for months before, but he somehow missed it.)