Irrelevant Cheetah

Boy, the interwebs are quiet lately.

Feels like I’m blogging into an empty void.

Anybody out there?

I have news.

It’s not big news, I suppose, unless you happen to be me, in which case it’s pretty significant. I happen to know that you’re not me, so I suppose it won’t really matter much to you, but still…

Anyway: I’m going back to school.

Yup. This fall, yours truly will be entering the electrical engineering degree program at Portland State University.

I’m going to be concentrating on robotics. I think it’ll be a good way to get started on my robot army to enable me to take over the world.

Actually, I’m planning to design and build the ROVs that researchers use for exploration of the deep oceans. Although if I could work on the probes for NASA like the one that may go to Europa someday, that’d be totally cool, too.

So that’s my news. Don’t worry – the blog won’t be going anywhere, so my few Cheetah fans will still get updates. No changes, except I may add a “Buy me a cup of coffee” button on the sidebar, since I’ll be a poor college student again.

Wish me luck!

And I hope you all got the Don Henley reference from the post title. If not, I’m very disappointed in you.

Well, the furor has finally died down.

If you stopped by here last week, you may have noticed a bit more going on than usually happens around these parts. I wrote a little post about my rice.

Well, someone stumbled that post in the ‘journalism’ topic on Stumbleupon, and all of a sudden my page views went nuts. And by nuts, I mean that page has now received over 33,000 page views.

I know – for some of you that’s pocket change. But here at the Cheetah, where I’m lucky to hit 100 page views a day, that’s huge.

This is sort of what happened to diesel at The Mattress Police, albeit on a much smaller scale. His conversation with his ditch digger got stumbled, and that page got over 70,000 hits. Next thing he knew, he was getting negative reviews from Stumblers, and dealing with the fallout of a suddenly popular post. His response to those Stumblers is definitely worth a read.

I didn’t have to deal with negative reviews, but the commenters really came out of the woodwork. I was accused of impersonating a journalist (and failing,) not understanding global business and corporate politics, and other such things. It really makes it obvious that all sorts of people use the internet, and not only do they have very definitive opinions, but they often have those opinions loudly.

Really: all I wanted to do was mention the witty observation I made about my bag of rice. That’s it. It was supposed to be humorous, akin to Jerry Seinfeld asking “What’s up with that?” I didn’t realize that my little topic would piss off so many people.

But it’s died down now. I’m back to my little 50 page views a day, and to be honest, I’m missing the big time a little bit. I’m trying to plan my next big post. Rice turned out to be huge; maybe next I’ll write about barley. Or even hops. Or even both together.

I’m open to suggestions, and oh, yeah: if you like this post, Stumble it, would ya?

I’ve posted before – though I can’t be bothered to find the actual post (I can’t remember what I titled it) – about wanting to install an escape hatch in my bedroom. I can’t help thinking that not only would it increase the resale value of the house (“You see, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the previous owner had the foresight to install an escape hatch over here in the corner”) but it would also come in extremely handy in the event of a rabid water buffalo invasion.

However, the Wife has nixed the idea, so I’ve behaved myself.

But there’s something that’s bugged me about the house ever since we moved in to this place. There are two light switches on the wall in the master bedroom that are unmarked and don’t seem to do anything. We’ve switched them up and down multiple times, but when we couldn’t figure out what the result was, we decided to leave them the way we found them, so as not to mess with the status quo.

There are also two switches in the hallway near the furnace that also don’t seem to do anything. Again, we’ve tried different configurations, but eventually decided to leave them the way they were so as not to disturb anything.

Last night I had an epiphany: What if all four switches must be flipped up (or down) at the same time? Maybe that triggers the unknown result! Kind of like a failsafe for a nuclear detonation!

Today, of course, was the day to test my hypothesis.

Giggling like a schoolgirl in anticipation of the incredibly awesome results, I got suited up in preparation for The Event:

You can see the suspect switches in the bedroom behind me. Both switches in the hallway have already been flipped to the ‘up’ position.

As I said, I had no idea what would happen when I flipped those switches. They might send the house into warp drive. They might turn the master bathroom into cake. They might turn on the light outside by the back porch.

But damn the torpedoes – I was going in! Without further ado, I flipped the switches…

And nothing happened.

Without missing a beat, I reset. I flipped both switches in the hallway to the ‘down’ position, re-entered the bedroom, and flipped both of those down. Nothing continued to happen, so I trotted back down the hallway and set the left switch to ‘down’ and the right switch to ‘up.’

After trying all four switches in absolutely every possible combination, including a few that used imaginary numbers like √(-1) and eleventy-seven, I gave up. In essence, I wanted a really cool story, and I got zip. Zilch. Nada.

But I’m not going to do that to the next guy that owns this place. I’m going to wire up those switches to do something, darn it. And once he figures out how to activate the Super-Secret Light Switch Event, it’ll be awesome. It’ll totally be worth his time, and he won’t be getting snide comments like “Will you leave those switches alone?!” and “Dad! Is that Mom’s sauce pan?”

Lucky bastard.

We had just finished dinner, and I was getting ready to throw away the bag of rice, when I noticed the labeling on the back. (Click to embiggen.)

If you can’t read that, it says “Best before 01/09. Made in Canada.” However, just below that, it says, “Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice uses premium rice grains grown in the USA.”

Now, I did some research, and the primary rice-producing states are Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and California. That means that the rice in this bag was produced in the southern part of the U.S.

And that’s where it gets ridiculous. The rice was apparently then shipped north to Canada, where it was packaged. Then it was shipped south again to the U.S. to be distributed and sold.

Am I the only one to whom this makes no sense whatsoever? Isn’t it a little bit insane to grow and harvest the rice here, and sell it here, but ship it thousands of miles north to be packaged between harvesting and selling? Even if the labor and materials are cheaper in Canada, it seems to me that the fuel costs of getting it there and back again are being transferred to us in some way, especially nowadays.

I plan to follow up on this story. This…  This is what Pulitzers are made of.

She had been studying my face intently for at least thirty seconds, so I finally shot her a sidelong glance. “Yes?”

She leaned forward. “Have you been plucking your eyebrows?”

“No. What? No! You know I haven’t used tweezers since the Salted Pork Incident. And besides, no guy tweezes his eyebrows. It’s not in the Code.”

She reached out. “Well, then you’re thinning. Here and here.”

This took me completely by surprise. I’m thinning a bit on top, but not enough to panic. However, eyebrow loss is something I wasn’t prepared for. It’s not common, after all; most men’s eyebrows just keep growing. I’m pretty sure my dad could have hidden small rodents in his.

“Great. Just great,” I sighed. “So what do I do now?”

“What do you mean? So you’re thinning a little.”

“In the eyebrows? We can’t have that! I’m supposed to keep getting bushier and bushier until you chase me around with a weed whacker!” I took a deep breath. “The way I see it, I have two options. First: I can look around for an eyebrow toupee. It’s going to be hard to match my color, and the glue will hurt, but it’s an option.”

“And the second choice?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The comb-over.”

She recoiled as if I had offered to let her French-kiss a scorpion. “No. Absolutely not. No comb-overs in this house.” Then curiosity started to get the best of her. “How would that work, anyway? No, no, no… don’t answer that… oh, crap.”

Too late, of course – that train of thought was already puffing down the tracks. “Well, I would start training my left one to grow towards the right, and after a few months, I could just brush it this way” – I was gesturing wildly to illustrate – “and see? Nobody would know the difference! Brilliant!”

After some head-shaking and serious inquiries into my mental state, she switched topics. “You know, I’d be afraid of losing the little hairs inside my nose.”

“Really? But nobody likes nose hair. That’s why we’re always trimming and tweezing and pulling and …”

She shook her head. “But it’s a filter. Without nose hair, you inhale dust and germs and who-knows-what-else. I don’t want it to get too sparse.”

I patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry, dear. If that happens, there’s an easy fix.”

“And that would be?” She spoke bravely, but I knew she was cringing inside. She knows all about asking me to expound on my ideas.

“You can just snort Rogaine, of course,” I told her. “We’ll empty the bottle of Afrin and fill it with Rogaine, and you’re set. If it works like it should, you’ll have fine, luxurious nose hair inside of six months. In fact, I might try it too. That way, if my mustache starts thinning nobody will notice.” I started muttering. “Wonder if we’ll have to buy extra conditioner…”

I really don’t think we’ll ever run out of things to talk about.

It’s Monday, and I have a song going through my head.

Oh? And what song is that? you ask. Perhaps we’ll get a glimpse into wolf’s musical tastes. Was it Madonna? Barry Manilow? Five for Fighting? Angels and Airwaves? Lifehouse?

None of the above, though all of them have at one time or another made their musical way through my synapses.

No, I woke up with freecreditreport.com running through my brain.

You know that one?

For my international readers, as well as my domestic ones who either don’t watch TV or have been lucky enough to avoid seeing these commercials, I direct you here.

Did you watch it?

Now, I ask you: is that not the most annoying, irritating, #%^&ing catchy jingle you’ve ever heard?

I swear, it works its way into your brain and insinuates itself into your daily life. You’ll be doing the dishes and find yourself humming it. And I know I’m not the only one, because doing a search for “free credit report” on YouTube brings up no less than 1,070 results. That’s over 1000 people that cared enough about the song to either upload it, or create their own version and upload that.

Jingles are supposed to be catchy; if that’s the case, I think the person who wrote freecreditreport.com should get a bonus.

Then he/she should be shot.

And if you find yourself humming it now, you’re welcome.

It’s been said that one way to increase your readership is to improve your posts. You know, give people something substantial to read – life tips and advice, quality, substantive writing, that sort of thing.
However, I’m having none of that. I’m going to use the following to boost my audience: a full-on, gratuitous booby pic. Enjoy!

What? What’s wrong?

Oh. It’s the feet, isn’t it?

You know, some people are into that.

When I was looking for a picture of Secret Squirrel for my last post, I discovered that wikipedia has an entire category titled “Fictional Squirrels.” Who knew there were that many (37) and that they needed a category? Do you think there’s a category of “Fictional Walruses?”

I haven’t written an entire, start-to-finish story since I finished my novel. I’ve started three, and another novel, but I’ve been banging my head against a wall on all of them. Makes me wonder if I can still call myself an “aspiring author.” Perhaps I should stick to writing greeting cards and warning labels. I suppose I could still call myself a writer then, eh?

Because of the 50+ spam comments I’m now getting on this-here blog, I installed a new anti-spam plugin. I don’t know if it’s working yet, but it seems to me that page loading is now slower. So I ask you, my readers: could all three of you leave a comment and let me know if it’s loading more slowly for you as well?

I’m listed on alltop.com now, though I didn’t submit myself. It’s nice to know that somebody thought well enough of this blog to submit me. What’s funny, though, is that I was originally listed in the “twentysomething” category. I had to email them and ask to be moved to the “humor” section, since not only have I not seen twenty in a few years, but all of the other “twentysomething” blogs seem to be written by disaffected young women, and I am not a young woman, disaffected though I might be. Wonder if I belong in the “humor” section, though…

I didn’t have to collect the poo. My wife did it for me.

You may remember my dog, Friday. He’s garnered some internet fame, what with a MySpace page and a published manifesto.

Well, in a fit of temporary insanity, it was decided he needed a playmate/sibling (one with fur, as opposed to the Offspring.) We don’t want him to get lonely when he’s by himself, and we figured another dog would keep him company and help him stay young, as he’s about eight years old and starting to enter his ‘senior’ years.

Enter Chloe, a really cute boxer mix, nine months old. She was a Craigslist find, and she’s been with us for a day or so, and she seems to be fitting in nicely. With the exception of having gas that could drop a rhino at fifty paces, she seems much more ladylike than Friday. Very quiet, unassuming, and obviously convinced that her looks should be enough to let her get away with anything, including jumping on all of the furniture.

But anyway, she’s a new dog, still fertile, and in need of shot records, etc. So, like all responsible pet owners, we made an appointment to get her spayed, all of her shots, an exam, the works. And one of the things the vet needs is a stool sample so they can check for parasites. The vet needs Chloe-poo.

Guess who gets to collect said poo?

Yeah, his name starts with a ‘w’ and it isn’t William Wallace or Winnie the Pooh.

And of course, now that we have two dogs, I can’t simply scout the backyard, find a candidate, and bag it. No, I have to follow the new dog around with a Ziploc bag at the ready. (For some reason, the image that comes to mind of me doing this is Secret Squirrel looking for footprints.) You see, not only do I have to make sure that it’s Chloe-poo, but it also has to be fresh.

Yes, it has to be warm and steaming.

I’ll let you digest that image for a bit.

Still with me? Good.

Not only does it need to be fresh and squishy, but the poo needs to get to the vet within twenty-four hours of… ‘deposit,’ or – get this – it needs to be refrigerated.

Yeah, I’m keeping that in my fridge.

Her appointment is Wednesday at 3:00, so if anybody needs me Wednesday morning, I’ll be in the backyard, on poo-patrol. Refrigerated samples are not available.