Prove Your Manliness

If someone asks you if you want to enter a push-up contest, you must answer "yes!" It is the modern equivalent of a duel. I can think of few more manly ways of deciding an argument other than over-the-topping someone in an arm wrestling contest.

This is the situation I found myself in last night at they gym where I was invited to join a contest for a chance to win up to $100 in restaurant gift certificates. And I knew I had some tough competition. After all, I was at a gym, where people go to do this sort of thing for fun. Seven combatants would face off for a chance at 3 prize categories; most in a minute, most total, and most for a girl.

The winner took both prizes with a grand total of 72 push-ups. I came in third, but at least I beat the girls (and they were doing girl push-ups!). It turns out that I can do 42 push-ups in a minute, so if you ever feel you need to Demand Satisfaction from me, you know what you will be up against.

Should have done this before the election

During this whopper of a presidential campaign that we just endured, I was often asked the question of what political party I belonged to. I usually answered with some combination of the following statements. I don't strongly identify with either party (or more accurately, I do identify strongly with certain platforms of both parties). When it comes time to vote, I will choose the candidate that I believe will do the most good, regardless of their platform. Now that it is all said and done, and the fate of the free world is no longer in peril, I decided that I should figure out where I fit in.

Since I use online quizzes for everything from finding out which Simpsons character I am to what kind of accent I have, I took a Political Stance test from Political Brew:

On Non-Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Moderate Liberal (29).
On Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Moderate Liberal (34).

Your score is on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being fully liberal and 100 being fully conservative.

While this does not necessarily tie me to a particular party, it's nice to know where I stand.

"Whatever you do, do it in moderation"

It's Immaterial

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of having Madonna come to visit me at the Pepsi Center for her Sticky and Sweet tour. The music was great, the show was incredible, and I had a fantastic time. She played a lot off of her new album, and a lot of the classics, too.



Say what you will about a grown man going to see Madonna in concert, but I had a good time. However, I will say that it seemed like my presence at the concert may have doubled the number of heterosexual males there. And I'm pretty sure I got hit on at least once, but I choose to take that as a compliment.

Here are a few reasons why the concert was most literally awesome.

• 40 semis. On our way into the concert we saw them all outside. That's how many it takes to haul the equipment for a show if this magnitude.
  
  
• Upgrades! I decided to buy the cheapest tickets (for the low, low price of only $80 each) and they put me in the third tier, in the corner, behind the stage! But when Madonna heard I was coming, she had my tickets flagged, and when I got them scanned at the gate, I was waved over to the upgrade stand. They exchanged my tickets for lower-level tickets off to one side of the stage. This totally made the show, thanks, Madonna!
  
  
• LED screens, more than you could shake a stick at and of impressive quality. She had three 2-story screens, and one of them accordionned apart. There were major screens, and minor screens, screens on wheels that moved around, a DJ booth coated in screens, man-sized screens to simulate extra extras, and, the coup de grace, the Magic Cylinder screen (awesome enough to warrant its own bullet point, below).
  
  
• The gun show. Madonna has always been famously fit, but I never appreciated it until I saw her live. Her arms show more veins than a Ninja Turtle's! Kudos, Madonna.
  
  
• A Ukrainian mariachi band featuring the Latino Lord of the Dance. Why not?
  
  
• Treadmill, the world's largest. It was probably about 60' long and 3' wide. It was a little bit Jamiroquai and a little bit OK Go, and they came no where close to realizing its true potential.
  
  
• I'm Britney, bitch. There were lots of celebrity cameos in addition to Britney; Kanye West, other miscellaneous R&B artists I don't recognize, Al Gore, and four Justin Timberlakes.
  
  
• "I'm working my ass off up here!" That's what you say when you're 50-years-old, you've been literally running around and dancing for two hours straight, and the people in the front row are sitting down. I probably would not have been as kind.
  
  
• Google Earth. The backdrop to one of the songs was various zooms into different parts of the world on google earth. I probably found this more enjoyable than the average person.
  
  
• Die Another Day feat. Scorpion. She played title track to one of my favorite Bond films (Die Another Day, starring Madonna, co-starring Pierce Brosnan) mixed in with various cuts from Mortal Kombat while two guys were dance-boxing. Finish him!
  
  
• Like a Prayer. It's a dance club staple and so overdone that I really didn't expect to hear it last night. But she sang it and she blew the roof off the place. This was no simple dance remix, it was, quite simply, to die for.
  
  
• The Magic Cylinder. It was an LED screen in the shape of a cylinder about 20 feet tall. Madonna was inside the cylinder on a piano. When the screen was off you could see through it like a mesh and when it was on it looked like a regular screen. BUT when they mixed the two (images against a black backdrop) you got these ethereal floating images. She did a song with a water theme and had rain and waves splashing all around her. All I could do was stare slack-jawed. I have no idea what song she was singing, it could have been 'happy birthday' for all I know; I was totally entranced.

Madonna is a music icon, her show is top shelf, and I'm glad I could be a part of it. Give me a call next time you're in town, Madonna, and we can hang out again.

Cops hate the environment

In my quest to maximize the fuel economy I get out of my car, I am trying to reduce the amount that I use the brakes. In this spirit, last night I performed a "rolling stop" at a stop sign (by "rolling" I mean 25mph). It was 11pm in a small Colorado town and I could see for about a mile in either direction. In my defense, if ever there was a time to run a stop sign, this was it. However, as I made my calculated offense, my headlights played across a car that said "Police" on the side. I watched him to a U-turn behind me. I was already on the shoulder by the time his lights came on.

I had a few options. I thought this might be a regular ol' gun-totin', McCain-lovin' police officer, and I could go the route of, "I was just trying to save gas and fight terrorism. USA A-OK! Put a boot in their ass! etc. etc." However, on the outside chance that this did not work, I would look like a total idiot. I decided to play it more conservatively. The exchange went something like this:

Villain: Do you know why I pulled you over?
(yes, they really do say this)
Hero: I could guess...
Villain:Why?
Hero: I may have failed to stop at that stop sign back there.
Villain: You did not stop. Can you tell me why?
Hero: It is late at night, there is little traffic, and I had a clear view for a good distance in both directions. Under these conditions, I felt it was safe.
Villain:Do you think it is safe to break the law?
Hero:It can be.
Villain:Unfortunately, that is not the case.


As you may have guessed, I take issue with this on several levels:

1. Safety
   The world in an inherently unsafe place. We are taking a risk any time we do anything. We do our best to minimize risk, but nothing is safe. Is running a stop sign safe? No. I coming to a complete stop and then proceeding through a stop sign safe? No. In my view, the amount of additional risk added by not completely stopping at a sign was minimal.
   
   
2. Infallibility
   Some people (read: police officers) seem to believe that the law is absolute. That it is correct in every situation. That the letter should be obeyed at all costs. So since what I did was against the law, I should be punished. However, since the police officer who did a u-turn in the middle of an intersection was within the law, he was allowed, even though what he did was arguably much more dangerous by intersecting 3 directions of traffic (to my one) that he did not have a clear view of.
   
   
3. Hypocrisy
   I have never seen a police officer come to a complete stop at a stop sign, aside from when the intersection is obstructed by another car. If a police officer was really protecting and serving the public even-handedly, he would spend his entire day writing himself tickets.
   

So now I have the option of paying $80 (plus a $25 handling fee?!?!) or going to court, having to pay the $105 anyways plus $25 (minimum) court fees and getting an additional 2 points on my license and wasting a day or two in the Erie, CO courthouse. I'll try to contain myself before this rant spirals out of control.

Final thought: I don't know if it is worse to have a total jerk cop or one that tries to be nice and smiles to your face while fining you. I had the latter.

One turntable, no microphone

I recently got the thought into my head that I would like to give record players a try. I think it stemmed from the fact that I was feeling a bit of a disconnection with my music. With everything being digital now, there is nothing tangible to associate with the sounds I'm hearing. What I like about records is the interaction. You pull out the big black disk, set it down on the turntable, and move the needle to your desired track. So much better than clicking buttons and skipping through tracks. And on top of that, you get the great full-size artwork that comes on the album covers. That sure beats some text on the screen.

I decided to indulge this notion by visiting a local record store, Twist & Shout. Its the kind of place you expect music to come from. It was filled with acres of new and used CD's and vinyl; mainstream to obscure; something for everyone. There were vintage stereo amps for sale and turntables along the wall to test out your latest find. I got the feeling that I usually get when I enter a bookstore and I want to pick up an examine every item there. But, alas, I did not. I had only intended to find a record or two that I really liked. It didn't take long before I had picked out 4 LP's and 3 singles and I decided to pay an leave before I started putting some things I own up on craigslist in order to fund my new habit.

After examining the contents of each package, the records sat in my closet for a few weeks since I had no way of playing them. This weekend I found some time to make it on to the local Goodwill circuit to search for my new turntable. I thought I was in severe danger of being disappointed; people don't buy many record players anymore so why would they give them away in great quantities. But I did spot one, only one, and it was quite a piece of work. It was built as part of a stereo system unit and so it had only a single propritary connector on the back. There were no audio outputs and there wasn't even a power supply in the thing. But for $7 how could I go wrong?

I got the thing home, chopped of the connector and spliced in RCA jacks for the outputs and dug up a 15V DC power supply I had lying around and wired that in. I fired it up, the lights came on, I got a nice hum from the speakers, but the table did not turn. The belt was gone. I could have tracked down a replacement, but then I would forfeit my goal of a cheap-as-possible record player. So I swiped some rubber tubing from work, glued it into a ring of the right size, and I was in business!

What a sweet sound I got, even from this cobbled together piece of junk. I love all the extras you get; the hisses, squeaks, and pops. It makes the sound so much more real and alive. What I love the most is the simplicity of the system. It's just a needle bouncing up and down on some grooves, a magnetic pickup creating an electric signal, an amplifier, and some speakers. It is so much more elegant than today's brute-force, over-engineered sound systems. I'm ready to grab a pair of headphones and disappear into a pile of vinyl for the rest of the evening.

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Soundtrack: The Blues Brothers - Soul Man

Better know your TLA's

That's Three Letter Acronyms

Part of the reason I moved to Colorado was for their sweet license plates. The gorgeous yet simple white mountains on green sky design is fabulous. I soon learned that even better than the design is the content. Colorado plates consist of 3 numbers followed by 3 letters. You may not realize this, but if you combine any 3 random letters you're very likely to spell a word or at least make a familiar acronym. Driving around town, I'm often left chuckling at the plates some people end up with. These TLA's can take on all sorts of meanings from hilarious (LOL) to frustrated (OMD) to exasperated (WTF). They can be toasty (HOT), cold (ICY), tall (MTN), small (TOT), affirmative (YEA), negatory (NIX), racy (TNA), divine (GOD), animalic (ASS), anime (DBZ), offended (HEY), welcoming (HEY), delicious (HAY), Yoko (ONO), and noisy (YIP).

Long I have awaited the day when I would join the ranks of those clever fellows with accidental words on their plates. That day was today. After yet another exceptionally pleasant trip to the Colorado motor vehicles department (I spent a grand total of 3 minutes inside) I was walking out with my own set of CO plates. Was I going to get something cool like ACE or DOG or CAR, or would I end up with something I'm ashamed to put on my car like FAG or LUV? Or, worst of all, I could get something totally meaningless like KKN.

The tension was high when I returned to my car and opened up my new plates. Before me I found:

PAM

Victory! What a glorious day! Not only am I in love with Pam (Beasley), but pam is also a non-stick spray! Its an acronym for Portland Art Museum, Pluggable Authentication Modules, and Prediction Analysis Microarrays. AND, if you read it backwards, it spells MAP!!! Finally, I can rest soundly at night knowing that my car is well-decorated in the traditional Colorado style; hilarity.

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Soundtrack: The Beatles - Polythene Pam

Elkd

 

Welcome to beautiful Estes Park and the umpteenth annual Elk Fest! Here, people gather from all over the world to frolic with the trained and tame elk of Estes Park, CO. Or so the public is told...

In reality, it is a breeding ground for all manner of elk-human related catastrophe. Tourists are lured with the promise of the "tamest elk this side of the Rio Grande." This is deceptive for two reasons: there are no elk on the other side of the Rio Grande and the elk here are wild animals.

The way I see it, this is an ingenious ploy conceived by the town of Estes Park to inflate both their tourism and hospital industries at once. Based on what I saw during my afternoon there, I estimate there are about 18 quadrillion goring/kicking/trampling injuries per season. People come for the frolicking; they stay 3 to 6 weeks for the gorings. Here is an excerpt from the Elk Fest brochure:

"Come visit Estes Park and see elk so tame that you can ride them like a toddler on a saint bernard!"

While I saw no such event occur, I did see several photographers get charged by a 800+ pound bull elk and even a few cows got rowdy. When humans and giant animals are in such close proximity, bad things happen. It was their land first and they should learn that we took it fair and square because we have bigger brains than them. Silly elk.

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Soundtrack for the day: 311 - Down