Prosthetically Hip

The Road is a be-a-itch my friend

June 29, 2009

For my birthday, Bea’s Mom got me a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

It had been recommended to me, but with the caveat that it was quite dark, and could very well leave one depressed. Knowing my tastes and penchant for post-apocalyptic fiction (can we go ahead and just call it speculative fiction? ;) ), they felt that it was nonetheless a solid suggestion. I have to say, they were partially right.

The basic gist of the story is that a man and his son are survivors of what we can assume is something akin to a nuclear winter. It is indeed dark and dreary, and I will freely admit that I enjoyed going outside and enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face. Later, I talked to Jeremy and gave him my thoughts on the unfortunately short (~250 pg) book. I see where he might have been depressed, but I think I extracted a wholly different sentiment. For me, while the scenario and ordeals were horrible, it was the absolute and unending dedication of the man to his son’s well-being that affected me the most. It is the man’s sheer unwillingness to accept defeat in order to protect another and “keep the light” that I find uplifting.

This book is at times sad, harsh, and utterly bleak, and it is in these situations that the absolute best and worst of man is brought to light. The resounding message for me is that there are those that when faced with it, will keep putting one foot in front of the other because it’s just what has to be done.

Tennis ist Krieg!

June 24, 2009

Well, I lied. Tennis is decidedly not metal, but that didn’t stop me yesterday.

My friend Alice (aka Diamondgrrl – rollerderby, aka Comissioner Gordon – kickball) and Anne (aka All the Way May – kickball) took me out to City Park, and we tennied. Tennised. Tenniserated. Yeah, tenniserated. I like that – it’s got a certain ring to it. It’s like regular tennis, but with a heat index of 103°.

Anyways, outside of the Wii Sports package or a table-top, I’ve never really played tennis. Much like baseball, something was off with that brand of hand-eye coordination when I was a kid – I just didn’t play because I couldn’t. Besides, I had soccer.

I have to say, it was pretty fun, and I didn’t even wear silly clothes, despite the musings of the twitterati. And when I say twitterati, I mean just Neal.

We showed up early, and hung out for a bit before our court time of 7:30. Alice gave me fore- and back-hand grip basics, and we just kinda launched into it. One of the ladies was always on my side of the court and they rotated – giving the person across from me a good workout. Being on the smaller side of 2 vs. 1 isn’t all that fair. With the heat, I did work up a bit of a sweat – mostly due to the quick back and forth movements one makes on their feet. And nicely enough, my arm and back are pain-free.

All in all, I only hit 3 or 4 balls over the fence in the 1 1/4 hours we played, which I consider to be an achievement – I thought we’d have to throw the towel in early due to a lack of fuzzy yellow projectiles. Alice thought I did pretty well for someone who’s never played. Part of that hand-eye coordination problem crept back, but really only on the slow speed balls. It just messed with my head – too much time to think about where to stand, when to swing, what angle to hit it at, the exact timing, etc. To remedy, I just decided to move quickly towards the ball. This reduced the amount of time I had to over-think the situation, like Ramius turning into Tupolev’s torpedo. (I’m guessing only Pistolette got that one)

All in all, it was fun and worked out a different, rusty, part of my athletic side. Hooray for leveling up. :)

And who knows, maybe next time I’ll have to either sport one of my kilts, or even emulate this guy:

 
If I only still had my long hair. If I do end up picking up a cheap racket, I think I’d have to name it the Anvil of Crom™. Just for the metalness of it.

*EDIT* Thanks to Todd for the awesome Kids in the Hall Clip – ERADICATOR! (skip to 1:50):

 
Perhaps I should transfer my bicycle polo nom de guerre of The Laser Viking™ to tennis as well.

Julius: The Green Bondage Monkey

June 10, 2009

I recently did some laptop repair for an employee of Bicycle Michael’s, and in return, he worked on track bike. Working on my bikes is something I rarely feel like doing these days, and those wheels were in need of a truing.

Well, Jon did some great work – even went so far as to install a new chain and replace my handlebar tape.

Unfortunately, a resident prankster (let’s call him Centurian™ to protect the less-than-innocent) was caught while in the process of, uh, “accessorizing” Molly (the bike).

This bike has two “Guardian Angels” let’s call them. The most prominent is a green monkey that came with my most-awesome green tuxedo jacket (it has green velvet lapels!) named Julius. Julius has been affixed to this bike for a few years now, and it’s a wonder he has yet to be defaced or kidnapped.

Until now, that is.

Apparently Centurian™ (say that as Michael Palin in Life of Brian as you can) has a tendency to bring out people’s inner gimp:

 
He came back gagged, covered in electrical tape, and a 9v battery hooked up to his nipples.

Sadness. Perhaps I shall stwike the centuwian. Stwike him vewy woughwy. And fwow him to the gwound.