The Flat, The Raccoon, The Cop, and The Soul

It is time now, I think, for me to regale you all with a story that has been a long time in coming. It is an epic tale that took place last summer when my family undertook the long long drive to Nebraska for my brother and his wife's graduation from smart guy medical school. It is a tale of drama, intrigue, suspense, and stupid dumb preppy rental cars that I hate. THIS is the story of the flat, the raccoon, the cop, and the Soul. 

It was some time in late May, as I recall and, in a roundabout way, the whole experience was entirely my fault. You see, if I hadn't come along, my parents would have just flown to Omaha, and the entire fiasco would never have happened. However, my thirteen year old niece who inexplicably thinks I'm cool swore upon her life that she would throw an apocalyptic teenage temper tantrum if I was not allowed to tag along with my parents to come visit, and so we packed up our trusty Toyota Camry and set off on our adventure across the plains.

The drive was uneventful for most of the day. The midwest is flat. There are cows. A lot of them.

With the mountains far behind us, I began to worry that we were in danger of being sucked out into the emptiness to float back and forth across the plains in an eternal vacuum of pointlessness, however, most of the trip passed without drama. At least until about 6 PM that evening. 

The first indicator that this was not going to be a normal trip was when a man in a car with a very large dog pulled level with us and started shouting incomprehensibly and gesticulating wildly at us. We hadn't cut him off or anything, and we weren't doing anything illegal, so we were not really sure as to why this man was so very angry with us. He looked absolutely livid, and my mild mannered little family could do nothing but shrink in terror and confusion until he passed. 

Finally we discovered, as we stopped off for gas in West Podunkington that the man had probably been trying to inform us that our tire was almost completely flat. Good to know he was angrily looking out for us. Kind of like a... cursing redneck guardian angel.

The stop lasted longer than expected, because I swear to you, there was only one functional air pump in the entire town and until we found it, we drove around in the dead center of nowhere feeling hopelessly lost. I do distinctly remember the one thing of interest in that entire town was a sign outside a diner that said "Buy any drink and get a free straw." Of course, Dad would not stop, and so I did not get a straw.

Admittedly I am very easily swayed to the influence of lighted signs.

By the time we got back out on the road, it was dark, and we were determined to reach our destination without any more delays. That did not appear to be in the cards for us, however, because that was just about when the real excitement started...

Barreling down the highway at about 85 miles an hour, the car gave a sudden, violent swerve as Dad attempted to avoid the biggest raccoon in the known universe as it chose that moment to traipse out in front of us. Didn't swerve fast enough though, and we hit the raccoon head on with a gigantic THUNK, sending it flying back into the brush at the side of the road, and jerking us all out of our sense of calm security. Everything was alright though, for the moment. We were rattled, but the car remained in control and we continued along our way for about ten minutes more. 

It was at that point when the engine started making some really funny noises, getting louder and jumpier until Dad noticed that the temperature dial on the dashboard going crazy as the engine overheated. He turned off the highway where the car promptly died, leaving us stranded on the side of the road. 

It was a few minutes until a shirtless man pulled up alongside of us to help. He hopped out of his truck and swore at our engine for a good ten minutes before declaring that the raccoon had cracked our radiator completely. It was around that time that it became readily apparent that we were not going to reach our destination that night. It was also around that time when the police officer pulled off the side of the road to help. 

Now I was already giggling about the whole situation. Over the years I've had extensive training in finding everything hilarious, especially stupid car related situations, so the fact that the raccoon had busted our radiator was incredibly funny to me. My parents didn't seem to quite see the humor in it all, though and I tried to help them out as best I could.

Eventually, after making a few calls, the police officer offered to drive Mom and I down the hill to check into a hotel while Dad waited for the tow guy. Now, a police car has only two available seats for people who are not being arrested, which meant that, with Mom in the front seat, I got to ride in the back where the criminals go. I was explosively excited; this evening just kept right on getting better. The officer seemed to think I might be a bit odd for being so excited about riding in the back, but I'm sure that if Mom had explained to him that me getting to ride there was the rough equivalent of allowing a five year old boy to do the same, I'm sure he'd have understood. 

We ended that evening with me being far more cheerful than anybody really should be in the situation. I was in a great mood the rest of the week, really. We went through a couple different rental cars, none of which were too bad, until the time to go home arrived. Our Camry having been pronounced dead a few days before, we opted to rent a car for the long drive home. The car that we rented was a Kia Soul. I am not going to rant about the Soul again, but it suffices to say that it was dumb. 

In the end, it was one of those experiences that you look back on and laugh. And in my case it was one that you laugh during as well. But one element of it has continued to be a source of curiosity for me: The raccoon. How did that raccoon manage to crack our radiator? My parents and I went through many an option of how the raccoon might have managed to damage our car as much as we damaged the raccoon, but the only conclusion we could reach was that the 'coon wasn't damaged at all by the impact, and that instead it stood up from the scene of the crash immediately after and flew away to go do whatever it is immortal raccoons do. 

The lesson to be taken from this is that raccoons are jerks. 

At any rate, I am thoroughly convinced that the raccoon is still very much alive and is lumbering around in the trees on that same Nebraska highway waiting to force more unwitting drivers into Kia Souls. There is no possible way it could just be a normal raccoon. It's far more likely that it is a yet unknown American legend, which will soon be terrorizing a highway near you.

Be wary, travelers. 

Now, I'm no engineer, but...

I just got back from camping, and I wondered that, with all these bright new innovations in camping technology that has everything you need condensed down into a tiny little pouch or case... is it maybe doable to innovate some hardcore camping equipment that is NOT impossible to get back into the case at the end of your trip?

Just a thought, cause sometimes when I'm trying to cram my giant sleeping bag back into its tiny case, I get to thinking how much I'd like to go burn down nature just so I don't have a reason to have to do it anymore.

The Poster Problem

A couple weeks ago I got terribly ill with some hideous throat malady. I wont go into some of the gorier details, cause I don't want you to throw up as much as I did, but, long story short, I spend a good deal of time at the doctor's.


If you've ever been to the doctor's office for a checkup, I'm going to assume that there has been at least one point where the nurse has abandoned you for twenty minutes or so while you waited for the doctor. I'm also going to assume that, as you sat there on the crinkly paper on the examination table with silence pressing awkwardly down on you (doctor's office silences are always awkward, even when you're alone) that you became bored and started to scan your sparse surroundings for something entertaining. In my experience, this is generally when one stats to encounter the posters.


 Now, usually these posters contain benign things like the pain scale (which I am not going to comment on because it has already been covered by much better bloggers,) the ingredients of cigarettes, and statistics for what demographic is most likely to have which horrible disease, but every once in a while there will be one that makes me tilt my head. See, apparently some of the folks who make posters for doctor's offices thought it would be a great idea to show comparison photos between normal organs and diseased ones. The problem word here is "photos". If you have to question why, here is an example of one that is similar to the one in my doctor's office:

I don't know about you, but I don't want any of these things in my body... 

The problem with using actual pictures to show comparisons like this is that everything inside the human body looks awful and disgusting and diseased, and to the non-medically trained eye, it all looks horrible. This is why you use illustrations, otherwise your point is not very effectively made. 

I know you're trying to help, medical poster making folks, but... I'm gonna say maybe go back and try again. We don't need don't really need any more reasons to throw up when we're visiting the doctor. Thanks. 

The Showing

My parents (with who I was living with up until recently while I got my health issues in order) are in the process of trying to sell their house. Over the course of the past few months I was home, I discovered this process to be my own personal Hell.

Now, believe it or not, the particular hellishness of the whole thing has nothing to do with sentimentality and the fact that they are selling my childhood home. It does, however, have everything to do with the house showings.

For those not familiar with the concept, a house showing is pretty much what it sounds like. Potential buyers come through with a realtor to take a look, and the owner and their family disappear for about an hour so this can go down. Oh, and the place has to be spotlessly clean. These showings are usually pretty early in the morning, and my mom -- quite eager to sell the house -- takes them very seriously. The results are as follows:

So yeah... that, except for like, twice a week for several months.

And that's why I don't live at home anymore. 

The Very Best

Guess what time of year it is again! The time of year where I buy like fifty of those little packs of conversation hearts and I sit on my couch and eat those suckers while I draw stupid pictures in crayon!

It took me a few years to grow up, I think, but I've finally come to terms with Valentine's Day. I think that this might be the first time that I haven't had some deep underlying feeling that the holiday is just there to mock me for being single. I think the trick to it is to reach the point where you realize you actually like being single. At any rate, Valentine's day and I are cool now. We're bros. As such, I have seen my way clear to writing a post that actually pertains to the day in question without sounding in any way resentful, so here goes:

When it comes to lovers, there have been a lot of famous and striking pairs over the ages. I don't feel like naming any of them because I don't actually care that much, but there have been a lot of them. Romeo and Juliet do not count among these, just so we're clear, and if anybody says Edward and Bella, I will find and shank you personally. Anyway, with so many notable lovers about, I feel as though there's one that doesn't often get a whole lot of notice. This is a terrible shame, because I feel as though they may very well be the greatest lovers in history. I am, of course, talking about Gomez and Morticia Addams.

First off, if you have not seen the old 1964 TV series of The Addams Family, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't go look it up now. Secondly, take a good long look at the people in the picture above. These are two people who are absolutely mad about each other. No matter that their general sanity was up for debate; Gomez and Morticia were blindly, deeply, passionately in love with each other. I haven't watched the show myself for a while, but, as I recall, there was not an episode that went by where they were not fawning over one another at at least one point.

The Addams were, by design, so far removed from normality that they frightened or disturbed most people. Nevertheless, they were a very close and loving family, and they were very happy with themselves and with each other. I feel like this is due largely in part to the relationship between Gomez and Morticia. They didn't care about what anybody else thought, they just cared about each other and about their family and they were much happier than most for it.

Gomez and Morticia themselves were always delightful to watch when they interacted because it was so easy to tell how very deeply enamored with each other they were.

They rarely disagreed, and when they did, they were always willing to let it go because their relationship was more important than their pride. They had the occasional misunderstanding, but it never put them off for long, and I don't recall them ever truly being at odds with one another. Not to mention that they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Gomez was the more actively affectionate of the two, but it was easy to see Morticia, in spite of her refinement, returned it just as deeply. They were deliriously happy and they made a perfect pair and a were the perfect core for their creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky family.

Perhaps my admiration for them stems largely from the fact that when/if I ever marry, my family will be far beyond normal. Whatever the reason, I feel as though Gomez and Morticia Addams deserve a respected place in history as the greatest couple of all time, and should be held as an example to lovers everywhere.

And don't worry, I'll get back to writing silly things soon enough.

Happy Valentine's Day!

An Explanation

As many of you may have noticed, there was a recent, several month long period during which I was more or less missing in action. I assure you, this does have a somewhat viable explanation which I feel as though I should probably share with you now.

It all started with a liver.

So yeah, it turns out that when your liver doesn't work, your brain doesn't either, resulting in lots and lots of getting nothing done. When we found out that this is what was occurring, my mom moved me home, got me off the medication that had been destroying my liver and got me on a regimen of herbal supplements and things to help me detox.

Detox, incidentally, is Latin for "Hell". It's also a word in Greek meaning "Everything that sucks in your body gets very much worse before it gets better."

Long story short, I pulled out of school and did absolutely nothing for months. Or at least I would have had it not been for TMM.

The Merry Mabari is a chat-based roleplaying group based on the universe of the Dragon Age games (which just so happens to be my favorite series.) Now, roleplaying is something I had long thought of as being something that only weird nerds in basements did when they wanted to pretend to be wizards. Being a weird nerd who lives upstairs, I thought myself too high and mighty for such things (even though I'm an actor and I've written fanfiction and both are just as nerdy as I'd projected roleplaying to be,) but with some poking from my cousin, I eventually decided to give it a try as something to break the horrible monotony. And so, playing as a thirty year old male archer named Lysandro, I wandered into the world of online roleplaying.



And then I never slept again.

The sleep thing is far beyond the point though. For three months at least, roleplaying was the only reason I wrote anything at all. Having someone to respond to me directly as I wrote gave me constant motivation to keep writing, if only a little bit at a time. Where writing is concerned, it's much easier to only have to develop one character rather than a whole world, so it was a good starting place when I was at my lowest point. As I did more and became attached to the character, I began writing stories to expand his world. Between that motivation, an awesome cousin, and a wonderfully amazing roleplay partner (whose character I am just as attached to as my own,) I was able to pound through that while of recovery and break through to the other side to where I could finally blog again.

I suppose the moral of this story is don't judge a book by its extremely nerdy cover, because if it hadn't been for roleplaying and my amazing partner Britt (who is one of my best bros and who is prodding me over messenger to write this as we speak) I probably wouldn't be writing this at all. I'd just have stagnated and dug myself into an even deeper pit and possibly stopped writing altogether, so, if you enjoy my blog, you have online roleplaying to thank for its continuance.

I realize this post isn't funny. I apologize, but, as it turns out, I do occasionally think serious things. At any rate, that's the reason I was gone, and also the story of how my imaginary friend Lysandro kept me from dying out as a writer. Thanks bro.

Yo Gabba Gabba

Somewhere off in the darker, more sinister recesses of the land of children's programming there lurks a show; a show that has burrowed itself into my brain and merged seamlessly with my most recent nightmares. I feel like I was a bit hard on Sid the Science Kid back when I did my little piece on it, because even that, in all its rendered horror, does not even come close to the terrifying mash of pain and annoyance that is Yo Gabba Gabba.

I have seen one episode of this show in total. Even so, I feel as though the fact that I spent the entirety of that one episode with my mouth frozen open in horror qualifies me to tear it apart. But where to begin?

I suppose I should begin with the man who seemingly runs the place, DJ Lance:

This is a man who needs desperately to be put out of his misery. I am not sure who decided on his outfit. I am also not sure whether that individual should be given an award or fired immediately, but that is far beside the point. DJ Lance speaks every word and makes every move as though he is severely uncomfortable, and possibly in agonizing pain. I'm not really sure of what his job is, and I refuse to do the research into the show that would be required to find out, but all I know is that at the beginning of the show he brings in a large box full of all the other characters and then looms uncomfortably over them for the remainder of the show. Perhaps the discomfort is intentional, or perhaps that suit is some manner of torture device that forces him to do this job. I'm going to assume the latter and leave DJ Lance alone because he kind of seems like he's being held there against his will. The true offense of this show lies within DJ Lance's questionable box. With these guys:

(Minus the DJ himself, obviously)

These abominations are, from left to right: Foofa, Plex, Muno, Brobee, and Toodee... 

First of all... what am I looking at? Second of all... Okay, folks. I really really try to keep things classy around here and not stoop to the lowest common denominator for my jokes (butt jokes are very classy, okay? Shut up!) but this one is something I absolutely cannot look past. The very first thing I noticed about this group of monstrosities is that most of them look like some manner of adult novelty item. Think I'm kidding? Then I invite you to take a good long hard look at this thing:

Are you feeling uncomfortable yet? Good. 

Unfortunate designs aside, these characters are just... impressively, mesmerizingly awkward... Also as far as I could tell, none of them really seem to have any distinguishing traits of which to speak. They all seem to just exist simply to do things. Weird things. And sing songs. Weird songs. Like this: 

For those of you wondering what in blazes you just watched, you are absolutely not alone. I spent a good long while trying to figure this one out and came up with nothing. This brings me to a few more points... The writing for instance... "Friends are our friends," huh? How long did it take you to come up with that one Shakespeare? Can't tell if the writing is lazy, or if the writers genuinely thought this was genius, but I'm kind of afraid to ask. And speaking of lazy, the puppetry is just...just... Alright, as a giant dork who is passionate about The Muppets, I find it very hard to respect creators that wont even take the time to make their full body suit puppets blink, or even move smoothly. I could rant about this for a very long time, but I wont. Yo Gabba Gabba, I am disappoint.

The one thing this show does have going for it is that they often bring in actors and such who have actual talent to appear and do... things... for... amounts of time...

Things like... whatever is occurring here...

Though this does tend to beg the question of what people with actual careers are doing there... And I mean that literally, because I have absolutely no idea of what the guests do on the show... They just kind of lurk around and do... stuff. Then presumably pick up a fat paycheck. 

That's about all that I can really tell you about the show because the rest of the one and  half episodes I watched were just an incomprehensible mess of I don't even know. All I remember is being bombarded with bizarre nonsense once every few minutes... Y'know... between all the even more bizarre nonsense. If you  really want to know what I'm talking about, you'll just have to go watch it yourself, because I honestly could not even begin to figure out what I was watching.

Suffices to say that Yo Gabba Gabba is a show that probably shouldn't exist, and also should probably not be as popular as it is. But hey, what do I know? I may very well be missing some hidden brilliance behind this hideous pile of weird. And anyway, it's not my job to determine what's popular, so I may as well shut up about it now. Just be sure to keep in mind that this is what is shaping the minds of the upcoming generation. Do that, and then curl into a ball and weep bitterly, just as I am going to go do now. 

Until next time, readers. Stay cool. And don't bite your friends.