afrojet

The Gift of the Sith
We received this menacing Darth Vader gift card for use at Target Stores. ‘Press To Light’ and the saber glows and out of the voice box in the upper left comes Vader’s breathy asthma doom. I have a hunch that if you use the card at Target and you don’t buy something somehow related to the Star Wars movie (of which this is absolutely the worst offender), then, when the the cashier swipes the card during checkout, s/he will surely give you quizzical looks as you stuff your bag with Swiffer refills and the new CD you bought: Echoes of Nature: Morning Songbirds.

I have to hand it to George Lucas however, he (or more likely one of his minions) really stumbled upon something terrifying when he/they made Vader’s breath all bad-ass like that. The fact that Vader, channeled through a harmless little Target gift card, can still raise the hair on the back of my neck still says something. [Yeah it says something…it says you’re a big huge Nerd! Sucker! – Triumph].

Using the Target gift card I have scientifically tested the effects of Darth’s menacing breathing on three different pets. All three animals reacted negatively towards the breathing. And all three agreed that one should put as much distance between themselves and the Darth card as possible. There you have it. QED.

Also, a great making of the Star Wars logo from the women who designed it. Man, she actually used a pencil and a ruler to make that shit! That’s so sci-fi!

[note: if you clicked your mouse where it says ‘Press To Light’ thinking it would do something, then you my friend are a really, really, big dork]

Delicious Morels
I was treated to a tasty lunch today by my step-father and master morel hunter. The morel season has been kind, probably due to the noah’s ark rains we’ve been experiencing here. On the lunch menu today was the classic morels over toast seasoned with butter, sour cream, garlic and lemon. Yum. The Mushroom in general is a bit of a contentious culinary sore point for the misses and me. I love ’em and she hates them. Makes ordering pizzas very tricky. Step-father, under the nefarious publishing pseudonym of ‘Malfred Ferndock’, penned the definitive morel cookbook which if you’re interested can still be purchased at amazon. More morels at wikipedia, flickr and the great morel.

Blow It Out Your Nose
I’ve got a head cold. An all too brief moment of sunshine wrestled its way through the clouds Sunday night, just long enough for me to dust off the push mower and set out trimming the grass. It’s been raining off and on for the better part of a week now. It was getting to the point where I could stare out the window and just watch the grass grow right before my eyes. The clover is in full bloom creating exploding archipelagos of violet expanses amongst the tall dark-green grass in the back yard. It’s no more however, as my steely blade chopped though it all without discrimination. After finishing my chore my nose began to run like Giacomo at the Derby. I thought at first I was just having a case of allergies brought on by the felled flowers but by Monday morning it was obvious that it was something more debilitating. So I took yesterday slow and passed most of the day in bed honking on kleenex and reading Ted Kooser’s Local Wonder. A fantastic book of beautiful vignettes, mostly concerning life on the farm in the Bohemian Alps of Nebraska.
I also watched The Incredibles which I thought was a lot of fun. Jason Lee made for a good villain. The cool house that The Incredibles family lives in, I believe, is based on a suburban Joseph Eichler design who coincidentally was just profiled in this weekends New York Times Magazine.

Also, on a sad note, our 97 year-old silver-haired neighbor, Zelda had a major heart attack early Saturday morning. She’s comatose and in hospice care right now. It makes me sad to look out of my office window and into her living room; her easy chair is empty now and I may never again see that beautiful crop of pearly curls peeking out above the head rest as she watched her afternoon television shows.

Garage Sale Days Revisited
This weekend officially begins the garage sale season. Or as Strongbad puts it, the ‘gar-bage sale’ season. This season will be different however as the misses and I are actually planning on hosting one of our very own garage sales. Ladies will be required to wear extravagant big hats to the event and everyone will be rewarded with huge glass pitchers of Mint Juleps and a chance to enter into the afternoon Bocce Ball tournament. There’s no official date yet for this ‘not-to-be-missed’ sale but trust me you will kick yourself if you don’t come. I’ve got a collection of half burned down candles that I know you are just dying to buy. It’s really going to be a winning situation for all buyers. Hell, just throw whatever you bought from me on ebay and include a note that you bought it from world-class and internationally respected blogger, afrojet. Surely the value of said item will launch bidding wars from Nova Scotia to Zanzibar. I’m actually thinking I might include the old Solid State Hi-Fi in the sale. It’s not that I don’t use and love it still, but it is a heavy beast and the thought of hauling it around to any new location that we move to makes my lower back hurt just thinking about it.

Several neighbors on the block are running their own sales today and through the weekend. Too bad for them it’s raining horizontally and 40 degrees outside. One neighbor whose garage is perpetually overflowing with junk (mostly children’s outdoor plastic crap, dozens of signs warning back alley traffic to slow down so they don’t run over their yappy little offspring and hundreds of woven baskets and other ‘home accents’ that were picked up on sale at TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning and have overtime become frayed and greasy). They have ceremoniously draped the entire alley with hanging ropes of connected triangular plastic flags that alternate blue, yellow and red – transforming our alley into something resembling a children’s go-cart course. I’m pretty sure that to prepare for their garage sale they randomly put small denomination prices on post-it notes, walked into their garage and threw the notes in the air allowing them to cascade down on their dusty treasures. I’m worried they are setting a tone for the whole block, one that will leave a bad taste amongst the hard-core garage sale set and cast a dark cloud of doubt on the future and success of other garage sales – namely ours. Competitive Garage Selling: the blood sport of the new millennium.

Also, a few of the fine reads that I found on the library shelves of Canoe Bay: Color : A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay (More on Victoria Finlay here and here), Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
by Simon Garfield, and The Book Nobody Read : Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus by Owen Gingerich (a fascinating memoir of Gingerich’s inquiry into whether anybody even read Copernicus dissertation, De Revolutionibus, which posited among other astrological finds that the Earth actually revolves around the Sun).

Out of Beta: Mr & Mrs Skelton
Well we did it! Last Friday afternoon, in a small courtroom in Ramsey County, the misses and I made things official. Rings were exchanged and vows were consummated. Sandwiched in between some foul weather days, came Friday with its brilliant sun and extremely mild temperatures, it was an absolutely perfect day for our wedding. The gracious and honorable Judge Nathanson and her staff presided, proving once again that serendipity is a fine and wonderful thing. The judge and her staff, who preside over juvenile cases, had just wrapped up an extremely tiring and emotional week. They were looking forward to ending their week with a ‘little happiness’. In my mind, the synergy of emotional outcome could not have been planned by the best wedding planner. It was a great example of ‘allowing for for things to happen’ and not ‘planning how things should happen’. For this I (and We) are grateful.

After the proceeding, and before our familial dinner that night, the new Team Skelton went for cocktails at the Saint Paul Hotel were we were treated to a fine bottle of champaign and some great stories and tips from our hostess on how to ‘go on the road’ with the newly reunited Motley Crue. Odd newlywed advise for sure, but I’ll be damned if I”m not going to try and find some use for that wisdom down the road.

The familial dinner was very nice and delicious. Much toasting – emotions were more full and effervescent than the champagne in my glass.

Next it was off for a brief but relaxing honeymoon at Canoe Bay. I believe the ‘no children’ policy is what makes this place special. Before we got to Canoe Bay there was a brief road food stop at an unmentionable fast food eatery. Standing in line waiting to order we were directly behind the ‘walking birth-control billboard’ family. One kid whined about the lack of a ‘strawberry’ option to his dessert in such a horrible bouncy frequency that I could actually feel all my involuntary muscles spasm whenever he would hit certain pitches. We couldn’t take it and had to bail. I want to make a sticker that says “Return to Sender: This Child is Broken” that I can slap on kids like that.

The silence of Canoe Bay was wonderful. They also have an amazing library on the grounds. Gentle classical music, wine and coffee are available to guests as they peruse the library. Dinner at the bay was a formal jacket required deal, which I mention only because I found it humorous to walk through the woods to dinner in a suit and see other folks appear mysteriously from the woods wearing their best.

Everything on the honeymoon would have been pure bliss if it wasn’t for our northwoods friend The Tick. Sunday morning after a leisurely breakfast we went for a walk on many of the trails around Canoe Bay. The hike was about three miles in total. After the walk we retired to the Library. The misses immediately noticed a tick on her neck. Ticks, if you don’t know this, love to head towards the head or other ‘warm spots’ on your body.

The tick sent Ms. Skelton into immediate panic. We immediately went into tick check mode, where you behave like monkey’s going through each others hair. Nothing was found but throughout the day I discovered one on my pant leg and then discovered two more traversing my neck-line before dinner.

Then much later in the evening as I was getting ready for bed, I did a full tick check on my unmentionables. Nothing. But when I turned around and looked at my ass in the mirror, I noticed a big black spot on it. I immediately tried to brush it off but it was apparent that it had begun to burrow. It must have been there all day long. So I had to come out to the living room and tell Ms. Skelton that one of her new roles as my wife was to get in the bathroom and remove this sucker from me. She of course balked at this cause she can’t even stand to look at them. But after threats of divorce were offered she acquiesced. She attempted to remove it with a kleenex but the fucker was too buried. So she had to pinch it between her fingernails and pull it out. It felt like someone was pulling on a piece of my ass with a needle nose pliers.

Tick was then ceremoniously flushed down the toilet.

And thus began our married life.

Garden Stretches
The Star Tribune has gone a little nutty this morning. Perhaps they’re just getting excited over there about the possibility of a new outdoor Twins Stadium. I don’t know. And maybe it’s just me, but I found the paper’s photo gallery of garden stretches both inspired and hilarious. And then there’s a fine story about 3M scotch tape. In which we learn “oddball uses of Scotch tape reported to 3M over the years” included:

• Covering cracks in the soft shells of fertilized pigeon and turkey eggs, which later hatched.
• Attaching labels to horses that were being auctioned.
• Patching the ceiling of an apartment in Bangkok, Thailand.
• Attaching a flashlight to the underside of a gun barrel when hunting barnyard pests at night.
• Binding together chickens’ legs while they are weighed.

Also, they’ve been running ads during The Shield for what looks to be a kick ass new series called 30 Days. It’s simply Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame seeing what other terrifying things he can do for 30 days.

And, a movie starring Luke Wilson and Jack Black, with a soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh that I haven’t seen!?!? Does such a film really exist? Yes it does. It’s called Bongwater and apparently it is so terrible it went right to video.

Stump Flowers
The sun is out. The temps are up. People are celebrating in typically strange fashion. My neighbor a few doors down from me is stripping his front door. Lionel Richie is blasting from somewhere deep in his house. He knows every lyric on the album and is not shy or embarrassed about his duets with Lionel. Only a brilliant sunny morning after many days of darkness could induce this behavior.

Speaking of doors. The Designboom door challenge is complete. Although I love the musical inventiveness of the prize winner, I have to say my favorite is the door that becomes a ping pong table.

Also, two great photos here and here. And some nice 60’s style illustrations.

Monday Computer Bug
Yikes! File this snap under “creatures you do not wish to find when you move your modem to see why your connectivity is failing”. I almost shat my pants, the fucker is so big. With terrifying antennas, the beast is at least four inches long. And believe it or not, even tho I had every intention of eviscerating the foul creature, it’s a slippery and fast little bastard and it got away cleanly. I’m typing this post in a somewhat heightened adrenaline state.

Damn. Where the hell did that thing go?

Well I finally got to my first Twins game of the season last Friday night. Accidently sat down in the family section of the Metrodome. Moments after sitting down we were approached by a dome-usher who promptly informed us that the beers we were holding and using to toast the likes of Lew Ford & Co. were a dead give away that we were not family material. Apparently the family section is all about protecting children from the embarrassment of having their parents get sotted and consequently making fools of themselves by yelling at umpires from the outlying reaches of the upper-deck.

Gadgt Control
For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about buying a new cell phone. I’ve been having visions of glorious color displays, minimalist ring tones straight out of The Life Aquatic, the ability to post to this blog low-res snaps (taken in dark clubs where nobody but myself could identify anything in the picture), bluetooth, mp3’s, etc, etc. In short, I wanted it all.

But it dawned on me this morning that all the the reasons that I wanted a new phone were dumb and wrong.

I realized this only after I dropped my phone (for the hundredth time) on the hard concrete this morning. It landed with its display face up. The LCD, ever green and glowing with anger and frustration, looked up at me as if it were about to say, “Why do you hate me? I’ve given you the best years of my life here, buddy! Please stop with the dropping and the throwing and the leaving me out in your car when it’s negative fucking 20 degrees outside.” And it’s true. My phone, when it speaks, it speaks truth. I have put the poor guy through hell, yet it remains unbreakable by the abuse. Every time it gets dropped it responds with a, “Thank you sir, may I have another”. The phone is solid. It’s a hard plastic that can withstand this kind of torture. It keeps on roaming with full bars ever present. The phone rarely drops calls. It has no bells and whistles save for some rudimentary SMS. And that’s what I’ve realized today that I love about it; my phone is just a phone – nothing more nothing less. And my iPod is an mp3 player – nothing more nothing less. And my digital camera is a digital camera…you get the point. This new tech trend to combine as many of these devices into one device does not appeal to me at all.

I’m not a sadist. I enjoy simplicity. I don’t enjoy hauling all sorts of gadgets everywhere I go. But I appreciate the singular purpose that each device has to offer. I say to my little gadgets, “Be yourself! You’re brilliant just the way you are. Phone, you don’t need to be like iPod, And iPod, you don’t need to be like Camera. You’re all unique and I like you that way.” To illustrate: if I had a Phone that took pictures, I might actually forgo bringing Camera with me when I’m out and about. Then the photo documents of my life would be nothing more than a collection of throw away low-res snaps. And Camera would look at me like I was punk who didn’t care about things like craft.

My propensity to loose things also makes these combo tech pieces less appealing to me. It’s bad enough when I lose phones with all my friends numbers in them, but if I lost something out in the world that had data, photos, mp3s, client info, etc, etc, that would be really bad. As always, increased functionality comes at a steeper price. I’m sure the more I spent on it, the quicker I would lose it.

I actually did get far enough in the phone buying process where I was actually going to stores and looking at phones. I’m glad I did this because what I saw was that all the new phones available on my plan had all been whacked a hundred times with an ugly stick. Once more, they had been built out of such thin and flimsy plastic and with so many moving parts as to render them completely useless to my dexterity level. I’m sure any of those phones, on first drop, would explode into a hundred pieces.

And so now I’m done searching for a new phone. I’ll still keep one eye open. I’m open to suggestion. The market is overripe for someone to create a cell phone that’s actually lust-worthy. Until then, I’ll be searching for a new kick-ass Batman style utility belt to carry all my gadgets in.

Ghosts in the Wind Get Under My Skin
“Shut All Doors Securely And Tightly!” – this is the text of a sign I have made that I will be attaching to every door in the house at once. Seems that I live in a house that can only be described as “drafty”. Yet, drafty, as an adjective, doesn’t really do it for me. It’s too nice, like ducky or daft. The word I’m looking for needs to be much harsher in tone and must fully embody the creeping annoyance that comes from a door left slightly ajar that begins to beat on its frame from the push and suck of those windy ghosts who roam my floors. It’s driving me mad.

We like to leave a few windows open for the cats to perch on during the day. Depriving them of this would make us terrible parents. But the crosswinds that rip through the house in the later stages of April make it sound like we have a gaggle of small children living with us and they are constantly running around the house – up the stairs, down the stairs – slamming every door they go through. I work in my home office on the second floor of the house. My office takes up the entire second floor. But you need to open a door at the bottom of the stairs and at the top of the stairs to enter my office. This fucking double door combination is my wind-party nemesis. The worst offense occurs when I open the door at the top of the stairs, run down the steps and fly open the door at the bottom of the steps. This creates some kind of epic vacuum effect and the door at the top slams shut so hard that I have to *cringe* and then turn to make sure it hasn’t burst into a million little splinters.

This is fascinating stuff isn’t it? No doubt Dear Reader you are asking yourself, “why am I still reading this guy go on and on about the fucking doors in his house?”

To that I have no answer. Only you can dig deep enough into your own soul to figure that one out. I can only promise more of the same.

Ok. So what really annoys me is not the slamming doors. That’s loud, harsh, quick, painful only for a second. What really irks me is when I leave the bottom door slightly open and don’t close the top door all the way either. Then I’m fucked, because then comes the creeper – the drunk rhythm of the two doors talking to one another in slurred morse coded messages. Oh how we love to invent new and beautiful ways to torture ourselves.

Present solutions I have thought of include: a) renting a chipper from Diamond Lake Rental and feeding all the doors in the house to it or, b) installing some kind of door control spring like this one that gently remembers to close all my doors for me.

Also, and totally unrelated to doors (unless of course you slam your fingers in a door and begin to bleed), vegan friendly but completely disgusting Bacon Band-Aids.