The Emaciated Mind

The mighty have fallen. You can never go home again. Chains suck the life out of a city and destroy its unique flavor. {insert your own cliche/platitude here}

None of it will undo the sadness and emptiness that now is part of Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Ruminator Books (formerly The Hungry Mind) is going out of business no later than July 31.

Click here for the story.

We've all experienced the anger and sadness that comes when a Home Depot, Starbucks, or Wal-Mart kills off the local, independent businesses in our neighborhood. But Ruminator Books was no Ma and Pops Hardware or Java the Hut Coffee Shoppe. It was an institution in the heart of a neighborhood that does cartwheels if someone simply puts the words "independent," locally owned," and "business" together in a paragraph.

So Ruminator's demise has as much to do with business mismanagement as it does with evil Wal-Mart, Barnes and Nobles, and Globocom.

But is is still sad to see such a great store go down, despite an impressive "Save Ferris!!" campiagn from its patrons.

So let this closing inspire all of us to support our local, independent merchants, by going to bookstores, like this one!!!!

And instead of using amazon.com to shop (don't expect me to hypertext the amazon link), use booksense.com for your on-line shopping. Booksense is a collection of independent bookstores and when you buy from booksense.com, you are actually buying from your nearest independent book sellee. The only drawback is you have pick up your order at the store, but it's worth the "inconvenience" on principle alone).

As Emily is wont to say, "Vote with your dollars!" Responsible shopping and market forces will do away with Barnes & Nobles and Wal-Mart in ways that pissing and moaning and local legislation will never able to.

Don't Mess With Texas, reason #34950

From the San Antonio Express-News

Shot in mouth, man spits at death

A San Antonio man is recovering after taking a bullet to the mouth.

Police say Gilbert Balderas, 36, was shot Monday night during a fight on F Street on the city's East Side.

The bullet went through his right cheek and hit his teeth. He was able to spit out the bullet, along with a tooth

Balderas is being treated at Southeast Baptist Hospital.

Authorities are looking for the gunman, who they believe fled to Laredo.

Click here for the link.

Are Opposite and Doppelganger Mutually Exclusive?

Emily and I went to see Farenheit 911 today, but it was sold-out. So we saw Terminal instead. As we were leaving the movie theater I said, "That was the opposite Castaway." My logic being that in Terminal, Tom Hanks was playing a prototypical wild and crazy Eastern European guy stuck in the epicenter of American society, trying to leave the airport. But in Castaway, Tom Hanks was playing a prototyical reserved, play-it-safe American guy stuck in the most remote outreach from American sociey, trying to find an airplane to save him.

In addition, the Tom Hanks charachter in Terminal befriends many different Americans who work at the airport. In Castaway his charachter befriends a volleyball.

So I would consider these movies as two opposite sides of the same coin.

But Emily said, "That was just like Castaway, except for in an airport." And she has a point. A certain crucial narrative element unfolds in a parallel fashion in both movies (I can't say too much, in case someone hasn't seen either movie yet, but plans to). So, if I interpret this correctly, she is saying the two movies are the same side of two different coins.

Are we both right?

This reminds of an old conversation Emily and I had before we were even dating. A small group of us had gone out and painted the town a twentysomething shade of red. As Emily and another friend (mad props to Kari) were dropping me off at my house I realized I had just become absurdly tired. So as I was saying goodbye I told them, "I'm going inside and either I'm going to kick sleep's ass, or sleep is going to kick my ass!!" Then there was this five second pause of mutual confusion, so I added, "I'm doing whichever one means I'm going to sleep a lot!"

And now, six years later, I'm still not sure which one means "I'll sleep a lot."

Maybe both expressions can co-exist, the same way "I could care less," and "I couldn't care less" mean the same thing. And maybe my take on Terminal as Castaway's polar opposite can co-exist with Emily's take that Terminal is actually Castaway's doppelganger.

I have some more observations to make about the moviegoing experience in general, but I'm going to save them for tomorrow, because it's getting late and I'm going to the bedroom to either kick sleep's ass, or to have sleep kick my ass!!

Dogwarming Gift Ideas

If anyone is looking for a gift for Poncho, our new dog, I recommend the following on his behalf:

1. A copy of Codependent No More. Poncho must believe the air we humans breathe is far superior to air he can find in any other corner of the house. He follows me from room to room, even if it's for a three second run from the den to the fridge while I'm reading the paper or watching TV.

2. A video of the The Coneheads. He's wearing one of those plastic bonnets (called an e-collar, or Elizabethan Collar) to keep him from chewing his wound (he was neutered on Tuesday). I figure if he saw The Coneheads, he'd realize he's not the only one in this universe with a cone head, and he'd see that having a cone for a head can actually be kind of funny.

You know come to think of it, he may also enjoy watching Little House On The Prarie. He could benefit from seeing all those ladies and girls in bonnets enduring the hardships of homesteading in the heartland. This may teach Poncho to see the bonnet as a symbol for having the strength and resolve to live through times in Minnesota. Then he'll begin to wear his plastic lamp shade like a badge of honor!

3. A prescription for medical marijuana. His vet is having me give him 100 mg of dog sedatives a day to keep him from being hyped up. The idea is for him to rest and stay inactive. His wound doesn't need to be more swollen than it already it is.

But this dog is freaking robodog. I think you could give Poncho 100 gallons of elephant tranquilizer and he'd still be pacing the floor and begging to play. I figure if I get some (medical) marijuana for Poncho and had him watch Futurama and The Simpsons on endless loop on the DVD player, he'd finally mellow out.

4. A bigger house. Just for the next week, until his cone comes off. Emily said (within five minutes of Poncho arriving home from the vet with his cone head), "Our house is not big enough for a dog with a lamp shade on his head!"

We found our tipping point. This place is plenty big for the three of us. But you put a cone on any of our heads (in this case, Poncho's) the house seems to shrink by 100 square feet. The Ponch keeps on smashing his cone into walls, walking into us, and he's even fallen down the stairs a few times (he clips his cone on the steps). It's very hard to watch because this is one confused, sad dog! I also feel I am doing a good job not being frustrated by all this cone-inuced clumsiness. It's not El Poncho's fault.

Actually, he's snoring right now, so the doggie valium is working. Poncho is such a good dog. He's just going through some tough times, seeing as how his testes were removed, the residual tissue is swollen to the size of a hackey sack, and he has to wear a freaking lamp shade on his head for ten to 14 days. And he's only been living us for two weeks. So he's emotionally and now physically been through the wringer.

But Emily, Poncho, and I are all ready for his stitches to be removed and his cone to come off. It will either be this upcoming Saturday or a week from Monday.

I Lost FOUND

As recommended by Laurie, I went to the FOUND Magazine fifty state book tour as it partied though Minneapolis. It was at the Creative Electric Studios in northeast Minneapolis.

When I called to get a rough idea where they were located, the lady who answered the phone told me they were near some businesses that turned a few miles away from the actual location. So, my uncle-in-law and I got lost and were driving around in circles. He was the first to note the irony were lost trying to get to a FOUND party.

But luckily we figured out where the Creative Electric Studios was located and got there in time for the party and the talk by Davy Rothbart. it was kind of like watching Jay Leno's headlines, as he sorted through all his finds to decide which ones he wanted to talk about.

I highly recommend you visit the FOUND Magazine website by clicking here.

Then see if the FOUND Magazine 50 State Tour is coming to a town near you by clicking here. Then go to the show. It is well worth it.

Now if only I could get find a good find!

The Free Market... It's Out Of This World!!!

It's interesting how George Bush has insisted on keeping NASA and its 1980s technology afloat. If he were a true Republican, he would have turned to the private sector long ago, to give NASA a healthy dose of market-driven competition.

Well, even without a REAL Republican in office, the space race has been privatized anyway. And tomorrow morning, the rubber hits the road for the private space sector. SpaceShipOne is scheduled to be first privatized, human-driven craft to reach sub-oribital space.

From VOANews.com:

SpaceShipOne will take off from the desert town of Mojave at 6:30. An aircraft will carry the spaceship to a height of 15 kilometers, then the ship's rockets will fire for 80 seconds. It will reach three times the speed of sound, and pierce the outer layer of the earth's atmosphere to briefly enter sub-orbital space.

Click here for the whole story.

Pretty cool. I hope it succeeds. Our space technology could use some innovation and NASA could use some competition.

Does anybody remember Voyager from 1986 (the plane that flew around the world without stopping to re-fuel)? SpaceShipOne was designed by the same guy who designed Voyager.

If you click here and go to the homepage for SpaceShipOne, you will see some pictures of the ship.

Though the pilot hasn't been named yet, rumor has it that it most likely will NOT be a member of N'Sync ( click here if you don't get that reference.

Dogs and Blogs

I am trying my best not to be one of those nutty dog owners who talks about his or her dog like it was a child. So please don't interpret this as another post about my new dog. It's more about communication and human connections.

Now that I walk Sr. Poncho twice a day, I end up having a lot of conversations about my dog, and the other person's dog. It's kind of neat because suddenly there is this instant bond. Anyone willing to walk their animal at 6 a.m. or at dusk, when the mosquitos are eating, clearly loves having a dog and being outside. So when two such people cross paths before even the coffee shops are open, the conversation can go from superficial to very personal in a matter of minutes.

I know some off-leash parks can be a scene for singles to mingle, but I'm not talking about that kind of connection. That's not too far removed from what happens at a downtown bar on a Friday night.

I'm talking about a connection that happens when I cross paths with someone, anyone, regardless of age, sex, or hotness, who wants to pet Poncho. Today two blue hairs stopped me to pet mi perro, and say El Ponch reminded them of the dogs they had growing up. One of the ladies grew up in neighborhood and talked about the (now developed) open acres of grass her dogs could run through.

Another guy had this surly mutt and contrasted his dog to Poncho of the No Barking Tribe. Suddenly we began talking about the whole nature/nurture debate, only applying it to dogs, not people.

Thes type of connections don't happen often, but they do seem similar to what happens when you have a blog. Suddenly you are connected to complete strangers and can have a meaningful dialogue beyond "Is the weather hot enough for ya?"

The key difference between blogging and dogging is the latter requires you to actually see a person face-to-ace and get off your ass, while the former is some skewed form of communication where we're all holed up in our offices staring at a computer screen. Even so, I think a parallel can be made between the two experiences.

Are there any other similar ways we connect with strangers so quickly? Outside of sports, weather, and "9/11 was really shitty," I haven't come across anything else.

Token NBA Finals Post

My take on the Lakes/Pistons series is not full of insight. It's all been said before. The Lakers looked old and slow and, in complete Un-Phil Jackson fashion, no role players stepped up. Too much Kobe trying to go one-on-one, and not enough running the offense through Shaq. Blah blah blah.

It was sweet to watch the Lakers lose, especially to a team like Detroit. But as I was watching the last two games, I kept on asking the same question over and over. "How the hell did the Spurs lose to these guys????"

Looks like I wasn't the only one.

From San Antonio Express-News's Mike Monroe, concluding a column about Karl "Coat Tails" Malone:

His summer will be about career decisions, not reverie. He must ask himself if another possible knee operation and long rehabilitation is worth the possibility of finally achieving what Brown did on Tuesday.

It is a question with no easy answer.

And here is another question that begs for an answer:

How did the Spurs ever drop that Western Conference semifinal series to the Lakers?


Click here for the whole story.

Can I Get These on My Minnesota Plates?

Actually, that may be a bad idea. The way Texans are viewed up here, I wouldn't be surprised if my tires got slashed.

Click here to learn yet another way Texas is raising revenue without a state income tax.

A Dog By Any Other Name

Tomorrow night, Emily will be coming home to a surprise bigger than the pile of dishes I have left for her to clean. I got a dog from the Humane Society yesterday and took him home tonight. He doesn't seem too interested in barking or biting. But he does seek out human interaction like an attention-starved teen ager.

The dog was abandoned in a dog park and my friend bought him into the Humane Society. I therefore had the inside track on adopting him. He's about a year old, with a lot of black lab in him, but he's still a mutt. He has some SERIOUS separation anxiety but overall he's a good dog. Right now I'm trying to kennel train him, and I'm sure my neighbors appreciate it. Why someone would abandon a dog this sweet is beyond me.

So it took me about 48 hours to come up with a name. Among the ideas I was kicking around were:

Rufus
Hobo
Malik
Fido
Grover

I also had a few Spanish names in mind:

Poncho (lazy person)
Vagabundo (Spanish for hobo)
El Jefe (the boss)
Frijoles (beans)

Admittedly many of these names suck. Today at work I asked a six year-old kid what I should name my kid, and he said, without a moment's hesitation, "Batman."

So, that inspired me to think of naming the dog Bruce. The name has stuck, which is a good thing, becuase I had been calling Bruce, "buddy," as an affectionate non-name. But buddy was slowly turning into "Buddy," an official name.

But I also like the name Buddy. I still think I'll stick with Bruce.

Any opinions?

Guilty Torture

I posted a few months ago about my guilty pleasures. This included The Apprentice, People magazine, and certain Top 40 Country music songs from the early 90s. But what about Guilty Torture? You know, stuff you do voluntarily even though it isn't that much fun.

I think for most people, these "tortures" center around video games and TV, as opposed to music and magazines. For me, I really take no pleasure in playing Tetris on Emily's cell phone, yet I play it all the time.

Same for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Yet if Charlie Rose doesn't have anyone good on, I end up watching shitty Jay Leno instead of just going upstairs to bed and reading a book. These time wasting activities have really exploded lately, as Emily is in Sweden, and no one is around to keep me in check.

Maybe I should drop the cell phone, turn off Jay Leno, and go buy a copy of Co-Dpendent No More.

Does Dionysus Have A Mean Streak?

Because Cargill is making a mean steak.

As we all know, back in the day, when men wore togas when they weren't throwing the discus naked, the gods were not to be fucked with. Sure, you could try and tempt God, but you'd end up marrying your mom and killing your dad.

Any chance the CEO of Cargill is unknowingly sleeping with his mom tonight? In yet another attempt to tweak Mother Nature's design the greedy bastard, that is named Cargill, is using genes to enhance the quality of its beef.

Click here for the story.

Well, this is a market-driven idea and the market will determine whether or not this project is successful. If you are troubled by what Cargill is doing, let them know by buying free range, organic beef and chicken. Until Dionysus is resurrected and he dishes out some Greek God justice on Cargill, voting with our dollars is the best solution we have right now.



End of self-righteous sermon.

Minnesota Magicians

Why is therean ad for magicians at the top of this blog? I can't find any references to magic in any of my other posts. Oh well, I like having that ad, so I'll try to keep up there by concluding "magicians in Minnesota, magicians in Minnesota, magicians in Minnesota, magicians in Minnesota, magicians in Minnesota, magicians in Minnesota..."

Overrated

No I'm not talking about the Lakers. I'm talking about college life. I have the perfect solution for anyone pining for the days of college where all you had to do was go to class and parties, your meals were cooked for you, and your dishes were washed for you.

The solution is quite simple: go to your ten year reunion and stay in a basement dorm room. Then you'll learn in a hurry to appreciate your current station in life.

A certain Grinnellian nicknamed the Klassmaster and I were roommates in college and we were roommates again this weekend. I don't know how we did it back then, sharing such a tiny space. Speaking of tiny spaces, twin beds are small. How did I fit in that thing on a nightly basis? Let alone, how did two people... You know, I won't go down that route. I'll just leave it at "twin beds are small and really only met for .7623 people"

And then there's the issue of shared bathrooms. Some guys feel the need to wash their whiskers, shaving cream, and nasal offerings down the sink drain, and some don't. Until this weekend, I had forgotten that the "some don't" faction of men exists. Last time I saw a sink as nasty as the one I saw this weekend was, well, ten years ago.

I had a great time at reunion, but I won't make this blog anymore boring than it already is by adding details. I just wanted to comment on how soft I'm getting in my old age (are you reading this Laurie P?). A weekend in that shitty dorm room with Klassy was more than enough to make me yearn for no other place than Emily's and my little piece of America in south Minneapolis. It's hard to believe my accomodations this weekend was how I lived for three years (I had my own room in an off-campus house, senior year).

p.s. AP, how did we miss you? And how did you find my blog out the millions of weblogs out there, but couldn't find me in the two-horse town of Grinnell, Iowa?

Old, Fat, and Bald

Ten years ago....

I weighed 167 pounds,

I had curly hair that reached my forehead,

My fastest five mile time was eight minutes faster than what I could run today. My 5k time was four minutes faster, and I was probably a full minute faster in the mile.

Father time has not been kind to me over the past 520 weeks. Or, in the interest in accountability, I have not been kind to myself.

If you are wondering why I bring all this up, it's because my college's ten-year reunion is this weekend.

I guess I'll go there and show the party people of the the Grinnell College class of 1994 that Mike's Theorem is in full effect. My job and love life kick ass and my body is in the shitter.

I was poking around the Grinnell website, after I found information about my reunion, and found this picture:



Image from Grinnell Cross Country


That freakishly skinny guy on the right with all that black hair is indeed me. I think that picture is from my freshman year when I was 18 or 19. Based on that picture, I don't know if anyone will recognize me at reunion. Mercifully, I will NOT show up wearing a cross country singlet. That would not be a pretty sight.

May Monkey

Did I say monkey? I meant meme. Anyway, Mr. Blork posted the May monkey a little late this month. But here it is:

When we are not ourselves. Describe a time you were out of charachter.

This is tough, as it gets into the whole realm of perception and reality. I have no idea when I am in or out of charachter. Also, like most people, I swing from introvert to extrovert, from leader to follower, from opinionated flaming liberal to fiscal conservative depending on the contexts.

But my own actions did surprise me about a month ago. I had this head-on bike collision. I won't go into the details of the wreck other than that it was very violent yet no one was injured. Oh and the most important detail: I place at least 75% of the blame on the 20 year-old kid who ran into me (and I'm being generous, taking a quarter of the blame).

The unusual part is how I confronted this guy. My first instinct wasn't to see if either he, I, or our bikes were hurt. It was to yell at him. I not so gently inquired as to what the fuck was wrong with him and was curious as to what the hell he was doing biking so fast and swerving the wrong way.

Then I cooled off in like five seconds and apologized for yelling. A scary part was during maybe three of these five seconds, I had it in my head I was going to fight this guy.


But that wuld have never happened. He was super-friendly about the whole affair and we biked off our separate ways. My bike and I did need a few minor repairs but we are no worse for the wear at this point.

My shouting and swearing was so weird and out of charachter, moslty becuase it was directed at a stranger. I so dislike conflict. And when I do decide to confront someone it is usually someone I know very well and spend weeks to months deliberating how best to bring it up.

This isn't to say I don't stick up for myself or I've never lost my temper before. Who hasn't? But I usually reserve these instances for family members. Who doesn't? But I've never acted so quickly and inappropriately, to a complete stranger.

It was so weird. I hope this doesn't mean I'm turning into an ornery SOB.

Click here for more May memes. Did I say meme? I meant monkeys.

Rain Rain Grow Away

I don't know if I am more bored with the rain around here, or more bored with making small talk about the rain. But I'll add my two cents (or more appropriately, offer two sides of a rainy coin).

Heads: All this rain is cool because the crop circle of dirt that we found when the snow melted is now filling in completely with grass. I'd like to say it was my expert application of seed and fertilizer, but I know better than that.



Image from http://www.phototour.minneapolis.mn.us/


Tails Our basement gets water in it. Quite a bit of water, in fact. But only when it really really pours down. I also learned that books, surprisingly, smell worse than rugs as they dry out. Water in the basement seems like a pretty high price to pay to learn this nugget of aromatic trivia.