Burger King’s Greatest Creation – the Simpsonizer

Found this today. Might be the web site of the year in my book. Upload your photo and turn yourself into a Simpson’s character. So, yeah, the above character is me.

Simpsonize yourself at www.simpsonizeme.com

Wedding Photos, Tight Pants and the End of an Era

First off, I am pretty much over the blogging thing. Two small kids and a house that needs a lot of work will do that to a man. However, some things have to be written down for web-posterity. This seems to be one of those things…

My dad got remarried last month and I was his best man. We live 14 hours apart and so I sent him my measurements as they were buying some period outfits for the bridal party. I wear, and have worn, 32×30 slacks for as long as I can remember, probably a solid decade. Somewhere along the line this measurement got flipped around to 30×32. Here’s the resulting look and yes I do work out-

Note to select readers: That is my finger in my pocket so don’t even ask.

My College Pranks #2 – The Notice

I had a hard time adjusting to all of the rules at Bible College. As I think back there weren’t really any I didn’t agree with in principle. I think it was just my age and wanting to be independent.

Anyhow, at some point along the way in a moment of low wisdom a few of us decided we needed to fight the man so we came up with a list of fake rules which were basically making a mockery of MBC’s attempt to regulate every facet of our life. We had probably 20 or so of these new rules along with consequences for breaking them. There is only one of these lists still in existence and it lives in Europe with a friend but a couple of the one’s I remember are:

• No growing marijuana in the steeple of the prayer chapel
• No wearing skunk sack ear rings

These are good examples of just how stupid the list was. If we had only created the list and left it at that everything would have been fine. The problem was that, as we sat in the library choking back our laughter at each new rule, we decided that this richness needed to be shared with the entire student body. How could we get the message out in an era before widespread email use?

The cafeteria of course.

We made 30 or so copies of the Notice and snuck into the cafeteria before dinner nicely folding one copy on each table next to the salt and pepper shakers.

I can not express our glee as the Notice was slowly discovered that night at dinner. It was soooo great. The RAs are all mad, the cafeteria manager (who looked like like Santa Claus) was red in the face he was so mad that someone would desecrate his domain in this way.

Well stupid as we were we didn’t really try to hide that we were the culprits so the next day we got BUSSSSSSSSSSTED.

We were all called into the dean’s office where he grilled us on the meaning of the Notice including specific questions on different rules.

“Did you mean skunk scrotum or the scent gland when you said no skunk sack ear rings?”

After telling us that we were the subject of a staff meeting where a few profs wanted to expel us he had us very afraid. The end result was not so terrifying as being sent home from college. We all got a “campus” which meant we had to do 5 hours of labor around campus.

5 hours of labor paid for hours of laughter and seeing the home schoolers faces ashen with abhorrence for our wickedness was a more than easy price to pay.

By the way, we meant the scent gland. Skunk scrotums are way out of bounds.

If you think these pranks are weak then you should check out the top 10 college pranks of all time.

My College Pranks – The Dead Cat Drag

A friend from college is staying with us for a few days and we were reminiscing about all the good times and I thought I should document some of the fun things we did. Hopefully, I will be disciplined enough to do more than one but probably not.

The Dead Cat Drag

A friend named Morgan Colburn and I set this prank up during the first few months of my freshman year. We were both on the basketball team and the basketball team was automatically part of something called the Gospel Team. The Gospel Team was basically us going to different churches and doing a skit and some songs. The point of telling you this is that we were on a way to our first Gospel Team retreat and none of us knew each other very well at the time. This didn’t bother Morgan and I at all.

Another friend named Rob, who lived in the Portland countryside, said that he had a dead cat on his property. Don’t ask how this subject came up because I don’t know. Anyhow, Morgan and I drove out to Rob’s house and scooped this decomposing cat into a plastic bag.

From here we drove back and tied said cat to the underside of one of the two basketball team vans as they were parked waiting for us to load. All I remember is watching the lead van pull out (we were in the back van) and then the cat carcass appeared and the string went tight and away he went behind the van. He made one little jump over a speed bump before everyone started freaking out and the van stopped before we even got out of the parking lot.

At this point, the nicest guy on the team jumped out, cut the cat loose and threw it into some nearby bushes not noticing that the owner of the property on which the bush was growing was outside watching him. We felt bad because he got a small mouthful, but we didn’t feel bad enough to fess up to it at the time because coach was not happy. Not happy at all.

We were though.

Legless Chihuahua Puppies Need a Home

It takes something extraordinary to drive me back to the blog in the midst of a kitchen remodel but I couldn’t resists when I saw the news video clip about Legless Chihuahua Puppies Needing a Home (if the link doesn’t work just Google it).

I was hoping that they were born without any of their legs because that is a dog I would consider having around the house. How great would it be to have a dog that doesn’t tear the house up and yet still possesses the ability to bark at intruders? You could even make a “Little Pup Handle” (patent pending) that would strap around them and then have a little suitcase handle on top of their back for and easy pick up and go type of dog. Time for bed? Move the dog to the front door for security. Friends coming over? Put the dog in the closet.

Unfortunately these dogs DID have front legs and were obviously quite mobile.

The thing that I discovered in the video is that, apparently, kangaroos came from a pack of these legless dogs. Come to think of it, maybe penguins and T-rexs did too.

My Bloomsday Results

My first Bloomsday race was a good one. I ended up doing better than I had hoped and finished in 1:13:46 which comes out to a 9:32 mile. It was actually a pretty painless pace probably due to the excitement of the day and my competitive spirit coming forth. I REALLY wanted to beat all 39,381 of the other runners but ended up placing 7,252nd. It was a lot closer race than it might seem.

The biggest bummer was that in order to get bumped up into the next fastest start group for next year (the first group without walkers) you have to run a 1:12. I definitely could have done this but didn’t have a watch or any idea how fast I was running. I mostly wanted the day to be enjoyable and had been getting really wrapped up (and bummed out) by my slow speeds in the weeks before the race. Now I have to run another race before next year’s Bloomsday and get a good time in order to get into that group.

We were in the Orange group which is where the slow people, those who haven’t ever run a race before and mental retards get stuck. The mental retards are those people who decide to walk in the middle of the running lanes even after being repeatedly reminded to walk on the right. It was slowww for the first 5 miles and you can only dart around passing people so much.

My goal for next year is to run it in under 1 hour. This will certainly be a major challenge for me.

As a side note – the finisher t-shirts need some help. Why not make them a color everyone can wear, say white? Nope, it’s forest green and as such, it is now the quickest t-shirt in my vast collection to ever make the transition from brand new to painting shirt. It took about 10 seconds.

There’s more useless stats about me and even some pictures at http://www.bloomsdayrun.org/results/resultdetail.asp?bib=26477&year=2007

Time for Bloomsday

In about an hour I will be heading downtown to join 40,000 others in the 31st Bloomsday Run here in Spokane. It’s a 12k which comes out to 7.46 miles and I assure you that the .46 matters because by the end of it I am going to be d-e-a-d.

I have been running for the last 7 weeks or so and suffice it to say I have lost a few steps over the years. I used to be able to run 8:30 miles for a long time but now I am more like 9:30 which is just embarrassing. Just the other day I was on a run up the big “Doomsday Hill” which is near our house and also part of the course. There was this old old man ahead of me and I never even got closer to him. So much shame.

This is my first running race and I am excited. I read in Runner’s World that you should have 3 target times. One for the best running day of your life, one for an average day and one for a very bad day. After you run a few miles you will know which one you should be shooting for. So my best case time is a 10 minute mile which would put me in at 1:15, next is the 10:30 mile which would put me in at 1:18 and worst case scenario is an 11 minute mile at 1:22.

I’ll post later today and let you know how it went.

The Gap Sucks

I am a bit embarrassed to write about my messy divorce from Gap jeans but the time has come to make our breakup public. I am embarrassed because the Gap has become synonymous with the white suburban shopper which, of course, is what I am but don’t want to be characterized as. This is very similar to the soccer moms with mom butt who still try to cram said butts into trendy jeans. Here’s a deal, you stop wearing pants made for anorexic teenage girls (and emo guys) and I will stop pretending to be anything but a typical anglo-consumer.

But back to the situation at hand – the Gap. I have bought my last pair of Gap jeans and would be just fine never entering another Gap as long as we both shall live (which isn’t going to be long for the Gap unless they start making clothes people actually LIKE!).

Gap clothing used to be stylishly simple but now they are borishly plain. If I want generic clothing tailored for the white man I can go to Old Navy and get the same thing for half the price.

It’s been a good ride Gap. You got me through college and my first job but some things aren’t meant to last forever and I think you’re one of them.

Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend…

Brothers Don’t Shake Hands, Brothers Hug!

My coworker sent me this photo. If you know me you may think it is me but you would be wrong just like Dwight was wrong about Bears beating Battlestar Galactica. It’s not me, it’s an imposter. Pretty strange that we have the same shirt from a somewhat obscure web site and that we look a lot alike on top of that. I would still think it was me except for the slightly different hairline.

They say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world and apparently I have found mine.

Clark, the Canadian Hockey Goalie