why, yes

At the pediatrician's office, one of the questions on the form asks if my child can shoot urine more than a foot in distance.

Yes.

the exchange

First, I'd like to say that the Wife is pregnant and we are having a boy. Yes, thank you. It's true. We are quite excited about this.

But that's not the story I wanted to tell you. The real story is this: In preparing for the arrival of the little dude, we decided to clean the spare bedroom of all the old books we had lying around. And by that, I mainly mean the old textbooks and supplemental reading materials and management guides and coffee table books and started-but-never-finished books and every other in-between sort of book that we'll never read again and will never recommend that anyone else read again either sort of books. We put all these in five or six paper bags and loaded them into the trunk of our car.

Our town has a large and wonderful recycling center with a not-as-large and possibly wonderful book exhange in it, so we drove our five or six bags full of books over to the center and parked in front of the book exchange. The exchange is basically a half dozen or more bookcases lined up against the wall of the recycling center, and as we hopped out of the car we noticed a few people milling about.

I smiled at them. They looked at me. And this is where the story gets interesting.

I hefted one bag of books out of the trunk, carried it over to the bookcases, and set it down on the floor. "Is there any order to where the books go on the shelves?" I asked no in one particular.

"No," said a man in fleece just to my left, startling me with his sudden proximity. Before I could quite turn and focus, this man had bent down and was taking books out of the bag I had just left on the floor.

"Oh, hey, thanks," I said. I watched him for a moment as he dug through the bag, efficiently examining the cover and spine of each book and setting it in a pile next to him. Well, that's nice of him to help me stack the books, I figured. Then I went back to the car and grabbed another bag.

This time, a middle-aged woman with black hair silently intercepted me before I got to the shelves. Again, I nodded my thanks, but made sure to catch the Wife's eye as she handed off her own bag of books to another silent receiver nearby. She shrugged.

As I walked back to the car for my third set of books, I tried to understand why I felt a bit unsettled by the exchange. Should we have offered to help sort and stack the books on the shelves? Were we not supposed to bring old textbooks? I lifted another bag out of the car and carried it back, but this time, as both the man in fleece and the black-haired woman descended upon me, I tried to strike up a conversation. "So, are you volunteers here?" I asked.

"No," said the man in fleece. And then he took the bag from my hands.

"Oh, okay," I said and turned away. Wait, what?

I turned back and saw the man and the black-haired woman sifting through the contents of bag there in the same spot where I had handed it to them. And then it clicked: They were book scavengers. And it wasn't just one group -- there were multiple competing individuals at work here. They weren't putting these books away or choosing a few to read themselves -- they were taking the best of them so they could resell them elsewhere.

I met the Wife at the back of the car. She had clearly just had the same realization. "Is it bad that I don't want to give my books to them?" she whispered. We quickly debated the pros and cons of dropping off our books here. It felt as if somehow our posessions -- as valueless as they were to us -- were being preyed upon before we had even set them down. And yet, that was silly. Why shouldn't someone else profit off our old books? Weren't we going to donate them anyway? This way, maybe they would get recirculated to other communities and even other countries that might actually want old physics and psychology textbooks. Right? It seemed to make sense, sort of.

I quickly grabbed the last bag from the trunk and took it over to where a woman with two sets of eyeglasses strung around her neck was waiting. I set the bag at her feet, the way one might tentatively leave an offering before a goddess prone to sudden fits of anger. "Okay, then. Thanks," I said and backed away slowly. She didn't return the acknowledgement and started to pick through the paperbacks that had gone unfinished on our shelves for years.

The Wife already had the car running when I slipped into the passenger seat. "Why do I feel so used?" she asked as she threw the car in reverse.

"I don't know," I said, "but let's get out of here."

And that, my son, is the story of the sacrifice we made to give you your own bedroom.

nightmares coming true

I gotta say, I always thought this was just an urban legend:

NYC Woman Finds Python in Her Toilet

not related

the case against upper case

Is there a reason why computer keyboards still have Caps Lock keys? Is there some powerful lobby of FORTRAN 77 programmers that I don't know about?

At the least, can we move the Caps Lock key somewhere else -- preferably somewhere that's not prime keyboard real estate? I mean, the right pinky finger's got the sensible and quite important Enter key. So why does the left pinky get the one that's only used on accident or else by the crazies who think the best way to warn us all about our impending doom at the hands of aliens is to SHOUT IT ON THE NEAREST MESSAGE BOARD?

universal symbols

Do not get your head caught in the television.

If your head is severed, do not use the supplied bag to reattach it.

Sleepy astronauts not allowed.

so many questions

Why do the express lines at the supermarket still allow people to pay by check?

Do Safeway executives really think I'll be a more loyal customer if their clerks mispronounce my last name while they hand me my receipt?

Why doesn't Krazy Glue just give up and admit that the only thing it's good for is bonding your SKIN together?

going green

Energy saving light bulbs are great for the environment and all, but what's with wrapping them in a gigantic plastic blister pack that's not even recyclable?

a horn has become bare when i dropped it

Sure, "lost in translation" instructional text is old news. But damn, it's funny -- especially when you come across a "trouble shooting q&a" for a wooden tissue box that you just received from Japan.

That's right, it's just a box, made out of wood, with a hole in it for your Kleenex. (Direct all inquiries about why the original box that Kleenex comes in is no good to the Wife, please.) Nonetheless, there is a troubleshooting guide for this box. And it contains some of my favorite lines ever written in the English language:

Q: I have changed color when I touched it in the water.

A: I am not limited to the painting and attach all products to water, and please do not hang it on fire.

That's actually pretty good advice.

Q: I want to let strength of a combination part be more solid.

A: I have enough strength, but it is trouble... In addition, on that occasion I do not bear one slice of responsibility about a change of color and deformity, the damage that occurred in us.

the kind spammer

I've started moderating the incoming comments on this blog -- yes, yes, all three that I get each year, I get it, you're funny -- because I wasn't able to delete all the comment spam fast enough. So this means I now have to scan through a long list of recently posted comments whenever I get a spare moment every few days and look for comments that I want to approve. And in doing so, I've noticed something kind of odd: Apparently, I've got a spammer who feels bad about filling up my blog with comments that link to all sorts of shady Web sites that sell questionable pharmaceuticals.

How do I know he (or she) feels bad about spamming my site? Check out the sort of notes he's leaving next to all the shady links:

• "Sorry that I did that"
• "Deeply sorry for that"
• "Really sorry for this"
• "Please don't be angry"
• "Please forgive me"

don't forget the sunscreen

Ah, San Diego. One of the few places where you talk about "summer car care tips" in late December.

life tips

1.
Now, I don't know much about things that end in "Faire," but it seems to me that if one were to find one's self in the apparently embarrassing position of having shown up to a Renaissance Faire wearing clothes that would be more appropriate for a Dickens Faire, it would be possible to alleviate the situation simply by throwing one's arms wide and shouting, "Behold! I am from the future!"

2.
Men, the skinny black pant is not for you.

yakov smirnoff found!

Buried at the bottom of an article about the University of Pennsylvania's commencement ceremonies:

Comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who earned a master's degree in positive psychology, was among the approximately 6,000 graduates.

"In America, Jodie Foster speaks at your university's commencement ceremony. In Soviet Russia, your university jails you for seeing a Jodie Foster movie! Haa!"

space magician

From an article about magician -- er, endurance masochist -- David Blaine and his little accident last night:

As early as on the second day of his challenge, Gunel said, there was evidence that Blaine was suffering liver failure; the medical team consulted with medical experts at NASA before stabilizing his condition.

It's so nice to see NASA being put to good use.

why we are doomed

There are so, so many things wrong with this item that just appeared on my Google News page. Why does this story need eight updates? Why did it get picked up by Forbes? Why did it get picked up by nearly 300 other places? WHY IS IT EVEN A STORY, FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD?

a brief return to lunacy

Do you like it when people refer to the underemployed?

singapore

I have been to Changi International Airport in Singapore a half dozen times in my life, and it looks bigger each time. It is the sort of place where they hand you a map just so you can find your way around.

Seriously, you could live here. There's a 7-Eleven in this place, not to mention enough fancy stores to fill a mall. And dozens of free Internet kiosks. You can even play Xbox games over in the arcade.

We wasted most of this opportunity, sadly, and opted instead to check into one of the airport's guest rooms, which you can rent in blocks of 6 hours at a time. Then we had an omelette made from fresh eggs at Joe's Griddle.

If we have more time before our flight, I may insist that we go check out the swimming pool and jacuzzi.

arnold

Today, I used the phrase it's not a tumor without invoking Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bummer

There's some bad news for fans of Outkast's Hey Ya: Polaroid is warning customers that it is, in fact, not such a good idea to "shake it like a Polaroid picture."

footsies

This little trick will probably be plastered all over blogland by the time you read this, but what the hell:

While sitting, lift your right foot off the ground slightly. Then begin to make small clockwise circles with that foot. Got it? Okay, now draw the number 6 with your right hand. Your foot will automatically reverse directions and begin to go counterclockwise. [*]

Actually, this seems to work if you draw any counterclockwise circle with your right hand. Isn't the brain fun?

Why is that when

Why is that when the dentist takes X-rays of your mouth, he makes a big deal about putting a lead shield over your chest but seems to have no problem shooting X-ray beams directly into your head?

Running

This was not my idea initially, but I am supposed to ask you: Why do the Queer Eye guys always have to be running whenever they get out of their car?