X Games

Thank God for the X Games.

Summer TV is terrible. Most summer shows are like the awful deleted scenes from a movie that were rightfully deleted. If it can't make the fall or spring network lineup, throw it in the summer's. Someone on his summer break is bound to faithfully tune in to the sub-par sitcom or the reality show reject.

For the rest of us, there's baseball -- which, don't get me wrong, I could undyingly watch every day, regardless of teams playing -- or the Discovery Channel. In my mind, neither is ever a bad choice.

But sometimes you just need something extreme (sorry, Discovery Channel, logging is never extreme, no matter how many degrees below zero the temperature). No, make that X-treme, with a capital 'X' and no 'e.' Like jumping ramps, unleashing flips and twirls, and hitting high speeds, all against God's plan of limitations for humans, via miniature modes of transportation intended for children ages 10 and under. (How much longer must we wait for events involving Power Wheels?) Small skateboards and bicycles, big air and risks of lifelong injury. The X Games comprise the best television entertainment you're probably not watching.

I find myself enthralled with what's either a heaping dose of audacity or unequivocal idiocy. Perhaps a blend of both. Whatever the building block for performing these lunatic feats, it's rather easy to withhold ill feeling for any of the contestants who shatters his skeletal structure on a stunt gone awry. After the knee-jerk grimacing "Oooh," I can't help but shrug my shoulders and immediately lose all empathy. I mean, you're sailing 30 feet in the air with a metal bar for your manliest organs to rest upon, for crying out loud. Or descending a ramp at 50+ mph while standing on a fraternity paddle atop golf ball-sized wheels. It says a lot about you when your profession solely revolves around doing activities that other people only do while drunk in order to go viral on YouTube.

But it's that lack of respect for their own bodies that I respect with everything inside of mine.

How long, though, is that cool? As my girlfriend accurately pointed out, as likable and indeed unbelievable as Tony Hawk is, it's kind of difficult to take a man who is over 40 years old and still skateboards for a living seriously. What will this man's walker at 80 look like? A skateboard with protective bars? Dude, hang the skateboard up. In your parents' garage. And put the yo-yo away and quit sticking your gum underneath tables if those, too, are issues that you're still struggling with surrendering from your middle school days.

Maybe he's holding out for the Senior X Games. I can't wait to see what can be pulled off in a Rascal. Now that's good summer TV.

Of course, there's always the WNBA.

Sandals

When I was a little Claude, I had a yellow threaded blanket (a "blanky," if you will), and I would NOT sleep without that thing. It was, in fact, my security blanket. It was so secure feeling that when my body outgrew it, my mind did not. I remember in my very early grade school years lying in bed under that blanket with my bare feet exposed because I was officially too big for it. In turn, I got used to sleeping with all but my feet under sheets, resulting in a slight dislike for covered feet.

There's a very good chance that that's why I prefer sandals. And I'm not talking apostle sandals that are more laced, enclosing leather with the equivalent of fish gills for breathability than open air. I'm talking a two-strap deal here: one strap over the big toe and another over the remaining four, joining together and bound just above that weird webbed portion of your first two toes. Flip-flops without the flip-flop sound.

(And, yes, I do fancy going barefoot when the conditions are right.)

Sandals are, for a lack of better, more definitive words, the best. To me, they signify freedom and comfort. What in the world do you need more in life than freedom and comfort? Aren't those the two universal goals we human beings set to achieve in our lives? Total freedom and total comfort? And there they are, evocatively present in each sandaled stride, just below your bunions. Bet you never knew you were signing a declaration of independence for your feet when you bought those sandals. (See, you were literally giving your John Hancock on that credit card purchase receipt.)

If weather, terrain, and social acceptability allowed it, I would probably throw away all my other shoes and wear only sandals. That's why I get a little irked when I'm told at the workplace and other public arenas that I can't, primarily when women are approved to wear high heels, which are really sandals' hot, long-legged cousin. C'mon, high heels are sandals on stilts. If you approve one, you have to approve the other. To not is showing a pedal prejudice. Look it up.

...Actually don't, because it doesn’t legally exist. But it should. Back me up, Al Sharpton! (And let me save you the smart-aleck suggestion by emphatically refusing to simply wear high heels in conformity.)

P.S. I still sleep with only my feet exposed.

Baby Photos

Who doesn't like a chubby baby? If you don't, you're a Satanist.

Actually, that might not be accurate. I guess if you're a Satanist, you could love a chubby baby. Let me think this through... You hate God, love Satan... Yeah, I guess you actually could love a chubby baby if you're a Satanist. So, we agree then, everyone loves a chubby baby.

I suppose that's why we photograph chubby babies. We humans love to take pictures of babies. AND we love to show those pictures off if they’re of our babies. Something about this makes all parties involved smile.

Maybe it's the babies' innocence. Or the babies' toothless smiles. Or feeling as if you can actually hear the babies goo-goo-ga-ga and smell their dirty diapers through the photo's resolution. Maybe it's all of the above. But, man, we love those pictures.

And a large quantity of people like said pictures so much that they saturate their lives with these images -- all over the home, all over the office walls and desk, on their hanging calendars, in their wallets, on their screen savers. Some of these babies aren't even of the same bloodline. I think some people, women in particular, actually feel that the more baby pictures they submerge themselves in, the more tranquility they'll be enriched with throughout the day. Which is funny to me because, calculating all the hours of crying, screaming, laughing, and mindless spoken gibberish, babies are loud. Cute but loud. ...I don't know, I like beach photos myself.

Baby photos also serve as a time capsule, locking in the freshness of "when all they did was crawl, drool, and poop." You know, a time before they aged and started chasing booze and hookers. But think about those baby photos you're taking. There are as many adorable ones as questionable ones. I've seen a lot of both, and the latter never get old.

Ofttimes, like a Saturday night memorialized by a drunken stupor and regrettable, erroneous decision making or that time you threw firecrackers out the car window on the street in front of the mayor's house, some baby photos can only be explained away with a disgracefully delivered "Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time..." defense. Professionally photographing your baby in a cat costume or outfits and colors typically reserved for the opposite sex are prime examples. Although teaching kids how to cope with failure is an important part of parenting, perhaps making failure their destiny before they even get off the nipple and try walking isn't the best route. As well, what's cute in a picture to the parent(s) early on rarely serves as a confidence booster for that baby in his/her teen years and beyond. Suddenly, that thumb-sucking sailor photo from Sears becomes your high school teen's bully's blackmail.

Another interesting quirk about baby photos is how perfectly fine and acceptable it is to have naked baby photos plastered everywhere. Why? And at what age is their nudity no longer cute but disgusting? Personally, I think it'd be hilarious to have pictures of random, naked, grown people scattered across your office without hinting at anything peculiar about it. "Oh, these folks? They're my friends and family. That one's Uncle Melvin laying naked on the farm. He's only 636 months old there. So cute."

Sort of goes along with the whole deal of seeing a naked baby photo of someone you now know as a grown adult. It's like, yeah, I know I'm not allowed to see you naked now, but I know exactly what you have under there and have a good idea what it all looks like, per the photo of you naked in the bathtub at 11 months.

Amusement Parks

Thanks to spare tickets given to me by some gracious friends, I got to blow the cobwebs off my adrenal glands recently by revisiting the joys and promised amusement found in an amusement park. While the roller-coasters indeed did their part, I encountered less amusement and more bemusement. Truly, the sights and smells that are most astounding at theme parks aren't the coaster corkscrews or cotton candy but rather the common carnival customer. It is the clientele that will make your head spin and want to vomit.

In my hometown of Frankfort, Kentucky, the amusement park equivalent is the annual Expo (or aptly nicknamed "Rednexpo"). Here, folks come crawling out of the woodwork, emerging like zombies, to introduce themselves to regular, old-fashioned society, while making sure there's enough time to sink their four teeth into a caramel-covered elephant ear or any battered meat on a stick and a belt buckle made with leather, sequins, and the utmost pride in the Confederate flag. Also omnipresent during this four-day festival is some serious ghetto fabulousness, which is curiously on display mostly by people who have never actually set foot within a ten-mile radius of a true ghetto. Pepper in a handful of normal people and you've got yourself quite the misrepresentation of a beautiful cultural melting pot.

Typically, I'd feel a little remorseful for that sort of unfair, unflattering characterization; however, there's nothing unfair about it. Quite true, honestly. Ask any "Frankforter" next time you run into one at the grocery. The Expo's demography is a laughingstock to an otherwise lovely capital city. In other words, it's worth at least one wasted evening of your life.

This inelegant proportion of attendance of freaks -- yeah, I said it, freaks -- appears to be the law of nature for all amusement park-like attractions/events. School festivals, county fairs, state expositions, and any other event whose rides require only an afternoon to assemble... they're all the same and thus seem to attract the same bizarre crowd. That's not to say you're bizarre if you like attending these; rather you know firsthand exactly who and what I'm talking about.

You've heard the theory that television adds 10 pounds, right? Pretty sure that same phenomenon applies to amusement parks. Either that or your clothes shrink two sizes. You might think I'm talking about obese park attendees only, but that's too limiting. While, agreed, there's an unreasonable amount of cellulite on parade all day, there are just as many fat people who feel they can and should wear skimpy clothes as there are boney people who feel they can and should wear nothing at all.

Whereas many people buy attire specifically for occasions like weddings, graduations, and vacations, I'm fairly certain some folks purchase an outfit specifically for their trip to the theme park, because I can’t think of any other lawful public sector where shredded, tattered "tops" with 85% flabby boob protrusion is acceptable. At a quick glance, any similarity between joyous park attractions and joyless, stark unattractiveness may initially be overlooked, but close scrutiny of the physics in both (for example, the defiance of gravity in both the roller-coaster loop and that chunky girl's skin-tight, faded denim shorts) will reveal the inseparable connection.

You just can't escape science.

PowerPoint Presentations

Picture this: There used to be a time when stapled papers were manually distributed in meetings and the only communal visuals attendees shared simultaneously were images shone on a white wall through a plugged-in box of lights and mirrors -- a contraption called, according to Wikipedia, an "overhead projector." No, seriously, no computers were used. I think this was in the same era as those landline phones and when the sales of alcohol were prohibited -- right after the Civil War.

And then someone came along and invented the personal computer. And then someone else came along and developed a software application called PowerPoint.

Your meetings and conferences have never been the same since.

When I show up to a meeting and the ol' projector screen is pulled down, I just want to shoot myself in the face. Nothing is more disinteresting, more cliché, more perfunctory than a PowerPoint presentation. The equally hackneyed adage "If you've seen one, you’ve seen them all" perfectly describes these trivial slideshows.

The unpleasantness about PowerPoint presentations can usually be summed up by any one (or combination) of these reasons: the font is too small; the pie charts and bar graphs are too detailed; the screaming color scheme hurts my eyes; the ClipArt graphics are cheesy; the sudden, crazed sound effects don't quite match the professionalism supposed within the delivered content; the presentation was made with PowerPoint; etc.

Why do half the design templates remind me of my last stay at a Comfort Inn? Maybe it's because their patterns so closely and inexplicably resemble cheap motel wallpaper. Apparently the artist who designed Genesis album covers didn't have a better offer after Phil Collins peaced.

Not all blame goes to the software alone; matter of fact, most of the shame should fall on the presentation creator(s). I mean, what's with this compulsory final presentation slide simply labeled, "Questions?" ...Really? Do we need an entire slide for you to click to (or left-to-right-horizontal-bar-transition to) in order to ask the audience, who by this point has probably hit the REM stage of their nap, if anyone has any questions to offer up? Is there something wrong with merely asking them without the slide? Or do you fear that they might get lost midway in your plea for participation without a one-word graphic projected on the screen?

It's not that a PowerPoint presentation itself is a bad idea -- it's just tolerable, and that's it. They don't revolutionize, they don't improve material, and they certainly don't secure to memory. As I asked a manager at my office recently, what can you recall from the last PowerPoint presentation you had to sit through?

I'm still waiting on a response from that manager.

Retail Security Systems

In every trip to the mall or mostly any retail store, I am awestruck at the lack of attention and credibility given to the security systems that were installed in order to elicit some sort of attention and credibility. An overwhelming response of nonchalance tends to be the reaction employees give to the various sirens and bleeps emitting from the tall, slender checkpoint security systems at the door whenever these go off.

These "Star Trek" gateway thresholds appear to really be nothing more than an intimidation factor. So, if you can summon up the gall to walk through with unpaid merchandise and endure some questionable looks from fellow shoppers upon the triggering of those obnoxious shrieking beeps, seems to me that you've got yourself a new sweater free of charge.

Now, please don't misinterpret this as encouragement to steal. I wouldn't dare say that. "Thou shall not steal" is how the ol' Commandment goes, I do believe, and that's what I live by. (Still trying to get that "Thou shall not kill" one down, though.) I'm just pointing out that the scot-free possibility is there. At worst, you might receive a "Hey, stop!" warning from the cashier from behind the counter, by which point you’ll be halfway to either your getaway Honda or your large cup of Dippin' Dots a couple shops down; but I'd say most sales attendants just don't view it as worth the chase's time and efforts. I think the general consensus of these folks is, "I’m just here to sell _______, not to chase criminals. F that, that's for the Blue & White." To an extent, I can sympathize with that. I mean, how's the shrink cost of that cardigan going to affect their hourly wage anyhow? Who really cares?

And what if the sales attendant is wrong in his assumption? What if he approaches someone in the vicinity of the beeping security system and falsely accuses this person of shoplifting? Whoa, big trouble. No one wants to shout a string of demands to open shopping bags, empty pockets and purses, unzip jackets, and unbutton shirts, only to wind up as wrong as leopard print fashion in front of his coworkers and surrounding bystanders -- not to mention making the wrongfully accused person momentarily look guilty and embarrassed. Unless you just enjoy being a big turd.

Wal-Mart remains one of the few exceptions to this joint retail security system disinterest, planting an employee at the front automatic sliding doors as the welcome mat. Though labeled "greeters," their ultimate purpose is served far less as a deliverer of insincere salutations but rather much more as a (typically elderly) hawk, encircling the entrance/exit area with a radio and yellow highlighter in hand, awaiting the sudden, rampant beeps that signal a possible shoplifter.

But isn't Wal-Mart always the exception to every societal norm that exists seemingly everywhere else?

Hotels

Unless you have a relative, friend, or a hookup on a free condo close by, traveling will likely result in a hotel (or motel) stay. There isn't a bigger gamble involved in traveling than exchanging money for keys to a hotel room, especially if you blindly booked the room over the phone or internet, and double especially if you know nothing about the area you're visiting. Even with a chain you trust, you're rolling the dice on a 50/50 chance of a pleasant stay or a scene from Psycho.

Pleasant or not, the idea of thousands upon thousands of people taking turns sleeping in the same bed is extremely weird to me, and to a point uncomfortable. We don't know these (literal) strange bedfellows, nor do we know the history of that bed. And, like the ingredients of a hotdog, those mysteries are probably best left unsolved. We instead just close our eyes and hold tight, horizontal between those Egyptian-cotton bed sheets, to the extraordinarily minute likelihood that perhaps the laundry detergent the hotel used eradicated every microbial bit of evidence of any previous human contact with those sheets.

The best part about staying in a hotel room is, outside of holding a rock star after-party, you are virtually free of any normal, humane responsibilities. Included in the outrageous price of the room (which somehow tends to rate about ¼ of a monthly mortgage payment per night) are limitless laziness and irresponsibility. Leaving the room looking like a train wreck is not only acceptable, it's expected. Not that I am encouraging anyone to depart from a hotel with their room resembling an al-Qaeda hideout, but the option is basically there. You just can't beat hotel housekeeping.

Now, that said, I personally try my very hardest to upkeep my room while visiting. Besides the fact that I prefer not to voluntarily subject myself or my living quarters to filth, even if only temporarily, I have immense empathy for people who are subjugated to housekeeping duties for 40 hours a week, cleaning up the mess and debris of others while trying to maintain their own self-respect, so I always put forth some effort in not coming across as a total slob.

I wonder how clean housekeeping employees' hotel rooms are when they're on vacation. It would make my day to know they unapologetically wreak havoc, strewing towels, bedspreads, and toiletries across the room in a free-spirited, rebellious rage.

Free Food

Already I bet you're alert and interested in reading because of the subject matter alone. Perhaps you're thinking about the last situation in which you encountered a smorgasbord of free food, or how freaking sweet it would be if you turned your head 90 degrees right now and saw a mountain of whatever your culinary vice mysteriously piled upon a plate with a small sign on top that simply read, "Free." Perhaps you're even salivating right now. Wait, what's that? Was that a stomach grumble I just heard electronically through the computer monitor despite the fact that that's impossible and also you're not reading this in real time as I write? Amazing.

If any of the above applied to you right now -- without so much as seeing a picture of anything edible -- you have just witnessed the power of food. Especially when the word "food" is preceded by the single qualifier "free."

So powerful is free food that it entices you to do, say, or attend things you normally wouldn't. I can't say with scientific certainty this is true, but I would guess there is more scientific truth to that claim than anything you tried proving with your grade school baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano.

Mmm... baking soda and vinegar. With rainbow sprinkles? For free?

Think for a moment about the last wedding you attended that you really didn't want to but did anyway because the food and beverages at the reception were both catered and free. Or how about that banquet or conference to which you begrudgingly showed up only because your taste buds talked you into it. Or that date you went on with that not-a-snowball's-chance-in-hell creepy dude because you knew you were getting a free gourmet dinner out of him (whatever "gourmet" means).

The folks at Klondike nailed it. They knew that human beings would do darn near anything for free food, primarily a chocolate-covered handheld square of ice cream. I mean, what would you do for a Klondike bar? Wrestle a grizzly bear? Call up an ex you detest just to say hi? Bungee jump into a swamp of alligators while wearing only the harness? Hmm... how many Klondike bars again?

Free food also just brings people together. It unites. I mean, how many conversations have you had in your life with people you honestly couldn't care less about but, hey, there was free food involved so... if having to listen to their family vacation story again meant an opportunity to enjoy some red velvet cake, you suddenly encouraged more wacky tales of that baby cousin's first attempt at putt-putt? Again, it just unites.

You could probably end a war if you posted flyers advertising "Free Peace Treaty Potluck" around war trenches or heavy combat zones. Maybe even advertise a "Free Enemy Mixer/Ice Cream Social." Military conflict resolved.

Coffee

To those whose offers for a freshly brewed cup of coffee I've denied -- nay, scoffed -- over the decades of my existence, I have good news: I'm slowly putting on my big boy pants and adapting a taste for coffee. I've been around its influence and propaganda for years, but its scent, its aromatic fumes I enjoy, is finally finding a soft spot in my gustatory system. This doesn't mean, though, that I'm seeing any further logic in the consumption of this dark bean juice.

Let's start there: bean juice. That's what it is. The ground extraction of a bean in a liquid format, supplemented with water. I guess that's okay. I mean, I like both chocolate and vanilla beans and their extractions. But, I don't know. Willingly drinking the juice of a pulp-free product just doesn't sound right to me. Makes me wonder when lima bean smoothies and pinto bean shakes will catch on.

Additionally, I partially fear materializing manila-folder-yellow teeth that so many coffee drinkers acquire over time. But probably not as much as I fear developing a permanent case of that horrendous halitosis yielded after downing a cup. You know these people (perhaps you even share an office space with them): they're carrying -- and cheerfully sharing -- coffee breath every minute of that 24-hour day, and they don't mind speaking closely enough for you to know it. I mean, how could a scent once so delectable, so inviting produce a "back the F away!" odor in a matter of minutes?

Now seems like a good time to interject a quick remark regarding the smell of urine excreted directly after drinking a cup of coffee. It's just... bad. No need to search for a grander adjective; "bad" pretty much sums it up. It's quite honestly disturbing. Let's be fair, I've not stood over a toilet of urine that I wanted to bottle as a fragrance (repulsive visual, my apologies), but I'm mortified by coffee's version. Again, simply bad.

Yet somehow this coffee stuff is growing on me. Gradually. Maybe it's the caffeine.

So, yes, I will take you up on your cup of coffee offer. The one I rejected back in the fall of '98.

Cream and sugar, please.

Pro Wrestling

It is with great pride that I can profess having no childhood obsession or even minor infatuation with professional wrestling. I recall several of my neighborhood buddies owning toy bins filled to the brim with WWF (as it was then referred to) action figures, masks, outfits, trading cards, video games, and other random bits of painted, polymeric paraphernalia.

The video games were always good. Quite honestly, 95% of the 3% I know about pro wrestling was learned through the early video games. The Ultimate Warrior, The Big Boss Man, Andre the Giant, The Undertaker, and of course Hulk Hogan -- these names, Royal Rumble, and a couple moves like the piledriver or the Boston crab are all I knew, mostly thanks to the Frankfort Wal-Mart's miniscule arcade. That's about as far as I got, though.

Something about grown men, who are otherwise overflowing with machismo, and their awestruck sons paying top dollar to see buff, festooned, long-haired men in skin-tight spandex is rather disturbing to me. Personally, the only air-tight packages I'm interested in paying for say "Rubbermaid" on the side. But, hey, maybe that's just me.

Growing up, I frequently played the role of the childlike equivalent to an atheist, trying to throw human reasoning as a nonbeliever at my WWF-smitten playmates to convert them to what science and the rest of the world recognized as truth: The wrestling events and everything about them were completely fake. I think, though, at the time there was still an air of mystery and confusion as to the proclaimed falsehoods surrounding pro wrestling, as if no one was entirely confident that the shows were merely theatrical productions. But now there's no question. In fact, the WWE, or whatever organization acronym the big dogs of pro wrestling are hiding behind now, make no bones about it: they openly admit each show is storyboarded. Yet this has obviously failed to soften the interest of its fans. I don't know the statistics, but I would venture to say pro wrestling is as popular as it ever was. To me, bewildering.

Critics to my bewilderment would probably argue that it's merely entertainment -- a testosterone-infused, Broadway-style show upon a stage enclosed with stretchy ropes. Still ridiculous, but okay. However, most fans call this a "sport" -- it's clearly not. Entertainment, sure. But there's no competitive event taking place. Find a new term.

Mostly I feel sorry for the wives and mothers who have to deal with this obsession in their households and/or are dragged to the shows and also for the parents who are still subletting their basements to their fanatical 40-something-year-old sons.