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Wednesday, 01 September 2010 3:35 |
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by Mark Hunter
Some people say the soon to be late, lamented August (well, lamented by me) seems so long because it’s the dog days, the time of all heat and nothing cool, the long month with the short tempers. I say it seems so long because of all the observances that have been assigned to it.
Is it a good idea to make August National Golf Month, for instance? Heat Stroke that way lies. And who decided all these observances, anyway? Family Fun Month? Albion has a Family Fun Day in May, why don’t we get to choose that one?
There are fourteen different month-long observances in August – fourteen, and then throw in the week long and day long ones. How am I supposed to celebrate Foot Health Month when I’m busy getting my vision checked for National Eye Exam Month? Have you ever tried to go to your podiatrist and your dentist at the same time? I can tell you this: Even if you can get them in the same room, the exams won’t be easy. Especially for someone like me, who kicks whenever the dentist twitches. And after twenty years of me, my dentist twitches a lot.
Anyway, let’s take a look at all these various observances, both because they’re worth examining and because it’s just too darn hot to write a column about anything else.
American Artist Appreciation Month. A couple of weeks ago I was at the Indiana University/Purdue University campus, and I saw that some construction workers had dropped girders right in the middle of a walkway. It seemed like a very dangerous place to leave that tangle of debris, but then I realized it wasn’t there by accident: It was a sculpture made of steel welded together.
I think I need to work on my art appreciation, because I checked that thing out from all sides, and all I could think was, “Has some archeologist somewhere dug through what he thought was a two thousand year old garbage heap, without realizing it was really some poor artist’s life’s work?
Home Business Month. Hey, I’ve got a home business! If I’d known this, I’d have taken the month off. Although that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?
National Catfish Month. I used to make a lot of puns about fish, until my fiancée informed me that I was giving her a haddock, and that if I didn’t stop being a piker I’d need a sturgeon. Holy mackerel.
National Inventors Month. If Emily reads that last paragraph, I’d better invent some way to make myself invisible.
National Water Quality Month. Much of the world has a shortage of fresh water. Ironically, much of that same part of the world is flooded. Kinda makes you glad to have indoor plumbing, doesn’t it?
Admit You’re Happy Month. Okay, I’m happy to have indoor plumbing.
Peach Month. Um. Okay. Can December be Orange Month?
Romance Awareness Month. Yeah, but what about February?
National Picnic Month. Again with the heat stroke.
Week long observances:
National Clown Week. As if I wasn’t already freaked out by the next one:
National Smile Week. Think about it. How would you feel if everywhere you looked everyone had a huge smile on their face? You’d be freaked out, even without the clowns.
Elvis Week. Don’t know why. Celebrate by taking a peanut butter and banana sandwich to your picnic with the clowns. And smile.
National Apple Week. Won’t the peaches get upset?
Air Conditioning Appreciation Week. Okay, that one I get.
American Dance Week. Better crank up the air conditioning.
Be Kind to Humankind Week. Better really crank up the air conditioning. I guess it fits in with smiling while having a picnic with a clown, but don’t forget to help out any Elvis impersonators you find with heat stroke.
And the final week: National Simplify Your Life Week.
Okay, now they’re just being sarcastic. I have to turn an entire wall of my house into a whiteboard and buy two cases of markers to keep track of this stuff, and they want me to simplify my life?
Finally, there are some individual “Days,” mostly to mark historical dates. I’m a fan of history:
August 1st: Switzerland is founded, 1291. But they don’t want to get involved in the celebration.
August 2nd. 1861, Congress enacts the first income tax. It was to help fund the Civil War, so of course as soon as the war was over they cut the … oh, wait.
August 4th, 1909. Here’s an irony for you: the first Lincoln Penny was issued. It was then immediately taxed, to pay for the Civil War.
The same date is Coast Guard Day and National Chocolate Chip Day. Bake cookies for the Guardsman of your choice.
August 7th: Wiggle Your Toes Day. Life’s simple pleasures.
Also that day is Sea Serpent Day, along with National Lighthouse Day, which celebrates our attempt to see sea serpents, which would certainly make me wiggle my toes.
August 8th is Dollar Day, the day the US dollar was created. Send 35 Lincoln pennies in as tax, please.
August 9th: International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. However, there’s no such thing as indigenous people -- we all got here from somewhere else. Every August 9th, my Cherokee ancestors break out the vodka and celebrate the day they left Siberia to escape my fish puns.
Also on the 9th are National Rice Pudding Day and Book Lover’s Day. I like only one of those: guess which.
On August 10th comes the anniversary of the first steam locomotive, Herbert Hoover’s birthday, S’More’s Day, and Lazy Day. Again, I like one of these more than the others. Some wise guy pointed out that in honor of Hoover’s birthday, we’re throwing another Great Depression. Wonderful: Now we have to be lazy, which takes all the fun out of it.
Finally, on August 11th:
Presidential Joke Day.
But I guess that’s a whole other column. by Mark Hunter Some people say the soon to be late, lamented August (well, lamented by me) seems so long because it’s the dog days, the time of all heat and nothing cool, the long month with the short tempers. I say it seems so long because of all the observances that have been assigned to it.
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Thursday, 26 August 2010 11:03 |
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by Mark Hunter
As a public service, I’d like to talk about an unusual weather condition that sometimes happens here in northern Indiana. It’s unpredictable and frightening, yet, because it’s so rare, it gets much less press than heat waves and blizzards.
This condition is called Mild Weather.
The National Weather Service defines MW as any condition in which no precipitation is falling, and yet small animals are not being reported either frozen to fire hydrants or stuck in melted asphalt. There have been cases in which the weather changes so rapidly that animals have become stuck in asphalt while frozen to fire hydrants; such rapid changeovers don’t count as Mild Weather events, because there’s not enough time in between for people to turn off their air conditioners and go outside without overcoats on.
There have been incidences during changeover events in which Hoosiers suffered heat stroke while shoveling snow. During a MW alert, the danger is usually more psychological.
Rare it may be, but Indiana has still had no less than seven Mild Weather days so far in 2010, an average of almost one per month. Forecasters are concerned that climate change may cause more and more MWD’s, possibly leading in the future to entire Mild Weather Weeks, which some pundits caution could be the Perfect Calm.
Such a possibility, experts warn, could lead to a massive savings in electric bills, TV weather forecasters with nothing to talk about, and even a jump in unemployment rates among storm chasers. As a result, the Obama administration recently announced a stimulus package with three parts: $14 billion worth of research into rain dancing, a retraining program that would teach storm chasers to become Hollywood paparazzi, and a federal takeover of “The Weather Channel” until such time as cable ratings can be increased, or bad weather manufactured to make the weather interesting again. The program is to be paid for with a cut in food stamps and the sale of weather satellites to, ironically, the “Food Channel.”
Mild Weather is hard to predict, although experts believe there is a correlation between them and the amount of overtime the average worker puts in. For instance, MW almost never strikes on a Saturday, except during six day work weeks. This has led to, according to the Department of Labor, an almost epidemic rash of people calling in sick during MW periods.
There are two primary Mild Weather danger seasons: One begins in April and lasts until June, while the second typically runs from late August until early October. In Indiana, there has never been a recorded MW day during January or February.
Some people claim that there are numerous MW days during July and early August, but a federally funded research project by MIT revealed that all of those people owned swimming pools, which tends to skew the results. Conversely, researchers learned that every single person who claimed to encounter a MW incident during January had previously been judged mentally disturbed.
What do you do when Mild Weather strikes?
First, do not panic! One thing that can be counted on is that MW will pass quickly. If MW strikes between late fall and early spring, open all the windows and run outside quickly, before it passes. Then just stand there. Soak it in, it won’t harm you. You’ll get a strange feeling that may frighten and confuse you, especially during the winter months. This is called joy. Don’t fight it; it will pass soon enough.
If this occurs in early spring, you might discover that your long underwear is leaving you with an uncomfortable feeling. This is warmth. Take it off (before going outside) and put on a t-shirt. You’ll find those in a box in the closet, or maybe a bottom drawer in the dresser. Don’t panic; it’s okay for your arms to be bare.
Be warned that unusual temperature spikes in January and February are sometimes mistaken for MW incidents. Remember, if it’s minus ten degrees and the temperature climbs twenty degrees, it’s still ten degrees; leave the bikini you bought on clearance in the closet. If the temptation becomes overwhelming, disrobe (inside the house) and look in a full length mirror. See that pasty white, doughy person? That’s you.
If MW arrives during summer, the same basic rule applies: Open all windows, then go outside. You don’t have to take your water bottle with you.
If you stay inside, turn off the air conditioner. It’s the little button on the front that says “off.” Yes, you can. Remember, if you don’t turn off your air conditioner when MW strikes, you may freeze to death in the middle of summer, and you don’t want to be remembered for that.
The NWS has established the following guidelines to determine the severity of Mild Weather events:
Mild Alert Weather 1 (Cool): Don’t change the way you dress, but you might still be comfortable outside.
MAW 2 (Great): Dress up or dress down; use common sense.
MAW 3 (Fantastic): Play in the sun, but don’t stray too far from shelter.
MAW 4 (Awesome): Don’t worry about shelter; you can die here happy.
MAW 5 (There Are No Words): Speaking of dying, check your pulse – you may be in Heaven.
Mild Weather incidents are hard to predict, but by following these simple precautions and being prepared you can get through it … and maybe even enjoy yourselves. by Mark Hunter As a public service, I’d like to talk about an unusual weather condition that sometimes happens here in northern Indiana. It’s unpredictable and frightening, yet, because it’s so rare, it gets much less press than heat waves and blizzards.
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Thursday, 19 August 2010 9:36 |
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by Mark Hunter
A thorough and extensive MIT study recently uncovered the fact that looks are important in political elections.
No, really.
Okay, now I’m going to try real hard not to go too heavy on the sarcasm here, but I’m afraid I might not be able to remain my normal wide-eyed, innocent optimist self, so bear with me.
It turns out that not only does appearance strongly influence voters, but that people around the world all have a similar idea of what that appearance should be. The MIT researchers showed voters in both the US and India pairs of photos – photos of actual candidates who ran against each other in Brazil and Mexico. Without knowing anything about the elections, voters in both countries proved uncannily good at predicting which one of the pair won the election, just by deciding which one looked like the better candidate.
Wow, golly-gee, the good looking candidate gets the votes. Nail me to a wall and call me an election calendar.
Ahem. Sorry.
Yes, it turns out that a Jimmy Carter smile and Blagojevich hair (and what is up with that hair? I hear it has its own agent and defense attorney) will get you that election – all things being equal, and even when all things aren’t equal. The American and Indian test subjects agreed about 75% of the time, despite the differences in cultures and histories. This doesn’t surprise me: As the “Cat in the Hat” says, people are people, no matter how small. Or small minded, in this case.
Whether they agreed or not, they were accurate in picking the winner 68% of the time in Mexico, and 75% of the time in Brazil. I’m willing to guess that if the same study was done with Brazilian voters, they’d be just as accurate in picking US and Indian elections. I’ll bet they’d be accurate 95% of the time in Iranian and Chinese elections. See that guy who still has his head and appears to already be in charge? Yep – winner.
Maybe this is an argument against Democracy. No Soviet citizen ever voted for someone because they thought he was better looking than Stalin (because Stalin was the only one on the ballot). Will some future candidate just come right out and say it? “Don’t worry about anything, my fellow citizens – I’m handsome!”
In response to the study, an economist named Panu Poutvaara suggested voters may prefer good looking characters because “voters either enjoy watching good-looking politicians on TV, or think that they are better in social interactions.”
Does he mean we vote for the handsome guy (or gal) because that’s who we want to see on the nightly news for the next few years? Or that we think a charmer might sweet talk those pesky terrorists into unbuckling their bombs? Or is he saying we don’t see beyond the campaign flyers in the first place, and the rest is just fallout?
‘Cause we wouldn’t be that shallow. Would we? Nah.
Okay, then, let’s do a quick review. Let me Google some Presidential pictures … hm. This doesn’t make any sense. If it’s all about appearances, why isn’t Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie President? Wait, has Angelina produced her birth certificate?
I don’t generally examine men from a looks standpoint, but I’ll try to be objective, even though objectivity goes against the whole point of the study. Okay … well, the first thing I noticed will really peeve a lot of my readers, but I’ll say it anyway: Obama and G.W. Bush both have the similar features of rather big ears, but otherwise neither is all that bad looking. I wonder which side will string me up, or firebomb my house?
Clinton’s a handsome guy, the first Bush and Reagan are good looking fellows, and although I wouldn’t accompany Carter or Ford to the prom they’ve got that dignified older guy thing going for them. Carter’s smile, though … I used to have nightmares about that smile coming out from under my bed to use my body as dental floss.
Then there’s Nixon.
I don’t have an explanation for Nixon.
I can see how he lost to Kennedy, but did you know he was the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and Vice-Presidency? I can see only two solutions: Either the competition was divided by an independent candidate (which happened in both his Presidential runs), or it was like a Chicago election and he had the support of hundreds of thousands of voters currently residing in cemeteries, who no longer could see what he looked like.
Once we get past Nixon, we don’t encounter a truly ugly President until Abraham Lincoln. That’s a matter of opinion, of course, and I’d bet Johnson (either of them) would never appear on a Playgirl centerfold, but when you consider the conventions of the time they got by. So what’s the story with Lincoln?
No TV.
Well, there’s also the fact that the Democrats were split by that whole slavery thing, but let’s face it: Abe had to be honest, because he sure didn’t have his looks going for him. What he did have going for him was an absence of what killed Nixon in his contest with Kennedy: television cameras. These days, add high resolution photography, talk radio and cable TV trashing his appearance. Lincoln might have actually – wait for it – won based on the issues.
Which makes the solution to the whole thing obvious. First: Do not allow any campaigning or even the suggestion of who might be the candidate until two weeks before the general election. The primaries will be held during those two weeks.
Second, for the two weeks before the election, every voter in the United States will be blindfolded.
Okay, so it’s not a perfect solution. Food will have to be cooked ahead of time, and a few toes may be stubbed, but imagine the greatest benefit: Only two weeks of campaign ads, and you won’t even have to look at them.
That’s putting a handsome face on it. by Mark Hunter A thorough and extensive MIT study recently uncovered the fact that looks are important in political elections. No, really. Okay, now I’m going to try real hard not to go too heavy on the sarcasm here, but I’m afraid I might not be able to remain my normal wide-eyed, innocent optimist self, so bear with me.
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Thursday, 12 August 2010 2:50 |
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by Mark Hunter
Recently I decided to move my home office from the dining room into the downstairs spare bedroom. It seemed like a great idea … until my fiancée decided we needed to refinish the bedroom floor, first.
The decision to move was fairly easy. The home’s front door empties into the dining room, which means everything that came into the house emptied into my office. Coats. Groceries. Piles of paperwork. Small animals. Homeless people. If I’m going to have a desk, I want to see it.
Emily, like me, is a writer, so we needed a place dedicated to our business and vocation. Organization would be nice, too. I used to be organized, but then I had kids. Since then, “organized” has meant half my belongings are on the floor of the car, and the other half piled on every flat surface in my office.
Why the downstairs bedroom, and not an upstairs room? Because my office furniture is made from cherry wood. It’s nature's steel armor. When I bought that desk and computer hutch, it took six guys and a forklift to haul and assemble them. After that they were pretty much immoveable (both the furniture and the guys), and all seven of my regular readers know better than to think I’m going to take things back apart without better insurance.
In other words, my office furniture isn’t going upstairs. Ever.
I had, however, devised a clever method for getting heavy stuff moved across the downstairs: Utilizing a crutch, fake cast, and pitiful expression, I’d call around looking for soft-hearted volunteers. That only worked a few times, so I came up with another method that involved half carrying them, half dragging them across the floor on blankets. (The desk and hutch, not the volunteers.) This usually resulted in me utilizing a real crutch and a real cast. And a real pitiful expression.
The downstairs bedroom was once, as near as I can tell, a sewing room. As a result, it had extra electric outlets, the largest closet in the house, and a built-in cabinet that could hold office supplies. It’s the perfect office if not for being a little small, in the same way the Gulf oil spill is a little drop.
The new office would be capable of holding the desk and computer hutch, a filing cabinet, and two chairs, assuming the chairs didn’t have arms. That’s it. Also, whenever Emily and I are both working in there, we have to scoot in close to our keyboards to keep from causing a two chair collision. Still, overall we were pretty satisfied with the place.
Except for the floor.
It’s the only room in the house with a hard wood floor. Well, maybe that’s what I have in the other rooms, too, but that carpeting has been there for so long that I suspect it’s holding the place together, so I’m loathe to peek underneath. But there, in the office, was what once was a nice, well constructed hard- wood floor, but came over time to resemble that beat up clunker on cinder blocks in the side yard, formerly a proud new car but now a home for small animals and beehives.
Emily said, “We should put something on that floor before we move stuff back in. Maybe stain, and a sealant.”
I said, “No. That’s home improvement work. Things break when I do home improvement work – things, and people.”
She said, “But it’ll just deteriorate more if we don’t protect it now.”
I said, “So will my back and knees. The answer is no.”
She said, “Let’s go get supplies.”
I said, “Okay.”
I have a feeling conversations of that nature are going to be repeated many times in future years.
I have to admit, the result was relatively anticlimactic. Sure, there were missteps based on the fact that we had no idea what we were doing, but other than two ruined sets of clothes and a trip to the chiropractor, it didn’t go too badly. Two days of cleaning, scrubbing, applying, wiping off (“We have to wipe it off? But we just put it on!”) And there the floor was: still scratched up, but looking almost rustic in its cherry wood colored glory.
Yes, cherry wood. I wouldn’t have thought of it, but Emily has some sense of getting things to match, which means she’s got her work cut out for her in the rest of the house.
Then, as I stood there, stooped and sore, hardly able to hold myself up, she looked into my eyes and said:
“Now let’s apply the sealant.”
I said “No.”
You already know how the rest of the conversation went.
Overall it was just like painting the side of a house, except on hands and knees; if this was a “Karate Kid” movie there would have been an 80’s power song going on in the background. Then we finished, and I used my genius blanket dragging method to get the desk and hutch into the room.
Which left two long, deep gouge marks across our freshly finished floor.
And that, dear reader, is why when a man loves a woman, he should do everything in his power to please her – but just in case things go wrong, he should always keep an extra blanket and pillow by the couch. by Mark Hunter Recently I decided to move my home office from the dining room into the downstairs spare bedroom. It seemed like a great idea … until my fiancée decided we needed to refinish the bedroom floor, first.
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Wednesday, 04 August 2010 9:38 |
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OZ PROJECTS SCARE BOOK LOVERS
by Mark Hunter
When I was a kid my parents, in an attempt to instill a love of reading in me, bought me a series of fourteen illustrated, hard cover books set in a fantasyland.
It worked.
In fact, I read them over and over. As soon as I finished the last, I’d start over on the first, in addition to all the other books I read as a kid. I’d take one on sleepovers, camping, vacations, and that pretty much cements my reputation as a nerd, doesn’t it? Or is it a geek? Certainly a bookworm, although I should add that I never took one on a date.
I was, to the best of my knowledge, the only person ever to have those books. I knew of no one else who’d read them or owned a copy. Oh, you’ve heard of the fantasyland. The writer, Lyman Frank Baum, was one of the early film makers in a little village called Hollywood, and spent much of his life converting his stories into silent films.
Later, years after he died, a somewhat more successful version of the first book came along: It was called The Wizard of Oz.
But the first book was considerably different from the movie, and the rest veered wildly from future attempts to copy the Judy Garland film. For one thing – brace yourselves – Dorothy was blonde, and years younger than portrayed in 1939. Much as I loved the movie, I loved the books more – a very lonely love.
Then one day, in my teens, I stumbled across a book that I’d somehow missed during all those years of scouring the library: The Cowardly Lion of Oz.
Well, nothing shocking about that, right? We all know the Cowardly Lion, and I already knew about the fourteen books.
But that wasn’t one of the fourteen books.
Imagine that you grew up loving Star Wars. You have all six movies memorized, know the layout of the ships, the names of the actors, and listen to the soundtracks constantly. You go to conventions and write fanfiction, and know every single thing about the fandom.
Then, one day, you suddenly discover there were six more Star Wars movies, and you never knew a thing about them. That’s the way it was with me, when I discovered that not only were there other Oz book fans, but that they had nicknamed the “official” Oz books the Famous Forty. Not fourteen. And that doesn’t count the dozens of other Oz related books.
It turns out that not only is there still a core of Oz book fans, but that they knew more about the fandom than I did. They even know that Dorothy’s blonde. These are people who can argue the minutia of every Oz story the way baseball fans can get into a fist fight over who’s the best left handed National League redheaded near-sighted relief pitcher.
And now those fans are worried.
You see, Oz is big again.
Hollywood, never hesitant to steal from other sources, is in the midst of an Oz boom. Most of the proposed projects will likely rip their material from the 1939 movie, which was the only hugely successful Oz project since Baum’s traveling stageplay/slideshow near the beginning of the last century. (Even the movie wasn’t a huge draw when it was first released.) Wicked, a book very different from its source material, was made into a wildly successful stage musical, so you can look for that to eventually be one of the new movies.
Meanwhile, Dorothy of Oz is an animated movie based on a book by Baum’s great-grandson. I’ve heard mixed opinions on how good the book is, but it’s probably getting a push from having the Baum name behind it. I’ve seen some illustrations, and yes – Dorothy’s a pigtailed brunette.
What else is coming along?
Surrender Dorothy has been attached to Drew Barrymore. A friend of mine, who knows much more about the world of Oz than I do, says it may involve the Wicked Witch of the West pursuing a fully grown Dorothy around New York City. At least Drew is blonde.
This has become a habit among Hollywood: To turn little Dorothy into an adult, and to then make the projects “darker.” A project called Tin Man did an especially good job of making the Oz universe bad. D.G. was the adult girl’s name. If you’re keeping score: brunette. To give you an idea of how faithful the story was to its source, D.G.’s hair color was the least changed item.
Then there’s Dark Oz, which has many of the characters from the early Oz books – but in a world where they’re freedom fighters, battling an evil dictatorship. I’ve only seen a little of it, but why everyone insists on making Oz, a place designed as a children’s fantasy, so violent and depressing is beyond me. Dorothy’s dark hair is the lightest thing there.
On a related note, a guy named Todd McFarlane is trying to turn his line of “twisted” Oz action figures into a movie that would make Dark Oz look like an MGM musical. Imagine Dorothy tied up in bondage gear. No, wait, don’t imagine it – okay, too late, but at least I won’t have to describe it anymore. Relax, your therapist can help.
There’s also a prequel to the first book (okay, probably to the movie) called Oz, the Great and Powerful. You see, the original Wizard isn’t from Oz at all, but from Midwest America (just like Baum). In a later book Dorothy (blonde) encounters him under California (you read that right) and eventually they go back to Oz together. The new movie project tells the story of how the Wizard gets to Oz the first time.
Being a prequel, they can’t screw up the canon of the books too much. Well, some. Actually, if anyone can screw up a book, it’s Hollywood.
So the fandom waits and watches, afraid that moviemakers have no more idea that there were Oz books than most other people do. Hope springs eternal, even in Dark Oz. Speaking of dark, singing and dancing is not necessary – but could we please get a blonde Dorothy? by Mark Hunter When I was a kid my parents, in an attempt to instill a love of reading in me, bought me a series of fourteen illustrated, hard cover books set in a fantasyland. It worked.
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