Monthly Archives: August 2013

Guest posts and obscure advertisements

Every once in a while I’ll get an email from some random Internet person asking if they might be able to write up a guest post on this blog. The first time it happened, I was pretty excited. All of these thoughts flew through my head, like, it’s happening, I’m starting to attract attention here, I can’t believe it.

That first email was from some lady in Australia. She had read this nonsense piece I had written about setting up a series of trampolines, spaced out along a route, that I could use as a bouncy form of alternative transportation. “Great post!” she complimented me. “Great compliment!” I said out loud to my computer.

A few friendly words were all it took to capture my attention. I read on. She worked for a company called Bounce Inc. From what very limited research I’ve done, mostly looking at the video from the web site, I gathered that it’s some sort of gym/amusement park hybrid. My solicitor described it as a, “massive indoor trampoline universe,” a whole giant area of interconnected trampolines.

And then I sat back in my chair and thought, huh, that’s kind of … well, it’s some bizarre trampoline business in Australia that I’ll probably never get to visit, let alone bounce around in, and some employee is asking me if they’d like to collaborate via my blog.

Huh. My sense of, “This is happening!” deflated somewhat, but I replied back, “What were you thinking? Did you want me to write something up?” Our correspondence dissolved when she informed me that she’d be writing up whatever it was that she’d be writing up, an advertisement basically, and she’d like to use my very obscure corner of the Internet to use as a wall on which to post up a cheesy flyer.

How dare she? I got all indignant and wrote some crazy email back explaining the total lack of connection between my blog and her bouncy castle business, and that was the last that I heard from her. But seriously, what kind reach did she think she’d get by having something written up here? It would be like me going into my local corner deli and asking if they might help pass out literature about Elon Musk’s Hyperlooop.

That was the first, and while my inbox isn’t inundated with random business proposals – it isn’t inundated with any email at all, really – I do get from time to time marketing companies from India hoping to use my blog as an SEO platform, whatever that is. I’ve done a little bit of research on what it would mean exactly, but basically it’s just about turning any Internet space into a garbage link generator. And then I’d have to write up blog posts like, “43 best 80s movies characters,” with number one being it’s own page, it’s own bullshit advertisements and garbage links. And then you’d read a sentence and look at some picture that I hijacked from Google images and you’d be told to click “next” to see number two, with another page of random Internet stuff you’ll never really click on, not on purpose, not really.

Just yesterday I got an email from a Mike Thomas. His message was something like, “Wow! Check out this video on man-caves in storage sheds! You should let me write up an original post about man caves for your web site. Or you can just post the video. Due to Google’s rules, we can’t pay you anything. But don’t worry, we’ll only send you original, creative material! Send me an email and I’ll get in touch with you to see where we can go from here!”

Wow, thanks Mike! You’d do that for me, provide me with all of that great content? Hooray! I can’t believe he’d insult me by assuming that I’d want money. For all of that original, creative content, I should be paying him. Man-caves in storage sheds, I have no idea what that’s all about, but I’m sure it’s going to be just the thing to ratchet my writing up to the next level.

What ever happened to good old-fashioned online scammers? I’m really missing the days when I’d get letters from long lost royal relatives that relocated to Cameroon generations ago, trying to get in touch with me because they need my help in taking back the billion dollar family inheritance. I got some email a while ago from a Chinese company telling me that another Chinese company had recently tried to set up a business named Strictly Autobiographical. What a coincidence! But I needn’t worry, all I had to do was pay them a fee, and they’d register my domain name in China, preventing other Strictly Autobiographicals from popping up overseas.

I’m telling you, it’s happening for me. My brand name is becoming international. Everybody wants a piece of this, even the Chinese. It’s just really nice to know I have random Internet people looking out for me, trying to help me out here, giving me free content and offering cheap protection. Keep those emails coming!

I’ll take it!

When I moved into my new place, one of my cousins offered me one of his old TVs. I was like, “I’ll take it!” because it’s a really nice TV, much nicer than my old TV, that big boxy set. I remember when I bought it probably like fifteen years ago, I thought it was so cool, it was bigger than anything that I had owned before, it had a built-in VCR. But nobody uses VCRs anymore, and you walk into a house with an old boxy TV, well, it makes everything look a little dated.

“I’ll take it!” I said that again when one of my friends offered me another old TV. I say old, again, I really mean older. Older than his brand new TV which, Jesus, it’s so thin that, from a distance, from like across the room, you can’t even tell where the wallpaper ends and where the TV begins. Well, you can tell when it’s on, you can see the line around the TV. But I mean, think three dimensionally, it’s like this thing is a part of the wall.

Don’t get me wrong, his old TV is nice, the one he gave me, it’s really nice. It’s a flat screen, it’s big. Like I said, it’s much better than anything I was watching before. Did I mention my old TV? How the red, yellow, and white cables were on the front of the set? Who designed it that way? It’s like, if I wanted to hook up my XBOX, first, I had to buy a converter, because this thing didn’t support HDTV, and then I had to run the cables all the way to the front, they were just dangling there, totally in the way.

This new TV, my friend’s old TV, it was pretty thin, I mean, you could totally see it from the other side of the room, maybe it was even a little heavy, like, when I told you about my friend’s new TV being indistinguishable from the surface of the wall, this one, it was like people would say, “How is that thing hanging on the wall? It looks way too heavy to be held up by … by what? What’s supporting that thing? Did you use a stud finder? Because I’d be worried about that thing crashing down, taking a chunk out of the drywall.”

It’s not brand new, no, but it’s still a nice TV. People can have TVs that look five years old. But I couldn’t help myself, that’s why I said, “Yes, I’ll take it!” when I saw this ad on craigslist, under the “free” section, for a “moderately used” fifty-six inch plasma. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Again, a clear border, definitely some heft to it, but fifty-six inches? That’s much bigger than anything that I was watching before. I figure, any issues that I might run into with it looking old, slightly used, whatever, it’s all overshadowed by how big this thing is.

But three TVs? I’ll admit, it’s a little much. I don’t have three bedrooms, I don’t even have three rooms period. Only one cable box. And that free TV from the Internet, I guess I should have plugged it in and hooked it up to something before I went out and bought that stud finder, that huge metal brace that I nailed to the wall to support those fifty-six inches. It works, yes, but everything’s just green and red. I can’t figure it out. What happens to a TV where it can only show things in green and red?

And I was all worried about my place looking old with one old big TV, well, nothing makes a place look more cluttered than having three TVs sort of hanging haphazardly at random spots throughout the house. I look like I’m running some side-of-the-road electronics shop. I took one down, but the hardware made such a mess of the drywall, like you could clearly tell that a TV had been hanging there. And I’m supposed to paint the wall now? Patch up those holes? I could have just bought a new TV, a brand new flat screen TV. They’re not that expensive. Or the first one, the one my cousin gave me. That should have been fine. I couldn’t resist though, someone says to me, “Hey man, you want a free …” and I’m just like, “I’ll take it! Send it over! I’ll take it!”

Mold everywhere

I went on vacation for a little over a week, and when I got back home, I noticed how in the kitchen, I hadn’t done the best job cleaning up before I went away. Specifically, the coffee pot had been left out, the pot half filled with unused coffee. I could tell right away because there was all of this stuff floating around on the top, various disks of colored mold.

Gross. I never really imagined a couple inches of coffee could be a breeding grounds for a bacterial colony, but there it was, all of this microscopic life, thriving, clustering together in groups large enough to now be seen by the human eye, my eye, these nickel, dime, and quarter sized collections of whatever it is that’s floating around in the air, invisible, just waiting for the right time and place to settle down, away from the sunlight, away from human interference, somewhere with enough moisture to really get in there and multiply, populate.

Colonize. These little alien life forms floating down onto my coffee pot and making it their own. I don’t like thinking about what’s normally out of sight. And so I instinctively grabbed the pot and emptied its contents into the sink. My actions were too instinctual. I should have waited. I should have taken the drain out of the sink, I should have cleaned out all of the stuff in the drain, pieces of old food preventing the coffee and the mold from going down the pipes. Instead everything kind of just splashed around, the mold discs revealing their slippery nature, their ability to maintain colony coherence while being cast out from their once welcoming habitat.

And then I really started thinking, I thought about the leftover coffee grinds inside the machine that I hadn’t even considered before. Talk about dark. Inside there wasn’t any light at all. I opened it up and what my eyes met inside was similarly horrifying. Actually, it was worse. OK, maybe not worse, but different. While the liquid surface of the coffee was conducive to growing those slippery circles of algae, the wet coffee grinds inside were a perfect environment for a fuzzier type of mold, stuff that grows spiky and upward, almost daring me to try and mess with its manifest destiny of my once spotless appliance.

I say spotless, but I never really cleaned it, not since I bought it almost two years ago. I never felt the need to. I make a pot of coffee in the morning, I drink the coffee, and then the next day I make a new pot, emptying out the grinds from the previous day, adding a little more water. But now there was this infestation. I got out the soap, I unspooled that hose connected to the side of the sink so as to really spray down the innermost workings of the machine with hot, soapy water.

And then it was a thorough cleaning of the sink, of anything that so much as touched the miniscule citizens of the intrusive habitat. When I was sure that I had everything more or less sanitized, I made a new, full pot of coffee. I figured, I had better drink from this machine right away, or my imagination would carry itself away, I’d get lost fantasizing about the one or two microbes that somehow managed to cling to the sides or escape the punishment of my soapy sponge. They’d lay low for a little while, but that one would grow into two, into a crumb of germs barely visible to my naked eye. I’d make a pot of coffee a few days later and maybe I’d drink the unsuspecting stowaway.

No, that’s too much crazy to imagine. I’d drink the whole pot right away and never think about it again. But as I enjoyed my second cup, I started to feel bad. What if some giant space alien flew to the earth and saw all of our cities and felt the same instant revulsion that I experienced when I saw my coffee machine? Wouldn’t I feel like as a member of one of these human colonies, that I at least deserve a chance to live, maybe to be resettled somewhere else, to continue my life before being wiped up and killed without even a little consideration?

I was thinking about this, about life and the scale of the universe, but I got interrupted when the toilet made this self-flushing sound. I forgot about that also, it was acting up before I went away. Apparently disappearing for ten days didn’t solve the problem, and now it was actually worse, the self-flushing intervals were shorter than I had remembered, and so I figured that while I had a few cups of coffee in me, I might as well take a look inside. There was definitely a leak somewhere, but I don’t really know anything about toilets, so I turned the water off, took some parts out, and added some duct tape almost at random. I put everything back together again and noticed that there was a line of mildew right at the top of the upper chamber, right next to where the water level usually fills up to. I thought about the bathroom, about all of the invisible life floating around, just waiting for my next vacation, or for me to turn off the water to the toilet, to create a wet, still environment where a new colony might be founded. I turned the water back on, the duct tape didn’t work at all. I freaked out and started spraying a bleach solution in every direction.

Foul number twenty-one

I just got back from my basketball game. I play in a men’s league with my dad, my brothers, and some of my brother’s friends. We won, barely, but I left the gym unsatisfied with how I played. Some games are better than others. Once in a while I’ll have a game where I’m just on, everything’s hitting, all of my shots, my blocks. It’s a rare feeling, like I’m possessed by the spirit of basketball.

But the flip side to that coin is games where I’m unable even to catch a pass. The ball hits me in the hand, and I just kind of fumble around until it’s either out of bounds or picked up by a player on the opposing team. Tonight wasn’t my worst game, I got a few solid blocks, I scored a basket, but I definitely didn’t feel on. Everything was happening like one or two seconds beyond my reaction time.

One negative highlight that stands out took place toward the end of the second half. Like I said, it was a pretty close game. We actually only wound up winning by two points. Throughout that second half, our team had a very slight lead, like it was close enough that the other side could have easily made a few three pointers to take the win.

They were desperate to catch up, and they started fouling us whenever we had possession. The idea here is that the fouls would stop our momentum, ultimately forcing us to shoot free throws. If we miss the free throws, they could gain back possession of the ball, potentially setting themselves up to even things out.

Standing under our hoop after one of my teammates missed his shot, I jumped for the rebound and went to put it right back up. Anticipating a foul, I pushed the ball toward the basket, and sure enough I immediately felt a few arms on my back, my side. The ref blew the whistle and everyone lined up so I could shoot my foul shots.

Foul shots are tough. I’m not playing toward my height advantage at the free throw line. I’m standing at an exact distance from the hoop and I have to try to make the shot while everyone else stands there and watches.

Again, my game is totally hit or miss. Some days I’m on, I’m hitting my shots, I’m sinking my free throws. Other days … well, like tonight I went for my first foul shot and it hit the rim, bounced around and then dropped to the side. One more try. Maybe this time I could give it a little more arc, a little more height.

“Guys!” it was the point guard on the other team, “He’s got a high shot so look for a crazy rebound!” OK, that’s fine, he was trying to win too. But now he was in my head. I needed to shake his commentary. I needed to envision the ball leaving my hand, my wrist flicking perfectly at the last second.

But that one missed also. “Guys!” it was the same guy, “If we have to foul, make sure it’s number twenty-one!” The message was loud and clear: this guy can’t shoot the ball, so let’s look to foul him without worrying about anything going in.

His team followed the advice. I found myself under the hoop again, my hands on the ball after securing a rebound. I could feel two guys ready to crash down on me. One of them wrapped an arm around my waist, the other just kind of jumped on top of me. Still, I made the effort to get the ball up, and the ref blew his whistle sending me right back to that line for two more foul shots.

Now I was feeling a little more confident. I’m not a great shooter, like I’m not that consistent of a shooter, but my shot isn’t awful. I know how to shoot a free throw. Whether or not it goes in, I mean, whatever, I haven’t figured out exactly how that works, or how it’s supposed to work every time. I wrote before, I’m off sometimes. I can feel the ball leaving my hands and my arm twists just slightly, or I don’t give it enough gas to make it to the basket, or I give it way too much juice and it bricks against the backboard.

But statistically speaking, I should be able to get at least one of these in. One for four, right? That’s got to happen. But it didn’t. I missed both and hustled back to defense. The whole time that I was lined up for those shots, all I was thinking about was how I’d maintain my cool confidence after I had made those shots. I wouldn’t look at the point guard, not right at him, but I’d have a look on my face, I’d be saying without saying it, hey man, you see those shots? Looks like you shouldn’t have told everyone to foul me.

And I was still thinking about that the third time I got sent to the line. This time my optimism turned into a kind of desperation. Please God, I can’t miss six shots in a row. There’s no defending my shooting skills after missing six in a row. The point guard kept coaching from the line, “Come on guys! Big rebound here!”

A lot of times when I’m shooting free throws I try to get out of my head, to not think about it. I’m relying on a muscle memory that doesn’t really exist. But if I’m having an on game, a strategy like that might actually work. I won’t think about anything, I’ll line up for a shot, and I’ll sink them both in. But not right now, this time I was focusing very hard on making at least one of those shots. Come on Rob, wrists straight, imagine the arc, envision the ball making almost no contact with the rim or the net as it sails perfectly through.

But it didn’t happen. However close my shots got, no matter how badly I wanted them to bounce a little bit this way or that, I choked. I totally botched six foul shots in a row. After the game, after we shook hands and packed up to leave, one of the refs came up to me and even said, “Better work on those free throws.” And so whatever, it’s just basketball. I’m not a pro, I’m just looking to play for enjoyment. But I can say whatever I want about being this or that, about my shooting being off or on. Tonight the point guard was right. Foul number twenty-one, because he can’t shoot.

Steve Jobs: The blog post

You loved Steve Jobs, the book. What a page-turner. You bought one copy as an actual book copy, and then you bought another book as an iBook copy. And then you read one page from the book and the next page on your iPad. But something happened with the synching, like the pages weren’t exactly the same numbers, and so you wound up reading certain paragraphs over and over again.

But that’s OK, because those paragraphs were awesome. You loved that book, Steve Jobs. And then you got really pumped for the Jobs movie. Finally. It’s bad enough that you had to wait all of those months after he died to read an official autobiography. But now it’s been almost two years since Steve Jobs died, and we’re only just this summer being given a proper motion picture treatment of his life, his work, his beard.

You drank the Steve Jobs soda. Crisp, refreshing, exactly the flavor of soda that you didn’t even know you were thirsty for until you saw it in the refrigerator at Seven-Eleven. That sleek white can, it just said, “Jobs,” and that’s how you knew it was the official Steve Jobs soda, not those unlicensed, “Steve Jobs: the soda,” cans that came out two weeks ago, some opportunist trying to make a quick buck with an unofficial soft drink. Pathetic.

You always go for the official Jobs brand, like those official Steve Jobs windshield wipers. You’ve changed the wipers on your 2009 Ford Taurus two, three times. And each time, yes, they worked reasonably well after installation. But six months in, that squeaking sound. The last time you replaced them, they faced a different angle, claimed to wipe a bigger percentage of the windshield. But the Jobs wipers wiped an even bigger percentage. A much, much larger surface area. Still not a hundred percent, that would be impossible, you know, barring one, giant, horizontal wiper that wiped top to bottom, over and over again, but that’s a little unrealistic.

And it wouldn’t be that cool white, like your iPod, like the Steve Jobs official backpack. Although that one came in a really cool black also, but not a regular black, it was a matte black. You still bought the white though, a Jobs traditionalist, the only kind of tradition that really defies convention. Officially.

Like that official Steve Jobs haiku released last week:

Steve Jobs was so great

I wish he were still alive

I loved him so, so much

Did you see that extra syllable at the end? Classic Jobs, ever the innovator. I wasn’t supposed to post that here, so if you just read it, you really should go to the iPoetry store and buy your own copy. And then you can read it as many times as you like. While you’re there, you should check out Steve Jobs, the sonnet, the limerick, and the acrostic. Each one of them, truly, inspirational, a real game changer, to the world of poetry, to the English language. Even this blog post, even though it’s an unofficial Steve Jobs blog post, it’s talking about Steve Jobs, I’m writing down the name Steve Jobs.

And so you get it. Steve Jobs was our generation’s Thomas Edison. Right? Only, when you think about it, all Edison did was invent a light bulb. Well, and other stuff, the record player, something with magnets. I don’t know. Maybe that was cutting edge a hundred years ago, but come on. You take all of Edison’s greatest inventions and they don’t even compare to Jobs’s worst invention. And yeah, that’s kind of a moot point, because Jobs didn’t have any worst inventions, or innovations, or whatever. I’m just saying, light bulb, iPad, I’ll stick with the iPad thanks. I can always just download a light bulb app. And then I’ll never use it, because there’s no need to, my bedroom is already plenty illuminated by me reading Steve Jobs again, the white background is brighter than any stupid bulb.

Can anybody lend me a few thousand dollars? I really want to buy up every seat for the Jobs midnight showing tonight, so I can watch it by myself, in a big theater, and then I can walk out and see everybody else lined up for the next showing, and I’ll just look at them and say stuff like, “I’m not going to say anything, just … just … wow. Just wow. Just really, you guys are in for a treat, you guys are just … wow … you guys are just, really, really … holy shit man … wow.”