Charles, R&B, and Don

this is real life. This is a true reality show. THIS ... I couldn't make UP stuff like this!

Ok, ok, ok... see it apparently all started with Rankin & Bass.

Pure genius ... that hair ... Mister "Green Christmas" ... Mister "Hundred-and-One" ... the Heat Miser! Sing it with me! (Well, on second thought, don't want to scare the cat and the concrete dog... again)

Now, things got a little out of hand a number of years later.
There's just no explaining this one. Don King thought he was inspired - we all thought he was on-fired. As time would bear out, Don's just a little screwy, just a little wierd, and we've all come to understand that. It's expected even. You see the hair, you turn of the sanity checker.

But this one ... well, it just goes BEYOND any bizarre fashion statement that I could ever have imagined. I know what they say about fashion running full circle every couple of decades, but really now...

QUICK! SOMEONE GET A FIREHOSE, THIS WOMAN'S SET HER HAIR WITH PROPANE AND THROWN A MATCH IN IT! NOTHING BURNS BLUE LIKE NATURAL GAS!

Oh mother of mumford - and Charles married that thing? Or maybe ... anyone have Charles' telly # handy? I think I know of a medical procedure to correct that problem. Maybe it was all a bad easter-egg coloring experience that got more out of hand than anyone could imagine. "But ... Mommy ... her head's so BIG ..." With a mane like that, it won't take long for a Nike swoosh to appear just off-center.

Criminy.

The spine of an earthworm

But you see ... I needed them ...

(Hey, the shirt is for my daughter, and it's signed by one of her FAVE drivers. So, this is a parenting expense!)

When one's spine goes missing

It's not my fault. Rather, it won't be.

Some people drink too much. Some people indulge in rather risky and illegal behavior. Others, still, take part in rather unhealthy practices. All in the pursuit of personal happiness (or whatever it is that they tend to believe will make them happy). Me ... I follow open-wheel racing.

Oh sure, that American adult bumper-car fascination known as "NASCAR" has its moments (2 per year, in fact, when they race on real race courses with right-hand turns and no unnatural banking), but it's completely unreliable. And let's face it folks - "rubbing" is for cleaning floors, erasing mistakes in pencil, and perhaps auto-body polish, but it AIN'T RACING. And don't call me a hypocrit - I attend the Grandaddy event of the year - the Daytona 500 - each year just to make sure I'm not missing a shift in the tide tantamount to global warming x 100...

Champ Car, IndyCar, Toyota Atlantic (evolving into ChampCar Atlantic), GP2, Infiniti Pro Series, A1 Grand Prix and of course Formula 1 (even if it does tend to take itself too seriously as of late) epitomize the real deal. Hell, I'll even take some REAL covered-wheel racing in the likes of the American Le Mans Series any day over the draft-and-dump tactics used by the good ol' boys.

So, what's a real race like myself to do when Paul Stoddart, long-time real racing insider, flamboyant F1 team owner, and acknowledged Aussie odd-ball decides to auction off some 1800 lots of his collection of Tyrrell, Arrows, Jordan, BAR and of course Minardi "bits and pieces"? 22 actual F1 cars! Front wing assemblies ... barge boards ... news and used 10-cyl Hart and Cosworth piston sets (with and without con rods) ... assorted gearbox spares ... gearbox housings ... oil resevoirs ... team shirts ... autographed visors ... official team socks (ok, that's getting a little ridiculous)?!

I could use an Arrows Lost-Boys/Red bull front nose assembly (lot 1057, but who's really taking notes?) to add to my collection of race cars. Ok, so my cars are all manufactured by Lego with labor from moi, but it's a starting point! Or perhaps some really COOL gearbox components! I mean REALLY!

Hold on ... need to dab at my mouth ...

So see, when there's this much quality stuff to be had, when you can watch the bidding live on the 'net on Saturday and Sunday, when you can have the privilege of calling in to LEDBURY, HEREFORDSHIRE, England when you are ready to actually place your bids (which are only subject to the applicable UK VAT tax, the 15% web bidders premium to pay for the auctioning firm, and then whatever minor amount it would cost to ship the lot to your home in backwoods TN), who could resist?

Well, ok, so my kids and wife do need to eat. And we are somewhat partial to the roof and the house. And clothes are a pretty nice thing too.

So, yeah, I made sure I had my priorities straight and showed some "spine". I only registered with the auctioneers so that I could WATCH the auction live. You know ... just to see how much I could have lost had I been so spineless as to engage in bidding...

There once were 5 men from Copenhagen...

Flemish ... Isn't that the language of Denmark?

How would I know? I'm a typically ignorant, globally-challenged American, kept in that style due to the whimsically current standing of my motherland in the world community. The only country we touch that doesn't speak English is Mexico, and even then most of us don't deign to habla es-pain-y'all. In Europe most everyone is multi-lingual, and they make an effort at it. No, not us Americans, unless perhaps it's Yankee and the situation involves what passes in this country for beer...

So I opened my work day today with a conference call that included 5 Danes in Copenhagen, plus one more who lives in the U.S. I wondered whether language or accent was going to be an issue, and much to my surprise (and pleasure) they understood and spoke English quite well. Of course, it didn't hurt that the topic of conversation was computer-eeze, geek-ism and bit-o-byte, all of which are clearly universal, so we got along swimmingly for 50 minutes.

My one and only challenge was Roman. Not as in numerals. Not as in noses. As in the guy, the primary programming geek, whose name was 'Roman'. He was mostly silent, contemplative (right!), and ethereal - essentially a typical geek - but at one point about 2/3 of the way through the conversation, the others asked him to weigh in. 'Yes', was the first, and woefully inadequate answer, so he was prodded further. What followed was a fluid litany of nouns and verbs, half swallowed gutturally, only somewhat resembling sentence structure, emanating power and pride. My initial reaction was to choke back a chuckle - after all, here's a Dane named Roman trying to speak English - that seems like a train wreck waiting to happen. But let's be brutally honest here - when pressed, he could adequately attempt to meet me on my own language court. I couldn't even groan in Flemish - or whatever. Roman 1, privileged American weenie 0.

And as if to drive home the helplessness of my situation, at one point I was expounding vividly on a particular techno-brain-bubble, and it was apparently running right on by the Roman legion. So, Tommi (at least I could spell his name) starts speaking in squeaks, yaks and burtles, which are rebounded by Roman with what must have been humor and eloquence as everyone on the phone starts to laugh. Except me. The village idiot. Then, as if to save me from my own self-humiliation, Tommi translates back a very astute response.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but it is rather sad that those of us in this country, in general, don't make an effort to learn the languages of others. We certainly don't need to be completely fluent, as Roman showed me today, but we should be able to show at least an effort to be conversational. I couldn't do that. It felt shameful.

Oh, and of course a short trip to the Wikipedia points out that I am truly ignorant - they speak Danish in Denmark (duhh....).

Air pollution

"I have to go potty," sayeth the papoose. Of course.

My daughter and I joined the moose, the goose and the papoose for a wonderful night out at the ballpark Saturday. There's something about being outside at a baseball game on what turns out to be a beautifully fair evening that's calming to the soul. "It's just so ... wholesome" quipped the moose, in between lapping up Red Ale and scratching his antlers.

I have to agree. Once the sun goes down and the air loses 5 soul-sucking degrees of heat, you can breathe clearly, relax in your chair, drink in the atmosphere, and...

"They're out of hot dogs. It's only the second inning!"

... enjoy the conversation with your kids and friends. Reticent to show off her worldly knowledge, the goose holds back that she's actually well versed in the strageties of baseball. While the moose and I gab, she's actually paying close attention to the "real" reason for attendance. As the ...

"I mean seriously, how do you run out of hotdogs?"

... er, evening progresses, though, her intelligence gives her away as the moose and I wonder about certain incidents and eventualities in the game.

Earlier, having conquered her erstwhile childhood fears, my daughter approached the local mascot, "Ozzie" and proudly presented her famous ball glove for his signature. Famous, of course, because of its destiny to catch a foul ball this night. After all, the evening really is perfect, and "wholesome" as the moo...

"They're a STAPLE for gawd's sake!
Even if there's only 2 games left in the season,
you HAVE to have them ready during the game"

Ok, ok, ok. So, perhaps not everything is perfect. See, there's this group of first-year medical buffoons that have chosen this evening to sit directly behind us, and apparently one of them simply must have a wiener. Well, perhaps I should rephrase ... he simply must be allowed to purchase said porcine/bovine/probably-equine sausage-like foodstuff for roughly 800% of it's worth on the street, and the concessioneers have run out of these delicacies. "How ROOD!" as they say on Full House, which if you happen to have an under-10 year old girl in the house is a saying that you know.

This is almost certainly what he's thinking, as it's the age he's acting. And his air pollution is interrupting my perfect communion with the -oose's! Is he even interested in the game? Are his friends? Perhaps I should...

"No, stop playing with the man's knees."

Psshtp!! (that's the drink going up my nose) OK, that's priceless ... the papoose, all of 5 calendar and 25 vocabulary years, is watching the game while gently probing and poking the knee of one of the phab physicians, so the moose, being the polite person that he is but that he cordons into the closet, is (surely) teaching the 5 calendar year old essence of the papoose some of the social norm that she's yet to digest. Good going Dad ... but too bad we couldn't just stick a Sharpie in her hand...

So as I was saying, perhaps I should ...

"So, like, I just got a text msg from
Debbie, and she's not coming.
She going out, and now she wants
to know who ELSE is going out.
Like, what do I tell her?
We don't know when this game'll be over, ya know?"

Holy sacred cheeses.

"TELL HER YOU'RE ALL COMING! RIGHT THIS MINUTE! AS SOON AS YOU'RE DONE STUFFING GASTRO-BOY HERE WITH MEAT-SHAVING-CASES FROM THE LOCAL STOP-AND-ROB!! GONNA REALLY MISS HAVING YOU BEHIND US!"

Oh, and would you be a doll and escort the papoose here to the restroom, please? She's gotta potty, and I'm thinking y'all are experts at assisting in that regard...

NOTE: No actual medical buffoons were injured in the true-life transpirings related herein. I only wish they had been. In fact, some names and order of events have been rearranged to suit the author's selfish desires. But other than those items, and the lack of hauling in a foul ball, the game and evening was superb :-)

Oooo ... Nota Bene fun!

Check out Ms. O's Nota Bene blog if you're interested in the way some composition students study and analyze freedom and responsibility - one of my personal weaknesses :-).