Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
To Hell (on two and a half tanks of gas)

In the movie The Ref, actor/comedian Denis Leary is heard to remark: "I'm in hell. Connecticut is the 5th ring of hell." I'm starting to think he's more right than he knows. In all honesty, it's a very ominous thing to see just after you enter the state of Connecticut a large sign proudly proclaiming Satan's Kingdom. Now I will attempt to give Connecticut the benefit of the doubt, since other national parks in the state are named Devil's Hopyard and so forth. I might have just seen a backroads sign for one of their parks or forests.

Yet that was merely the last of three ominous signs and portents experienced on the trip to see my beautiful fiancee, Melissa. After that, I was beginning to wonder of someone or something was not-so-subtly trying to dissuade me from seeing her. The first sign was in fact many, and dead. Literally. It's unnerving to be not half an hour past the US border, and come across a ridiculously large amount of roadkill. I counted roughly a dozen-plus animals, including some might-have-been-squirrels and formerly-a-raccoon. There was even what might have been an adult skunk and its mate or offspring killed not 10 feet from each other...either that, or it was in fact 1 skunk, 2 halves. And just to make it special, the last deceased animal we got to see in that stretch was a red fox's stiff body being hoisted up by a shovel, courtesy of one of the government roadside workers.

Isn't the beauty and delicate balance of nature a wonderful thing?

And as if that was not unfortunate enough, the second ominous "take heed and go no further" moment happened about halfway through the trip down to CT. Now one can dismiss all those dead animals as just the casualties of human technology and "civilization", but you cannot so easily dismiss a large freaking piece of metal flying off the back of a truck and bouncing across the Interstate lanes towards you.

Let me take a moment to help give you a mental picture of what happened. My Dad & I were driving in the far left lane. In the middle lane, and about 1-2 car lengths ahead of us was another car happily driving along. And in front of him, approximately by about 1 car length, was a pickup truck. Now this pickup truck was hauling one of those enormous ice cube makers you see in hotels. The machine stands about as high as I do. Initially no one really gave much of a second thought to worrying about the ice machine; it was strapped very tight and securely to the pickup truck.

Well, the machine was.

The grille/cover to the ice machine's motor, however, was not.

Needless to say, it's not every day one sees (or wants to see) said cover suddenly tear itself from the rest of the ice machine in a daring escape, and come flying towards you. The car behind the pickup truck frantically swerved to the right as the cover nearly leapt right onto its hood. Then split-seconds later, the hood decides to come bounding into our lane, resembling some sort of macabre Terminatoresque puppydog. My Dad swerved to the left and we went halfway onto the emergency lane, the cover missing us by a few feet. It then parked itself in the emergency lane, and took a nap.

It's sheer luck and/or providence that the traffic behind us (not to mention behind the pickup truck) was very light, otherwise serious damage could have been done. And I shudder to think of the traffic pile-up that could have been wreaked had there not been the room or time to maneouvre out of the way. But, go figure, the driver of the pickup truck had absolutely no idea that he'd lost the cover to his ice machine. The driver of the car right behind his finally managed to pull up next to him and ideally conveyed the message through wild articulations that the pickup had nearly taken out 2-3 vehicles in his wake.

I don't exactly know what became of that situation. But I'll bet the pickup truck's driver is still wondering just where the cover on for his ice machine motor disappeared to.

Happliy, that was about as pulse-pounding-exciting as Connecticut was. For those of you curious (and for those of you who aren't, you might as well skip on down to Today's Lesson), most of my time was spent with Melissa. We toured some of the nearby casinos, and to my dismay I discovered you could not put small dogs and fansubs down for collateral. We spent many an hour in the bookstores, crying over the many titles we wanted vs. the amount of cash we could spare. I got to ride an old-fashioned carousel, something I haven't done in ages, while Mel laughed at how I was having more fun on it than the 6 year-olds were.

The rest of the time was mainly spent walking around and cuddling with the woman I adore. I also adored the time spent with my Mel-chan, and am incredibly disheartened to know it's over for now. Then again, in another respective month, she and I get to spend time together on pretty much of a "rest of your life" basis.

Being able to just disappear from family (especially hers) and have the opportunity to do whatever we wanted to at our own time and leisure is something I think too many people take for granted. We saw a few movies, and amazingly enough spent more time watching the film instead of necking in the dark. Mel was finally able to have a nice, long bubblebath without any interruption, and I read part of Michael Ende's The Neverending Story to her. I surprised her with chocolates and Pocky. When my Dad & I showed up where she worked, I was even able to present her with a rose I had smuggled across the border for her.

No doubt poor Mel's blushing profusely as she reads me gushing about her, so I'll leave it at that. But if you want to learn about how this proverbial old dog still has a few new tricks up his sleeve, ask her about Chobits, vol.2. That's probably a good way to get her cheeks all a-flushed without me needing to say anything. Love ya, my dear!

Today's Lesson: David Hasselhoff should never be let near a music video. Ever.

http://www.hellonetwork.com/demo/toysclub/video.asp?speed=hook300







posted by Phillip at 1:30 PM

 
Vanishing Act

The odds are looking pretty good that this little bit of nowhere will be running silent for the next week. Why, you may ask? Does it have anything to do with that escaped tiger reported last night? Or perhaps it has something to do with the kidnapping of about 100,000 monkeys and their typewriters as they tried to write King Lear.

Actually, the simple answer is that I shall be in Connecticut, spending some quality time with my beautiful fiancee and saucy wench, Mel. And it's much deserved, much desired and much needed quality time too. I find it rather sad that it's roughly 2 1/2 months before the wedding, and the last time we got to spend time together was two months ago. But that's the evils of international romances.

But I am planning on surprising her at work with a tiger, and 100,000 Shakespearean monkeys and their typewriters. Hmm...in retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have written that here, since that whole public notice thing tends to destroy the whole "surprising" aspect. Oh well, at least her co-workers will be surprised!

I will leave you all with this thought I had yesterday: it was a beautiful warm day, and I spent a good portion of the afternoon sprawled out on the grass in the shade of a tree, staring up at the clouds in the blue sky. Taking the time to do that helped melt all my tension, fears and doubts away. I'm not saying I tried to ignore or forget them entirely, but escaping for a short while into the quiet tranquility of watching the sky proved incredibly uplifting. I think more people should take the time to sit back and stare up at the sky, not really caring to think about anything at all.

It's the effort of turning one's mind off that's the harder part, though, as opposed to just looking up.

Today's world is moving at such a fast rate that everyone seems to be coiling into tensile springs ready to just snap and lash out in any direction. But it's interesting to realize that despite the speed of the world, it's not going to run away on you if you take a few minutes or even a few hours each day to unwind and be carefree in an almost child-like manner.

This is probably some long ranting parallel to the old proverb, "Don't forget to stop and smell the roses." And at its heart, for as cliche as it has become, it's a proverb that rings true. Unfortunately for me, in the backyard yesterday all I had to smell were Shih-tzu's instead of roses.

Today's Lesson: never leave yourself open for an 8-pound Shih-tzu to use your crotch as a diving board so she can land on your face.


posted by Phillip at 9:16 AM