Dave Fox's Outbursts!

Quote of the Day

"No disaster is perfect."

-- Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, speaking to a congressional panel.

(Normally I would come up with some witty and/or snide retort, but really, it's not necessary here.)

Rudolph's Revenge

A reindeer attacked an elderly couple in the woods of northern Finland today, according to the Associated Press. The animal butted the man to the ground, then turned on the man's wife, who was gabbing on her mobile phone at the time.

Yay for the reindeer!

Seriously, what was this lady doing on her phone in the middle of a nature hike? It's about time we do something about people with no cell phone etiquette. If I had antlers, I'd attack too.

Will the Real Rita Please Stand Up

I've been watching the television coverage of Hurricane Rita this morning, which led me to wonder, who is Rita? I'm talking about the real Rita. You have to be a pretty evil person to have a monster hurricane named after you.

Furthermore, who gets to name these hurricanes? Does anybody know? I've got a couple of ex-girlfriends whose names I'd like to propose for next year's list.

The World's Coolest Beer Ad

I'm not usually a fan of hefeweizens, but I'd drink Widmer just because their ad is so damn cool.

(Click the picture for a larger version.)

In Case You Were Wondering...

...I am still alive.

I have friends who worry about me when I vanish from the online world for too long. They know me well. They know that when I am not ranting about something highly trivial online, I may well have tumbled into a deep vortex of crankiness.

I am pleased to announce that I have not done that. So it is not necessary for you to do what you normally do, which is sit around and wonder if you should call me. Although you may call me anyway. If you know me. And if you are not a stalker.

I have descended into a deep vortex, but not a deep vortex of crankiness. I have descended into a deep vortex of writerness, struggling to complete the book I had hoped to have completed a year ago at this time.

I have resorted to drastic measures. I have rented an office.

"But Dave," you say, "you are a flat broke freelance something-or-other. You cannot afford to be renting office space."

What happened was, my friend Erin has moved to the Netherlands for six months and could not find a subletter for her apartment in downtown Seattle. Jokingly, I offered her a hundred bucks a month to use it as an office. She jumped at the opportunity.

So every day now, I hop the bus to downtown Seattle and stare at my laptop. Sometimes I type stuff. My book is slowly coming together. Look for it next winter. And buy a copy, damn it. Buy two; they're small.

My "office" is as urban as you can get in Seattle. It is a mere five blocks from Pike Place Market. It is directly across the street from an annoying guy who bangs on plastic buckets and glass bottles for money. (Seriously, dude, get a job that is useful to society... panhandling, perhaps.)

A couple of weeks ago, in my post about weird food, I alluded to a mysterious television appearance I will be making soon. Now I can reveal the sordid truth.

A producer from a History Channel program called Weird US found my article about lutefisk and decided I must be an expert on the dubious concoction. They sent a six-person crew to follow me around Ballard, Seattle's Scandinavian neighborhood, and had me explain why far more Norwegian-Americans consume lutefisk these days than real Norwegians. The segment is scheduled to air sometime in December on a special holiday edition of Weird US. Stay tuned to this blog for showtimes.

On that note, I've got a book to go write. Rest assured, my idiotic ramblings in this blog shall persist, but perhaps in less frequent doses over the next couple of months.

Ignorance is Bliss. Awareness Isn't.

In case you were wondering what month it is, it is Pain Awareness Month.

That's right. Medtronic, a medical technology company, has announced that September is Pain Awareness Month. If you e-mail them with your story about pain, they will even send you a complimentary pain awareness pin.

Pain Awareness Month? What's with that? I can see it now:

Doctor: Are you aware of any pain?

Patient: No, doc.

Doctor: It is important to be aware of your pain. Here, let me help. (Doctor then procedes to give patient multiple, unnecessary tetanus shots.)

Seriously, I don't like pain. Pain hurts. If you feel a need to participate in Pain Awareness Month, fine. Stop by my place, and I'll whack you on the nose with a hammer or something. You'll become very aware.  If I have pain, however, I would prefer not to be aware of it. Let me know when we have Percocet Awareness Month and I'll be happy to participate.

Do you want to send me ten dollars, in return for which I will send you something, but I'm not going to tell you what it is?

Of course you don't.

(Well, if you do, please send it to Dave Fox, P.O. Box 30641, Seattle, WA 98113, USA.)

But assuming your answer to the above question was, "No, dumbass," rest assured you are not alone. I too had a similar response when I received a similar solicitation in the mail yesterday.

I received an envelope, inside of which was an offer to get a year's subscription to Cargo magazine, for the "professional rate" of $9.97. I have never heard of Cargo magazine, and the junk mail they sent me gave no indication whatsoever of what sort of magazine Cargo is. Was it about travel? News? Porn? Iguanas? Iguana porn?

Personal note to the marketers at Cargo: You might want to let people know what your magazine is about when you ask for our money. Because, like, I already subscribe to several magazines about iguanas, and don't really need another, unless we are talking naked iguanas, in which case, please sign me up.

Burning with curiosity -- wait, no -- burning with a desire to ridicule Cargo's mystery marketing approach on my blog, I went to their website. There, they do sort of tell you what their magazine is about. Sort of. It is the "first buyers' guide for men."

Thanks, Cargo, but I'm going to pass on your generous offer. I'm not in the market to buy any men right now.

A Wrinkle in Time

Will you people stop ironing!

I mean it! I am getting very frustrated with all of you wrinkle-free geeks out there. Have you nothing better to do with your time?

Slowly emerging from my jetlaggy stupor, I began tackling a mountain of laundry today. It was a massive pile of clothes, which began on my bedroom floor in Seattle, and reached nearly all the way to Portland, Oregon.

I began putting loads of laundry in the washing machine, then transferring them to the drier, then sorting, folding, hanging, blah, blah, blah, in an attempt to fool myself into thinking I am not quite as pathetic of a bachelor as I actually am.

My grandmother taught me, years ago, that if you take your clothes out of the drier right away, you don't have to iron them as much. I was shocked to hear this advice from my grandmother. We're talking about a woman who ironed her sheets. Nevertheless, I have always tried to heed that advice, and it works to a point, but only to a point.

I bought a few shirts while working in Europe this summer. I bought a couple of really cool shirts, which looked ultra-spiffy hanging on the racks in the stores, and still looked ultra-spiffy the first time I wore them. But this afternoon, when I pulled them out of the drier, they were wadded up bundles of linen. They are so wrinkly, ironing them would be as futile as performing CPR on someone who has just been decapitated. If I were to attempt to spread them out on an ironing board, they would just snap back to their natural wadded position, kind of like a turtle refusing to emerge from his shell. Come to think of it, it would be easier to iron a turtle than these shirts.

Okay, so perhaps I should learn my lesson and stop buying linen shirts, even if they do look cool. But even my wrinkle-resistant shirts -- even one with the words "wrinkle-free broadcloth" on the tag -- have wrinkles.

People, I am busy. I do not have time to iron all of these shirts.

I do have a solution, but it requires cooperation from all of you. Effective immediately, you must all cease all ironing activity.

Think about it: If nobody irons, if we all wear wrinkled clothing, wrinkles will be in fashion. Think of the time we will collectively save! The time has come to impose a worldwide moratorium on ironing. As a planet, we will add years of free time to our busy lives.

Someone got paid to write this?

Not to be outdone by the recent creation of Pepsi Lime, the good people at Coca-Cola, Inc., have just created a new soft drink of their own. It is called "Coca-Cola with Lime."

It would be sacrelige in America to roll out a new fizzy beverage without also creating an advertising slogan. So the hard working folks at Coke, Inc., apparently sat down for a brainstorming session. And here, ladies and gentleman, is the hard-hitting advertising hook they have come up with:

"Coca-Cola with Lime:
Guess what it tastes like!"

"Guess what it tastes like?" Are they serious? I'm drinking one right now, and I hate to spoil the surprise, but it tastes kind of like... ummm... Coca-Cola with lime. Or, more accurately, Coca-Cola with faux-lime flavoring. (I cannot find the word "lime" anywhere in the list of ingredients.)

I never thought Coke would outdo their previously idiotic slogan from the 1980s, "Coke is it." But they have. What disturbs me most is that people get paid to write these things. I really need to find a job in advertising.

Weird Food Survey

I can't go into a lot of details yet, but a producer from a major television network recently found my article about lutefisk. She is going to make me famous. And nauseous.

She has asked me for a list of other weird foods that are consumed in the United States, so I'm taking a survey. Please enter your answers using the "comments" link below.

1) What is the weirdest food you know of?

2) To your knowledge, is this food readily available in the US, (or can it easily be prepared here), or is this some sick and twisted foreign grub?

3) You would eat this food:

a) because it's delicious.
b) to be adventurous and find out how it tastes.
c) in certain situations, to be polite.
d) in a medical emergency, to induce vomiting.

4) Keeping in mind this is not a reality show I'm talking about here -- there are no cash prizes -- should I eat the food you chose in question 1? And should I eat it because something positive might come from the experience, or just because you want to see me puke? (Be honest.)

Stay tuned for all the sordid details next week, and air dates in a couple of months.