The Daily Procrastinator

When I was a child, Hershey’s Kisses were the coolest thing ever.  Perfectly bite-sized milk chocolate.  And the symbolism!  How could you go wrong?

For Valentine’s Day, my Nana — sweet as anything at 90 — sent me a package filled with Kisses.  Aww, so cute and kitschy, especially since I’m well past my grandma-sends-me-Valentines years.  I put them aside as a reminder of her warmth and generosity.

You know, they never look this well-wrapped and shiny in real life.

Last night, I was on deadline.  It was 11 PM, my energy was waning and there was just one thing that would save that whitepaper: chocolate.  I was lamenting the lack of chocolate in my house when I suddenly remembered my Valentine’s Day gift.  Salvation!  Chocolate!

I opened the lid, unwrapped the first one (an easy task as it was already partially unwrapped on its own) and popped it in my mouth.  A look of confusion crossed my face, and I spit it into a napkin.  Was this what Kisses tasted like?  There was no chocolatey mouth feel; it tasted almost like it was made with imitation chocolate flavoring.  In fact, the entire experience made me think of the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

When the ‘Drink’ button is pressed it makes an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism, and then sends tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject’s brain to see what is likely to be well received. However, no-one knows quite why it does this because it then invariably delivers a cupful of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.

But wait.  This can’t be right, I thought to myself.  I LOVED these as a child.  Maybe it was just stale somehow, since it had come partially unwrapped.  I searched for one that was still tightly sealed, opened it expectantly and discovered that no, the first one was not stale.  Did I really have such poor taste as a child?

I’m not sure what was more disappointing: the complete lack of chocolate to support my late night craving, or the complete distortion of my childhood memories.  Maybe next time I can convince Nana to send Ghirardelli squares.

In a world that moves faster and faster each year, it seems that it’s the things that go slowly that are most likely to capture our attention.

On Sundays, on an old rail line that was originally part of the first transcontinental railroad, a group of volunteer rail enthusiasts runs train rides through a scenic canyon.  I’ve always been a fan of the Niles Canyon Railway for the enthusiasm of the volunteers and the beauty of the scenic ride.

Today was the day that the regularly operating antique diesel was replaced with an antique steam engine.  I’m not personally knowledgeable about the ins and outs of railroads, but I was raised as the granddaughter of a serious rail enthusiast, and so I have a certain level of appreciation for what these guys are doing out there.  I decided to head out, take some pictures and for the first time in my life, see what an operational steam engine actually sounded like.

I’m not sure why, but I had naively assumed that most of the interested parties would be on the train.  Instead, as I drove through the canyon looking for a place to pull over, I was startled by how many photographers had set up tripods along the line, and how many grandfathers, fathers and little boys were just waiting and watching, as excited as little kids on Christmas morning.

I'm starting to understand why my grandfather was so fascinated with trains.

My little point-and-click camera hardly did the experience justice.  The first thing that you can hear is the faraway but distinctively rhythmic “choo-choo-choo-choo” of the steam engine, echoing through the narrow canyon.  Then it appears around the bend, steam plume rising above the trees.  The wigwag swings at the crossing, warning drivers in the absence of modern gates.  And then, as the train approaches the crossing, the loud howl of the whistle.  A bronze bell clangs on the top of the locomotive, so drowned out by the noise of the steam engine and the whistle that the entire train needs to be practically on top of you before it’s even audible.  And then, it passes, wheels rumbling with the ordinary familiarity of any train, from an antique to a modern Acela.

As soon as the wigwag stopped flashing, most of these watchers ran for their cars to try to catch up to the train at the next crossing.  At points where the canyon road paralleled the tracks, traffic slowed to a crawl.  Even people who admitted that they weren’t anything close to train enthusiasts seemed to find the experience to be a pleasant diversion.

Next year, I’m going to buy myself a ticket and enjoy the experience from the passenger’s perspective.

Hello again, procrastinators! This wrap-up will bring you up to speed on what’s been happening here at The Daily Procrastinator for the last two weeks. Normally, as you’ve noticed by now, I’m sure, there’s a weekly wrap-up in your email every weekend. Last weekend, that didn’t happen. I procrastinated. Surely you knew that was a possibility. TDP has been as busy as ever in the past two weeks, and this is your chance to make sure that you’ve read every tasty bit. Let’s take it one week at a time, shall we?

March 16 – March 20

The week began with two posts by TallGirl, addressing first the dust-covered rollerblades she discovered while cleaning her garage, and then the combined narcissism and bad PR decisions of A-Fraud.

After many, many hours of celebrating Irish heritage, BigRedPoet (who’s German and French Canadian, by the way) published Part 1 of the beer-fueled St. Patrick’s Day adventure, chronicling the daylight hours and early evening. Part 2, which is perhaps slightly less coherent, details the happenings of the late evening and pursuant VERY early morning. Because she’s such a helpful friend, TallGirl offered a few hangover cures for anyone whose St. Patrick’s Day celebrations got out of hand.

The week ended with both lasciviousness and laughs as TallGirl wrote about her recent hot upskirt experience, and the newest Procrastinator, Marmite, bemoaned the unfortunate truth that Snuggies are taking over the world.

This break between weeks is brought to you by a grumpy, land-based koala bear. His name is Jeff.

March 23 – March 27

TallGirl started the week by wondering how FaceBook can simultaneously inspire curiosity, nostalgia, and low-level retrograde anger. As someone whose face has not been booked, I’m tempted to go sign up, just to observe this curious phenomenon.

On Tuesday, BigRedPoet offered a review of the Elton John and Billy Joel concert that he and FlashCap attended in Houston. As it turns out, two straight men can attend such a concert without the benefit of female companionship and still have a GREAT time.

Wednesday’s post was drawn from a discussion thread about important childhood memories. Several of the Procrastinators offered interesting tidbits from their young lives. Check it out, and get to know your favorite Procrastinator just a little bit better!

On Thursday, FlashCap expressed disbelief and outrage at a remarkably ignorant news article written by an ESPN reporter and posted on the company’s website. You’ve got to read it to believe it. As FlashCap seethed over the incompetence of paid professionals, TallGirl realized that Spring (the wily bugger) had sneaked up on her while she wasn’t watching. When it jumped out and yelled, “Surprise!“, the resulting joy turned into a TDP post.

BigRedPoet discovered something disturbing on Friday. While he was procrastinating by watching YouTube videos, he discovered that the Starburst Berries & Cream commercial that he found so offensive the first time had been reborn in a techno-remix version. Yikes.

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The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

Do you remember the Berries and Cream Starburst commercial? It wasn’t on TV for very long, probably because it’s disturbing in the extreme. In case you haven’t seen it, check it out below.

Link

The first time I saw this, I swore I was watching one of those Saturday Night Live spoof commercials. I just can’t believe that any kind of candy could require a commercial spokesman this WEIRD.

As if the original commercial wasn’t enough, some kind soul on YouTube (may his or her soul rot in the filthiest corner of the stinkiest bathroom in hell) made a remix, complete with techno music and crazed repetitions of the goofy guy’s most bizarre moments. Enjoy, if you dare.

Link

Now, go to YouTube and leave the user who created that some hate mail comments.

Ok, maybe this isn’t news to some of you, but I’ve had my head down with deadlines for two weeks.  I just walked out of the house for the first time in — well, I can’t even tell you how long, really — and discovered that spring was here.  Spring!  Here!  Now!

I’m a transplant to California, 10 years and counting, and while there are definitely benefits to this climate, I don’t tend to be overwhelmingly effervescent about my presence here.  But today, everything was different.  It’s 74 degrees and sunny.  The skies are blue, the clouds white and wispy, the hills still green from the winter rains.  The trees are in bloom.  The air smells like flowers… at least for the 30 seconds before my nasal passages closed from allergies.  But still!  Spring!

But here are the two most exciting parts of my day:

1. Butterflies!  Butterflies are on their migration path from south to north.  There are hundreds of them filling the sky right now.  Beautiful little butterflies, orange and black, fluttering through the air.  Now, for me, seeing one butterfly is a nice treat, but imagine seeing them everywhere.  They’re lovely!  And if my iPhone had a faster shutter speed, I’d take a picture of them for you.  Instead, you will have to settle for a generic (and far more beautiful) picture of a single painted lady butterfly.

Painted lady butterflies? Monarchs? I haven't seen one land, but the orange and black coloring seems to indicate one or the other.

2. Artichokes!  Having grown up in the northeast, the idea of growing artichokes seems absurd.  Yet I planted one small artichoke from a 3″ pot last spring, and by last June I had a harvest of 13 of them.  This year, the plant is bigger and stronger than ever — about five feet high and six feet across already — and today it’s showing the first artichoke bud of the season!  If that’s not a sign of spring, I don’t know what is, people!

My massive, mutant artichoke plant would dwarf this one, but this is still a good picture from Peoria Gardens.

I realize that I’ve been using a lot of exclamation points in this post, but my general enthusiasm for spring combined with the sheer suddenness with which I’ve realized that it’s here… well, I’m just overwhelmed!  

So Happy Spring to everyone!  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sit in a park and watch the butterflies.

In the write-up of the Notre Dame/Kentucky NIT quarterfinal game, the author of the article included a post-game comment from embattled Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie about his feelings toward the rumors swirling about his job security:

Asked about how he feels about all the judgment he’s facing after posing a 40-27 record in two seasons at Kentucky, Gillispie said: “There’s only one judgment I’ll ever be concerned about, and I hope I pass that judgment. That’s the only one I’ll ever be concerned about, and I’m really proud that that’s the only judgment that will ever have a real effect on me, and I hope I pass that one with flying colors.”

Gillispie declined to answer when asked whose judgment he was referring to, saying it was obvious, apparently referring to Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart.

Uh, no anonymous-AP-sports-writer, he wasn’t referring to Kentucky’s AD, but rather a judgment a bit more consequential in the long run. I actually hope the author was making a joke, though there’s nothing else in the article to suggest that he was.

Otherwise, such obtuseness in a reporter is truly embarrassing…

Topic proposed by Tallgirl:

Think back to your childhood — and by childhood I’m going to go with anything prior to graduation from high school. What were the events that really had an impact on you?

Mine include:

• My grandfather’s death when I was 7. Even though he’d had a stroke when I was in kindergarten and was largely incapacitated for two years, it never occurred to me that he’d ever die.
• Best friend’s seizures/epilepsy diagnosis when we were 11.
• The wave of “oops” babies that appeared in all of my friends’ families when we were 11-13. It was my first exposure to child development and I remember being fascinated by how they learned and what they learned.
• Opening my SAT scores and sort of collapsing onto the stairs, realizing at 16 that I wasn’t going to have to stay in that town forever. I hadn’t really given it conscious thought up to that point, but I remember the phrase, “this is my ticket out of here” running through my head. Sounds terrible now, doesn’t it?
• My father being hit by a car and having major back injuries when I was 17. It totally changed my perception of my place in the world and made me realize that I had to grow up and take responsibility for things.

BigRedPoet

• My brothers and I played baseball with the neighborhood kids all day every day during the summers. I was one of the biggest kids in the neighborhood, and I could hit pretty much any pitch any kid could throw. By the time I was about 14, I thought I was pretty good. Meanwhile, I knew my dad had pitched city league fastpitch softball when I was a kid. He would toss baseballs to me the back yard, but he never really pitched to me…so I challenged him to come out back and see if he could strike me out. He did. Three times in a row. On the last pitch, he somehow got the ball to break up and in. I was swinging at a pitch that looked like it was right down the middle…and the next moment I was dodging before it hit me in the head. I remember thinking to myself, “Holy shit. He’s good.“
• The same group of kids that played baseball also built a HUGE treefort in the woods behind our neighborhood. I don’t think any of our parents had a hammer or a nail handy for years because we stole every last stinking one. The final product was three stories, including a roof over the top one. It was about thirty feet long and about twelve feet wide. It involved logs, two-by-fours, nails, rope, and just about anything else you can imagine. One fine day, this kid named Lenny shows up. Apparently, he’s a nephew or a grandkid to some family way down at the end of the neighborhood. Eventually , we all end up in the treefort. For reasons known only to him, Lenny climbs out onto the roof and begins doing some sort of ridiculous dance while singing the theme song from the Smurfs cartoon. Suddenly, the roof cracks in two, dumping Lenny right into the top floor of the treefort, where several of us are hanging out. The combined weight of the strange kind and the ceiling causes the top floor crack, falling into the next (also full of kids), which cracks and dumps us all, about 15 kids, into a screaming, bleeding, broken-boned heap on the ground. An ambulance came and took Jimmy to the hospital for his shattered humerus.
• One of my earliest memories (I have no idea how old I was or even which house we were living in) is of building a snowman in the yard with my mother. The bottom section was huge, and we’d rolled a pretty big snowball to be the middle. When she lifted the second snowball to stack it atop the first, my mom tipped over backward into the snow. I remember her laying there in the snow, with a giant snowball on top of her, laughing so hard she couldn’t get up.
• My family dog was run over while following me across the street to the neighbor’s house. I didn’t know she was back there.
• When I was 14, I shot my first deer. After my dad helped me gut it out, he reached across the carcass and shook my hand. Like men do.
• When I was 10 or so, a kid named Jacob was abducted from the nearby farm town just ten miles up the road or so. He has never been found.

Juggernaut:

Interesting topic. Trying to think back that far, and trying to think of such events that had an impact on me, makes me think I was something of a cold bastard. But here’s what I came up with.

• There was a kid that lived down the street that got hit by a car when he ran a stop sign at the base of a steep hill riding on his mini-bike. I remember hearing screams (his <shudder>) and Careflight coming, landing pretty much in front of our house. While he was the first kid FlashCap [my twin brother] and I met when we moved there, by that point I (and probably FC) didn’t like him much (he was probably going to turn out to be a serial killer, IMO). So that didn’t really “change my life.”
• Freshman year of high school, maybe sophomore. In the high school weight room with FC after school. We are getting ready to do some bench press, and I decide that I want to try 35-lb plates (maybe 45-lb) on each side. This was new to both FC and I as all we had done up to that point was universal machines in 7th and 8th and a little weight bench at home that had those concrete-filled plastic weights. A little sh*t that had for some reason tormented me since 7th grade (I couldn’t exactly beat him up because it would have made me look bad for picking on this little dude) came up to me and said “yeah, right”, etc., indicating that I wouldn’t be able to bench it. I laid down on the bench, and threw it up in quick succession 10 times, then moved up the weight. Never heard a f*cking word from that little dude again. FC even commented that he was impressed when we were leaving. That really made me feel good. Great, really.
• Hanging out with the stock crew at Winn-Dixie after work. That was kind of significant to me, thinking back. It was the first time I moved outside of my and FC’s circle of friends (which included CowboyFromHeck) on my own. I think it prepared me for my going off to undergrad completely on my own as no one I knew was going to my college of choice.

FlashCap:

• Juggernaut hitting me with a toy (metal!) shovel and giving me 10 stitches in my nose, and a scar for life. Hey, Juggernaut, I’ve never forgiven you for that.
• My best friend getting hit by a car while on a little mini-bike. Juggernaut laughed at his screams. Hey, Juggernaut, I’ve never forgiven you for that.
• Juggernaut not letting me bench press after he showed up that little f*cker – his exact words were “Grab the towel, bitch, we’re outta here!” I muttered something about wanting to bench press, too, but Juggernaut for some reason just smiled and walked out. I had to go, because Juggernaut was my spotter. Hey, Juggernaut, I’ve never forgiven you for that.
• Staying at home, alone, waiting for Juggernaut to come home from work so we could spend more time palling around and joking around with one another before we went our separate ways in college. Come to find out, though, that Juggernaut is getting drunk in the Winn-Dixie parking lot with his “real friends.” Hey, Juggernaut, I’ve never forgiven you for that.

On Thursday, March 19, I crossed two more names off my “Musicians To See Before I Die” list. Elton John and Billy Joel performed together at the Toyota Center in Houston as part of their Face To Face Tour. My ol’ buddy FlashCap accompanied me on this excursion into musical awesomeness.

When we arrived at Toyota Center and found our way to our seats, we realized that these seats were GREAT! We were seated at floor level, no more than fifty or sixty yards from the stage. We could see the performers clearly, and we also had a front-and-center view of the huge display screens over the stage. These screens were of a sort I’d never seen before. They were made up of hundreds of strings of vertical lights suspended from the ceiling, and the lights changed colors and configurations to display images from the stage. It was pretty impressive.

Behold the amazing light/screen thing! Aren't cellphone pictures great?

As soon as the lights went down, both Elton John and Billy Joel took the stage, and they played four songs as duets, alternating between each artist’s hits. Interestingly, they also alternated singing verses within each song and sometimes harmonized during the choruses. After the initial series of duets, Elton John played a solo set of over an hour. Thereafter, Billy Joel played a set of similar length. To wrap it all up, they returned to duet mode and performed several of their most legendary songs to end the evening. As a highlight to the fantastic piano playing and singing of the two stars, I must say that the rest of the band was fantastic. I was particularly impressed by the percussionist and trumpeter during Billy Joel’s set and the bassist during Elton John’s. Check out the setlist:

Duets
Your Song
Just The Way You Are
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
My Life
Elton
Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
Burn Down The Mission
Madman Across The Water
Tiny Dancer
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Daniel
Rocket Man
Levon
Still Standing
Crocodile Rock
Billy
Angry Young Man
Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)
Allentown
Zanzibar
Don’t Ask Me Why
Always A Woman
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
River Of Dreams/Deep In The Heart Of Texas
We Didn’t Start The Fire
It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me
Only The Good Die Young
More Duets
I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues
Uptown Girl
The Bitch Is Back
You May Be Right
Benny And The Jets
You Say It’s Your Birthday
Back in the USSR
Candle In The Wind
Piano Man

Honestly, I’m more of an Elton fan than a Billy fan, but FlashCap favors Billy. We had all the bases covered. At least one of us sang along to nearly every song, with the exceptions of the relatively obscure “Burn Down the Mission” and “Zanzibar.” At many points during the show, tens of thousands of voices were all singing in unison. I love those kinds of moments. I’ve experienced this “mass singing” at concerts ranging from Jimmy Page & Robert Plant to Black Sabbath and from Lamb of God to Paula Cole. More than any other event in my life, singing along to the same song as a stadium full of people reveals to me the Brotherhood of Man. When the entire crowd inside Toyota Center–black, white, hispanic, asian, straight, gay, male, female, conservative, liberal, wealthy, poor–ALL belt out “Sing us a song, You’re the piano man,” all is right in my world.

The first time Elton John and Billy Joel toured together, I skipped the show because I thought the tickets were too expensive. If they ever tour together again, I am going to attend a show. You should, too. We can harmonize.

There is no mistaking the serious weirdness of Facebook.  I’m all for connecting with my current friends, and even friends from my past, however estranged we may have become as a result of time and distance.  Even exes.  I’m so totally, completely fine with exes.  And the people I met senior year of high school when I started hanging out with the theater crowd and working the ticket booth on performance nights.  And even my college roommate that I more or less haven’t spoken to since we had that blowup fight sophomore year.  I’m cool with that.  I had some sort of connection with all of these people.

But what I still can’t seem to get over are the people from high school — the popular, student council, homecoming court kids — who acted as though I was invisible for four years.  Why on earth are these people sending me friend requests?  How do they even remember my name?  And if you couldn’t manage a “hello” during the four years we sat next to each other in homeroom, why on earth are you so interested in finding out what I’m up to now?

And they’re not just friending me.  They’re tagging me in all sorts of lists to find out what books I’ve read, or 25 random things about me, or whether or not I’ve ever been to jail.  I just can’t understand it.  Are they sitting there with a yearbook, searching for everyone alphabetically, regardless of relationship?  Do they have any memories of me whatsoever?  Does that guy remember turning me down flat when I asked him to the sophomore dance, telling me that he had “someone else in mind”?

For as infrequently as I think about high school, I also seem to have pretty distinct memories of it, and I just wonder if everyone else does, too.  I have no illusions that we’re the same people that we were at 15 or 18.  I’m certainly not the same shy, insecure girl that I was, and I don’t expect that anyone else reflects what they were then, either.

Maybe that’s the point of Facebook.  Maybe it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from or if you’ve lived parallel yet completely separate lives.  Maybe it exists to remind you of how far you’ve come, and help you to appreciate the value of the true friends you’ve made along the way.

I’m fascinated and horrified by Snuggie infomercials. I can just about take grandma Snuggie-d up on the couch (and can even envision, on an evening when the damn boiler stops working again, that it might be pretty cozy.)

But then – in the name of all things holy – the snuggies are on the loose, outside, at a sporting event. WTF people – do you not realize that while you remain snug in front, your ass is freezing its…well…ass off? And just how exactly do you propose to run from the vigilante hordes who will hunt you down for stepping outside in that thing? You’ll trip; just you wait and see – because you’re probably wearing crocs too.

OK, deep breath, it’s not real. It’s advertising dreamed up by some guy who never expected this kind of a hit – it’s bigger than the Sham-Wow for pete’s sake.

Then I read this: Snuggie Pub Crawls are sweeping the nation. Snuggie. Pub. Crawls.

True confession time. As a Brit, I have taken part in a fair number of oddly dressed – intentionally and otherwise – pub crawls. It is our national sport, after all, but even I would draw the line at hordes of drunks flaunting their freezing behinds while navigating the sidewalks in fleecy hospital gowns. Think of the static–everyone for miles around would look like Russell Brand.

I am invited to ‘Spread the Warmth – One Snuggie Pub Crawl at a Time!’ I laugh scornfully and then they pull out the big guns – the Chicago crawl has sold tickets to 3,000 people and the receipts will be donated to orphanages in Tanzania. Orphanages.

Damn you Snuggie. How can I mock you mercilessly now without looking like the kind of heartless person who doesn’t care about tiny orphaned children in Africa? Sigh.

Snuggie domination is complete, resistance is futile.