For context, read
A New Twist – Part I
Apparently, Caleb’s first roller coaster was the Mind Eraser too.
I can’t remember the first time I heard the phrase, “I remember it like it was yesterday.” I suspect it was quickly followed by a strange, soap-opera-esque stare into the distance, swelling music, and a wavy special effect leading into a flashback sequence, but I’m not sure. After all, I don’t even remember yesterday like it was yesterday. Instead, I get small flashes and scenes; some immaculately drawn or painted rather than a photo-realistic representation of whatever it is I’m remembering.
There are, however, some experiences which are simply so vivid that they paint a masterpiece in my mind; and I say paint with full knowledge that even the clearest image is streaked with the wide brushes time uses to distance the event. I remember watching the sun rise on the peak of Masada in Israel. I remember crashing spectacularly down my first double black diamond at Breckenridge. I remember diving into the lake in Kent’s Hill, Maine and feeling the algae slide by me as I coursed through the water.
Some events I’m surprised I remember. Others I know I’ll remember before they happen. And some I expect to remember but don’t.
It was literally yesterday when I went to Elitch’s, yet now it feels so distant and surreal.
Memory’s a strange and fickle thing.
—
I’m shivering slightly despite the warmth of the sun. In the distance, several roller coasters rumble along tracks. Despite it’s distance, I can hear the creak of the Twister II, an old wooden roller coaster. To our left, screams echo from the Sidewinder, a short loop de loop that goes forward, then back again. I can hear the squeal of brakes on the Tower of Doom, a dead drop that mimics my first real thrill ride, the Edge at Great America.
All of these are dwarfed by the massive twirling steel rig that is the Mind Eraser.
“You sure we can’t just go to a simpler coaster?” I ask meekly.
“Are you kidding me?” Annika replies, her eyebrow and head clearly mocking my fear.
“Once you’ve ridden the Mind Eraser, you can ride anything,” Denise assures me. “Besides, it’s not that bad. Trust me.”
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
“Does anyone have a buck I can borrow?”
“Sure, I do,” I said, reaching for my wallet.
“Don’t do it, man,” Harold interjected. “He’ll ask for a pound of flesh in return.”
—
Jew jokes are my bread and butter. Generally people know I’m a Jew within the first hour they know me, and they know I don’t take my Judaism seriously.
On money:
“I’m only half Jewish, so I love money, but I’m terrible with it.”
On sex:
“Did you know it’s a double mitzvah (double good deed) to have sex on the sabbath? Unless she cums, cause that’s work.”
On drinking:
“Passover has a four drink minimum.”
It doesn’t take much knowledge of Judaism to get most of my Jew jokes. A lot of it is based around well-known stereotypes, classic literary references, and even Western religion in general rather than anything specific about Jews. To me, they seem innocuous and often lead to a real dialog about Judaism, but I’ve found it doesn’t always end up that way.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Calvin and Susie argue.
“Jesus fucking Christ, dude! I’m sick of this shit! I don’t want to be in a semantical argument right now!”
“You mean semantic, not semantical,” I stated matter-of-factly.
It was that little statement that defined the difference between us. It was that little statement that would continue to crop up at the most inopportune times over the following months.
“Really?” Leath angrily whined. “Seriously? Fuck you.”
—
For the record, the Merriam-Webster dictionary lists “semantical” as a proper variation of “semantic.” Every online dictionary redirects to “semantic,” but they also cite the American Heritage and Random House dictionaries as saying it’s a proper variation. Why anyone would want to tack on two extra letter and an extra syllable to an already lengthy and specifically used word, I have no clue, but it is technically correct.
SIDE NOTE: When growing up, the word “technically” appeared with a new usage in the common lexicon. Traditionally, it’s defined as “pertaining to a technique, art or skill.” This, of course, is not how it’s used. I, and many of my friends, use technically to mean that one can argue the veracity of the statement on some level, but it’s not true on all levels. Technically is often used as the opposite of actually. For example, I can technically get a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4 for free, but because it’s illegally downloaded, it doesn’t actually work that way. My dad gibes me about this usage since he’s been trained in a technical field (architecture), and I’ve taken to rolling my eyes. After all, there’s no appropriate synonym that so succinctly encapsulates that usage.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
A spoonful of sugar.
Taken from the BBC’s Good Foods Glossary.
The best advice I ever received came from a fictional umbrella-toting nanny.
“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” she sang.
The irony is that taking this piece of advice at face value, it’s often wrong. Most liquid medicines are already sweetened these days, so extra sugar makes it sickly sweet. If you’re talking Castor oil as a punishment or Ipecac to induce vomiting, adding sweetener kind of defeats the purpose, though you’ll certainly still vomit. A spoonful of sugar makes it that much harder to swallow a pill, and putting it in your IV is just silly. A spoonful of sugar is a bad idea when the treatment is topical, and while the fetish lover you’re sleeping with may like it in your enema, you probably won’t.
—
I’m going to die.
To a certain extent I already knew that. It’s not a new prognosis, but rather the ultimate endgame to my existence. I don’t know when it’ll happen or how; at least not right now. Yet it is an absolute.
So often I hear about people running for religion when they know they’re going to die. Their proverbial spoonful of sugar is the thought that there’s something more, that their friends and loved ones await them. Heaven, reincarnation, and every variation on the immortal soul are all likely pipe dreams.
Really, though, it’s just a fancy way of saying they seek hope.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
I woke up this morning feeling glum, much like during the waning seconds of the tail end of my final lacrosse game in high school, where I stared from the sidelines as our team lost well aware that it was completely beyond my ability to do anything about it. It wasn’t an oppressive glumness, but a light and malleable one punctuated by a slight distaste for Zoe, who had spent the wee hours of the morn pawing at me as I attempted to hide from the world beneath my comforter. I rolled out of bed, accidentally and haphazardly flinging Zoe off the bed, and I was immediately chill in the cool morning air that had leaked into my room over the course of the night.
My ankle cracked loudly with each step as I traversed our dim stairwell and emerged in our living room. I thought it was just a sprain, but two plus weeks later I can’t help but posit that something worse may have happened, like the time I got clotheslined by the parallel bars and may have broken my nose but went back to play with just a band-aid and a thirst for more tag—I’ll never know if I broke my nose as it’s long since healed.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
It’s been a tradition in my family to make a Jack-O-Bear for Halloween. Though they haven’t done it every year, my parents once again rose to the task this year. I had hoped to help my Dad carve it before I left Boston this week, but it seems to have been completed in excellent fashion despite my lackadaisical efforts.
Happy Halloween!
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
“Well, yeah. It just makes sense,” I admitted.
“Ok, follow-up question,” warned Matt.
“Shoot.”
“Would you say that’s sexist?”
My immediate inclination was to say no, but even after discussing the topic for nearly an hour, there was still a shred of doubt in the back of my mind. It ate at me, gnawing on my conscience until I started posing the same questions to friends. I didn’t want to be prejudiced, especially given the amount of respect I have for the opposite sex, but no amount of reassurance is enough to completely quell the possibility.
—
The question seemed innocuous at first: you’re in a book store, trying to pick out a self-help book (a scenario that instantly demands the requisite statement of “not that you need one, it’s just hypothetical”). The self-help book you’re looking for should be designed specifically for your sex with their issues in mind. When you get to the shelf, you find two books with this topic in mind. One is written by a man and the other is written by a woman. Which do you expect to be a more useful book?
The question is almost always answered “man” by men and “woman” by women. No one really thinks twice until the question of sexism is raised. This is quickly followed by rationalising, backpeddling, and an intense dislike for the scenario:
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Ann Althouse, now a law professor at the university of Wisconsin,
studying for her final law exam in 1981. Taken from her blog.
When it comes down to it, there’s always one question that needles me until every thread of thought and belief come unwound: Why?
—
The past few months, I’ve been slowly wending my way toward grad school. My exact destination has been unclear, but the path to all points is roughly the same. It’s like navigating by Polaris, the North Star; it probably won’t get you to your destination directly, but it’ll get you close enough that it’s hard to get too lost.
Last Friday, I received my LSAT score. This, along with my instant GRE results, ends the studious portion of the process and plants me firmly at the application stage. I’m still not tremendously pleased with my GRE score–thanks mostly to what appears to be over-performing on the math section and under-performing on the verbal, which place my overall score approximately where I expected despite my annoyance–but I overshot my LSAT target by a couple points, leaving me quite enamored with the outcome.
SIDE NOTE: Graduate exams are interesting. The GRE’s verbal section is infinitely harder than the math section, but given that my lackadaisical nature resulting in less than 4 hours of studying for math combined with my complete and total avoidance of math since high school nearly a decade ago, my 770 out of 800 was a complete surprise. Meanwhile, despite my complete and total infatuation with the English language, I found that much of my linguistic tendencies resulted in a skewed understanding of language in which colloquial definition and dictionary meaning were at odds. The LSAT, meanwhile, played up the strategist in me. It’s a test which I not only found to accentuate my strengths as a gamer, but also to be surprisingly enjoyable. If the LSAT is truly indicative of the type of work required by law school, I fully expect to both enjoy and be challenged by the material presented.
My pleasure was short-lived, however.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Assorted peppers and fairytale eggplant from Crescent Moon Farm.
Taken from Figs with Bri.
Hearing a Jew take Jesus’s name in vain doesn’t quite have the same gravity as when a Christian does it. There’s the immediate shock factor that the biggest name drop in the Western world just happened, but when I figure out the offending party is a fellow member of the twelve (or thirteen, if you’re superstitious) tribes, the surprise dissipates and I return to my dissection of the argument, assuming there is one.
Today, my good friend Em is getting married. Her wedding, having been slated for October for several months now, was fully into the planning stages by the middle of summer, including getting the gear, picking the guests, and, perhaps most controversial of the tasks, choosing a menu. A few years ago, Em continued her downward spiral into moral righteousness by becoming an ethical vegetarian.
I’ve never been much of one for ethical vegetarianism. I have no problem with vegans, vegetarians, pescetarians, or any other flavor of dietary morass one chooses to affiliate with. In fact, I wholly laud the immense number of vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the Boulder area, something often taken for granted by the residents who live there. My issue with ethical vegetarians is the first word in the compound: ethical. The implication, much like the pro-life camp, is that those of us who choose to remain omnivorous are unethical by definition.
The saving grace of ethical vegetarians is their lack of militant tactics. They remind you of the wholesale slaughter of life with wit and humor, making it hard to be angry that they’re trying to change you. They encourage you to try food without meat and remind you of good implications for one’s health if you choose to participate or even just cut back on meat one meal a week. And, perhaps most importantly, they usually respect your choices even if they disagree with them, an outright friendly tactic. It doesn’t hurt that we, the proud omnivores of the world, outnumber ethical vegetarians by the dozens.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Ef Rodriguez performs at Ignite Boulder 6. (photo/Andrew Hyde)
“Hipsters generally seem to lack passion,” he explained. “It’s this overriding malaise. They get excited about things, but they just as quickly seem to drop them.”
I thought about it for a second, acknowledging the various hipsters I know and considering my life recently. “I generally seem to lack passion these days,” I finally replied.
“Maybe you’re a hipster, then,” he chided me playfully.
—
For the week prior to Ignite Boulder 6, I pondered whether or not to go. Sure, it would be entertaining and I’d be supporting friends and seeing people I’d hadn’t seen for quite some time, but I still feel pangs of anger and resentment that my previous topic had been shanghaied from Ignite Boulder 5.
On Monday, it dawned on me that it wasn’t Ignite or the people involved I was angry with. I was angry with myself.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Urethral catheters.
In high school, I had some serious jaw surgery. They removed a sliver of bone from my upper jaw and reattached it, leaving me bloated and recovering for over a month. Because of the invasive nature of the procedure, they used a full anesthetic and installed a catheter.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a catheter is a plastic tube shoved into your urethra so that if you pee, it’s swept directly into a bag. It’s a relatively important piece of equipment, because otherwise you might spray the surgeons or otherwise foul up the operation.
Thankfully, I was already under when they installed the tubing, saving me vast pain. I was not, however, anesthetized when they removed it. I have never had a more painful experience than that. My dick hurt when I peed for a couple days after.
—
Police in Lawrenceburg, Indiana are being sued after forcefully instaling a catheter in suspected drunk driver Jamie Lockard. Lockard had already passed a breathalyzer, but for some reason the officers didn’t trust their own equipment. In order to install the catheter for a urine sample and take blood for testing, they handcuffed and strapped him to a gurney.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Fenway Park during a night game.
When school let out on a game day, there was always a desire to take my allowance for the week and wind my way down to Kenmore Square for a Red Sox game. At only eight dollars, bleacher seats were downright affordable, and those lovable losers, always in the shadow of the Evil Empire, could entice me with promises of witnessing the unimaginable: a victory.
I could see every major league team in the bright hues painted in the foliage whipping by the subway windows. The speed of the train only compounded my excitement as we dove into the inky blackness, a promise of next stop Kenmore rasped over the PA in a thick Boston brogue. The crowd would sway and part as I ducked and dove, swimming to the surface in the midst of the city’s madness, surrounded by a sea of bright reds and deep blues, all flowing toward the massive green container that could bubble over with teeming joy or leak slowly with disappointment.
It’s easy to forget what it’s like to be child, that ever trusting, nubile mind. I would sidle up to the ticket window and part with my money for a stiff piece of paper that granted me viewing rights to a dreamworld. The gate keepers always smiled as I slipped through the turnstiles and traversed the echoing concrete halls. Every time, I would stop at doorway to my section, the bright blue sky glowing brightly through the threshold. Several deep breaths later, I would walk out, my mind reeling so fast that it seemed a slow motion march into the light.
There’s something magical about an open patch of grass and dirt. The smell alone is intoxicating. In the eyes of a child, every possibility plays itself out right there when the field appears, and each possibility is more fantastic and amazing than the last. Every pitch could be a strike out or a home run. Every hit could lead to an amazing defensive play or an exciting race to the bag. Every fly ball could be the greatest souvenir I’d ever gotten. Probability, scandals, drugs, egos; none of these things mattered. All that mattered was scent of fresh grass, the roar of crowd, and the chance to see some baseball.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Back Row, Left to Right: Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Samuel Alito
Front Row: Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, David Souter (retired)
Recently, ESPN’s Lester Munson published an excellent story on, of all things, constitutional law and corporate personhood. The case, which will be heard by the Supreme Court sometime in the next year, could have serious ramifications for professional leagues across the nation. What’s worse is that it may also set a new standard for the treatment of government allowed monopolies and oligopolies in all fields while taking away much of the bargaining power of unions.
A Quick Summary:
American Needle Inc. is a sports apparel company which made hats bearing logos of NFL teams. In 2001, the NFL signed an exclusive deal making Reebok the sole maker of NFL-branded headware. American Needle, in the role of the jilted ex, sued claiming that the NFL teams were colluding and violating the anti-trust Sherman Act in preventing other companies from soliciting contracts to make apparel. In 2005, American Needle lost its first court case, the courts ruling that the NFL had a right to collectively bargain its licensing and, in the purpose of promoting football through marketing or licensing, was a single entity. In 2008, American Needle’s appeal was also denied on essentially the same grounds. It was no surprise that American Needle appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, though in previous similar cases the Supreme Court declined to hear them. In a surprise move, the NFL requested that the case be heard, a maneuver which, given the current pro-business judges on the Supreme Court, could change the face of sports more significantly than anything before.
I’m hardly qualified to explain the far-reaching effects this case could have and I don’t think I can do a better job than Lester Munson or any number of legal professionals have already done. I highly recommend taking a look at his article, and if you want a more authoritative look, Marc Edelman of Rutgers School of Law has a pair of articles that provide excellent arguments why the court would be wrong to rule in favor of the NFL.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Late last week, the House of Representatives announced they were seeking additional funding for the Cash for Clunkers program. The program, which allocated 1 billion dollars in subsidies and government assistance to those trading older, less fuel efficient cars for newer models with better gas mileage, will shut down Tuesday without new funding despite being scheduled to run through November. According to multiple sources, the House passed a bill on Friday securing 2 billion dollars in funding to continue the program. The Senate is slated to vote on the bill this week.
I fully support stimulating the economy in an effort to make life better, especially when that stimulus comes in the form of a plan to get more fuel efficient cars on the road. I couldn’t care less that the Cash for Clunkers program is more effective at shipping dollars to foreign car companies, but it seems counterintuitive when the plan was also intended to help save the auto industry, as the auto industry is a symptom of a far greater issue (I’ll get to that later). Adding 2 billion to the program, while seemingly noble at first, has a big hurdle to cross:
Where’s the money coming from?
Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri is one of the many senators who are wary of adding new funding. Many in the Senate would consider rerouting other stimulus money, but it begs the question from where. here have been reports that the 2 billion will be coming out of energy loans intended to develop better renewable energy sources. If that’s true, we may simply be trading our long-term future along with our clunkers.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Elitch Gardens at night (2007).
My heart flutters. I’ve barely done anything but stand idly since exiting the car, but I can feel the tension running through my body. My stomach rumbles. It’s not due to hunger, as I finished breakfast less than an hour ago, and I’m far from stuffed thanks to a brief visit to the evacuation chamber. My mind races. It recounts the laws of physics and the basic principles of motion, all the while reminding me that I’m not going to die or even be at risk for injury, but that I’m almost certain what’s coming won’t be pleasant.
I sling jovial and halfhearted arguments, knowing that I’m too stubborn to back down now. No one has any serious rebuttals. Everyone simply brushes me off as a silly man whose irrationality is… well, irrational.
I watch as Mitch nearly falls making his ascent into our loosely rocking modern-day buggy. I try not to make the same mistake, firmly planting my left foot as I pull myself up and in. The hard plastic seat is cramped, my hips and shoulders wedged into the odd contraption. My neck cracks as I duck under the the padded yellow restraints that mark the point of no return.
“You’re going to love this, Ben,” one of my companions call to me. I don’t answer. I’m going to survive this, I think to myself, but love it? My stomach might decide that one for me.
The ride is called The Chaos. It’s a carousel of two-person cabins, facing outward. The entire carousel lifts up on a hydraulics and tilts to nearly 90 degrees. The cabins, which are speared perpendicular to the riders, can spin freely, toppling over and over vertically. Given the right weight balance, the centripetal force should maintain a heading without spin. A little rocking by the riders can easily change that, spinning the compartment head over heels as if it were in eternal free fall.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
For the last month and a half, I’ve been suffering from a guilt complex that manifests itself as writer’s block. I should be used to guilt complexes, given my Jewish roots, but for some reason this is different. Though I take time daily to search for jobs, even if its only a half-hour, whenever I sit down to write, I find myself distracted and thinking about how I could be spending that time searching for a job. It’s somewhat of a catch 22, as I then feel guilty about not finishing any writing the rest of the time.
Yesterday, as I sat in front of the glow from my monitor, the heat, the guilt and the utter contempt for my current status combined into a rash head-clearing explosion of epic proportion. Unfortunately, it was far more literally head clearing than figuratively; for the first time in nearly a decade, I find myself clean shaven (photo evidence below).
Midway through the process, with the right side of my face cleared of the thick bush that was my beard and with two clear streaks dissecting my Jew fro, I felt sudden regret. I had been contemplating cutting down for several weeks, but I never expected to be so impetuous about it. The regret wasn’t that I had sliced off my thick mane in the heat of the moment, but rather that I hadn’t captured a before image for posterity. Never had I sported a beard so thick, and with one fell buzz, it was gone.
I’ve shaved before, in multifarious combination. I’ve had sideburns and soul patch. I’ve had a handlebar moustache (for a week, no more). I’ve had full goatees and partial goatees. I’ve had chin straps and bees nests. I’ve had lush, full beards as well as the slim, well-kempt one I’ve kept most of the time. But clean shaven was never in my facial wardrobe.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
Tonight marks Ignite Boulder V, an event so enormously popular that they’ve moved to the Boulder Theater and begun charging for tickets. Despite purchasing my ticket well in advance, I’m not attending in protest to the way in which my presentation was treated.
Several weeks ago, when submission and voting began, I was confident I would end up having enough of the popular vote to present. I began growing a thick beard and Jew fro to coincide with my presentation and even ordered a Hasidim-style wide-brimmed hat. My excitement was palpable.
Countdown, Ignition, Failure…
Not two weeks ago, as I crawled into bed after getting a speeding ticket, exhausted from an early morning, a long day, and unfortunate turn of events, I received a text from Andrew Hyde, the primary organizer of Ignite Boulder. Voting had closed and, despite finishing somewhere in the top 10 (I had been 5th or 6th when I had checked earlier in the day), I was disqualified. Andrew cited 3 reasons:
- 50% of my votes came from the same IP address.
- I had 19 votes for inappropriate content.
- I was the only presentation to be marked inappropriate.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
The first week of July boasts a bevy of excellent events. On July 3rd, Wilco plays Red Rocks. On the Fourth of July, I barbecue and release my CD Exchange album. And, perhaps most importantly, on July 2nd, Ignite Boulder 5 comes live to a venue near me.
By the end of Ignite 4, I knew I would be prepping for another ignite presentation, but something a little less frivolous than preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse. The plan is to present on circumcision and the various myths and truths about the practice. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve delved into this topic, but I hope to cover a lot of ground in a mere 5 minutes while getting a few laughs in the process.
Earlier this week, the inimitable Andrew Hyde opened up submission for topics. Of course, voting is still in preliminary stages, but I’m sitting solidly in 3rd as of this posting. Still any and all support would be appreciated.
To vote for “Just the Tip”, click here.
To see all the voting, click here.
I also highly recommend putting in a good word for Devin Nordson’s fascinating topic on why the environment is a socialist. There are a few other gems in the bunch, but I’ll let you try and pick them out.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
The world is about to face one of the strangest and most unforeseen tragedies in history, and no one is paying attention: What happens to libraries with the rise of the eBook?
In high school, I would wander over to the Library once or twice a week, grabbing random books that struck my fancy and plowing through them in the evening when I had free time. I loved the library. It had displays where I could peruse and collections of authors I had never heard of. I could try a book and, if it wasn’t for me, exchange it for something more my style. I always felt odd in bookstores sitting down and reading to see if I wanted something. After all, if I bend the spine or the pages, I felt obligated to buy it.
In recent years, I haven’t taken advantage of the library that much. I certainly used it for research and classes in college, but it fell by the wayside for recreational use. I found myself purchasing books or reading online instead of taking advantage of the library in Boulder. In fact, except for vacations and traveling, I rarely read any books at all.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
“The Informant” by Beau Eaton, architect of the V01D.
“Seriously. Ask any of them. They’ll know about it.”
Her eyes were wide with seriousness and her voice firm with conviction. The intrigue hung in the air like a mist. As we stepped away from the counter, our world open to new possibilities, only her promise remained, everything else fading in comparison.
—
Spend enough time in Boulder and the conspiracy theorists eventually crawl out of the woodwork. There are conspiracies about 9-11 and about government regulation of marijuana. There are conspiracies related to cars and alternative fuels and the cost of public transportation. And if a real weirdo is espousing his or her views, there are conspiracies about clowns and PETA and the Illuminati designing chess as a Last Starfighter style recruitment game.
Most of these theories are the inane ramblings of quacks and people too uneducated in the ways of critical thinking to realize it. Sometimes, however, the truth floats just out of our reach because it’s simply too strange to be believed.
This was the case when a bleary eyed teen whispered the code into our ears; a code which opened up a world I never thought existed.
Originally published at Worldwide Ace. You can comment here or there.
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