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| Sean Sandquist: Home Page of a Random Guy |
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Sean is just some guy
who lives in the Twin Cities.
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11 December 2000 -
Can't tell whether you are a geek or not? Here's some help!
(First of a series.)
As a public service, here are several of the warning signs:
9 December 2000 - So I'm reading the ABCNEWS.com website, and I come across the following headline: CONVICTED SPY POPE MAY BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS Upon further reading, however, I find that it's just that the name of the alleged spy happens to be "Pope". So that story turned out to be a lot less interesting than I thought. 7 December 2000 - Step 1: Get up from cubicle. Step 2: Walk to vending machine area. Step 3: Put dollar bill into soda machine. Step 4: Press "Diet Coke" button. Step 5: Retrieve change from coin slot. Step 6: Walk back to cubicle. Step 7: Sit back in chair, having vague feeling like you've forgotten something. Step 8: Get up, walk back to vending machine, take can of soda (still sitting in the machine's dispenser slot).
6 November 2000 - So tomorrow is the general election, and on the national level our choice is between Vice President Al "Longest Economic Expansion in American History" Gore, and Texas Gov. George W. "Because You Don't Want a President That's Smarter Than You" Bush. But even as the nation wrestles with that decision, we can't forget all the other contests throughout the country that also hang in the balance, from U.S. Senate races and state governorships all the way down to small city mayoralties and council seats. And it's that last that holds the biggest dilemma for me. Because I believe that local government is important; it's local officials that can make the choices that hit closest to home, affecting people's lives the most. There are four people running for two city council seats, and I don't want to make the decision lightly. So I want to carefully weigh all the major issues, study the candidates' opinions, and make an informed choice. However, I can't. Because in my suburb, there seem to be no issues. To my knowledge, there haven't been any debates, no one's published any of their opinions, no one's made any public appearances, or knocked on any constituents' doors. As far as I can tell, the entire 2000 campaign seems to be based on the number of little signs with their names on it that each candidate can get put on street corners and front yards. Every street corner and every front yard, by the way. You can't take two steps out my front door without seeing these signs everywhere. HUEY! -- I'M THE ONE WITH THE BROWN SIGNS. ALSO, I ALWAYS PUT AN EXCLAMATION POINT AFTER MY NAME FOR NO APPARENT REASON! CYNDEE SHIELDS -- I HAVE THE RED SIGNS WITH THE BIG STAR. YOU ALSO PROBABLY NOTICED THAT I SPELL MY FIRST NAME STUPIDLY.
I'm coming up on the side against lawn signs. So, I'm going to walk into that voting booth tomorrow, and pick the candidates I'm least familiar with. The ones with the fewer signs, the ones that have put the least impression on me, are the ones I'm going to vote for. Long live our democracy! 3 November 2000 - One of the items on the cafeteria menu is "Fishwich Sandwich with cheese". Reading this, I can't help but think, isn't that a little redundant? Would it not be perfectly sufficient to just say "Fishwich with cheese"? I think the word "Fishwich" pretty well conveys the fact that the your portion of fish is going to be coming between two slices of bread. For that matter, why not go with just "Fish Sandwich with cheese" and not add any new words to the English language at all? And don't even get me started on "Creamy Chunky Cauliflower Soup". 26 October 2000 - So my group at work all took a few hours off and went to the bowling alley in the Mall of America. We had a pretty good time, but best of all, I won the prize for "Most Spares" for my bowling performance (some aspire to greatness; I'm willing to settle for mediocrity). Anyway, I got a bag full of candy and inexpensive toys for my prize, including, to my delight, a little plastic egg of Silly Putty. Yay! Now, the last time I played with Silly Putty was about twenty years ago, but it still does all the things it always did. As I said, it still comes in that little egg-shaped plastic shell. You can still use it to make a little ball that will bounce against the floor and walls. Create an air bubble inside it and squish it to make it pop. Roll it back and forth between your hands to make that big worm thingy shape. Make imprints of the texture of your face. I have noticed that a few things have changed about Silly Putty over the years, though. To begin with, I checked out of curiosity, and sure enough there's a web site now: http://www.sillyputty.com. Also, it's been twenty years, but unless it's my imagination, you actually get more Silly Putty for your money than you used to. (I like that. The rest of the world may be going to hell, but dammit, the good people at Silly Putty have grown more generous with their silicone polymer product, not less.) And finally, it's changed color. I always remember the color being kind of pale-pinkish, at least until I used it to Xerox too much newsprint, and it slowly turned kind of gray instead (my face probably wasn't always all that clean in those days, either). But for some reason this new stuff is brownish-gold instead. In fact, its color and consistency make it look a lot like a little blob of peanut butter. It turns out, however, that it still doesn't taste like peanut butter. Silly Putty, cool. 15 October 2000 - So I was at my computer at work, and stumbled across the following web site (http://www.brunching.com/toys/toy-psr.html), where you can play "Paper-Scissors-Rock" by e-mail. (By the way, my e-mail address is seansand@millcomm.com and I'm ready and willing to take on all comers.) Anyway, since I'm confident in my ability to outthink all who choose to oppose me, I immediately issued challenges to many of my friends. The first I heard back from was my old roommate Kevin. ME: If for some reason you futilely believe you can defeat me, respond if you dare! Because it's my belief that subconsciously everyone thinks Rock is unbeatable, I figured that there was a good chance that Kevin, a straightforward guy utterly without guile, would simply follow his instincts and go with Rock, so I responded accordingly. But Kevin proved to be my equal. The battle has ended. Your opponent threw Scissors to your Paper. You have been defeated in battle. The jackals gnaw your broken bones. KEVIN: Take that! My game with Kevin was a learning experience; obviously a change in strategy was necessary here. I observed that the web page, when it asks you to select a form of attack, automatically selects "Paper" as the default. Because of that, I reasoned that most people would be averse to going with the default choice and choose something else. So, when I issued a challenge to another friend, Brian, I guessed that he'd either pick Rock or Scissors, and therefore me throwing Rock would result in a tie at worst, and victory at best. And I was right. The battle has ended. Your opponent threw Scissors to your Rock. You emerge triumphant to the blare of trumpets and the adulation of the masses. However, upon defeat, he had immediately challenged me back asking for a rematch. BRIAN: I may have fallen, but not far! It didn't take a lot of thought to decide my next move. Brian would probably think I would change tactics, probably going with Paper or possibly Scissors. Therefore, he would stick with Scissors to beat me or at least tie if I changed. But I held steadfast. You have responded bravely to your challenge with a throw of Rock. Your opponent threw Scissors. You laugh at this feeble offense and emerge triumphant! Victory yet again! And, apparently a glutton for punishment, Brian requested yet another rematch. Now was the time to change throws, Brian probably figuring that I might gamble on going with Rock a third time. So I threw Scissors. Your opponent threw Paper. You laugh at this feeble offense and emerge triumphant! I haven't heard from Brian since. I can imagine his sobs of despair after his third consecutive defeat, and perhaps he hasn't yet fully recovered. Finally, I issued a challenge against my most difficult adversary, the person that knows me and my mind the best. But nevertheless I was confident in my ability to defeat her. Against Cindy, I decided to go with my Rock strategy that had worked so well against Brian, figuring that she wouldn't go with the Paper default either. However, there was a real danger that Cindy would anticipate me thinking of this very strategy, and therefore take the counteroffensive of going with Paper after all. But I didn't want to overanalyze things too much--I had to go with my gut instincts. But alas, in vain. The battle has ended. Your opponent threw Paper to your Rock. You have been defeated in battle. The jackals gnaw your broken bones. Your opponent had this to add: CINDY: Where do you find these sites? You should be working. 11 September 2000 - Good things about being seated in the third row just behind the home team sideline: Your girlfriend's brother sees you on national TV, even when he didn't know ahead of time that you were planning to go to the game. Bad things about being seated in the third row just behind the home team sideline: This is your view of the field. 4 September 2000 - So me and Cindy went to the Minnesota State Fair the other day. We had a pretty good time. The sky was overcast, but it didn't rain, so we were spared from the hot sun beating down on us the four hours we were there. We had skipped breakfast and lunch, so we spent some time sampling the wide variety of food they had there. We sampled chocolate malts, footlong hot dogs, fried cheese curds, and, as a matter of fact, what turned out to be the best tasting corn dog that I've ever had in my life. Cindy had foolishly passed up the stand with the exquisite corn dogs and instead got a big box of popcorn, which was okay, but nothing special. (The best popcorn I've had in my life we got at the Milwaukee County Zoo earlier this summer. Me and Cindy and my brother Chad bought a box from a concession stand there, and I don't know what they put in it, but we all spent the next ten minutes stuffing as much of it into our mouths as fast as possible. "This stuff," my brother had observed, "is worse than crack.") Amongst all the eating we did at the fair, we looked at various crafts, advertising booths, and displays. Cindy dragged me into line so we could shake hands and meet "Van" and "Cheryl" of the KS95 "Van and Cheryl" Morning Show. I usually listen to public radio news mornings, so I don't listen to "Van and Cheryl", but Cindy does. And according to her, KS95 had some promotion so that the one-thousand-and-ninety-fifth person to shake their hands would win some prize or other. So we waited patiently in line. As we neared the front of the line, we saw "Van and Cheryl" shaking hands and chatting amicably with all the other listeners that had been waiting in line to get a chance to talk to them. Cindy suddenly clutched me in fear. "I didn't realize," she said, "that we actually had to talk to them." But we got through the experience, and as a matter of fact had a second brush with greatness that very day. We were making our way between the crowds when up in the distance we saw another radio station's stage, and surrounded by another huge crowd, there were a couple of DJ's doing a live interview of some white-haired old guy. "Hey!" I said to Cindy, in sudden recognition. "It's Rudy!" Sure enough, it was America favorite seventy-two year old Survivor survivor, imported in for the Fair and in the middle of a live radio interview. "So," questioned one of the DJ's to Rudy, "how did you feel about being stranded on the island with all of those young people? Everybody remembers all of your famous 'Rudyisms', what do you think about that? How would you say your life has changed for you ever since you've come back?" "This is approximately the 9,038th interview that you people have made me do since I've come back," sobbed Rudy. "And every single time you all ask me the same damn questions. I just want to go home and go back to my life and forget that all this ever happened. How I long for the sweet embrace of death." No, that's not what he actually said, but I looked into his eyes, and I'm absolutely sure that that's what he was thinking. Anyway, it started to get late and we were making our way out, when we passed by a booth where they had a virtual reality video game, one where you put on an eye-covering headset, a motion detector around your waist, and a plastic gun. Four people play at a time, where your "characters" walk around on computer-generated stairways and platforms and attempt to shoot at each other, meanwhile a computer-generated vulture flies overhead and will pick you up and drop you if you don't shoot it first. I've always wanted to try this, so I paid the guy five bucks and got in line, while Cindy watched the exterior monitors of the game. And I must say, it was pretty cool. My character moved around exactly like I did, and I could even see my virtual gun in front of me as I aimed it in front of me. I mastered the movement and the targeting of the game much faster than my opponents did, and managed to get in six quick kills, where I ended up getting shot only once. "That was really cool!" I exclaimed to Cindy, once my time was up and they had taken all of the equipment off of me. "And I did really good, too, didn't I? Did you see that I shot six enemies, more than anybody else?" "Yes," agreed Cindy. "You really showed up those six-year-old girls you were playing against." In any event, it was a pretty good afternoon. 3 August 2000 - Somebody stole my washcloth! I can't understand why anybody would take it. It's just a dark blue washcloth that I keep in my cube here at the office. I usually leave it sitting here in a corner of my desk, but it's not here, and I've looked everywhere. Why would anybody take it?! It can only be worth a buck or two at most, utterly worthless to anybody other than me.
It's not even clean, either. When I have a bottle of ice water on my desk, and condensation forms on the outside and runs down to the surface of my desk, I use the washcloth to clean up the damp spot before my papers get all wet. Who would take it? Or if I spill a can of Diet Coke or some other pop, I use it to clean up the mess. I can't believe somebody would steal a dirty, pop-stain encrusted washcloth off my desk. The cleaning people at night wouldn't have taken it, would they? They might've if I left it near my wastebasket, but I know that I didn't leave it anywhere near there. Occasionally, on hot mornings, and I'm sweating as I come in through the long walk through the parking lot, I use my washcloth to wipe off my brow. What kind of crazed maniac would want to take a dirty, pop-stain encrusted sweaty washcloth off my desk?! There's plenty of things more valuable to steal than my washcloth, if they wanted something. My calculator. My Windows 95 API manual. The last five months of my Onion page-a-day calendar. My miniature "Wisconsin Badgers" rubber football. Oh, well. I guess I have to get over it. It's not worth that much, after all. I can always just go to Target and buy another one, for a buck or two. But I still can't believe it. It's the principle of the thing. Why would anybody take it?! Why, why, why, why?! I really should get to work now. Oh. Wait. What's that blue thing over there? Here it is. Under my leather satchel. It must have been sitting on my other chair where I usually drop my satchel when I come in this morning, and that's why I couldn't find it before. Never mind. 17 July 2000 - I'm going off to work this morning and my car is way close to the right wall of my tiny two-car garage, due to the fact that both me and Cindy had to squeeze both of our cars in there yesterday afternoon. SEAN (thinking to himself): Okay, I'm backing out, but I have to go carefully and slowly so I don't scrape my car on the right side of my garage door, okay, made it, now the rear of my car is safely out, keep going, and now I have to see if I can get out without knocking off my right-side rearview mirror... (pause) SEAN: Nope. 12 July 2000 - So I'm driving back to the Twin Cities through western Wisconsin, and I notice a billboard that presumably the tourism department for the area has put up:
We're Up to Something FUNN! And I can't help but wonder, why did the designers of that sign choose to misspell the word "fun"? The word is boldfaced and appears twice as large as all the other text, so it can't possibly be a typo or an oversight. And try as I might, I can't think of any subtle reference or acronym that "FUNN" might supposedly represent; like, for example, if the "Fraternity of Unabashed Nifty Naturelovers" was headquartered around Chippewa Falls or something. No, the only explanation I can come up with is something like this:
In any event, I find the presence of the misspelled word irritating. They put it there on purpose; it must be there for a reason, and all I want to know is why. The sign is miles away, yet it eats away at me. It reminds me of a couple years ago, when I lived a couple blocks away from a Hostess bakery outlet, which I (amazingly enough) never actually went into. However, they had a sign near the door that said something like:
This puzzled me, too. Initially I would just assume that they had spelled "bargain" that way accidentally, except, why the quotation marks? Putting in the quotation marks kind of implies that they meant to spell it that way, but if so, why? I never could come up with a reason, so eventually I just came to the conclusion that the signmaker had just misspelled the word, and left it at that. Until a year or so later, when I happened to drive by another, different Hostess outlet, and they also had that same sign, misspelled the same way. So it couldn't have been an isolated incident. And I'm not convinced that these two different examples are completely disconnected. No, I've come up with a theory, far more sinister than simple coincidence. I think I've uncovered some sort of global conspiracy by signmakers that are misspelling words intentionally, for reasons that are still as yet unknown to me. But I'm sure their ultimate goal is nothing less than world domination. 20 June 2000 - I notice that Blizzard's latest game for the PC, Diablo II, has just been released today. (Glancing at the calendar and seeing that it's June 30th, and remembering the fact that Blizzard promised that the Diablo sequel would be out "First half 2000", leads me to the conclusion that Blizzard's programmers have pretty much the same philosophy when it comes to release dates and procrastination that my own company does.) In any event, I also noticed that Interplay's Klingon Academy starship combat simulator was released a few days ago as well. Oh, well, I'm glad I was able to see the outside for at least a little bit before now this summer. I recently overheard an acquaintance languishing over the task ahead of him in convincing his wife to allow him to spend fifty-plus dollars on the latest game. That's what I like about Cindy. Not every guy has a significant other whom he doesn't have to persuade into getting the latest computer toy. In fact, the main problem will probably be to avoid the temptation of buying her a brand new computer so the two of us can play head-to-head... 27 June 2000 - Lately making headlines in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is that the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Krispy Kreme doughnut chain is making plans to expand its franchise into Minnesota. Krispy Kreme's specialty is their Original Glazed doughnut, baked hot every morning. Their tentative plans are to open as many as ten franchises into the area, including possibly a store within the Mall of America, less than five miles from my house. Indications are that the embattled forces within my soul ever fighting to keep me thin are about to suffer a mortal blow. 19 June 2000 - So, yesterday evening Cindy and I go to Boston Market for supper. I get a Boston Carver turkey sandwich (which are so good that I think that the Boston Market people should initiate an advertising campaign with the slogan "Compared to our Boston Carvers, all other sandwiches taste like dirt"), and Cindy decides to get a quarter Rotisserie chicken combo meal with two sides. She has a huge selection of possible sides, but she decides to get a side order of mashed potatoes, and a side order of new potatoes. Doesn't anybody else think that that's crazy? 16 June 2000 - So I just saw last Wednesday's episode of "Survivor". And I just gotta say, I'm really digging this show. "Survivor" is unabashed in bringing to its viewers the very basest form of entertainment. Toss sixteen strangers on an island, all of whom have volunteered for no higher goal than a million dollars of cold, hard cash. For this ignoble gain, all they have to do is make friends with their compatriots, cooperate with them in order to win challenges, while at the same time, make secret alliances, put them down on camera when their backs are turned, and backstab them when it comes time for those "tribal council" things. Make sure that most of the contestants are young and attractive, and make sure it's in a warm, tropical climate, so nobody wears a whole lot. Also, the only things available for them to eat are rats and bugs. Needless to say, "Survivor" was the top rated show on CBS last week. I get the most enjoyment out of deciding on whom I would vote to throw off the island. I have to agree with that one tribe on the first night. Even before she slipped on that raft challenge, even before I knew that she was sixty-two years old, I knew that Sonja was going to be the first to go. All it took was seeing her bring that ukelele. I turned to Cindy and said, "She's gone." She brought a ukelele for God's sake, what did she expect?! Hell, the only way she could've gotten beat out is if somebody else brought a kazoo. The second person I'd vote for would have to be that guy that talks religion all the time. I'm sorry, but say I'm stranded for 39 days on an island. Haven't figure out how to make a fire yet, I've had nothing but cold rat soup to eat, and I've just spent the last two hours underwater dragging a fifty-pound treasure chest onto the beach so I can win a Swiss army knife or something. At the very least, please don't make me feel like I'm in church, too. Who else? Any of those guys, more than ten pounds overweight, that seem to never be wearing a shirt? They're gone. Please, I don't want to have to see that. That thirty year-old neurosurgeon? See 'ya. Nothing personal, but I wouldn't want any other guys to be on that island that are more handsome than me, and yet be a doctor besides. Actually, who I really want to vote off the island is the most annoying guy of all, the host. He's the only thing about "Survivor" that I really dislike...we're watching the contestants cook rats, fish for rays, fix their huts, all the while listening to them talk, plot and bicker, and periodically the host guy abruptly jumps out from behind whatever tree he's hiding behind to interrupt. And I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else on TV be so corny and melodramatic. They have a contest to win some waterproof matches and he announces it as "Quest For Fire". At "tribal council", he passes around a seashell and explains that for no apparent reason possession of the shell allows the holder to freely "speak their peace". Worst of all is the end, when the contestant is voted off, they waste awkward seconds of airtime to symbolically "extinguish the flame", signalling their exile from the island. Putting out a torch? This is "Survivor", right? Screw the rats, what I want to see is them deciding on whom to kill and eat. Now that would add an intriguing dimension. 11 June 2000 - The Brewers are in town, which doesn't happen very often anymore now that Milwaukee switched to the National League, so Cindy and I decide to go to the Metrodome to see them play. It's a nice day this Sunday, so we park a couple of blocks away and walk to the stadium from there. Just outside the ticket booth, I'm looking at the seating diagram, deciding whether to buy the four dollar nosebleed seats, or to splurge and actually sit in the lower deck (I am with a date, after all), when a middle-aged guy suddently approaches us from behind. "Hey, I've got a great deal for you two, if you want it," he says. "I've got a couple of tickets in Reserved, right behind home plate." I briefly wonder if this is some sort of sting operation, trying to catch people buying scalped tickets. If it is, he's got the least effective disguise in investigative history, since he's wearing a white uniform with a Security badge with Minnesota Twins logo patches on his sleeves. But it turns out that he's giving away the tickets as comps. We gratefully thank the guy and get two tickets with a face value of $42.00 for free. Before going into the stadium we sit in the recreation area just outside, where they have food stands, kid's games, and live entertainment. I have a Bud Light and a quarter-pound hot dogs, and unusually enough, Cindy has the same, beer too. We watch little kids hit wiffle-balls while the band playing on a nearby stage tries to get the public lounging about in the sun to join them in some dance number, unsuccessfully. Twenty minutes before the opening pitch we go to stadium and find our seats. They turn out to be really good, fairly high up, but as promised, pretty much directly behind home plate. A church choir marches on to the field, sings the national anthem, and play begins. The Brewers jump to an early lead when their first batter gets a base hit, and the second hits a home run. The recent expansions into Florida, Arizona and Colorado have definitely reduced the quality of pitching. Cindy has never been to a major league sporting event before, and we enjoy ourselves. Several innings pass, with lots of base hits and doubles, and we even see a triple. Lots of foul tips fly into the stands, which prompts Cindy to wonder how many baseballs they go through every game (maybe she figured that they only had the one ball). Between innings a miniature blimp flies around about fifty feet high from inside the Dome and drops prizes into the crowd, one type of which appear to me to be, horrifyingly enough, cans of soda. (But they're not. They turn out to be rolled up T-shirts, which Cindy points out to me when some guy nearby us catches one.) Our experience is suddenly punctuated when a Milwaukee batter abruptly hits a foul tip backwards that flies over the protective net, fast, directly at us. I rip my baseball cap off and reach up for a point two feet directly above Cindy's head. But my reach isn't quite high enough, and the ball nicks the side of my cap but isn't captured by it. The ball rams into an empty seat two rows behind us and a man in that row retrieves it. Cindy, who was no help in catching the ball even though it was closer to her than me, because she had assumed the fetal position at the bottom of her chair as soon as she realized the foul was heading right for her, manages to regain her composure and life returns to normal, except for the entire duration of the sixth inning I can't stop from expressing my regret at not getting the ball. "Damn, it touched my cap!" "I only missed it by two inches!" "I knew I should've brought my glove!" "If I only hadn't been slouching in my chair I could've got it!" "Sean, you didn't catch it," Cindy finally says. "Your chance came, and it's over. It's time to move on." A couple innings later a guy wearing a "County Stadium" T-shirt sits behind me, notices my Milwaukee cap, and initiates a conversation. He has just gotten Bob Uecker's autograph and is desperately looking for a fellow fan with whom to share the news of his accomplishment. "Yeah, he was on top of the dugout there at about 11:30 this morning. He only signed about eight of them, then went into the press room. See right here? And I got it on an unused ticket, too." During the eighth inning the guys with the "Fan Cam" point the camera directly at me. I think it would be great to see an image of me on the Metrodome Jumbotron making out with my girlfriend, but Cindy does not share my enthusiasm. So the only thing the 11,000 in attendance that afternoon see on the big screen is me trying to give a kiss to the girl sitting at my left as she tries frantically to push me away. Meanwhile, the Twins have managed to score a few times, but so have the Brewers, and in the bottom of the ninth, two hits and a walk load the bases with only one out. Minnesota fans are sensing a last minute come-from-behind victory, but the Twin batter hits a grounder directly to the third baseman, and a quick throw home and then to first ends the inning and the game. Brewers win, 5-3. It was a pretty good afternoon. 5 March 2000 - Today I saw a commercial for something called "Fantastic Sams". And, it seems that all of the effort that went behind the creation of that particular commercial was completely lost on me. Because right now, just a few hours later, I can't remember anything about the ad at all, nor am I now even aware of whatever it is that the place does or sells. All I could think of then, and all I can think of now, is that "Fantastic Sams" would be a really cool name for a super hero. "Look up in the sky! Here comes Fantastic Sam! Flying in to save us!" I'll shut up now. 29 February 2000 - It was some time last year when I was reading the popular "Bulletin Board" section of the local St. Paul newspaper, which is half-page section where anyone in particular can submit basically anything they want. If the paper considers it funny or interesting enough, they'll print it. This was several months before the year 2000 changeover, and on the particular day that I was reading the paper, somebody had posted a blurb that read something like this: Everybody is currently worried about the potential Y2K problem, but there's a second, just as serious of a problem at hand. Has anybody bought any year 2000 calendars yet? If you have, look at the month of February. Does your calendar have a February 29th on it? It shouldn't. The year 2000 doesn't have a leap year, so if you have a calendar like this, throw it away, and write to the calendar publisher asking to correct their error. Well, unless I'm in an episode of the Twilight Zone or something, as far as I know, the day that I'm writing this is February 29th, the rest of the world seems to acknowledge this fact, and perhaps, just perhaps, whoever it was that went to the trouble of submitting that particular article to the newspaper didn't in actuality know what the hell he was talking about. That kind of thing is probably my biggest pet peeve. If you have a disagreement with me on a matter of opinion, I'd be happy to debate you. Who's the better late-night talk show host; Letterman or Leno? What's the best ice cream flavor; vanilla, strawberry or chocolate? Big Bang or steady-state? Zip-then-fasten, or fasten-then-zip? It's my pleasure to share and argue opinions on subjective matters such as these. But nothing irritates me more than having to listen to somebody argue a point with infinite fervency, when they're just plain, unquestionably wrong. One time I was talking with a friend of mine about movies that we had recently seen:
Or, more recently, a few weeks ago I was playing doubles tennis with some people I didn't know all that well, and the set came to a six-six tie. We decided to play a tiebreaker game, and it was my turn to serve, so I walked to the deuce (right) side of the court and began my serve. Suddenly,
I started to explain to her that normally, yes, when you serve in a tiebreaker you start on the left side, but the exception is for the very first player serving since he only gets one initial serve instead of two, but she wasn't listening to me any more.
Well, unfortunately neither my partner or her partner knew the rules correctly either, and apparently because she was a lot louder than I was, they voted with her. Voting? What does voting have to do with anything? Just because her side got the majority vote didn't make her any less wrong. Hell, that's how Republicans get elected. I guess the point of all this is, please don't get into an argument with anybody about statement of facts, unless you're absolutely certain of your veracity. Maybe someone will be forced to serve on the wrong side of a tennis game, big deal. Or somebody will be get a movie review of how great an actor's performance was in a movie that he wasn't even actually in. But worse comes to worst and we end up with hundreds of unwitting Twin Citians throwing away perfectly good calendars just because somebody wrote an idiot letter. By the way, in case you were wondering: Letterman, Big Bang, and fasten-then-zip. And the ice cream flavor was a trick question, the answer is "none of the above". Mint chocolate chip, yum. 23 February 2000 - So I was at my computer a few days ago, minding my own business, when to my surprise an e-mail arrived that began:
Hi there, And I recalled that about a year ago on my home page I had indeed written a little something about the actor, shortly after I had first seen and enjoyed his work in the 1972 movie Slaughterhouse-Five. The younger Mr. Roche was very nice in his e-mail, and he went on to tell me that he had enjoyed my little bit of writing, and he had even passed it on to his father, who got a kick out of it as well. And he also mentioned that his father was still doing great and in fact was still getting work acting. Well, needless to say I was happy to hear that his father is still well, and I was especially glad to find that both of them appreciated my little attempt at humor, and I e-mailed him back saying so. On the other hand, I can't say I didn't find the experience a tiny bit disquieting as well. When I write for this little journal of mine, I usually do it for my own pleasure, basically just my own personal little creative outlet. Hardly anyone I know actually reads it, and therefore it's only rarely that I get much feedback on it. As a result, for me it's a lot like I'm writing it on the blank pages of a notebook and then just stuffing it into a drawer or something, and it's easy to forget that there are potentially people out there that can find and actually read this stuff. So, when I first wrote about Mr. Roche last year, you can bet that I never dreamed that the actual man himself would ever see what I was writing. So obviously I was a little shocked to get that e-mail reply. But, all his son had to do was type his father's name into a search engine, idly looking for anything that would be out there, and my page came up. I guess the point of all this is that I'm going have to start paying a little more attention to the content of what I'm writing. I don't think I'll really change much, but from now on I'm going to make doubly sure that if I mention any celebrities or organizations or anything, I'll make sure that I don't write anything that anyone would find too disturbing to them. My purpose in writing is merely to entertain, and I would never want to take a chance on offending anyone. Moreover, now that I know that Mr. Roche got to my page just by making a query on an Internet search engine, perhaps I can put this information to good use. Suppose I found a way to mention the name of an attractive single young female celebrity within these articles, lets say Natalie Portman, to take a completely random example. As a result, search engines will find my page, scan the words "Natalie Portman", and then catalogue it under "Natalie Portman" sites, especially if I figure a way to subtly mention her name on the page more than once or twice. Then, same as it happened with Mr. Roche, perhaps the actress Natalie Portman herself will be using the Internet someday, run a search on her own name, "Natalie Portman", which will then bring her to my page, and she too will send an e-mail to me personally, praising my writing, and perhaps even give me the opportunity to actually meet Natalie Portman in person. That would be pretty cool. Note: For those of you readers who happen to be my girlfriend Cindy, obviously I'm just kidding about all this stuff about Natalie Portman. 19 January 2000 - So I'm in the neighborhood supermarket, stocking up on food. It's about time, too. My new PC has just recently been shipped to me, and after six straight days of playing with it, my kitchen appears to have pretty much run out of food, except for Cheerios. And believe it or not, after four days of nothing else for dinner, even Cheerios start to get old. Anyway, I'm strolling along in the condiments aisle, and I remember that I need to buy ketchup, so I'm reaching for a bottle when I notice something strange. Amongst all of the dozens of bottles labeled "TOMATO KETCHUP", one of them is different. Its label instead reads:
Blinking, I look at the bottle again, but it still says:
After glancing over my shoulder to make sure that I'm the one it's talking to, I take out that bottle and examine it very carefully. It's identical to all of the rest, except for that strange label. And then I briefly go through the rest of the bottles on the shelf. Most of them just have the normal ketchup label. But then I run into another one, this one saying:
Very rarely is it that I find ketchup bottles speaking to me through their labels, and I find the experience somewhat disquieting. A few more bottles and I find yet another one:
By this time, I've got a theory as to what's going on. I'm guessing that the marketing people of the ketchup company have come up with a unique new method of making their particular product brand stand out from their competitors. Every tenth or so bottle of ketchup has one of these alternative labels meant to catch a consumer's attention. They're attempting to give their commodity a little "personality". Albeit a slightly annoying one. But I haven't even gotten to the really strange part yet. Shortly after I've gotten my bottle of ketchup, I'm in the frozen foods area of the grocery store, and as I open the freezer door to grab a carton of ice cream, I hear a soft voice from within saying:
However, I can't swear that the voice was actually coming from inside the freezer. It may just have been one of those dark, malevolent whispers that are constantly, insistently murmuring to me inside the shadowy recesses of my head. 16 January 2000 - I guess what I'm writing today is just to follow up on a few of my past subjects. First, I think I've made no secret of the fact that, despite the fact that I'm a football fan, and I live in Eagan, Minnesota, I don't like the Vikings very much. Second, I previously mentioned that I've tended to have bad luck with my fantasy football team in past years, usually because my star player every year hits himself with a career-threatening injury once he finds out that he's on my team. This year was no exception as Jets QB Vinny Testaverde went down for the season in game one of the 1999 season. So I was forced to look for a replacement quarterback, somebody that no one wanted and went undrafted, so I decided to pick up a unknown, underappreciated backup quarterback for St. Louis, who had spent his past few years playing for the Arena League Iowa Barnstormers and World League Amsterdam Admirals. Well, I'm happy to report that the Rams just knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs today, winning 49-37, with Kurt Warner throwing five touchdown passes for the Rams. (And for the Wrath of Sean, also.) In his first playoff game, after spending the regulars season throwing a record forty-one touchdown passes for the Rams. (Also for the Wrath of Sean.) Finally, you may all recall a third writing of mine, where I made suggestions for baby names for all my friends who all recently have been expecting. And although you all may like the suggestions that I made for them, perhaps you were wondering if I've put any thought into baby names for future children that I myself may someday have. Well, I must admit that I have given the subject some thought. And there's nothing to decide. After the events of this past season, there's no question about it. My future firstborn will definitely be named Kurt Warner Sandquist. Said a friend of mine when I first told him the news, "I hope it's a boy." 12 January 2000 - So a friend of mine just got offered a programming job in Germany. He didn't have a lot of details, because he decided to turn the offer down, but apparently he was told that the job would involve setting up and maintaining a computer lab. It would be on an U.S. military base, he wouldn't have to learn German, and the computer lab would be for the use of students who where the children of American military officers stationed there. The funny thing was, though, his salary would've been funded under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Anyway, we're all pretty sure that the whole thing is just a CIA front. 6 January 2000 - To: Julie's Group From: Sean Subject: Personal holiday (1/7/2000) I'm going to take a personal holiday tomorrow so I'll have some time to play with my new Pentium III 600mHz that should be arriving. And after it's set up I'm then going to fling my ancient slow non-Y2K compliant Pentium-90 out my second-story window. Just for the pleasure of hearing the sound it will make when it smashes into the ground. Feel free to drop by if you too would like to watch.
Have a nice weekend,
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