Monday, 02 May 2011

So, I was talking with one of my new co-workers today and, at one point, we began talking about movies. As we discussed some recent films we’ve seen, we eventually began talking about actors. She mentioned a movie with Robin Wright. Robin is probably best known for playing Forrest Gump’s wife in Forrest Gump, but whenever I hear her name, I automatically think of The Princess Bride.

“I like Robin Wright,” I said, “remember, she was Buttercup in The Princess Bride.”

To my surprise, my co-worker said she’d never hear of The Princess Bride. When I expressed this surprise, she responded with, “Well, I don’t have any kids.”

I then explained that it’s not a kids’ movie, and supported this by saying I originally saw the film when I was a teenager and that I loved it long before I became a parent (I hate that saying “a parent” sounds like “apparent”). I said it wasn’t animated, and then my co-worker asked if it was the movie that starred Anne Hathaway. I then explained that, no, she was thinking of The Princess Diaries. I said, admittedly, the movie has a poor title, but it’s not a “princess movie,” nor does it dwell heavily on a royal wedding (that’s just the catalyst).

Anyway, I’m not picking on my co-worker or anything like that. I just think it’s amazing that a self-described movie-lover such as herself had never seen or even heard of The Princess Bride. I encouraged her to immediately rectify this situation.

Tuesday, 03 May 2011

So, as I’ve mentioned here before, I’m attempting to keep a running tally of the money I find during the year. If you don’t recall me discussing that, perhaps you should read this blog post.

Now that the year is one-third over, I figured I’d provide an update.

So far, I’ve found $3.72. This is, of course, far lower than I would’ve liked to have found by this time, but it’s still a decent haul; I’m well on-track to beat my goal of finding one hour’s worth of minimum wage during the year.

There are many days in which I found absolutely no money, including a thirteen-day gap from February 17th to March 2nd. The most I found in any one day was 52 cents (on April 2nd). The most popular place to find money is just outside on the ground, though that’s quite a large area. If I include only specific places, both our apartment’s laundry room and the floor at my job’s cafeteria are pretty much gold mines in this area. I have also found money while at college, while pumping gas, at Half-price Books, and at Mississippi Market.

I found money on February 2nd (1 cent), March 2nd (1 dime), and April 2nd (that 52 cents I mentioned above). Sadly, my second-of-the-month streak died out yesterday. So far this month I haven’t found anything, in fact.

Wednesday, 04 May 2011

Someone posted this video on a blog of State Representative Steve Simon giving his view of the proposal to put a marriage-defining amendment onto the state constitution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXpOA3jPC04&sns=fb

Simon’s argument is brilliant. Assuming is basic premise that the god of the Christian bible is real and that he created the universe (a premise I’m willing to accept for the sake of Simon’s argument), then it’s difficult to find a flaw in his comments.

Of course, if I was still a Jehovah’s Witness I would take issue with this video. Well, perhaps I wouldn’t even watch the video in the first place because the government is just UNDER SATAN’S CONTROL!!!!! AND GOD WILL DESTROY THEM ALL VERY SOON!!! (at least, that’s the ‘good news’ we used to tell people). But, assuming that I did watch the video, I would just ‘reason’ that Simon has it wrong: god doesn’t create people gay, he just lets people be born with any and all sorts of defects and traits and we have to muddle through until he comes along and murders 99.9% of humans and then lets all the righteous people live on into paradise. There, in paradise, he will correct any imperfection we may have, whether we are blind, missing a limb, or even if we’re gay. I would reason that just as some people have a tendency towards alcoholism and need to curb this behavior in order to win god’s approval, so the homosexuals need to curb their bad behavior in order to live according to god’s standards.

Of course, this is about as fucked up as any ‘reasoning’ can be.

For one thing, nearly all ‘defects’ in the congregation were recognized as such and were accommodated. To my knowledge, no one was discriminated against if they were deaf, or paraplegic (just to give a couple of examples). No one thought they were some weird deviants. To the contrary, such differences were, as I said, accommodated: sign language was provided, as were wheel chair ramps. About the only defect that was discriminated against was the poor souls born penis-less. We called them “women” and we wouldn’t let them do anything except clean the building and knock on doors…’cause those jobs sucked anyways and so we normal humans (i.e., those having a penis) wanted all the help we could get.

Second, homosexuality was viewed as pretty much the most grievous sin there was. When I went on the Oprah Winfrey Show, for example, my grandfather said he didn’t mind that so much (as if I was seeking his permission), but that I better never go on Rosie O’Donnell’s show. He didn’t like her because she was a lesbian. Oprah, incidentally, has, for years, lived with a man to whom she is not married, and is therefore equally culpable as per the bible, but somehow her sin wasn’t as bad.

Third – and here’s the key point – the government is and should be separate from religion. Regardless of the Witnesses’ low opinion of gays, they don’t ever have to perform any gay weddings if they don’t want to (and they won’t). However, the government should not stipulate against such marriages if the only argument put forth is a religious one (and it is). In fact, Witnesses should welcome a legalization of gay marriage, as it will make their religion stand out even more from mainstream America and it will help prove to them that this whole world is SATAN’S!!!!!!

Friday, 29 April 2011

Today I participated in a highway cleanup. My employer sponsors the event and, even though it didn’t come with a free meal like it did last time, I still like the opportunity to get outside and wear a fluorescent vest.

I participated in my company’s cleanup in 2004 and 2005, but, for various reasons, I haven’t done it since. In 2006, for example, I was vacationing in Florida. In 2008, I think I called in sick that day.

Here’s a fun fact: highway trash essentially = cigarette butts. The butts formed the majority of the items I picked up today (not in volume, but in quantity), and I didn’t even bother to pick up about half the butts I saw. There were the other predictable bits of trash: McDonald’s wrappers, plastic bags, beer cans, drinking straws, and car bits, but it seemed as if no piece of litter could be tossed onto the side of the road without at least adding two or three cigarette butts. This shatters no stereotypes I have about cigarette smokers.

Saturday, 30 April 2011

This evening, my wife and I watched the movie Children of Men. I had heard good things about this Oscar-nominated flick; alas, they were all untrue.

Children of Men was a confusing, disjointed story. It began well; I enjoyed seeing how the world would be different if there were no people under 18 years of age – such as (and my wife notice this before I did) the proliferation of pets in the absence of children. It soon devolved into a mess. Who is fighting who, and why? A couple of times, my wife paused the movie to ask if I knew what was happening; I would conjecture a guess, but then just declare that I didn’t even care anymore.

The pregnant woman needs to get to safety, that’s the basic gist so, in that time-honored movie cliche’, she has to travel through hazards that are way worse than where she came from (leading me to wonder why she didn’t stay put). I think she was worried that the Brits would treat her and her baby like freaks, or maybe force them to do things against their will, but early on the movie makes a point of showing that this is a danger the whole world is facing, so it’s not clear where she’s running off to.

Near the end of the movie, while she’s in the worst possible place, guess what? That’s right, she goes into labor. Her water breaks while she’s on a bus. This is another movie-birth cliche’: gravid women have absolutely no idea they’re nearing the end of their pregnancy until the water breaks, and the water always breaks before anything else happens (okay, maybe – MAYBE – the woman stands up and announces she’s feeling funny).

Squirreling away in a shit-hole of a hotel room in the middle of a war zone (a war zone that they traveled to!), the laboring woman and her male companion (not the father) begin preparations for the birth. The man looks for clean water, which makes sense, and the woman lies down, spread-eagled, on a dirty mattress. Yet another movie-birth cliche’: no matter when or where the woman is, when she feels the baby is coming, so immediately has to lie down on her back like a subservient woman. Man, the medical community has really indoctrinated women well. So well, in fact, that that this woman – who has never before been pregnant, nor has she seen any other pregnancy or births in her life – still feels the need to lie down. Stupid.

Once the baby is born (and the woman can’t do it without the man’s help), she says that they need to cut the cord. The man begins looking around the room (presumably for a shoe lace), but states that “there’s no rush,” which, to me, was a rare instance of the scriptwriters actually researching the rare, obscure topic of childbirth before putting pen to paper.

For the next twenty tedious minutes, as the trio navigate the middle of a battlefield, the woman somehow manages to not hemorrhage. The baby, meanwhile, spends most of this time crying, which is nearly as annoying as a constant dog bark or car alarm. The new mom isn’t sure how to quiet her crying baby, which is too bad, because the crying could lead to their being found out and killed.

Later, the trio are aboard a row boat and the baby is still crying. The man suggests the woman place the baby up on her shoulder and pat her back.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a lame-ass movie even without the trite, predictable birth scene. I just think it’s sad that only 18 years after the last baby is born women have forgotten what their breasts are for. Too bad. ‘Cause my guess is that that baby was crying because no one was feeding it anything.

[Also see the recent episode of Community for another example of the Hollywood-only-has-one-birth-story-to-tell policy.]

Sunday, 01 May 2011

Today, I listened to two audio files my friend Ryan sent to me.

Here’s the first one: Every #1 Song, part 1.

Here’s the second one: Every #1 Song, part 2.

Basically, the creator of these files took a snippet from every song that went to #1 “EVER” and spliced them together in chronological order. He did a pretty good job, too, there’s about 2 to 10 seconds of each song, and it melds (usually) smoothly into the next one. When possible, he took a section of the song where the title is spoken, for example, at one point we hear “No I gotta cut loose, footloose,” which is certainly a more appropriate sampling of “Footloose” than “Eighty hours, for what?”

Despite the claims on the page, it’s not EVERY song – for some reason, part two ends with Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” which was the final #1 song of 1992. Perhaps there will be a part 3 that consists of the last 20 years, which would be great, because I’m aching to hear a snippet of the Black Eyed Peas “Imma Be.”

Also, it’s funny to notice the different length of the songs. For “Hey Jude,” for example, there’s barely enough time to hear the title being sung – I’d say there’s about 3 seconds of the song. Later, for a certain Barbara Streisand song, the file lingers for 15 seconds (or maybe longer) as Babs spits out the two lines leading up the title. Also, some songs are instrumental, so I wasn’t always sure if a new song was playing or not.

While listening, I followed along in my copy of The Billboard Book of #1 Hits, just so that I could ‘check them off’ as I went along. Oddly, the file skips over a few songs. Not sure why. I couldn’t detect “Sixteen Tons,” for example, and it also missed playing  Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day.”  At several points, the clip reverses the order of two or more songs, too, and I’m not sure why that is.

Overall, it was a fun listen. It brought back many good memories, and a couple of times I found myself thinking, “Oh, so that’s how that song goes…I didn’t know that was a number one song.” If you have time (and it does take time), take a listen.

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Today, for the first time, I was the Toastmaster. That means that I hosted the meeting – calling up people as their turns arrived, and then thanking them afterward. April marks the first time since I joined the club that I have gone an entire month without giving a speech, but that’s just fine because I’m busy with school now that the semester is wrapping up. In fact, the agenda for the two Toastmasters’ meetings in may was passed out today and I was happy to notice that I am not scheduled for a speech at either meeting. I mean, I still plan to attend, of course, but it’s difficult to write up a competent speech when I’m busy with school.

Speaking of school, I may have mentioned this before, but there are assigned readings to do before each class. For tomorrow’s class, we have the biggest reading assignment yet: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Yep, an entire book. Fortunately, I have already read this book, so I have at least a fading memory of its contents. Also, since I saw this book coming up on the horizon, I decided to secure a copy of the book on audiocassette and “read” it in the car going to and from work this week. I finished “reading” it today on my way home from work. The downside to doing it this way is that, when I come across a memorable passage to write down on the assigned worksheet, I just kinda gotta remember where it is and then look it up when I get home. The upside, however, is that I managed to “read” the entire book without taking away any time for family/work/sleep.

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Have I mentioned that, though I now work in a new department, I still have the same cube that I’ve had for over four years? Yeah, it’s true. This leads to the odd predicament wherein the people I used to work with walk by and wonder what I’m still doing squatting on their turf, whereas the people I now work with have no idea where I vanish to when not in meetings or in the lab. So, I’m kind of inhabiting a kind of purgatory right now where I both belong and don’t belong in two places.

I kind of like it.

More interestingly, we continued our discussion of Edgar Allen Poe in class today. Once again, the professor acted like he was going to share the Simpsons’ classic interpretation of “The Raven” with us, only to run out of time at the end of class.

Here’s a fascinating question:

Do we study texts like “The Raven” because we’ve studied them?

Yeah, it didn’t make any sense to me either, at first. But here’s what he meant: Does “The Raven” actually have outstanding artistic merit or some other historical importance, or do students and poetry aficionados study, read, and discuss it simply because it’s what has always been done (and, therefore, has lasting fame).

The answer, of course, is both, thought several students seemed to feel the answer fell squarely in one camp. This included one student who expressed her opinion that “The Raven,” as odd as this may sound, really isn’t that good.

The thing is, no one in class was alive when “The Raven” was first printed. They didn’t live through that time when it was first read and analyzed as new. Overall, though, the general consensus was that it was a superb poem and, consequently, it has endured through time. This leads to the fact that it gets printed in anthologies, such as the one we have for class, in which later generations get exposed to it, and they have the opportunity to like or dislike it.

Here, then, are two examples that, I think, explain this better than my previous convoluted paragraph:

I have this friend who is waaaay into music. He is proficient at several instruments; he has recorded dozens of albums, been a member of many bands, and has performed live at quite a few venues. As you can imagine, he’s also quite the storehouse of music lore – he knows a lot about the history and industry of music, so much so that he frequently cites musical acts I have never heard of.

One day, about 10 years ago, I stepped into his new bedroom, scanned the room, and announced, “I think John Lennon is overrepresented here.” He laughed, but then went on to explain that the reason why three of his eight music posters featured John Lennon was because there’s plenty of Lennon merchandise out there. And he’s correct: were he to make a list of his 100 favorite musicians, then walk into a music shop with the express idea of purchasing merchandise featuring these individuals, it’s hard to see how any musician would have more paraphernalia than Lennon (especially because Elvis would not be on his list).

You could say the same with me: Why do I have Star Wars Monopoly? Because it exists, while a version of Monopoly featuring far better films does not.

More relevant, let’s look at a list of films I’ve seen from the 1920s:

Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, das

Kid, the

Nanook of the North

Our Hospitality

Navigator, the

Wizard of Oz

Metropolis

Go West

Bronenosets Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin)

Gold Rush, the

Ben-Hur

Lodger, the

Ring, the

Downhill (When Boys Leave Home)

Easy Virtue

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Jazz Singer, the

General, the

Wings

Singing Fool

Champagne

Cameraman, the

Circus, the

Broadway Melody

Farmer’s Wife, the

Manxman, the

Juno & the Paycock

Chelovek s Kinoapparaton (Man with a Movie Camera)

Blackmail

…Yeah, that’s it. A list of films I’ve seen from any year of the past twenty would be longer than this. Now take a look at the list, there are a lot of classics on here; it’s likely you’ve heard of these films or, if you haven’t, that I could give you one or two facts about the film that would make you nod and go, “Oh, so that’s why we give a rat’s ass about that film.” And that’s the point: I am living in 2011. I do not know which films are the greatest of this year, and I do not know which films from 2011 will still be considered great films in 2100. However, the 1920s were several decades ago. As such, many of the films from that time are lost, and the only ones from that era that I care to see – or, indeed, have even heard about – are likely to be the ones that have stood the test of time because, for whatever reason, they’re considered classics.

The best film from the 1920s may be one I’ve never heard of, but then it’s likely I won’t ever see it.

Same thing with “The Raven.” The best poem from the 1840s might be one that no in class – including the professor – has ever heard of. But enough people felt “The Raven” was worthy enough to be reprinted and so, today, we have it as an example of poems from the 1840s. And if any of us like it, then we continue to perpetuate the myth of importance.

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Today, while Owen and I were wandering around Target, we approached one of those tables where they give out samples. Judging from the items on the table, the lady was giving out iced tea, so I thought, “Heck yeah!”

As we drew closer, the lady asked if I’d like to try the new blah blah blah brand Iced Tea. I said sure. So then, instead of pouring me a one-inch deep aliquot in a plastic shot glass, she hands me a full size cup, complete with ice, a lid, and a straw. “This is the sample?” I said. She affirmed my suspicion, and then told me something or other about a sale price.

So Owen and I got to enjoy 16 ounces of iced tea as we walked around the store (Jennifer was buying some stuff for Easter – and we didn’t want Owen to see what she was buying, so my only job was to aimlessly wander until Jennifer called me saying she was done). Owen insisted on saving the last sip for Mama, but, still, wow…how cool was that? I mean, especially considering there’s a Starbuck’s right in the Target there where I could’ve spent $3 for practically the same thing.

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Today was Easter, the one day of the year when rabbits lay eggs.

First, Jennifer took some pictures of our kids all dressed up in fancy Easter clothes. (Why were they dressed up? I don’t know.) Second, we met up with my sister and her husband at a restaurant in Eagan where we partook in an all-you-can-stuff-in-your-disgusting-face buffet. The waiter was kind enough to not charge us for Owen (he hasn’t learned how to be a glutton yet), and we got free mimosas. So, you know, I left the guy a good tip.

Third, we drove to Jennifer’s Uncle and Aunt’s place where about a dozen members of her family were present. I hid some plastic eggs around the yard (there was candy inside them – that’s some of the stuff that Jennifer bought yesterday) and then Owen and his cousin (the five year old, not the 8 month old) went hunting for the treasures.

On the way home, we had to pull the car over twice to let Owen puke. Yeah, that was nice. On the bright side, he appears to have reached that threshold where he can anticipate vomit and alert us that he needs to get somewhere where he can expel the contents of his stomach. This is good because, man, I hate cleaning up throw up, so the ditch next to the highway is a great spot.

Monday, 25 April 2011

My sick son, who threw up three times today (for a total of five times within 30 hours) stayed home from school today. What we initially took for overeating of sweets has now, probably, become the flu.

This evening, Jennifer and Isla walked to the co-op (which is how hip urbanites say “grocery store”), and I stayed home with Owen. He slept on the couch for about 98% of the time, just turning over once to smile at me and mumble something about Star Wars. This was a very easy form of parenting, and I think I could used to it rather quickly.

Anyway, Owen’s class has a field trip to the planetarium on Friday. If there’s one day I always wanted to make sure I attended school, it was on the days we went to field trips. And I think Owen will like the planetarium better than the last few field trips his class has gone on. So, I hope he’s better by Friday. Jennifer and I don’t want to remind him that the field trip is coming up, because then he’ll just get stressed out that he might miss it…but I’m rooting for his steady improvement by the end of the week.

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Guess what? By a 2-to-1 margin, writing numbers in ascending sequence is more interesting than discussing Edgar Allen Poe. Yeah, it’s true. For while I demonstrated my continuing nerdiness and ability to portray myself as teacher’s pet, the student sitting to my left, and the student sitting directly in front of her, both decided to just start writing numbers.

So, about a half hour into class, I looked over at the guy one-up and one-over from me. He had been writing nonstop for over ten minutes and, I’m sorry, but no one takes notes that well. I looked at his paper, and I saw it was just a solid block of text – no bullet points, no paragraphs, nothing – just twenty or more lines of complete text. Upon further inspection, I saw that the top row of his paper looked like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Okay, you get the idea.

He was already in the 200s by the time I identified this, and he showed no indication of abating. I figured he was just bored and this was his way of filling the time.

However, about 40 minutes later, I looked to the lady sitting to my left. She never participates, and appears to complete her homework in the five minutes prior to each class. So, it was kind of funny to notice that she was taking notes. Only, she wasn’t taking notes. She was, like our classmate, just writing numbers.

This reminds me of the time I sat down on the bus to go home from school one day (in junior high school), and the guy I sat next to was writing numbers. When I inquired as to his purpose, he told me he planned to write every number from one to one million. I took the notebook from him and paged through it. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, he was no where near a million yet, but he was in the hundred thousands, and he had filled several pages. In fact, the notebook was dedicated to this purpose.

Anyway, I’m just wondering. I’m a nerd. I love math. And numbers. And lists. And yet, I have never done what these three people were doing. Am I missing something? Is this like twiddling thumbs or doodling – the kind of activity lots of people do when they’re bored? Or were the two students in my class working on some inexplicable assignment for another class? Who knows?

Either way, weird.

Thursday, 21 April 2011

Here are three notable events from today:

1. The professor passed back our “draw the House of Usher” assignment. Before doing that, though, he showed each student’s artwork on the overhead projector. The first drawing he showed was phenomenal; the house was exactly as I pictured it, the drawing was skillfully down with shadows, perspective, and great detail. It appeared to have been done in chalk (or peharps just those fancy-schmancy pencils). My first thought upon seeing this was, “Crap, these classmates are talented!” Alas, that was the best one of the bunch. The others ranged from simple, geometric, haphazardly drawn pictures (that I imagine were created in the five minutes prior to class) to quite a bit better than mine.

Oh – and as promised, here’s mine:

Check out those eyes on the curtains, man! That’s my piece de resistance. The text doesn’t exactly say that there are eyes on the curtains (it says the windows themselves were shaped like eyes), but I interpreted this via the Salvador Dali segment of Hitchcock’s Spellbound (and if you don’t know what I’m talking about here, you really need to rent Spellbound), and it apparently impressed the Professor enough to where he pointed them out to the class when my picture was displayed on the screen.

2. I wrote THIS ARTICLE concerning the bullshit prediction of the Rapture coming on May 21^st. The article was, today, selected for MinnPost’s Blog Cabin. The proprietors of that site scan many, many local websites everyday and choose the post they feel is most read-worthy. So, today, they picked mine. Good for me.

3. This evening, my wife and I watched the film The King’s Speech. It was a rather good flick. I mean, the story wasn’t particularly amazing, neither was there any edge-of-my-seat moments, but for a historical drama, it was really good. Like many historical dramas, it suffers from assuming the viewers have a deep knowledge of the time and place they are being immersed in, but I don’t think that negated the good points. In fact, the best aspect was the acting. Colin Firth, who played King George VI, was completely believable; there was no point when I thought, “This guy doesn’t really stutter, he’s just playing a guy who stutters.” He deservedly was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor. Of course, he did have an unfair advantage (not that I mean to diminish Firth’s performance, because he did deserve the award) – and that is that the Academy looooves to give Oscars to actors who portray real people with disabilities.

Don’t believe me? I’m sure there’s a comprehensive list out there somewhere, but here’s a top-of-my-head listing of people who were nominate for acting Oscars for portraying real disabled people:

Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot (quadriplegia)

Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker (blind and deaf)

John Hurt, The Elephant Man (Proteus Syndrome)

Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind (schizophrenia)

Judi Dench, Iris (Alzheimer’s)

Geoffrey Rush, Shine (schizoaffective disorder)

Jamie Foxx, Ray (blind)

James Franco, 127 Hours (amputee)

Tom Cruise, Born on the Fourth of July (paralysis)

Jon Voight, Coming Home (also something requiring a wheelchair)

Harold Russell, The Best Years of Our Lives (limb deficiency)

Russell’s performance is particularly noteworthy – he didn’t have to act like a man who had no hands, because he really is (was) a man with no hands!

Of course, if there are no historical people to cull from, the Academy will look to fictional characters, such as Jane Wyman’s portrayal of a deaf woman in Johnny Belinda, or Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets (or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, or Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise – who both portrayed disabled people in Forrest Gump – or even Kevin Spacey, who portrayed a man pretending to be disabled in The Usual Suspects.

I think AnnaSophia Robb has a good shot at getting the Oscar nod next January:

Friday, 22 April 2011

Today I let a co-worker borrow all my beer brewing equipment (well, not all my equipment – I kept my bottles).

Do you know how often I let people borrow things? Pretty much never. So, I guess this is a big day for me.

I have a problem with letting people borrow stuff, and it’s not just because I don’t want people to borrow stuff (because, in fact, I often do). My problem is that most people – closest friends included – just don’t seem to have the wherewithal to return stuff. I could list off the books, DVDs, and CDs that I’ve lost to people over the past 25 years as well as who borrowed which thing and then, however inadvertently, never returned it.

I practically cringe when people ask to borrow stuff, hoping that they’ll forget they asked if I let some time go by or change the conversation. And the reason is because this leads to the other problem, wherein I have to remind the person constantly. They keep forgetting, I keep reminding. I just end up looking like the bad guy, even though I was the one who was, essentially, robbed. Once, back in 1988, a friend asked to see a book that I had brought to school one day. He wanted to see if for a few hours, and he promised to give it back at the end of the day, when we saw each other getting on the bus. Problem was, he left early that day because he was sick. The next day, I asked him for my book back. He forgot it at home. Same thing with the next day, then the next day, then the next day. I never saw that book again.

Another time, back in 1999, I brought in a U2 CD to work. A co-worker asked if she could bring it home overnight. I let her do it (saying no to things like this is also perceived as jerky). The next day she forgot it. I reminded her everyday, but she kept forgetting – even after she put in her two-week’s notice to quit. Finally, on the last day of her employment, I asked if she brought the CD. She said she didn’t, but that she promised she would bring it on Friday when she returned to pick up her last paycheck. I said, “Well, see that you do, otherwise you’ll have to write me a check for $18.” She looked at me incredulously, as if I was the biggest asshole who ever lived because I dared to request payment for an item she stole from me. She returned on Friday… and my CD was with her. With her, actually, it was easy, because I didn’t care if she thought I was a jerk or if she didn’t want to be my ‘friend’ anymore. Usually the situation is a bit stickier.

So why allow someone to borrow my beer brewing equipment? Two reasons:

First, I got into beer brewing in part because someone was kind enough to allow me to borrow their equipment. So, I guess I owe it to someone else now, in some kind of Karmic manner, to pass on what was given to me. Oh – and yes – I am completely hypocritical in this manner: I don’t let people borrow my stuff, but I have no qualms about borrowing items from other people whenever I feel so inclined. My only defense is that I return items – sometimes even after the borrower has forgotten that I borrowed the item. (I don’t forget.)

Second, beer brewing equipment is a “big” thing. Unlike a CD or a book, it takes up a lot of space, and it costs (relatively) a lot of money. It would be difficult for the borrowee to neglect to return or reimburse me for the item at some point in the future.

I guess the take away lesson from this is that you probably shouldn’t ever waste your time asking to borrow a book on my shelf, but if you need to use my car for a week…have at it.