The Writer's Poke

This isn't one of those fake Internet signs; this is a real sign that I saw while on a business trip in northern Minnesota a couple of months ago. And it reminds me of a conversation I overheard in the cafeteria when I was in high school -- must have been 10th or 11th grade. Gabe and a couple of other guys at the next table over we're talking about what losers kids that still masturbated were. I don't remember the exact conversation, but to paraphrase, it went something like: "When I was a kid, I masturbated like a kid; when I became a man, I put my penis away." It's not that the guys thought masturbation was sinful; it's just that if you didn't have a girlfriend to handle your affairs, so to speak, then you were just a wanker.

This news story just proves how costly victory can be. After you've won, what's left to be done? Seriously, though, I think there probably are supporters that thought winning the election was the end -- although President-elect Obama has tried to make it pretty clear that "the end" of the election cycle was only the "beginning." -- This video's dedicated to all of my Republican friends :) --

For Writers: It sounds silly to admit, but thanks to Facebook, I now have more friends from high school than I did when I was actually in high school. I was a loner in high school, although that was purely accidental. My main problem was that I just didn't know how to be social. My popularity probably peaked in 8th grade, and by Freshman year, I had started to close myself off. Once that happened, I never figured out a way to reconnect. My classmates had their own circles, and I was on the outside. Every once in a while I might find myself as part of the gang, but for the most part, I was an outsider. Now years later, the class of 1991 is rediscovering itself through Facebook. Almost daily, it seems, someone from the past resurfaces. It's really rather surreal. One member of the class even admitted to feeling his former high school "angst" returning. For me, it's not so much angst as it is a second chance. How many close friends do you still have from high school?...

For Writers: I didn't consider it stealing at the time. For a brief period in my childhood, I was a boyscout. Being a boyscout never had the same cache as being a cub scout . Cub scouts were cool. We'd make pinewood derby cars and go to summer day camps. Being a boy scout, on the other hand, always felt a bit dorky -- probably because the troop was tied to my church. Each of us got a box of candy bars, and we were expected to sell them for a fundraiser. As time went by, however, it seemed like the troop leaders had forgotten about the candy bars. And over time, I ended up eating more of them than I sold. Months later, the troop asked us for the money and any leftover candy bars. Unfortunately, I didn't have any money, and I didn't have any candy bars. I owed the troop around $20, and I didn't have any money of my own to pay for the eaten candy bars. I told my dad what had happened, and for some reason, he thought this would be a good time for us to go into a private...

To all of those people that say: "Barack Obama's race shouldn't matter." I agree with you; it shouldn't. But we don't live in a "it shouldn't matter" kind of world. We live in a world where African Americans were 3/5 of human for the first 87 years of the country's existence -- a country where it would take another 100 years after that for African Americans to more fully secure their civil and human rights. We live in a country that, once Obama leaves the senate, will have 100 non-Black senators. So, yes, race matters. Ideally, it shouldn't. And maybe one day it won't. Right now, it does, and that's not a bad thing. Thanks to Accordion Guy for the image: http://www.joeydevilla.com/

Palin isn't going away. Now that she’s had a taste of the lower-48, Alaska must seem pretty rural (Yes I know she spent time in Idaho, but let’s face it: Idaho is more or less the middle of nowhere, too). So I got to thinking: It’s clear that Palin has 2012 on the brain. And a lot of people have 2012 on the brain as well, because we all know that the world’s going to end in 2012. Don’t believe me? The Mayans said so, and they’re never wrong. Trust me. Poles will shift, nukes will explode, and even worse, Palin will be elected president. Luckily the world will end before she can be sworn in, but Palin’s election will be the exclamation point that lets people know that the prophecies of 2012 are real. This isn’t being discussed anywhere else – you’ve read it here first. Even the wiki for 2012 doesn’t list the Palin election on its “list of possibilities” --> http://2012wiki.com/index.php?title=List_of_Possibilities Surely this is an oversight that will soon be corrected. For more ...

Taking the Zurich connecting shuttle between terminals is an interesting experience. First, they get you visually. Looking out the train window, you see Heidi welcoming you to Switzerland with a kiss. This is pretty cool just because it's so unexpected. Not surprisingly, a number of people on Youtube have got out their video cameras to capture it, but it's probably one of those things that you just "had to be there" -- jet-lagged and unprepared for it... The first version is just the video, and the second version is someone's attempt to capture what it looks like when actually viewed from through the window of the shuttle. Also, in the second version, you can kind of hear the "sounds of Switzerland" that they play in the background -- cows, bells, horns, etc. Fun stuff.

1. Some days I'm sure I looked like an America -- when I wore my Kansas City Chiefs hoody, for example. Other days, it would surprise me that people automatically knew I was an American. When they spoke to me, how did they know to automatically speak in English. Why didn't they speech to me in German? Was my American-ness really that obvious? 2. Being abroad during the U.S. election was a pretty cool experience. Yes, the whole world was watching our election, and the whole world seemed to be in love with Obama. People would come up to us and show us their Obama buttons, for example. All the newspapers had full coverage -- more pictures of Obama than McCain -- and lots of electorial maps in full color... From Malta to Italy to Switzerland, all of Europe was interested in who we were going to elect, and most seemed to be rooting for Obama. 3. Where are all the water fountains in Europe? Why don't Europeans believe in toliets? Or clearly marked street signs?

I know it’s hard to believe, but maps lie. On the map, Pisa is just a fifteen minute train ride from Livorno. But how do you get to the train station? First, you have to take the shuttle bus out of the port area. Sounds simple, but just leaving the port area is a journey in itself. The bus has to negotiate around the dock area, wait for a road to move into place (kind of like a draw bridge), etc. All told, fifteen minutes just to leave the port and drive 2 miles. Next, you have to find the public city bus, and then ride it through the bumper-to-bumper city traffic. That’s another fifteen minutes. If you’re like us, you like to walk. So once in Pisa, it’s a thirty minute walk from the train station to the Leaning Tower – and that’s if you can coax your wife to cut down on the window shopping, and if a few hundred student demonstrators don’t storm the train station when you’re trying to make your exit. And actually, getting to Pisa was a lot quicker than getting back. On the return trip ...

No, we cannot afford a penthouse suite on a cruise ship, but we somehow ended up with one for this cruise. And, wow, let me tell you: It will be tough to give up the luxury. The Norwegian Gem only has 10 penthouses on the ship (as well as a few additional penthouses that make up an even more exclusive “private courtyard” on the ship’s top deck). So, Linda and I are one of only 10 couples on the entire ship of 2300 people that are living this large. Now I know how John and Cindy McCain probably live. We have our own butler, which basically means I have someone to go get me cokes, we have our own doorbell (I know that means nothing to non-cruisers), and we even have a cordless phone that works anywhere on the ship. That way, if we need to contact our concierge immediately, we can do so. Actually, we did try that one out. We were interested in knowing if we could see Mt. Edna volcano one evening, and so the concierge called the Bridge for us to find out visibility. She called us right bac...

Tuesday -- Malta “Get up extra early in the morning and watch the ship come into the harbor. It will change your life.” Well, maybe we’re jaded, but it wasn’t a life changing experience. The approach to Valletta, Malta is pretty enough, but neither Linda nor I found it to be spectacular. Valletta is a very “earthy” looking city, and if brown is your favorite color, then you’ll probably love it. It’s a walled-city, though, and that’s pretty cool. Neither of us has been to Israel, but Malta triggered that thought in our imagination. Is this what the Holy Land looks like? The main thing to do in Valletta is to walk up the main pedestrian street and visit St. Johns Co-Cathedral, and like any good tourists, we did that. St. Johns is certainly worth a visit, but no matter how lovely a Cathedral is, there’s only so much time you want to spend there. So, we looked around for a few minutes and left. Shopping isn’t my thing, either, so wading through the mass of people on the main street wasn’t...

Wednesday -- Pompeii (Naples) All the information I read before the trip stated that Naples would be a gritty, trashy-looking place. And that was spot on. Naples looked very ghetto in a lot of ways. All of the apartment building were run-down and old, and the trash was everywhere. This is also a city where people apparently love their dogs, but have no concept of picking up their shit. It was all over the sidewalks. All over the place. We seemed to be two of the only people from the ship that decided to walk from the port to the train station, and thank God for cruiser Tom Ogg. It was only because of his step-by-step directions (with pictures) that we were able to easily find the place. (Tom Ogg has posted a plethora of information to the Internet – just google his name and your cruise port destination, and you’ll probably find something very useful). On the way to the train station, the sidewalk stopped. Actually, it was closed for construction, and this forced us to walk right out on...

(I thought I'd blog daily, but I was having too much fun. I'll start catching up entries now, but I won't add any pictures until after we get home... The cruise ship Internet service is pretty good, but it's still 40 cents a minute.) Thursday -- Vatican City This is our ninth cruise (and our third with Norwegian), and I have to admit that I had some concerns about cruising the Mediterranean in November. After all, November is the “off-season,” and we assumed it would be rainy and cold. Actually, however, the temperatures have been in the 70s, and it’s been so warm and humid that I now couldn’t imagine cruising the Mediterranean in the summer. The off-season has the additional advantage of not being nearly so crowded. Trust me on this: if you come in November, you’ll still be sharing the experience with a lot of tourists everywhere you go – so just imagine how many thousands more would be in your way at “peak times.” Ports are about choices. There’s always too much to d...

As a reminder: Voter turnout is expected to heavy across the nation. Therefore, election officials have decided to extend voting through tomorrow. Democrats are asked to vote today, and Republicans are requested to vote tomorrow. Thank you for your cooperation.

Don't you just hate music videos that have nothing in common with the song lyrics? Me, too. Thankfully, Ted Turner has developed new technology to match the lyrics to the video. Check it out.

Have you ever noticed how funny math people are? Someone: pick me up off the floor!

Have you ever wondered how we get stuck with the candidates that we're asked to vote for? Actually, this year's crop (with maybe one major exception) turned out to be pretty good.

Voldemort for President. Finally, a candidate that says exactly what he means! (But how do we know that McCain isn't really Voldemort??) Happy Halloween http://davegraff.com/2008/10/29/voldemort-for-president-the-only-candidate-without-a-hidden-agenda/

I wonder if this is how students saw me when I walked around campus? Unfortunately, my wife reminds me that she once overheard two of my students (circa 1999) that were sitting in the hallway after class talking about me. Apparently they thought I wore my khakis tight -- I admit it, I did -- and that could only mean that I had to be gay. Sorry fellas. I might read poetry, but gay I have never been :)

Okay, so I guess I like Rick Roll. So what? Anyway, can you really watch this "literal lyrics" version just once? Thought not!