Just for fun - Friday palate cleanser

Given the dire and dreary doings of the Second Fraudulency Administration, I've been trying to actively avoid all their bullshit in the news - it just makes be want to kill people and break shit, which at this point is still somewhere between "treason" and revolution" - and instead I've been trying to find things to enjoy.

Like this; "The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland" from Bret Devereaux's wonderful A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog.  

Besides the pure entertainment value of a serious discussion of the mechanized combat of the "Mad Max" world (and related/similar movies or video games) it introduced me to this insane IRL thing; the "Toyota War" in Chad.

Now there's a fun subject for a "battles" piece! Toyota Hilux versus T-55! I could see doing either the January 1987 Battle of Fada, or the larger and more critical engagement where the Chadians took the Libyan post at Ouadi Doum in March...any interest in either or both? 

What's not to like?

I think I need to get my hands on a copy of Ken Pollack's Armies of Sand first, though. It's supposed to have the best account of the Toyota War, and I'll take a look and see.

But if you've got a moment or two, go read up on Devereaux's take on the Road Warriors:

"All of that is a kind of warfare that actually supports the fractionalization of power, producing the sort of smaller-scale warlordism that the fiction tends to want in these settings. But rather than display their power with massive (but very vulnerable) war rigs, such warlords would likely attempt to overawe foes with impressive displays of their large stock of technicals. And, this being a Mad Max themed setting, by large spikes placed on everything."

Make sure you read the footnote that I've omitted from the end of the final sentence in the above quote to learn more about the "armored codpiece". 

Which reminds me of...

..."Ironlily's" cute take on 14th Century religious orders of knighthood, girly Gothic armor (including armored codpieces) and (okay, yeah, a lot of...) cartoon cheesecake in general. 

Nothing serious, but kind of adorable (in a sort of smutty way...)

OTOH here's cartoon "adorable" without the smutty: Carol Cao and her delightful "little life in the woods" artwork:

(I apologize for the Muskrat link, but Cao doesn't seem to be posting anywhere else...). I love both the sweet feeling of her art and the attention to detail of the things like the rebounding raindrops on the little temple roof, or the suggestion of the kitty hanboks.

I've also been trying to find kind, soothing, happy reads. These have included the very "cozy" little adventure story The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong as well as several more chapters in Kashiki Takuo's series ハクメイとミコチ, Hakumei to Mikochi. 

Not all of this effort has been successful; I'm presently struggling with Axie Oh's The Floating World. 

I love the idea - Korean folklore meets science-fantasy (think a sort of Ghibli-world-building only without the aircraft...) and hero's quest fiction - but the writing just plods. It's not gross or face-smacking, it's a slow drip of little stuff, like this:

"...they waited for the guards to pass, their bright lanterns giving away their positions."

I don't know any other kind of lanterns, do you? I mean, if the guards had something dim, something like little chemlights, that only hinted at their passage, sure, that would be worth detailing. But "bright" is kind of a default "lantern", innit?

Or this, just a couple of sentences later, when one of these random NPC guards stumbles into our heroes:

"Sighting Sunho, he lashed out at him with a concealed dagger."

Not really "concealed", is it now, seeing as how the guy "lashed out" with it? And how do you "lash" with a dagger? Did the author mean "slashed"? Then why not say that? Mind you, slashing with a dagger - unless it's made on the lines of a full-size bowie or a pesh-kabz (a "Khyber knife" for you Great Game/Kipling fans...) is kind of a mug's game, especially given that the Macguffin of this part of the story is that these aren't random rent-a-cops but "Sareniyan soldiers", the regular army of the Evil Warlord dude of the story.

I mean, I get what the author was trying to say; this troop pops out of a door and immediately attacks our heroes who are very obviously not supposed to be where he finds them. Presumably because he's not on guard at the moment he lacks his issue weapon - probably a spear or sword, based on the worldbuilding - so he whips out his sidearm knife to take them out.

So that seems pretty easy to me:

"They stared at the guard and the guard stared back - for only a moment before drawing his belt knife and stabbing (slashing?) at Sunho, the closest of the three intruders."

Fixed.

I've got a couple of almost-sure-winners on hold at the library; Chris Moore's Anima Rising, more inspired wierdness from the Dirty Jobs guy, and a local author (Mark Pomeroy)'s Tigers of Lents, a semifictional story about soccer and our local Felony Flats, the southeast Portland neighborhood once famed for the New Copper Penny and now the home of the ridiculous Portland Pickles amateur baseball outfit.

Portland being Portland you knew there'd be a homegrown reaction to the feeling of being mulcted by big-time pro sports outfits like the Trailblazers and Timbers. This "Pickles" ballclub is one.

(The other is a nonleague soccer team run by the Pickles people called the "Bangers".

I've never seen the Bangers but if the Pickles level of play is anything to go by, well... let's say that I was a Cubs fan back in the day so I've seen some pretty bad baseball, but...

Then you realize that these are college dudes who aren't getting paid, so. 

 One last "fun thing" - Adult High School.

 This little chanbara/bad girl/school comic is just 100%, no-holds-barred, pure fun.

 

 Like BIG fun.

 

If you have a moment and a spare dime. go kick Alexis Flower a buck or three.

That's all I got. 

Let the gray goose fly!

We have an outfit here in Portland called Trackers, and one thing we love about them is that they have an indoor archery range. Here's Artemis and Diana putting clothyard shafts in French men-at-arms (or the hanging cardboard box, close enough).

The fun part of last Saturday was the range safety officer (that's her on the left in the shot above) added a plastic Gatorade bottle to the box. It made a ridiculously satisfying "WHOCK!" when you hit it. Mind you, if you hit it at just the wrong angle it split your arrow:

Little Miss is quite the sniper (or whatever you call someone who is a dead shot with a bow. Robin Hood?) and regularly outshoots her mom.

I am all over the place. Last Saturday my eye was in and I was knocking the hell out of the targets. But as often as not my shot group looks like one of the Merry Men has been a little too merry. I just don't shoot enough to get the mechanics down solid, so whenever I'm not physically tops my aim suffers.

No real point other than a fun thing to do in Portland, and my Bride as Amazon.

Keeper

One of the good things about time is that it makes kids grow up.

Okay, sure; babies and toddlers are very cute; indeed, its probably that very cuteness that saves dozens of them from being drowned in sacks like excess puppies.

But they...well...let's just say that if they were a dive, or a gymnastic routine, or a video game, they wouldn't rate high for difficulty.

It's not that they're easy easy. They're fairly to insanely high-maintenance and burn through your waking time as well as depriving you of a hell of a lot of your non-waking time, at least when small. You're always doing something to or for them when they're little.

But they don't really actively engage your brain. Most small-child-rearing can be done pretty much on mental cruise-control. Love. Hug. Babble at. Feed. Change clothes/diapers. Play simple games with. Read brain-killingly-simple stories to. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Day after day after day...

I know, I've said this before but it's worth repeating; all this bizarre love and respect that a big chunk of American society lavishes on parents for how haaaaard they work, how much they sacrifice, how good and wonderful they are?

Utter bullshit.

Not that parents - a lot of parents, anyway - don't work hard, forego pleasures, and are good people in general and towards their offspring in particular.

But parenting as a job beats the hell out of mining coal or butchering hogs. It sucks way less than cleaning toilets.

Clearing mines under artillery fire? Harder and sucks waaaayyyy more than parenting.

It may often be thankless and at times the hours are bad. But its not like wrestling with psychotic mental patients (and if it is you probably need to have the kid seen to by a specialist...).

The actual worst part about it is the fucking boredom.

Let's be honest with each other; to an adult with a functioning cerebrum a 4-year-old is like a labrador with less bowel control. Just like the pooch will happily play fetch for hours past the moment your mind implodes from the utter sameness the toddler is generally limited to doing things that are about as interesting and engaging as staring at paint chips and to an adult about as enjoyable as eating them.

Doesn't mean that parenting that 4-year-old isn't important, or that doing it well and throughly isn't worth the doing.

But it's kinda hard to get excited about it.

So. Time is great. It turns these little labradors into little people.

Sometimes perverse, infuriating people. Sometimes people who seem determined to piss you the hell off.

But, as often as not, funny, clever, inventive, curious, engaging people who are interesting to be around and to do things with.

The Boy and I spend most of Saturday together because his soccer team, the NoPo "Cheetahs", is playing their hated rivals the "Aftershox" over at Flavel Park in northeast Portland.

After a grab-ass half hour assembling everything we needed (and if you have a kid, or if you've ever run a crew of 10-level workers you know about the grab-ass; "Where's your (fill in the blank)?" "Did you shut your room light off?" "Do you have water in your water bottle?" "Where's your PYSO card?" Yeah, it's like that.) we jump in the Honda and roll out for Parkrose.

On the way we talk tanks, mostly.

The Boy has some inventive notions of building the ultimate tank and how he'd fight it. Given that he has no actual idea of the nature of war, for which I thank the Gods of Blood and Iron every waking moment, and an eleven-year-old notion of how machines, physics, ballistics, and human nature actually work he actually has some intriguing notions.

I try not to shoot down too many, though I may mention the ones that have already been tried and failed (Multiple turrets? Usually not a good idea...) but I have to say I'm slightly impressed at the encyclopedia of knowledge of WW2-and-early-postwar armor he's built up from his beloved World of Tanks game.

We also chat about the soccer game.

He's already a little depressed; in two season the Cheetahs have never beaten the Aftershox. Worse, the typical Cheetah-Shox derby ends with a burst of Aftershox scoring that boots the Cheetahs off the pitch in disarray. It's not a simple fix; the Aftershox have just been all-around better in all things soccer.

We get to the park, already noisy and busy with kid soccer and the bathtub-ring of parents, siblings, pets, various required impedimentia (the average kid soccer team comes to play with more tote-able crap than Hannibal's Army including the elephants. Just sayin') and rations. After all, life does not consist of Sport alone.

Afterwards, there must be Snacks.

The Boy and I traipse over to the north field where his game is scheduled and begin the process of assembling him as Goalkeeper Kid when we discover that in the grab-ass half hour young Peter Shilton has forgotten his shinguards.

Fortunately Coach once played recreational soccer as an impoverished college student and knows the trick of slicing up a cardboard box and slipping the bits inside the knee-socks.

They provide no protection - I caution the Boy that his days of going in hard with his studs flying should be considered over for the day (he snorts derisively) - but will produce an appropriate thump when the referee raps his shins.

The Cheetahs take their warm-ups as seriously as any other group of eleven-year-olds take a mundane and humdrum chore, which is to say not at all. There is lots of silliness and chatter and horseplay.

But as the team huddles up after I look over to see the Boy standing alone, quietly surveying the pitch and swinging his gloves from shoulder to shoulder.

There is a moment before every match when a goalkeeper, if he or she is worth anything, realizes that its their work that day to keep the ball out of their goal.

That while there may be ten or a dozen or a hundred different excuses or reasons or rationalizations for failing to do that in the end it comes down to their speed and strength and skill.

If sport has any value at all it is in that. You are matched against an unyielding standard and you stand or fall. There is no middle ground, no equivocating, no penumbra of doubt. You either give all or you don't, you either rise to the standard or not.

The Boy is learning that hard lesson on the lumpy ground and untamed grass of northeast Portland.

I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

Our usual linesman is missing so I volunteer to run the touchline, limping, attempting to appear neutral and unbiased whilst muttering tactical advice to a group of grade-school children.

At least I manage to avoid using the phrase "utter rubbish!" which I've been told is my standard curse at professional games.

The first twenty minutes or so are fraught. The teams trade goals. There are moments of lovely precision amid the usual schoolboy booting and fumbling. The Boy lets a dangerous bounding cross go right between his hands but luckily for him and the Cheetahs there are no Aftershox on the far post.

The halftime whistle blows with Cheetahs up 3-2.

After a sip and a quick talk the boys run out for the second half. On the sidelines the parents gossip and laugh, happy with the progress of the game, the sunshine, and the Spring all around us.

One of the moms has rushed outdoors - undoubtedly having waited until the last moment for the grab-ass half hour! - in a light dress on a breezy cool day and has had to dig around in the family car to find something warm to wear over it. What she's found is a sort of knee-length light woolen coat that would not have looked out of place on this field fifty years ago.

One of the Boy's defenders' sister stands slim in the shade of a park maple, her long pale hair caught up in an elaborate braid studded with small white daisies the color of the cords and earbuds of her iPod. She gazes into the middle distance, listening to music no one else can hear, little concerned with the doings of smaller brothers.

Suddenly, shockingly, the Cheetahs take control of the match. One of the Boy's teammates is a skilled attacker, but he is usually isolated and suppressed by his singularity. Today the Cheetahs have no less than three players running free, and their interplay slices through the Aftershox defense.

The red-shirted rivals, on the other hand, appear to be missing several of the players that provided them with their most dangerous threats. Their attack is not quite working, their last pass intercepted or wide. When they do fire off a shot the Boy is there to slap the ball away or field it.

Now time is an enemy, seeming to slow to a crawl. Up 6-3 the boys in NoPo blue want the final whistle that doesn't blow. Another Aftershox attack goes out for a goal kick. Cheetahs midfield plays smart, pushing the ball out to the touchline, into the corner, forcing their rivals to chase.

Regaining possession the tall kid with the light-blue shorts plays a good long ball through towards my touchline. One of his teammates on the far side is goal-side of the last Cheetahs defender and my arm goes up as the Aftershox attacker turns with the ball but is met and tackled neatly away. The referee looks at me inquisitively and I explain; she shakes her head, either dismissing the infraction or doubting my impartiality.

The long throw goes up the sideline.

Finally, finally, the long whistle, and the Cheetahs collapse into a huddle like a neutron star of satisfaction. There is the obligatory cheer-and-handslap for the defeated, but both sides know that the underdog has won this year's Superclasico, that the perennial champion has been dethroned. The Boy throws me his gloves and sprints back to the sack of granola bars and juice bags, grabs his share, and is munching and sipping contentedly as we walk back to the little Honda.

"You stood in against some tough shots, little man." He smiles around his juice-pouch straw, satisfied with his play.

The Boy is not built anything like me. Where I am squat and thick with short legs he is gracile, slender and tall, his shoulders narrow as mine are heavy and sloping.

I think of that as I touch his back, feeling the light bones of his shoulderblades like the wings of birds beneath my hand.

Run, Mojo, Run

What a busy weekend!First, Mojo and the littles went away for the last Friday and Saturday of Spring Break. They journeyed down to the Oregon Coast and had a wonderful time, seeing elk, tufted puffins and giant octopus and sharks (at the Aquarium in Newport), a bobcat, and the usual beautiful coastal scenery.They ate enormous pancakes at Camp 18, ice cream in Tillamook, played in the dunes, and hiked in the woods. The kiddos were so jazzed they couldn't wait to tell me everything about it when they got home, falling through the door in a damp flurry of small hugging arms and excited babble.Oh, and they dimed their mommy off for getting stopped in Rockaway Beach at the speedtrap I would happily have told her about if I'd known she was going to speed through it...

I had a lovely sort of weekend of my own. Without anyone to distract me, either delightfully or busily, I spent a quiet night at home, reading, and watched a very silly romantic movie with Lucy Liu as the heroine (who was surprisingly sweet and affecting, really...) and an early night. Got up early Saturday and did some silent yoga in the dawn-gray house, enjoyed coffee and some international soccer, repaired the basement overhead socket, did all the dishes, laundry, swept and mopped, took a load to the Goodwill and another to the dump, grocery shopped, and returned to sit and rad some more (I'm busy with two good histories at the moment; Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" and Alastair Horne's "To Lose A Battle" on the fall of France, 1940.

It was good to see my family again late Saturday. But, I have to admit, it was a nice quiet time to myself Friday evening and Saturday morning...So with everyone home, Sunday we got up early and went north across the River so that Mojo and the kiddos could run in the "Third Annual Fort Vancouver Run". Mojo, who has been running for exercise lately, ran in the 6K, Peep in the 1K, and little Missy in the kiddie "fun run".It was a nasty, cold, rainy day, but everyone dressed warmly, and we were all excited either by the prospect of racing or the excitement of seeing our family run. Everyone agreed that, no matter how fast (or slow) they were, everyone ran faster than Daddy. Daddy growled that his knees were now bone-on-bone and that he'd gladly have taken everyone else a mile down Ardennes Street at a six-minute pace twenty years ago. That impressed nobody.In the first race Mojo was nothing short of spectacular; 6k in 37 minutes, 152 out of 315, seventh in her age group (out of 27), solid 10 minute miles in her very first competitive run.She got a good start, ran smoothly, and ended with a good kick down to the line. Yay, Mojo-Mommy!The Peep was next, and he, too, got a good start but well back in the pack, but pushed up and kept a good pace, passing several bigger kids on the way. He fist-bumped Fred the Fred Meyer Bear on the way across the finish, and was thoroughly proud of himself.Little Miss HATED Fred (she said "I liked it except for Fred Bear's hairy little paw!")and she ducked away from him at the start - the weisenheimer running things at the start house had the bright idea of starting the tinies by having Fred tap them on the head! - and took off down the little sprint around the parking lot.She finished in the middle of the pack but was very pleased with her effort and loves her little finisher's medal.We went and celebrated with dim sum, and ice cream, and came home very tired and happy.So it was really a busy, lovely weekend; hope yours was, too.

Snow Day!

We woke up to a magical blanket of white.It was a snow day in North Portland.Mind you, Portland is not like your typical, say, Midwestern or Northeastern city. We react to a stray falling crystal of frozen water like a Baptist deacon's wife receiving a pink plastic dildo in the mail; great outbursts of fearful hysterics and shrieking. So when the day dawned on a one-inch carpet of snow the Portland Public Schools were already closed.It was my turn to stay home with the kiddos, so Mojo went slipping away off to work and I led (or was led by) the progeny out into the wintery landscape.Portland snow is usually a bottomish sort of snow on the Snow Quality Scale; thick and wet, half water before it even lands, it makes decent snowball-and-snowman snow but is somewhere between moderately adequate and semi-crap for skiing and sledding. No matter; the little ones slid about on it was much as they could, the North Portland plateau having no more defilade than would provide a small rodent with cover.The snow fun lasted for an hour or so, and was fortified by the addition of the neighbor kids, until the cold and wet were sufficient to drive us back indoors. So there had to be cocoa, and Tinkerbell, and video games (coffee and gossip for the grownups).And by noon the snow was gone.

The stuff you find on Facebook...

...includes this guy.I'm not sure which is more intriguing; the little story of his peregrination told in the guy's video, or the fact that the Chinese government was OK with this guy wandering all over their fairly secretive country...

(h/t to India, who, aside from being a very hip urban mama caught this on YouTube)

The Par 3 Fourteenth has a nasty dogleg right before the windmill...

The past weekend we ventured up to the Steakburger in scenic Hazel Dell, WA.This place is fairly amazing - a sort of time warp without the pelvic thrust, it is a thumping piece of 1962 that remains virtually unchanged beside the mighty roar and thrum of Interstate Route 5.

Aside from the Space Age feel of the place, the burgs were fresh and good, the malts chocolate and malty and the miniature golf very, very retro.

In the days of my youth my ex and I used to holiday on the Jersey shore. There are three basic things to do on the Jersey shore: drink, go to the beach, and play either mini-golf or skee ball.

I hate fucking skee-ball.

But the mini-golf in Hazel Dell is pretty amazing, a whole two generations removed from the fancy lights and buzzers and whatnot of the Jersey shore. Peeper raced about from hole to hole, my father-in-law played a bad, methodical game, Mojo and I chaperoned the kids, and my sister- and mother-in-law abandoned halfway through to watch and help the kiddos.

Here Maxine experiments with a putting technique I suspect that Tiger Woods has already abandoned as unprofitable...So as you can see, much fun was had at the mini-golf behind the Steakburger in Hazeldell.

It's Not About The Bike...

This weekend was one of those "Life is what happens when you're busy planning other things" kind of a time. I had wanted to take some time and think about a couple of the things I've been watching or following lately: The Tour de France, our current political and economic meltdown over health care and financial policy, the hearings to decide who is wiser, a wise Latina or a wise-ass white guy.

But instead, we got all busy and did tons of fun family things, starting Saturday with a bike ride down to the little puppet theatre near Cathedral Park.It was sponsored by the City's Office of Transportation - more about them later, and was just the sort of goofy, crunchy-granola, whole-grain thing that Portland does so well. Hip urban moms with henna tats on their Teva'd feet, natural-fiber-wearing schoolkids with names like Ronan and Sarita, Hip urban dads dragging the trailabike behind their soulpatch and bike mug of fair trade coffee.Of course, our two didn't care anything about this. They just liked the ride, and the silly puppet show, and then the treats at the little cafe afterwards. But they were sweet, and had fun, so we did, too.Little Miss had no idea what was going on, but she had it figured out; Mommy and Daddy were going to cuddle her and play with her, and even......hang her upside down until she squealed. And that worked for her.Big Peep was a more discriminating puppet voyeur; he liked the silly show, and was more than gracious to accept a chocolate chip cookie afterwards, but the ride back up the hill wasn't quite to his liking. He did, however, enjoy building his first plastic model. And here it is: USS Lionfish, a Balao-class fleet sub from WW2.

Very different from MY first, God knows at this point what THAT was, but I recall that whatever it was was nearly indistinguishable underneath the model glue. Peep and I did a little better job.After a lazy afternoon and a good nap (by Little Miss) we got dressed up and went out to eat at Lorenzo's, in the Mississippi district.

Damn good meal, and, more to the point, the kids were fun and friendly and happy - no meltdowns, tantrums or difficulty listening to mom and dad. So WE got to enjoy our meal with relative grace. Always a plus. And everyone got to pat the little "David" statue on the wiener on the way out. Score!On the way home we stopped at Albina Park to cool off in the fountain. The Peep splashed and had a great time, Mojo and I enjoyed the peaceful evening amid the roses, and...Maxine did her delightful little "Star Dance"...The bonus was the bridal party that tripped on down to take pictures. Hopefully somewhere in their wedding album is a shot with the fat, tattooed Northeast Portland woman shin-deep in the dirty fountain water while industriously scratching her ass. Happy anniversary, honey!Sunday we got out early because we wanted to take "Aunt Kristi" (our friend Kristi, the athletic, blonde teacher whose was one of the Peeper's early crushes) on the "Sunday Parkway" ride around her neighborhood.

These things, also sponsored by the City's DOT, are a terrific idea which I understand was imported from Colombia, where the City of Bogotá closes down streets for people to walk, run, cycle, skate...whatever, just not involving a motor.So we went, and we rode, and everyone had Big Fun, whether just riding through the northeast Portland neighborhoods on a gorgeous, perfect sunny morning...or trying the Bike Obstacle Course......or exploring new ideas and new places in the parks, full of booths, vendors, and bike-, walking- and other alternative-transportation organizations......or just enjoying the time spent together and with our friend...After the ride we stopped at our own North Portland "Beaterville" Cafe' for a slap-up lunch, home for some playing, napping and light housekeeping. We left a much more relaxed and happy Aunt Kristi, who had no idea that her northeast Portland home was so much fun. Mind you, it helps when you and your gal pal Mojo are smokin' hot!Then it was on to the pool, where much splashing fun was had by Dad and the grunions. Little Miss, of course, was adorable.And here we are; not exactly Tour material, but happy and having enjoyed a great day. Hope you weekend was as pleasant.So...I have another one of those damn "days off without pay" tomorrow, and I'll try to post the original post I had in mind for thise weekend then. Ciao.