My blog knows me too well

One of the interesting things about having a blog on blogspot.com is it tries to put ads on top of your blog that match up with content inside the journal.

I'd like to think of this as a journey through my mind -- through what's important, what's frustrating, what's fascinating.

Yet the ads I just noticed on the page include "How to get your ex back: Get a powerful plan for bringing your ex back into your life" and "Find a girlfirend: Millions of profiles and photos free! Meet single women in your area now," as well as related searches for "boyfriend" and "concert listings."

I haven't had a girlfriend in more than a year. I find it hard to believe some computer logic decided these must be the most important things in my life.

Of course, it's the first batch of guidance I've gotten from anything in a while saying what my focuses ought to be... aside from some unsolicited e-mails about lowering my mortgage rate and lengthening something else.

Worldwide Weird Web

It never ceases to amaze me the bizarre stuff you can find online, if you only look...

For instance, yawning animals in the wild.
http://www.animalyawns.com/GapingMaws.htm

Or a random compliment generator.
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/%7Egeoffo/humour/flattery.html

Or living a day in the life of a McDonald's employee. [This one makes me feel better about my life.]
http://www.conceptlab.com/simulator/

Or the museum of burnt food.
http://www.contortionhomepage.com/

Or how about a whole site devoted to shoelace knots, and one man's attempt to create a new one?
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm

I'm truly convinced you can really find anything on the Internet.

All I want is a passenger

Why do people assume there must be strings attached when you offer them something?

A couple months ago, I bought a pair of tickets to a Dave Matthews Band concert at Nissan Pavillion on July 11. I assumed when I bought them back in February that I'd either have a girlfriend or a friend who could go along with me.

At one point, I did have a buddy who was going to go with me, but his circumstances wiped out that possibility. Now I've been desperately bugging everyone nearby I know well enough to think they'd enjoy going along, getting a whole not of no's.

Here's the level of desperation I reached: I even contacted my ex-girlfriend. Anyone familiar with that situation knows how much I didn't want to do that. She responded by saying she was seeing someone else and didn't think it was a good idea to get back together.

When one includes the term "as my friend" in the request, isn't that clear enough? For a number of reasons, my intent wasn't getting back together. It was taking someone with me who I knew would enjoy the show and could probably make it. It was not bringing someone back into my life who forced me to make too many tough decisions.

So anyway... if anyone knows someone in the D.C. area who would want to go to this show, let me know. All I want is a passenger, not necessarily a life partner.

Dishes

I've done everything I can with these things.

I'll show them how dishes get washed. I've done it dozens of times.

They just won't learn, though. I keep putting them by the sink, even opening up the detergeant. And they won't wash themselves.

I don't know why I procrastinate doing these silly things. I know I've spent more time thinking about not doing them than it would've taken to just wash them.

The next place I live will definitely have a dishwasher.

The comfort of silence

There's a certain comfort you can only have with friends you've had for
ages. The silence test seems to prove that.

In so many situations, silence can only be awkward. It means you have no
audible response to whatever you'd just heard. It means you have nothing
more in common with the person on the other end of the conversation. It
means you're choking on a chicken bone and unable to talk.

When you're chatting with an old friend, though, that's not an issue.
Nothing to say for a minute or two? No big deal. The conversation will pick
back up when one of you thinks of something.

I'm getting the opportunity to spend a few days hanging out with old
friends, and I'm really enjoying that part of it. Friends like this are
really hard to find and harder to keep. After one of these sudden bursts of
silence, I realized how cool it was I didn't feel the urge to fill the void
with something silly or inconsequential.

It'd be great to have this kind of comfort everywhere you go. Some day,
maybe. Some day.

Late Night TV

The beauty of working late and staying up later finally came to me.

Believe it or not, they actually start playing music on MTV and VH1 starting around 3 a.m.

Andy Griffith Show

One of the more endearing things about living in Woodstock is it seems to be lost in time. If you looked at the signs on the businesses on Main Street, you might think you were living in the 1950s or 60s as easily as the 21st century. A quick look at the old-school movie theater proves it. But nothing does the trick better than the Central Barber Shop, complete with an old bottle-cap Pepsi logo over the words on the outdoors sign.

Louis works as the barber in the shop. There are two barber's chairs in there, yet I've never seen anyone other than Louis working in two years. He always seems to be wearing the same type of shirt, a short-sleeved white button-down shirt. On the radio plays Woodstock's "Retro Radio" station, which really only broadcasts for about 10 miles in any direction, live and in living black and white from across the street in a storefront. There's a lot of big-band stuff, Frank Sinatra and the occasional Counting Crows song always playing in the background, just to be hip with the kids.

Timeless old men sit around waiting for their turn to get what's left of their locks shortened. In the interim, they'll discuss what's coming into town or what's leaving. Today they were discussing what might happen with the site of the old Ford dealership in town, which recently moved closer to the interstate from its somewhat downtown locale. One heard it would turn into a junkyard. Another heard it was being used to store classic cars.

Louis knows how I like my hair cut -- short -- and he knows we can chat about outdoors activities or sports. We both love to fish, but neither of us get to do it enough. [For Louis, that means once a week. For me, it means a few times a summer.]

Inside this shop, nothing has changed in ages. It's all frozen in time, from a 20-year-old calendar he keeps on the wall because he likes the picture to the barely functioning woodburner in the middle of the shop to keep it warm in the winter. If it weren't for the table full of current magazines and today's Northern Virginia Daily and Washington Post, this could be a scene out of any year. There's even a display of "the newest improvement in hair care available today... Unbreakable combs!"

Something about the place just seems neat to me. It's sort of like the Andy Griffith Show... except Louis the Barber isn't nearly as creepy as Floyd the Barber.

Friends like these, who needs enemas?

For about the last week, I've been kicking into nasty coughing fits and feeling bad in a number of physical ways. Many of these I choose not to be graphic about on here but, suffice it to say, they're not pleasant.

After a particularly symphonic coughing fit, one of my cohorts in the office starting diagnosing. She mentioned an article we'd had in our newspaper about a mysterious strand of meningitis spreading in a D.C. suburb (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53394-2004Jun18.html).

She started reading through the symptoms. Our design editor started drawing great big imaginary checkmarks in the air as she went through them.

* Severe headaches? Check.
* A stiff neck? Check.
* Drowsiness? Check.
* Confusion? Check.
* Nausea? Check.
* Vomiting? Check.

Then she read the cause: Direct contact with bodily fluids.

"Nope, that can't be it then."

There's nothing like supportive coworkers. And these are nothing like supportive coworkers. heh.

Faking It

No, the TV show, you sicko.

I don't know exactly why, but the TV show "Faking It" on TLC (http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/fakingit/fakingit.html) is absolutely fascinating to me. Perhaps it's some deep psychological urge to be someone else. It could be that I like the challenge of trying to fit into uncomfortable situations. Maybe it's how they keep finding hotties and putting them in skimpy clothing.

The episode I caught tonight irritated me, though. "Simple Life to Social Life" brought a Nebraska farmer into the New York socialite scene. She had to pretend she was one of those "It" girls, learning the tricks of the trade. I think she was set up to fail, as her "mentor" seemed destined to get her. This guy was just mean-spirited, looking down his nose at her the whole time. His technique of breaking her seemed to be taking away any sense of confidence she had.

Anyway, the bigger thing that came to me while observing all this was that these socialites were really the ones faking it. There didn't seem to be a single bit of honesty there. Makes me wonder who would ever want to be a part of that world.

Change the world

Speaking of the Spring House Tavern, I noticed something that amused me when I had dinner there Wednesday night.

A few weeks ago I'd written a column about the enthusiasm for the expansion Valley League Baseball team, the Woodstock River Bandits (www.woodstockriverbandits.org). I lead into it with the obvious enthusiasm about the team, albeit somewhat ignorant enthusiasm about the wooden-bat collegiate league team.

The example for that could be found on the wall of the Spring House, where they'd hung a jersey, cap and glove on the wall -- alongside an aluminum bat -- about two weeks before the season opened.

Two weeks into the season, the bat hanging alongside the jersey, cap and glove is wooden.

Who said we can't change the world in Sports?

Invisibility

Ooh, goody. The first post. As if my Saturday column in the newspaper isn't self-sufficing enough...

One of the things I love most about journalism is the ability to blend into the background and observe. You don't have to stand out or dramatically shape the events of the world. You merely have to react to them.

In a way, it gives you a sense of invisibility that is comforting.

I found that invisibility a bit frustrating Friday night. After covering a Valley Baseball League game in the evening, I filed my story and, for the first time in who knows how long, didn't have to return to the office on a Friday night. With a rare Friday night without worrying about newspaper deadlines, I headed to one of the local watering holes in Woodstock, the Spring House.

As it turns out, that must be where the college kids on the baseball team hang out after games too. So do the coaches and a number of people at the local high school. As I walked in and saw so many faces I recognized, I thought I'd have a fantastic time.

That's when the invisibility kicked in again. I don't know why, but I always end up choosing a seat in a corner with a good vantage point of the whole room. And I always end up sitting there by myself, just observing the world around me -- not participating in it.

I did speak briefly with a masseuse in the bar that night, as well as a couple other people who I recognized. But I find it difficult to open up conversations without playing 50 questions.

Oddly enough, that's how you get over shyness when you get into journalism, knowing you have to ask questions and they're likely to answer them. But it just seems a little awkward in social situations, since most people are simply asked to volunteer stories in this setting.

I'm a "asking questions guy" in a "telling stories" world. Go figure.