Bad Idea

So on my way into paintball this morning, I heard an NPR report about Barack Obama's return to the States. Apparently he had a big barbecue yesterday, and was serving up something they were calling "Change Burgers."

Now, I love you Barack, in a totally nonsexual and impersonal way, but don't meddle with the burgers. The burgers are in really good shape. No change is required in this area. The burgers may one of the two or three things that have eluded the high energy ineptitude ray that the Smirking Chip has been blasting everything with for the past eight years.

So to recap: Full speed ahead, B., but don't mess with the burgers.

In Which I Brag a Little Bit

Today was my first day at paintball camp. It was just about as much fun as I've ever had doing anything. I mean, seriously, you get to run around and shoot people and then everyone high-fives and you do it all again. I'm both what you'd call a noob, and an old guy. Plus I'm giant and not super fast. Non-ideal for paintball, where the smaller you are, the better.

We learned stuff all morning. I concentrated on learning how best to hide my enormous mass behind things while shooting at little teeny people. I also learned how to get my marker to shoot a legal speed. It was shooting 400+ feet per second when I got there, which is basically a deathray, and hence frowned upon.

So after learning things, we had lunch, and then we scrimmaged three-on-three. We counted off, and by "counting off" I mean that the guy running the camp counted off, and I ended up with two of the youngest kids: both great kids, but still a little scared of getting shot. The younger one, I'll call him "Ike," is maybe 10 or 11, probably weighs as much as one of my legs, and has both the unsettling propensity and remarkable ability to dive over things onto his head without seeming to sustain any damage. Our other teammate, we'll call him "Archibald," is a little older, 11 or 12, and maybe less afraid of getting shot, but he's got this crazy gun, which I think is made for playing army in the woods. In the 90s. It's really big and shiny and it doesn't shoot very fast. It's got a flash suppressor. Handy on an airgun. Archibald forgot to take the safety off during one game and it didn't shoot at all.

So it's time for our first game, and we draw the trio that has older teenagers who play on a real team with names on their jerseys and $1200 guns. Also good kids, but kinda intimidating. Right before we go onto the field, Ike's totally wide-eyed and says that he plays against one of the older kids all the time and the older kid "always murders" him. I say something inspiring and leaderful like, "Well, OK, let's shoot him first." Ike and Archibald are visibly vibrating, but Ike says something to sack up like "If we win this, we are the greatest paintball team in history." Not true, but hey.

The ref yells "3-2-1 Go! Go! Go!" and we're off. Ike takes off and dives on his head into the snake bunker. Archie heads for the dorito bunkers, giant chrome gun blinding all who look his way. I just run up the middle looking for someone to blast and something big to hide behind. Wouldn't you know it, the sporty kids must have thought that we were going to cower in the back, because they were running with reckless abandon towards us. So I shot them. I think I actually only got two of them, and Ike got the third from his sneaky spot in the snake, but I was so intent on shooting people that I hosed everyone until they put their guns over their heads.

The best part of all of this was when we came off the field and took our masks off, Ike and Archie looked like they might spontaneously combust from joy overload. "I thought that was impossible!" chirped Ike. We didn't dominate or anything overall...I think we (and everyone else) ended up two-and-two, and we certainly got our asses shot up in at least one game. (Ironically, keeping your safety ON makes you less safe sometimes.) But I'll be replaying that first game in my head for a while.

And I get to do this four more days.

7 Random Facts

Jody at The Big Dumptruck tagged me for this silly meme, and I shall participate, if only because I haven't been posting much here.

Here are the rules of this thing:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog; some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here goes:

1. My kids are away at sleep away camp for the first time. I thought that it would be a huge emotional scene at the dropoff, but they were basically "get out." I suspect I'm more kidsick than they are homesick. What the hell am I going to do when they figure out that I'm a dork and they don't want to hang with me anymore? I may have to buy some more kids.
2. I've had a bit of a realization about my spirituality, such as it is. A post over at Andrew Sullivan's referenced "boring atheism," and that's what I think I am: a boring atheist. I don't have any supernatural world-views, but I don't really think that fact is particularly interesting. I don't feel much need to convince anyone that my non-supernaturalism is correct. I've got bigger and more interesting fish to fry.
3. I'm going to paintball camp next week. I will probably be the oldest person there, including staff. I bought a bunch of crap so I can play better, faster, and shootier. Yes, I realize how goofy that is. No, I don't care. If you can't have fun running around shooting teenagers, get your pulse checked.
4. You know, almost dying has an interesting effect on your decision making.
5. Speaking of almost dying, I'm glad it happened. Would I choose to have a pulmonary embolism again? Uh, no. Am I now healthier than I've been in years? You betcha. Weight is down, BP is down, echocardiogram shows normal heart size and function. Would any of that be the case if I hadn't thrown the clot? I leave this question for the reader.
6. Exercise is a really good thing. This realization did not come easily to me.
7. DID I MENTION THAT I MISS MY KIDS???

I'm tagging Craig because I always tag Craig, Jen, Suzanne, Sally, Rob, and Griffin. Yes, that's only six. Screw it.

Ragamuffin

Healthcare Might Be Getting Better, or Maybe My Standards Are Low

First, when we took Jennifer to get her foot fixed, the hospital gave us a $10 voucher because they didn't see her within 30 minutes of her appointment. (And our next pizza is free!) Then, today, I arrive for an 11 a.m. echocardiogram, and I'm all done and walking out by 11:20. This on top of the echo being done by a very no-nonsense shorthaired chick with that ballsy kickass usually-lesbian chick pheromone that would activate my targeting computer if I hadn't already married one of the few straight ones. Don't these people know that it's funnier to blog about healthcare when it sucks?

My New Hero

Overheard

On the way out of Shaw's supermarket.

Boy, about nine: "How much would all of this cost at Whole Foods?"

Mother: "Whole Foods is very expensive. A lot more."

Boy: "Yeah, they should call that place Whole Wallet."

Argh. Again.

I know I've written about this previously, but I've got steam coming out of my ears, so I need to do it again. NPR reported just now that 2.5 million homeowners are going to lose their homes this year "because of the mortgage crisis." Please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. It's a tragedy that so many people are losing their homes. But they're not losing them because of the "mortgage crisis." They're losing them because they can't afford to make payments on loans they took out. It might sound like I'm splitting hairs here, but I guess I'm still clinging to some tenuous thread of belief that people have free will and are responsible for themselves. Is the sub-prime lending industry rife with scumbags? Yes. Did the federal government sit around with their thumbs up their butts while a whole lot of sketchy mortgage paper got written? Absolutely. Hell, Freddie and/or Fannie underwrote a lot of them. But still. At bottom, fundamentally, essentially, and any other words like that, people signed their names to loans that they never should have taken on, and even an elementary school facility with math should have pointed that out for most of them. Sure, people lose their jobs, they get sick and have big medical bills...all kinds of stuff happens. But a significant percentage of these loans should have never been written, not necessarily because they're illegal or immoral, but because you'd have to be a frigging idiot to take them on. So don't be a frigging idiot. Please.

The Funniest Person I Know

(With apologies to my UU brothers and sisters.)

Me: Hey honey, did you see that General Assembly voted to approve [vague, well-intentioned social justice proposal that we think is goofy but someone reading this might sincerely care about, so I'm not going to name it.]

She: Just keep staring at your navels and leave me alone, people.

Me: Feels kind of like when the popular kids find out you play D&D...

She: Oh no, it's worse than that.

See, I'm pretty much 100% schtick 100% of the time. She will wait weeks or even months and then drop one of these things and it just slays me.

Irony Explosion Imminent

So the Federal Marriage Protection Amendment (you know, the one that protects marriage by not letting a bunch of people have it) is back, and it's co-sponsored by Larry Craig (he of the wide men's room stance) and David Vitters (hooker client). I think they must have had their senses of shame removed or something, because if I did what they did and then tried to sponsor this piece of evil legislative fecal matter, I would just start barfing and I wouldn't be able to stop until I wasn't sponsoring it any more. Maybe they can get Rev. Ted Haggard to make commercials for it. Unreal.

Vova Galchenko

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits

(From Indexed.)

Some Convincing Required

(Seen at Andrew. Again.)

Noooooooo!

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children's Healthcare

Oh Baby, Hoggify

Brush with Fame

It's out of focus to such a degree that you'll have to take my word for it, but the guy in black is Kevin Youkilis, buying tequila at Costco today.

Uh...No.

Crunchette: Daddy, is Izzy adopted?

Me: How else would two white parents have a Chinese daughter?

Crunchette: I thought she might just be really tan.