Movember Trivia

First and foremost, let me say that I do not support No-Shave November, and only tentatively approve of "Movember," insofar as I am for raising money for prostate cancer research but against shaving the rest of the year.

I've been running pretty solid with my #MustacheMillennium, having grown a mustache in 2000 and never haven shaven it since. Sure, sideburns lengthen and shorten, full beards come and go, even the connective tissue for the goatee changes for Comic Con, but the mustache never falters. So pardon me, if I resent the implication that growing my mustache out for only a month is predicated on shaving it first. Next year, my mustache can get in to see PG-13 movies by itself. Don't hassle him.

That said, I'm a huge proponent of other people experimenting with mustaches. It's something everyone should try, preferably in a safe environment, supported by friends and loved ones' understanding, and just usually in or soon after college. There's a time and a place for it.

A coworker recently hit his "It's long enough, let's do something fun stage." The result was a mustache connected to a thin line of sideburns, modeled after Lemmy of Motorhead fame, and generally appearing as though he plans to portray General Ambrose Burnside in a school production of Gods and Generals at end of term.

Here's the catch, there really isn't a name for this facial hair. Ostensibly, it's more "sideburns" in the classic sense, though that original style of sideburns itself has long been out of style, so much so that it'd be almost unrecognizable by that name to the General himself, who sported what we would now call muttonchops with a connective mustache. This is much longer than what my coworker currently wears. His is more akin to a handlebar like Hulk Hogan, curving up across his jawline into sideburns. A handlebar a biker might keep.

A "sissy bar."



Let's make this a thing.

On the Measure of Nostalgia

One of the best ways to determine how much some old piece of your childhood means to you is to consider whether you would be willing to box it up, carry it down two flights of stares, squeeze it into your car, carry it up three more flights of stares, and shove it into the back of a new closet.

If the answer is "No," trash the doohickey or see if you can donate it to charity for a tax write-off.

Tax Write-Offs: the presents you give to yourself ever April after forgetting about them all year.

Spring Cleaning | It's not Summer until June 21

When you feel like you need a change in your life, and it's 11:00 at night, start with your bookshelf and your closet. That's where I go.

Reclassified a bunch of ratty old t-shirts as pajamas, and some nice-but-itchy pajamas as "guest pajamas," like that'd ever happen. Oh yes, I have so many lady guests clamoring to sleep in nothing but the oversized It's Nerf or Nothin' ringer I picked up at Comic Con. Maybe the Boondock Saints shirt. I had some luck with that one. But not Nerf, no. The ladies do not appreciate a small, floppy cylinder to the face, Go figure.

Hit up the bookshelf, threw some finished books on the main shelf, moved around the on-deck nightstand rack, moved a short story collection I'll never bother with to the living room shelf. Then I realized I've got a lot of bibles for a guy who doesn't like organized religion. I've always found that. Non-religious people always have the most reading material. Part of me wants to say it's because we shopped around a bunch trying to find something we liked, like buying a new washing machine.

Multiple Jewish prayer books, a Torah, two Book of Mormon (off-Broadway),
the Apocrypha and alternate gnostic texts and gospels, two King James,
a Necronomicon, and an interfaith minister's manual. And holy water.
… and three Jesus action figures. I may have a problem.

"Oh, don't touch that pile. I know, it's a mess, but I've been photocopying thirty years worth of Consumer Reports to track trends in the structural integrity of washing machine drums shipped from Italy. But only by riverboat."

Really, I think it's that agnostics and atheists love to have all these arguments loaded up beforehand on little index cards, highlighted and ready in case they ever get into an on-air theology battle with devout born-again-and-raised hardline Christian scientist creationists. Prepare your arguments, kids, we'll be discussing this later on in the semester. I'd donate my extra bibles, but for fear of spreading dangerous notions. Feels wrong to throw it away, though. It could help someone, I guess? Maybe I'll just carry it with me on vacation and swap it for another Gideon bible out of a hotel. They want you to take theirs, anyway. Or maybe I could just leaves copies of Eastern philosophy and A Brief History of Time. That would start some discussions!

Except I've never met anyone that I've felt it necessary to debate in public. Mostly, it's just my family, and I know that if they're right about religion, they're also definitely going to hell. In public, all you'll ever find is a bunch of atheists agreeing with each other. Loudly. It's the same as meeting vegetarians. All the ones I've ever met were super-nice about it. We just get separate meals and don't split the maple-bacon ice cream.

You mean I get ALL the maple-bacon ice cream JUST FOR ME?? Man, I love vegetarians.


Oh, and I neatly folded a few dress shirts and put them in a Good Will bag for the tax write-off. There's nothing funny there, I just started paying a little more for better fitted shirts and I make the difference up at the end of tax season. It's smart budgeting, really.

On Third World Sports

After viewing this Daily Show segment last week, a thought's been mulling around my head.

If you skip to around the 4:10 mark, you'll see John Oliver playing some "football" with kids from a small township outside Johannesburg during the World Cup . What I don't get is this:

Those kids aren't very good.
I mean, I get it, you're poor, but if I'm to believe the Christian Children Fund and a bunch of other commercials where fat, bearded men or washed-up Southern singers/movie stars try to guilt me into giving them money for African orphans (of which only 20% at some charities actually makes it to the kids), soccer balls are basically the only toys these kids have. Like one per village.


Honestly, if that's the only thing you have to play with, you should really be insanely good at it.

I suck at video games. Always have. But I can run "Super Mario Land" for GameBoy like a mother. I guess what I'm saying is, "Get it together, Africa." Apartheid and blood diamonds are one thing (actually two things), but showing the world there are some sports other than hockey that black people aren't awesome at, especially one that involves running, is just upsetting.