Let me tell you a tale is a series of stories told by Mike Minutillo about the various antics from his life. Some of the characters will have been changed in order to protect the innocent or to make me appear more colorful as a human being. Some of the events will have been changed to increase their comedic value.
Last night I was bored. To be clear I don't really get bored. It was once said of me that if I were to be locked in a rubber white room for 10 years I'd come out a little hairier but otherwise much the same. I chose to take it as a compliment. A testament to my ability to keep myself occupied and amused with nothing but my brain.
Regardless of this, I had nothing to do. I was kind of tired and my brain came up with an activity that required little actual work on it's behalf. It suggested Scouta.
I don't hop onto Scouta as often as I should which is a shame. Scouta is a recommendation engine for online media which personalizes it's recommendations to by observing your viewing behavior. It was started by our very own Internet deity Richard Giles who I am sure will correct my definition in comments [Hi Rich :)].
The basic upshot of this is that rather having to scour the Internet for good stuff, it comes straight to you. It's very good at it. Last night I was complaining that it had never shown me anything I didn't like. Ha! Is that a bad thing?! Wake up man.
Anyway, I was watching this awesome video featuring Guy Kawasaki chairing a panel of some of the webs biggest success stories. I was about 45 minutes into the 1 hour video and then suddenly I was waking up. I had fallen asleep in that achingly familiar and yet still quite painful position of sitting in a chair with your chin on your chest.
The previous paragraph sounds like the video put me to sleep. To be clear, the video was really good, I was just that tired.
Time for bed, I told myself. All the kids are asleep, the dog is in, the cat is in (See I pay attention to those Channel 10 ads), and I'm obviously tired. In my sleep-addled state I struggled with the bedroom door for about 15 minutes before realizing that my wife had locked it. This is likely to prevent her suffocating in her sleep under the pile of children that like to sleep on top of her. I got into the room and beheld the glory that is my bed.
My bed is big. It isn't huge, it isn't palatial, it's just big. This is good because I am a big guy. I appreciate my bed. Not just because it is big, but because I don't sleep in it very often. There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, the pile of aforementioned children makes it incredibly uncomfortable. They are very snuggly, just not with me, which means I get faced with a bed full of kicking feet.
Secondly, I snore. Apparently I don't just snore, I make a noise that sounds like a herd of sheep being sucked through a Boeing engine (what a great visual). As my wife is a light sleeper and I am an Olympic gold-medalist sleeper I tend to allow her a good nights sleep most of the time by sleeping on a fold-out at the other end of the house. That is, she gets the best nights sleep one can get under a pile of children.
But tonight I wanted my bed. As I said I love the bed. It came to us from my mother-in-laws house where my sister-in-law used to sleep on it. Before that the beds origins are lost in the mysteries of time. It could be that it spent 14 decades travelling through Europe as part of a circus troupe, entertaining the mighty and meek alike with it's death-defying antics once catching the eye of a beautiful czarina and being chased out of Russia across three continents before finally finding a hiding place here in Perth. It might have just sat a shop waiting to be bought. I choose to believe the former. It gives the bed character and makes life more interesting.
So anyway, I climbed into this wondrous bed and settled in to sleep. After a few moments I heard a weird a grating noise. That's weird I thought to myself. It was a softish sort of noise and I thought that maybe my wife was snoring. As I'm a heavy snorer I had no real right to complain. I closed my eyes and decided I could live with it.
A few seconds later I heard it again. It didn't sound like someone snoring anymore. It sounded like metal being dragged through wood. I had a few seconds to contemplate this and then the scream occurred.
It wasn't a particularly blood-curdling scream. It shouldn't have had the heart-wrenching effect that it did even if it was coming from the woman I had chosen to spend the rest of my life with. The reason it affected me so badly is because I was also falling the 3 and a 1/2 foot to the ground that she was.
After spending several seconds checking to ensure that I was still alive, that my wife was still alive, that our house hadn't been magically transported to some demon dimension of agonizing shock and pain, I got up and switched on the light to determine what had happened. It turns out that the weird noise I was hearing was actually the sound of the end of the bed shearing off.
Apparently 5 years of worrying that the door was going to burst open revealing an angry Russian monarch accompanied by an armada of woodcutters had left the bed in no position to take my weight.
At least that is my daughters theory. I think it has more to do with a pile of crazed children jumping on it frequently but she's five and knows everything so who am I to argue.
And that is my tale. Anyone else ever had furniture collapse on them? Or been woken by a blood-curdling scream? Let me know.
Showing posts with label Tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tales. Show all posts
Friday, October 19, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Let me tell you a tale #3: Man vs. Metabolic Rate
Let me tell you a tale is a series of stories told by Mike Minutillo about the various antics from his life. Some of the characters will have been changed in order to protect the innocent or to make me appear more colorful as a human being. Some of the events will have been changed to increase their comedic value.
If you're one of those people whom I have been ignoring on MSN Messenger over the last two months then you'll no doubt be aware from reading my personal messages that I have gone into the ring for a few rounds against none other than heavyweight champion, The Universe. The universe had a bit of a weight advantage (just a bit) and had a few heavy hitters in his camp such as Number Theory and Newtons little known Thirteenth Law of Thermodynamics which states quite clearly, Mike is not as hot as he thinks he is.
I was essentially updating my personal message every hour or so to show my score versus that of the universe in a virtual battle for supremacy. Something along the lines of "Universe 1364, Mike 21". You can see that I was doing okay here considering that I was extremely outclassed by my opponent.
In hindsight this rather fun distraction from what was otherwise a soul-crushingly debilitating period of my life would have been better on Twitter. After all, this is exactly the kind of insanity that it is for. But alas, while I have a twitter account, it just isn't as convenient yet (unless I am missing some awesome twitter tools).
Anywho, while the ragged wounds from this story haven't yet healed, it does bring to mind at least one other occasion when I have behaved like an idiot and somehow survived (there have been so many). So without further ado, I give you Let me tell you a tale #3: Man vs. Metabolic Rate
It must have been in '97 or '98. I stalked down the corridor with my shotgun out, ready for anything. Just then McKenna comes screaming around the corner with his Chaingun rattling rounds off faster than my GPU can render them. This is unfortunate as it meant that my poor 486 DX4 100 pretty much locked up while McKenna hammered me into a mushy collection of Red Pixels.
I quit out of doom 2 and headed back into Windows 95. It seemed as if I had finished copying all of the stuff that I wanted from the vast network of 5 computers that we had organized at the LAN, or at the very least this crazy wicked cool looking OS had failed silently and I would curse it for hours afterwards. I hit Start->Shutdown in a move which was becoming increasingly familiar and began packing up cables in the incredibly intricate LAN-leaving ritual.
My neighbour was there also packing up. He wasn't actually my neighbour but he lived within walking distance of my house. For the purposes of the story he can be my neighbour because it will make the narrative flow easier. Also, his name isn't Bob but I'm going to use it anyway.
"Hey", said Bob. "Are you heading back up the hill now?". It is worth mentioning that the hill was Greenmount and it was also where we both lived. At that particular moment, we were somewhere down in the 'burbs about an hour away.
What followed was a lengthy conversation about whether or not this was a good idea given the activities we had previously engaged in followed by an agreement whereby I entered into Bob's service to take his computer home to his parents house as they needed it for work.
Bob had decided to stay at the party. Not because it was a really lively and happening party, but because he was in dire need of sleep. You see, this particular LAN party had been going on a while and this was day three. None of us had slept since it started but we had ensured that Pepsi would never beat Coke in the Cola market.
I got both machines packed neatly away into my 1982 Toyota Celica Liftback. I loved that car. It's a funny thing but no matter what I forget as life moves inevitably along I always remember the good times I had with each car I've owned. With six cans of cold Coca-Cola on the seat next to me and two cups of coffee warming my stomach, I revved the mighty 2 litre engine and headed off.
I knew it would be okay. Coffee flowed through my veins like molten lead. I had the heater on keeping my windscreen from fogging up but my window was down and my head was poking out a little to keep the fresh air in my face (and to avoid the rapidly fogging windscreen). Besides, I was 18 and therefore invulnerable. Nothing could stop me.
Around 38 minutes and 4 cans of Coke later I was at the bottom of Greenmount hill. The last leg to go. I was going to make it. All those who doubted me were fools. I would sleep in my own bed while they suffered on uncomfortable couches. Yes, I would sleep. Sleep.......
I woke up to an odd sound. A sort of rough sound that normally accompanies a car driving on gravel. This was of course ridiculous because I was in bed wasn't I? I remember getting into bed. If only I could open my eyes I would see that I was in bed. Of course I was in bed. What was in my hands? Was that my steering wheel? Oh my god I'm not in bed am I? I am, in actual fact, in somewhat dubious control of a 1982 Celica doing 90 kilometres an hour and flying off the highway.
My eyes flew open and I reacted with catlike reflexes. Whipping the steering wheel around to right lock I hammered down on the accelerator to push myself back to the road. This is I believe the right thing to do as slamming on the brakes whilst coasting over gravel is a serious no-no. Unfortunately my experience in such situations is pretty limited and I overcompensated. Now I have a few new problems.
Firstly, and highest in my attention, I am now sliding towards the road facing the oncoming traffic which currently consists of a light-blue Holden Camira and a very large white truck. The truck had a few dents already in the grille and I was about to make a much bigger one. Kudos to adrenaline on this one because about 20 seconds ago I would have been too tired to pay any attention.
The second issue which I had yet to think about, is what happens when a vehicle which is travelling in one direction with it's wheel travelling in the other across gravel slides two of it's wheels gently onto a hard surface, like say, asphalt.
The car performed a neat reverse 180 trick which left a dangerous amount of caffeine in the back of my throat. At least I am now facing the right way and my view of the damaged grille is now reduced down to the tiny rectangle of my rear-vision mirror. I vaguely hear the truck horn blow somewhere (what did he think I was going to suddenly realize, Hey I shouldn't do that just now and then calmly straighten up and drive off) which is probably what distracted me from the fact that I was still right locked.
Now I'm headed for the other side of the road and I don't like my chances over there any better than right here. I quickly hard-left and again overcompensate shooting for the gravel again. I do another 180 degree turn and slide gently off the road and slam into a street sign. The horn changes tone as the truck storms passed.
I climbed out of the passenger door as the drivers side door opened into a sharp drop. In fact, the only thing that stopped me going over was the street sign I had hammered into. A few minutes later the light blue Camira showed up. They had done a U-Turn as quickly as they could. Possibly because they had never seen a dead body before and they wanted to get a look at one before it started to smell.
They offered me a lift home which I graciously accepted once they helped me put mine and Bob's computers into the boot. They might be door stops or boat anchors now but back then a DX4 wasn't to be left lying about in a car. I got home and set up the two machines. Once I had them both up and running the adrenaline finally wore out and I fell asleep at the kitchen table.
And that is my Tale. If anyone has any comments on content or style please leave them here. If anyone else has had an experience regarding vehicular sleep, you can also leave your comments here. If you have a tale you'd like to share, or if you'd like me to stop writing them, please email me at michael DOT minutillo AT gmail DOT com
If you're one of those people whom I have been ignoring on MSN Messenger over the last two months then you'll no doubt be aware from reading my personal messages that I have gone into the ring for a few rounds against none other than heavyweight champion, The Universe. The universe had a bit of a weight advantage (just a bit) and had a few heavy hitters in his camp such as Number Theory and Newtons little known Thirteenth Law of Thermodynamics which states quite clearly, Mike is not as hot as he thinks he is.
I was essentially updating my personal message every hour or so to show my score versus that of the universe in a virtual battle for supremacy. Something along the lines of "Universe 1364, Mike 21". You can see that I was doing okay here considering that I was extremely outclassed by my opponent.
In hindsight this rather fun distraction from what was otherwise a soul-crushingly debilitating period of my life would have been better on Twitter. After all, this is exactly the kind of insanity that it is for. But alas, while I have a twitter account, it just isn't as convenient yet (unless I am missing some awesome twitter tools).
Anywho, while the ragged wounds from this story haven't yet healed, it does bring to mind at least one other occasion when I have behaved like an idiot and somehow survived (there have been so many). So without further ado, I give you Let me tell you a tale #3: Man vs. Metabolic Rate
It must have been in '97 or '98. I stalked down the corridor with my shotgun out, ready for anything. Just then McKenna comes screaming around the corner with his Chaingun rattling rounds off faster than my GPU can render them. This is unfortunate as it meant that my poor 486 DX4 100 pretty much locked up while McKenna hammered me into a mushy collection of Red Pixels.
I quit out of doom 2 and headed back into Windows 95. It seemed as if I had finished copying all of the stuff that I wanted from the vast network of 5 computers that we had organized at the LAN, or at the very least this crazy wicked cool looking OS had failed silently and I would curse it for hours afterwards. I hit Start->Shutdown in a move which was becoming increasingly familiar and began packing up cables in the incredibly intricate LAN-leaving ritual.
My neighbour was there also packing up. He wasn't actually my neighbour but he lived within walking distance of my house. For the purposes of the story he can be my neighbour because it will make the narrative flow easier. Also, his name isn't Bob but I'm going to use it anyway.
"Hey", said Bob. "Are you heading back up the hill now?". It is worth mentioning that the hill was Greenmount and it was also where we both lived. At that particular moment, we were somewhere down in the 'burbs about an hour away.
What followed was a lengthy conversation about whether or not this was a good idea given the activities we had previously engaged in followed by an agreement whereby I entered into Bob's service to take his computer home to his parents house as they needed it for work.
Bob had decided to stay at the party. Not because it was a really lively and happening party, but because he was in dire need of sleep. You see, this particular LAN party had been going on a while and this was day three. None of us had slept since it started but we had ensured that Pepsi would never beat Coke in the Cola market.
I got both machines packed neatly away into my 1982 Toyota Celica Liftback. I loved that car. It's a funny thing but no matter what I forget as life moves inevitably along I always remember the good times I had with each car I've owned. With six cans of cold Coca-Cola on the seat next to me and two cups of coffee warming my stomach, I revved the mighty 2 litre engine and headed off.
I knew it would be okay. Coffee flowed through my veins like molten lead. I had the heater on keeping my windscreen from fogging up but my window was down and my head was poking out a little to keep the fresh air in my face (and to avoid the rapidly fogging windscreen). Besides, I was 18 and therefore invulnerable. Nothing could stop me.
Around 38 minutes and 4 cans of Coke later I was at the bottom of Greenmount hill. The last leg to go. I was going to make it. All those who doubted me were fools. I would sleep in my own bed while they suffered on uncomfortable couches. Yes, I would sleep. Sleep.......
I woke up to an odd sound. A sort of rough sound that normally accompanies a car driving on gravel. This was of course ridiculous because I was in bed wasn't I? I remember getting into bed. If only I could open my eyes I would see that I was in bed. Of course I was in bed. What was in my hands? Was that my steering wheel? Oh my god I'm not in bed am I? I am, in actual fact, in somewhat dubious control of a 1982 Celica doing 90 kilometres an hour and flying off the highway.
My eyes flew open and I reacted with catlike reflexes. Whipping the steering wheel around to right lock I hammered down on the accelerator to push myself back to the road. This is I believe the right thing to do as slamming on the brakes whilst coasting over gravel is a serious no-no. Unfortunately my experience in such situations is pretty limited and I overcompensated. Now I have a few new problems.
Firstly, and highest in my attention, I am now sliding towards the road facing the oncoming traffic which currently consists of a light-blue Holden Camira and a very large white truck. The truck had a few dents already in the grille and I was about to make a much bigger one. Kudos to adrenaline on this one because about 20 seconds ago I would have been too tired to pay any attention.
The second issue which I had yet to think about, is what happens when a vehicle which is travelling in one direction with it's wheel travelling in the other across gravel slides two of it's wheels gently onto a hard surface, like say, asphalt.
The car performed a neat reverse 180 trick which left a dangerous amount of caffeine in the back of my throat. At least I am now facing the right way and my view of the damaged grille is now reduced down to the tiny rectangle of my rear-vision mirror. I vaguely hear the truck horn blow somewhere (what did he think I was going to suddenly realize, Hey I shouldn't do that just now and then calmly straighten up and drive off) which is probably what distracted me from the fact that I was still right locked.
Now I'm headed for the other side of the road and I don't like my chances over there any better than right here. I quickly hard-left and again overcompensate shooting for the gravel again. I do another 180 degree turn and slide gently off the road and slam into a street sign. The horn changes tone as the truck storms passed.
I climbed out of the passenger door as the drivers side door opened into a sharp drop. In fact, the only thing that stopped me going over was the street sign I had hammered into. A few minutes later the light blue Camira showed up. They had done a U-Turn as quickly as they could. Possibly because they had never seen a dead body before and they wanted to get a look at one before it started to smell.
They offered me a lift home which I graciously accepted once they helped me put mine and Bob's computers into the boot. They might be door stops or boat anchors now but back then a DX4 wasn't to be left lying about in a car. I got home and set up the two machines. Once I had them both up and running the adrenaline finally wore out and I fell asleep at the kitchen table.
And that is my Tale. If anyone has any comments on content or style please leave them here. If anyone else has had an experience regarding vehicular sleep, you can also leave your comments here. If you have a tale you'd like to share, or if you'd like me to stop writing them, please email me at michael DOT minutillo AT gmail DOT com
Monday, May 07, 2007
Let me tell you a tale #2 - Sailing Majestically Though the Air
Ever since I told the story of my brush with death which I'm just now renaming "Mikes first taste of REAL power", I've wanted to tell more in a similar style. I have led an interesting life and I occasionally come into contact other people who have led interesting lives too. So I am starting a series. The first of this series is going to be the aforementioned post, it's just too classic not to.
Let me tell you a tale is a series of stories told by Mike Minutillo about the various antics from his life. Some of the characters will have been changed in order to protect the innocent or to make me appear more colorful as a human being. Some of the events will have been changed to increase their comedic value.
This particular story has me returning from my weekly trip to the local library on my shiny black mountain bike one April afternoon in the spring of 1990. I loved those trips to the library. I would look at books, borrow books, and look at some more books. I was allowed to take six with me, and I always did, even if I had no chance of reading them all in the week before the sensual draw of the place would call to me with it's sirens song of silky, yet dusty pages once more.
I cannot remember exactly what I had taken out that day. This was possibly because of events yet to be disclosed. Or it might have been due to the fact that my face had been surgically enhanced with two and a half thousand dollars of surgical steel within the confines of the previous week. Yes, way back in 1990, I had buck teeth that bugs bunny would have laughed at and my parents along with my orthodontist had agreed, it was time to clean up Stonehenge.
Side note: Given the kind of person that I was and given that my braces limited my sporting activities even further than my personality did, I think I can hazard a guess at the books which I had borrowed. I think that half of the bag on my handlebars would have been made up of the audio book collection of The Lord of the Rings. Not the BBC version, this was by a company named Jabberwocky. If anyone knows where I can get my hands on these, please let me know. As for the other half, I can guess at those as well. I would say that one would have been the hardcover version of Advanced QuickBASIC 4.5 Techniques. Another would have to have been the only star wars comic that was at the time included in the canon. The final title eludes me but I think it was one of the Thomas Covenant books or something.
I had braces and they hurt. Whoever had decided to install the cheese-grater into one of the more sensitive areas of my body could have apparated right there and then and I would have begun toasting marshmallows on him and broken into my favorite verse of Kumbaya. I realise that thus far this doesn't seem to have any real bearing on the story. What could a bunch of nerdy books and some young greasy nerd with a face full of metal and a BMX bike have to do with each other anyway? I'm getting to it I promise.
As I pushed my bike to the very limits I was overtaken by some wise-guy who, I think you would have to agree, was obviously cheating. I first saw him sneaking up into my blind spot when I glanced behind me to check on the creepy sensation that death was stalking me. It turns out that he wasn't (or so I thought at the time) but this other guy was. There's no way you're going to get past me buddy, I thought to myself, and began to pump the pedals furiously to ensure my inevitable victory. But he kept coming, inching closer and closer until finally, he goes sliding gently passed me with a stupid triumphant yet maniacal grin on his stupid face.
I kick down even harder on my pedals, determined not to lose to this guy but I just don't have the strength to beat him. You see, my aggressor had changed into second gear and was already pulling away from me in his Mazda 323 Station Wagon.
At this point I had built up a fair whack of speed. The wind is whistling through my shiny new braces and it's making a low thrumming sound as it does so. I don't feel the need to apply my brakes as I've got a ways to go yet and I'm on a flat bit of road anyway. Or so I thought.
So imagine my surprise when my front wheel hits a pothole. Because of the speed my bike is travelling, the front wheel comes out of the pothole with so much upward momentum that my bike does a huge wheelie. For a second I think this is really cool and that once I get home and change my pants I'll have an awesome story to tell about the time I went most of the way along Jacoby Street on just my back wheel. I'll be the coolest kids in school. Even if I spend my lunch hour studiously typing arcane inscriptions from my QuickBASIC tome into one of the schools brand spanking new computers.
Then, out of the corner of my speed-streaked tear-streaming left eye, I see something which leads me to believe I may need to burn my pants and not just change them when I get home. The front wheel of my bike is rolling happily away into the gutter on my left and I'm now pulling a mono of doom, travelling down the road on the worlds most unbalanced and uncomfortable instant unicycle with no warning and very little training.
Eventually the inevitable happens and the forks of my bike strike the road, twisting mercilessly and I'm doing the ever-classic BMX-Asphalt-Pole-Vaulting maneuver, flying straight over the handlebars and out into space. If any of you has been in a similar situation the you will appreciate it when I say that, at that point in time when my eyes were level with the kitch little bell, I was instantly transported into some higher dimension where I could watch the proceedings over the period of three or four years.
My first thought is of course for The Lord of the Rings. I do NOT want those tapes to break or I'm gonna have some explaining to do when I wake up from the coma right? My second thought is for the phenomenally expensive piece of medieval torture equipment keeping my lips from interfering with anything but my ragged nerve endings. While I'd be happy for them to go, I'm pretty sure they'd take my lips, gums and tongue with them.
So as I sail majestically through the air, at a speed which Keanu Reeves wishes he could have matched when dodging those bullets in The Matrix, I twist myself sideways to avoid expensive and probably painful damage to my braces. Once I was in position those crazy people who control the universe, no doubt inspired by the Wachowski brothers films, flipped the universe back into normal speed.
I smack into the road shoulder and forehead first and then go to a quiet dark place for a little while. I later found out that I had 6 stitches and a cracked collarbone. The Lord of the Rings survives a few minor scratches but was, years later, chewed by my cheap Walkman. My braces were fine. I mean they still hurt but no more than before the accident. The bike was never the same again. Possibly because I only ever took it out of the shed except to kick it and throw it around the yard.
If anyone ever asks me this is the reason for my aversion to two things. Aversion #1 is getting on a bike of any description. I don't care if it's an exercise bike and it doesn't have a front wheel. I'm not taking any chances. Aversion #2 is hand-stands. My doctor told me to stay clear of handstands with a broken collarbone for a while but he wasn't specific to exactly how long a while that should be. Needless to say, I'm not taking any chances there either.
And that is my Tale. If anyone has any comments on content or style please leave them here. If anyone wants to comment on the stupidity of not checking the bolts on ones wheel before taking the weekly library trip, you can also leave them here. If you want to criticise my choice of literary exposure you can bite me. Hard.
P.S. I apologise for the previous post about my cat. As I had surmised, they are never as funny to other people as they are to the owner of the cat. I hope this tale of wonder and idiocy will more than make up for it.
Let me tell you a tale is a series of stories told by Mike Minutillo about the various antics from his life. Some of the characters will have been changed in order to protect the innocent or to make me appear more colorful as a human being. Some of the events will have been changed to increase their comedic value.
This particular story has me returning from my weekly trip to the local library on my shiny black mountain bike one April afternoon in the spring of 1990. I loved those trips to the library. I would look at books, borrow books, and look at some more books. I was allowed to take six with me, and I always did, even if I had no chance of reading them all in the week before the sensual draw of the place would call to me with it's sirens song of silky, yet dusty pages once more.
I cannot remember exactly what I had taken out that day. This was possibly because of events yet to be disclosed. Or it might have been due to the fact that my face had been surgically enhanced with two and a half thousand dollars of surgical steel within the confines of the previous week. Yes, way back in 1990, I had buck teeth that bugs bunny would have laughed at and my parents along with my orthodontist had agreed, it was time to clean up Stonehenge.
Side note: Given the kind of person that I was and given that my braces limited my sporting activities even further than my personality did, I think I can hazard a guess at the books which I had borrowed. I think that half of the bag on my handlebars would have been made up of the audio book collection of The Lord of the Rings. Not the BBC version, this was by a company named Jabberwocky. If anyone knows where I can get my hands on these, please let me know. As for the other half, I can guess at those as well. I would say that one would have been the hardcover version of Advanced QuickBASIC 4.5 Techniques. Another would have to have been the only star wars comic that was at the time included in the canon. The final title eludes me but I think it was one of the Thomas Covenant books or something.
I had braces and they hurt. Whoever had decided to install the cheese-grater into one of the more sensitive areas of my body could have apparated right there and then and I would have begun toasting marshmallows on him and broken into my favorite verse of Kumbaya. I realise that thus far this doesn't seem to have any real bearing on the story. What could a bunch of nerdy books and some young greasy nerd with a face full of metal and a BMX bike have to do with each other anyway? I'm getting to it I promise.
As I pushed my bike to the very limits I was overtaken by some wise-guy who, I think you would have to agree, was obviously cheating. I first saw him sneaking up into my blind spot when I glanced behind me to check on the creepy sensation that death was stalking me. It turns out that he wasn't (or so I thought at the time) but this other guy was. There's no way you're going to get past me buddy, I thought to myself, and began to pump the pedals furiously to ensure my inevitable victory. But he kept coming, inching closer and closer until finally, he goes sliding gently passed me with a stupid triumphant yet maniacal grin on his stupid face.
I kick down even harder on my pedals, determined not to lose to this guy but I just don't have the strength to beat him. You see, my aggressor had changed into second gear and was already pulling away from me in his Mazda 323 Station Wagon.
At this point I had built up a fair whack of speed. The wind is whistling through my shiny new braces and it's making a low thrumming sound as it does so. I don't feel the need to apply my brakes as I've got a ways to go yet and I'm on a flat bit of road anyway. Or so I thought.
So imagine my surprise when my front wheel hits a pothole. Because of the speed my bike is travelling, the front wheel comes out of the pothole with so much upward momentum that my bike does a huge wheelie. For a second I think this is really cool and that once I get home and change my pants I'll have an awesome story to tell about the time I went most of the way along Jacoby Street on just my back wheel. I'll be the coolest kids in school. Even if I spend my lunch hour studiously typing arcane inscriptions from my QuickBASIC tome into one of the schools brand spanking new computers.
Then, out of the corner of my speed-streaked tear-streaming left eye, I see something which leads me to believe I may need to burn my pants and not just change them when I get home. The front wheel of my bike is rolling happily away into the gutter on my left and I'm now pulling a mono of doom, travelling down the road on the worlds most unbalanced and uncomfortable instant unicycle with no warning and very little training.
Eventually the inevitable happens and the forks of my bike strike the road, twisting mercilessly and I'm doing the ever-classic BMX-Asphalt-Pole-Vaulting maneuver, flying straight over the handlebars and out into space. If any of you has been in a similar situation the you will appreciate it when I say that, at that point in time when my eyes were level with the kitch little bell, I was instantly transported into some higher dimension where I could watch the proceedings over the period of three or four years.
My first thought is of course for The Lord of the Rings. I do NOT want those tapes to break or I'm gonna have some explaining to do when I wake up from the coma right? My second thought is for the phenomenally expensive piece of medieval torture equipment keeping my lips from interfering with anything but my ragged nerve endings. While I'd be happy for them to go, I'm pretty sure they'd take my lips, gums and tongue with them.
So as I sail majestically through the air, at a speed which Keanu Reeves wishes he could have matched when dodging those bullets in The Matrix, I twist myself sideways to avoid expensive and probably painful damage to my braces. Once I was in position those crazy people who control the universe, no doubt inspired by the Wachowski brothers films, flipped the universe back into normal speed.
I smack into the road shoulder and forehead first and then go to a quiet dark place for a little while. I later found out that I had 6 stitches and a cracked collarbone. The Lord of the Rings survives a few minor scratches but was, years later, chewed by my cheap Walkman. My braces were fine. I mean they still hurt but no more than before the accident. The bike was never the same again. Possibly because I only ever took it out of the shed except to kick it and throw it around the yard.
If anyone ever asks me this is the reason for my aversion to two things. Aversion #1 is getting on a bike of any description. I don't care if it's an exercise bike and it doesn't have a front wheel. I'm not taking any chances. Aversion #2 is hand-stands. My doctor told me to stay clear of handstands with a broken collarbone for a while but he wasn't specific to exactly how long a while that should be. Needless to say, I'm not taking any chances there either.
And that is my Tale. If anyone has any comments on content or style please leave them here. If anyone wants to comment on the stupidity of not checking the bolts on ones wheel before taking the weekly library trip, you can also leave them here. If you want to criticise my choice of literary exposure you can bite me. Hard.
P.S. I apologise for the previous post about my cat. As I had surmised, they are never as funny to other people as they are to the owner of the cat. I hope this tale of wonder and idiocy will more than make up for it.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Let me tell you a tale
I feel like a new man. I could probably get one looking as I do at the moment. Pretty sharp, let me tell you.
For those that see me relatively regularly, next time you see me you will note that I have removed my Olympic Bear-Swallower style beard. Cost me a pretty penny too.
Normally when you undertake such a crazy plan, you'd trim the beard down first and then go the razor. Bugger that, I thought to myself and immediately started hacking away at it with a ShickFX Quattro razor.
Three disposable razors later I am now smooth again. Three! At four blades a a head. That's twelve razors bluntened by my 5 weeks of growth. I'm not sure that I earned enough money in that time to cover the cost.
There are other things going on in my life at the moment which make me feel refreshed but as I'm under a blood oath not to talk about them... let me tell you a cautionary tale of stupidity. In this way I hope to educate you all about stupidity so that you can avoid my mistakes in your own lives.
It was a cold winter morning way back in my early teens. My itty bitty book light, the pride and joy of my toy collection at the time, had stopped responding to my "on" requests. Instead of suspecting the bulb (the most likely culprit), your intrepid hero decided to attack the problem armed with a screw-driver.
Now, I'm not a complete marshmallow. I know that you don't jam a screwdriver directly into an electrical device if it's plugged into the wall. So I calmly extracted the power cable and rested it gently between my teeth.
Go back and read that paragraph again. I kid you not, I placed a power cable IN MY MOUTH! But all is not over for our fearless protagonist. Because of the way these kinds of power cables was constructed I did not immediately meet my fate.
You see, this cable was constructed of two metal cylinders, one inside the other. They were separated by a thin sheet of, presumably, resistant plastic. So as long as my teeth and lips stayed away from the inner core, I would be ok.
Well, it would have been a good idea for someone to tell me that before I tried to adjust it's position with my tongue.
I woke up on the floor several minutes later with a killer headache, sore teeth and jaws, and a numb tongue.
I have never since owned an itty bitty book light. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that one remained. Sitting in my old room at my parents house. Just waiting.
Waiting.
For those that see me relatively regularly, next time you see me you will note that I have removed my Olympic Bear-Swallower style beard. Cost me a pretty penny too.
Normally when you undertake such a crazy plan, you'd trim the beard down first and then go the razor. Bugger that, I thought to myself and immediately started hacking away at it with a ShickFX Quattro razor.
Three disposable razors later I am now smooth again. Three! At four blades a a head. That's twelve razors bluntened by my 5 weeks of growth. I'm not sure that I earned enough money in that time to cover the cost.
There are other things going on in my life at the moment which make me feel refreshed but as I'm under a blood oath not to talk about them... let me tell you a cautionary tale of stupidity. In this way I hope to educate you all about stupidity so that you can avoid my mistakes in your own lives.
It was a cold winter morning way back in my early teens. My itty bitty book light, the pride and joy of my toy collection at the time, had stopped responding to my "on" requests. Instead of suspecting the bulb (the most likely culprit), your intrepid hero decided to attack the problem armed with a screw-driver.
Now, I'm not a complete marshmallow. I know that you don't jam a screwdriver directly into an electrical device if it's plugged into the wall. So I calmly extracted the power cable and rested it gently between my teeth.
Go back and read that paragraph again. I kid you not, I placed a power cable IN MY MOUTH! But all is not over for our fearless protagonist. Because of the way these kinds of power cables was constructed I did not immediately meet my fate.
You see, this cable was constructed of two metal cylinders, one inside the other. They were separated by a thin sheet of, presumably, resistant plastic. So as long as my teeth and lips stayed away from the inner core, I would be ok.
Well, it would have been a good idea for someone to tell me that before I tried to adjust it's position with my tongue.
I woke up on the floor several minutes later with a killer headache, sore teeth and jaws, and a numb tongue.
I have never since owned an itty bitty book light. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that one remained. Sitting in my old room at my parents house. Just waiting.
Waiting.
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