Nature is Not Our Friend

From two separate news stories this week:

“A ten-foot shark swallowed a shell diver’s head, crushing his face mask and breaking his nose. Diver Eric Nerhus later told rescue workers he survived the attack from what looked like a great white shark by poking it in the eye.”

“A 65-year-old woman hiking in a state park near Eureka, Calif., drove off a mountain lion after it clasped her husband’s head in its jaws. After breaking a pen in an attempt to stab the large cat in its eye, she whacked the lion’s nose with a tree branch. That convinced the big cat to drop her husband and slink away.”

I’ve learned two very important things from these stories:

(1) If your head is being eaten by a shark, poke it in the eye. However, if your head is being eaten by a big cat, smack it on the nose. The poke-it-in-the-eye trick does NOT work on big cats!! We have no data on whether or not it works to smack a shark in the nose.

(2) We need to devote some serious research money to finding out why large, dangerous predators find human heads to be so delicious! Maybe a generous slathering of Brylcream is in order before going into their habitats? Or maybe they’d just find that even MORE appetizing, like A-1 sauce? We need to know.

(The image shows a mule vs. a mountain lion. Apparently the ‘pick-it-up-by-the-tail’ method is pretty effective, too!)

Valentine’s Greetings for 2007

The old-fashioned ’sugar and spice’ Valentine’s Greetings from years past just don’t seem right to me anymore. Maybe we’re too sophisticated and cynical for that saccharine pap nowadays. Maybe we’re just too jaded to care about anything. Maybe it’s just me. I dunno.

In any case, here are some original greetings you can use on your Valentine’s Day cards this year.

Somehow, they seem to convey contemporary feelings more accurately than those syrupy poems from the days of yore. See what you think.

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For Teacher

You’re overworked and underpaid,
Three times divorced and can’t get laid
By any man who’s your own age,
So meet me by the batting cage!
-I don’t CARE about our 17 year age difference,
[Your Name Here]

To My Beloved Victim in the Dungeon Under the Shed

I saw six murders on TV last night
But the CSIs got the clues all right,
I’m glad the good ones are on TV,
‘Cause the real-world guys just can’t catch me!
-Your Loving But Merciless Tormentor
[Your Pseudonym Here]

For a Male Friend From a Real Man Who’s Absolutely Sure About His Sexual Orientation

I don’t really love you
I’m sorry to say.
You’re attractive enough
But I don’t swing that way.
-Yours in Masculine Camaraderie,
[Your Name Here]

To My Online Dating MatchMate©

Your Playmate© photo quite intrigued me,
Your millions in the bank so pleased me,
I can’t wait to see and feel and hear ya,
When you come to visit from Nigeria!
-Here’s Hoping You Got the Cash Transfer Okay,
[Your Name and Bank Account Number Here]

For My Goth Vampyre Lady

Your hair is black, as are your nails,
Your eyelids, and your ponytails,
Your skin’s chalk white, your lips blood red,
Let me bite your neck, my dear undead!
-In Count Dracula’s Unholy Name,
[Your Name Here]

For My Online Sweetie

Wh3n w3 41M y0u m4k3 m3 5w00n,
3v3ry 71m3 w3 m337 1n 0ur pr1v473 ch47 r00m.
Y0u m4k3 m3 5w347, 4nd p4n7, 4nd 516h,
1 h0p3 y0u’r3 n07 4 62-y34r-0|d 6uy!
-Hoping Beyond Hope,
[Your Name Here]

For My Loving Husband, Just Home From Iraq

You lost both legs, an arm, an ear,
When that IED exploded in Iraq, my dear.
But though insurgents blew you apart,
I love what’s left of you, sweetheart.
-Your Loving Wife,
[Your Name Here]

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Feel free to add your own Valentine’s Greetings in the comments.

married life is grand

Ya know what? It really is. It’s kinda neat to say, “my husband”….hee hee I hope you all had a great x-mas. I spent christmas eve in Quincy Illinois at Mike’s sister’s house and all of his family *well most of them* were there. I had a migraine and had to lay down for a couple of hours, but after that things were peachy. Mike got me the CD I wanted, the Carrie Underwood CD. I know, she’s the little blonde that won American Idol, but she sure can sing! I love the CD! I highly recommend it. Well, I have lots to do, I just thought I would attempt to post something on here. Someone post!! Please! Uncle Markie went to a lot of trouble to get us set up. LOVE YA ALL!! Mrs. Howe tee hee

yea for me!

Mike and I are finally doing it. Tying the knot. I never thought I would want to be married, but I really do! Mike is my love, my life. I can’t imagine coming home and him not being there. He has wonderful children, and a great family that has totally embraced me as one of their own. *not that I’m an orphan or anything* Pastor Harry (family friend of Mike’s parent’s) is going to marry us on October 20th. So fast! Not really, it’s been 9 freakin years, right??!! Sometime down the road we will have some sort of reception. Maybe if I get this settlement from the Dial Corporation for being short. HA HA

The Road to Hell…

…is paved with good intentions.

I’m so sorry…

A Blinding Flash of the Obvious

Like everyone else, my life is full of those little frustrations that make my days seem much longer than they should be. Especially workdays.

For example, where I work we have two soda vending machines. One has cans, one bottles. I am allergic to aspertame (Nutrasweet), so I can’t buy ‘diet’ sodas. Neither of the machines has tea. The can machine therefore offers me one viable choice: Coke. The bottle machine is Pepsi, which is sweeter than Coke; given a choice, I’ll take Coke any time. Still, I can only drink one Coke a day, or it’s just too much sugar to handle. The Pepsi machine will also gladly sell me a bottle of water for a dollar. That’s just ridiculous, but I have been known to buy one anyway.

Then a few weeks ago, I had my first blinding flash of the obvious: though the tap water here is pretty bad, there is a spigot on the kitchenette sink that dispenses – wait for it – filtered and chilled water. Since this is all they do to bottled water anyway, it hit me that I could refill my water bottle for free. Duh.

So I’d been happily drinking free bottled water for a couple of weeks, when the following fact worked its way through my barely-functioning brain: there is a whole binful of free Tetley teabags right next to the coffepot. Just 18 inches from where I’ve been filling up my water bottle. So I took one and put it in my water bottle, and viola, a half hour later I had a free bottle of iced tea.

Like I said, just another blinding flash of the obvious. But it has made work so much more tolerable.

Broomersize

My buddy Doug Higley (who made my cannibal toe necklace – really) has come up with an excellent weight-loss plan that I just feel I have to promote here.

He calls it ‘Broomersize’, and it’s the most practical, common-sense weight loss method I’ve ever heard of. The principle is so easy, that I wonder why no one has ever thought of it before?

I won’t give it away here, but click on the picture of the broom to go to Doug’s site and find out the secret for yourself. Doug’s lost 17 lbs. on his program so far!

Pirates Constructibles

Yaaar! There be Pirates!

I love games, and just this last week I started playing an extremely fun new game called Pirates Constructibles, from Wizkids Games. Pirates is like Magic: the Gathering in that it’s a CCG (Collectible Card Game), but it’s also a miniatures game—some of the cards have pirate ships that you punch out and assemble. (The cards aren’t cardboard; they’re a kind of thin, strong compressed plastic foamboard.)

You play the game on a tabletop; all you need is an area about 3 ft. square. There are little islands you place around the playing field, which you then load up with tiny gold dubloons. You board a few talented crewmembers, place your ship (or ships) on your home island, and start playing pirate.

To win, you must pick up the most gold and transport it to your home island, but you can also attack each other to steal your opponent’s gold or simply sink his ships down to Davy Jones’s Locker.

The rules are relatively simple for a miniatures game (I got my butt handed to me by an 11-year-old kid in my first tournament last Sunday) but are complex enough to make it interesting. There’s a lot of thought involved, from fleet-building to strategic gameplay. The miniatures look great, and there’s even a bit of historical accuracy for historical battle buffs—you can play English, French, Spanish, American, or Pirate.

I only have two complaints:

One, it’s yet another $4-a-pack collectible game, and there are already FIVE editions on the market. The good news is that you can start playing a simple game with just one pack, so entry is cheap. But you could easily invest your life savings trying to get that great super-ship your buddy kicked your keister with last week.

Two, the masts on the little ships are pretty fragile. I broke one my first game. A tube of gel superglue is required equipment.

Highly recommended.

Fading Fame

“I usesta be a contendah! I useta be sumboddy!” -Me

It’s tough to experience a bit of fame, and then find out how fleeting it is. Believe it or not, once upon a time people actually asked me for autographs. Oh, not many. But some. I even did a book signing at the big annual BookExpo show in Chicago one year. Trust me, when someone thrusts a pen in your hand with a look of admiration and asks you to autograph their book, it’s a real ego boost.

Those days are now long gone. INFO magazine went under some 14 years ago now, and my last book was published in 1997 and is long out of print.

There are still some remnants of fame left; tattered rags that hint at their once gleaming spendor.

Amazon (who got my name wrong in the first place: I’m listed as ‘Mark Robbin Brown’) still lists nine of my books here. And my publisher, Que, still lists a bit of information about my books when you enter the ISBNs for them here. You can even buy some of them used on Abebooks by searching for my name here. (For most of them, the shipping is four times the cost of the book.)

But being a faded star (especially one that didn’t shine that brightly in the first place) ain’t the same as being in the spotlight, kiddo. Not by a long shot.

Life Magazine: August 6, 1951

It’s August 6, 1951, as the title up there says, and I’m busy being born. Meanwhile, as always, on the newsstands is this week’s copy of Life magazine.

The girl on the cover – Carol Braun – is having fun, fun, fun in the summertime. She’s just been named the Portland Rose Festival Princess, and she’s getting her picture taken (in a tight sweater) to appear on the cover of Life magazine, just like Betty Grable. Life is sweet. (Pun intended.)

So what, you ask?

Well, I grow up, and in 1972 I marry Carol Rudy (a lovely sweater girl herself) whose name then changes to… Carol Brown.

Just one of those strange little coincidences that make life so darned interesting. (Pun intended.)

I ordered a copy of this issue of Life from eBay a few days ago, and just got it in the mail today. I just had to. My life wouldn’t be complete without it. (Pun… well, you know.)