Adios, Guatemala pics

Somebody please tell Jeff Hofer to develop the forty rolls of film he brought back from his second Guatemala trip. This is the last one I have from his first trip:



I think this guy's checking on the ferret he's got in his jacket.

Down in front

My wife Kara and I finally got with the times. We just came back from seeing the movie “March of the Penguins,” which everybody else waddled into several months ago. One thing is for sure -- that movie has forever changed the way I look at seals. I used to think seals were all cute and cuddly, balancing beach balls on their noses while clapping and saying, “Ork, ork, ork!” The truth is that they are actually bloodthirsty beasts, many-toothed devourers of cute little innocent penguins. The only thing that sets seals apart from nature’s other ferocious carnivores is that I’ve never seen Steve Irwin wrestle a seal.

The seal in “March of the Penguins” was the scariest movie character since Samarra in “The Ring.” I think I’m going to have Kara check for seals under the bed before we go to sleep tonight. Or maybe I’ll just rub some tuna on her slippers.

Morgan Freeman, who did a fine job narrating the film, kept saying that “March of the Penguins” was all about love. I found it to be more about penguins. Perhaps there’s more love in the unrated DVD version.

Regardless, anyone who’s seen the movie, which features numerous scenes of penguins using their stubby little legs to trek seventy-five miles back and forth from the sea to their Antarctic breeding grounds, most likely stopped complaining about their commute for a couple of days.
We saw the movie on a whim at one of my favorite places in the world – the second-run, cheap seats theater. For two bucks, you can see all those movies that don’t quite seem worth ten bucks to see at the real theater, but still seem worth wasting two hours of your life on, like every movie with Will Ferrell in it.

The thing I love best about the cheap seats theater is that when a seat breaks or has something nasty spilled on it, they just throw a trash bag over the seat and move on with life. Also, they don’t waste money on things like heat, which helped to bring the Antarctic experience that much closer to home. It’s like the cheap version of IMAX – when you see your breath and you can’t feel your fingers, you really feel like you’re right there beside the penguins.

Our most memorable cheap seats experience came the day that Kara and I made the severe miscalculation of going to see a Harry Potter movie during a Sunday matinee. The theater was overflowing with little wizard wannabes, who would have done well to have studied up on the spell for, “Open a bag of Skittles without sending the entire contents bouncing across the theater floor.”

About halfway through the movie, a baby started crying. A normal muggle father would have simply taken the baby outside, but this one was not normal. For a good fifteen minutes, the baby tested out its new lungs in creative and ear-shattering ways. I have no idea what happened in the movie, but it was well worth my two bucks to watch the theater patrons slowly turn into an angry mob. One mother started taking up a collection, offering to head over to Kmart and buy them out of pitchforks and torches.

Finally, someone from across the theater politely asked, “Sir, could you please take your baby outside?”

The man stood up with his baby in his arms, proceeding to unleash a string of obscenities that would have made a pirate blush, making clear his intention to stay, while giving a free vocabulary lesson to dozens of children. Those words should only be taught to children by a parent who is trying to fix something.

The movie kept playing as an army of theater employees came to evict the man from his seat. We missed the whole movie and were out two bucks each, but sometimes you get more entertainment than you pay for.

You can throw popcorn at Mike Todd’s head online at cox1013@hotmail.com.

Titanic, without the boat

Or perhaps bitchin' Camaro, without the Camaro.

The horse knows the way

I’ve noticed that more people seem to be calling Thanksgiving their favorite holiday lately. The most obvious reason for its popularity is that Thanksgiving is all about family, gluttony and making jelly out of tiny fruits that have no business being molded into gelatinous cylinders. Also, let’s not forget the cherished historical roots of the holiday; the Pilgrims waited until the cold weather of late November to celebrate the first Thanksgiving, so that they could safely eat frozen leftover turkey sandwiches for the next month.

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, without a doubt, but I tend to think of it as more of a ramp-up holiday for the bigger ones just around the corner. In my family, Thanksgiving always seemed like an hors d’oeuvre kind of a holiday, a mozzarella stick to whet one’s appetite before the porterhouse steak of Christmas was served.

This year’s Thanksgiving, though, promises to be an excellent one for my family, which has recently expanded by way of betrothal. My wife Kara and I rarely have an opportunity to bring both of our families together, and we couldn’t have had everyone over to our house for our second Thanksgiving as a married couple, mainly because they’d probably expect us to cook for them, but also because somebody would probably have to sleep in the ferret’s cage. I’d feel bad if Dad had to fight with Chopper over who got the hammock and who got the fuzzy little fleece pocket.

This year, Kara’s family has graciously agreed to host both of our families for Thanksgiving dinner. This works out perfectly for me and Kara, as we get to hang out with everyone, and we don’t have to clean the bathroom to do it; we get to have our turkey and eat it, too.

Speaking of cleaning the bathroom, did you know that you can get toilet cleanser with Teflon in it now? I know! I don’t blame you for being flush with excitement. It’s only a few cents more than the regular stuff, so it’s definitely worth it, especially if you cook a lot of eggs in your john. Sure, this may be only tangentially related to the topic of Thanksgiving, but it’s important for the public to know about big-league scientific advancements like this. Also, if you happen to work in a Teflon marketing department, allow me to give you your new slogan: “Teflon: Out of the frying pan and into the toilet.” You don’t have to pay me any royalties if you use that; just cleaning my bathroom before company comes will be thanks enough.

So this year we don’t have to decide which family to spend Thanksgiving with, or figure out a way to do a whirlwind tour so that we can see everybody. Usually, mapping out the holidays with our two families involves months of discussion, scribbling with red pens on calendars and a musical montage where the hands of a clock spin around in the background. This year we’ll have everyone under one roof, and that’s something to be thankful for, even if we don’t have to go around the table and say it out loud, which, incidentally, I really hope we don’t have to do.

I’m also very thankful that I’m actually going to eat a meal that doesn’t involve cereal in any way. This is a very rare and special occasion for me. Maybe I’ll eat the turkey with a spoon so it won’t be too much of a shock to the system.

How a person could possibly cook a huge meal for eight other people, I have no idea, but I’m psyched that Kara’s mom is gracious enough to do it. If Kara and I were left to our own devices for Thanksgiving, we’d probably just pour gravy over our Corn Pops.

If you’re careful not to get any mashed potatoes stuck in your keyboard, you can reach Mike Todd online at cox1013@hotmail.com.

For whom the turkey tolls

Happy Thanksgiving Eve (for non-U.S. types, happy Wednesday)!



Either way, hope you're not working right now.

He’s having a baby

Another buddy of mine is having a baby. Well, he’s not exactly having it, but he’s more than loosely connected to the chain of events that has precipitated the baby shower that my wife Kara and I are attending this weekend. Did you know that guys can get invited to baby showers now? The times, they have a-changed.

Kara and I are used to running a gauntlet of weddings every year, as we have reached ages that (frighteningly) round up to thirty. Though I haven’t kept a running tally, I think that the number of weddings may have been eclipsed by the number of baby showers – you can work out the math on that one.

The fact that my friends are having children now is rather disconcerting. These are the same people who, in college, spent weeks walking a lobster along the countertop for longer and longer periods of time because “we’re teaching it to breathe air.”

What baffles me most is that people keep having kids when they know full well what irrational creatures they are. A guy Kara works with was telling her this week about his two-year old son, who has recently added the word “afraid” to his vocabulary. After his parents dressed him one morning, the kid started shrieking that he was afraid of his pants.

The pants did not have tarantulas crawling around in them. These were not asbestos pants. My property taxes were not hiding in his pockets. The kid made such a fuss that his parents were compelled to remove his pants, at which point the child started crying because his legs were cold. But he wouldn’t hear of putting his pants back on. “I’m afwaid of my pants!” he wailed. After hearing this story, I ran to the computer and bought stock in a prophylactic company.

Hasn’t anybody ever tried talking reason to children? Seriously, somebody ought to do something about this. Sane people do not act this way. And still, my friends keep insisting on bringing new little crazy people into the world.

When Kara and I were having our driveway re-done last year, Anthony, the little boy next door, was fascinated by the small bulldozer that the workmen were using. His mom brought him outside, armed with her camera.

“He’s had his nose pressed against the window all morning. Anthony loves construction stuff,” she told us.

The little boy was absolutely beaming that he was going to get his picture taken with a bulldozer. He was all decked out in his Bob the Builder overalls. His mom asked permission of the workmen, who graciously smiled and told her to feel free to let the little guy have a ball with the construction equipment.

Anthony ran over to bulldozer, and his mom picked him up to put him in the driver’s seat.

“Awww, that’s so cute,” Kara said. And it was. Briefly.

The shrieking began as soon as Anthony’s mom tried to back up far enough to take a picture. So she came back to pick him out of the seat, and then he started shrieking, “Nooo! Picture!”

When she backed up again to take the picture, he shrieked even louder, holding out his arms for her to come back. But when she came back, he picked it up a few dozen decibels more, intent on having his picture taken in the driver’s seat, but too scared to sit there for his mom to get far enough away to take the picture. She only ever got far enough away to take a picture of his face, which was red and flowing with various fluids. I doubt that one ever made it to the mantle.

I watched in horrified amazement. A chess-playing Sasquatch is easier to find than a rational child. Still, I’m looking forward to this weekend. Bringing new insanity into the world is best celebrated with friends.

If you’re not too afraid of the keyboard, you can reach Mike Todd online at cox1013@hotmail.com.

Good Frickin' Procrastination Thursday

Check out my big ol' dock:

Orion’s back in town

Winter is on its way here, which is a good thing, because cereal takes a lot longer to go stale in winter. If you ate Corn Pops for dinner three nights a week like I do, you’d be excited about it, too. And even if you’re not a big fan of winter, at the very least, you can take solace in the fact that you won’t have to hear anybody say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” for the next several months.

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the arrival of the constellation Orion, which I will refer to from here on out as if he were a person, because I think he’d probably want it that way. I saw him for the first time a couple of nights ago as I strolled around the neighborhood, enjoying the quiet of late evening, when I have time to think about important things like, “If I ever get struck by lightning, I’m definitely getting a lightning bolt tattoo, assuming I’m still alive,” and “If the world was a fair place, leftover pizza would be healthier for you because it doesn’t taste as good.” As I turned the corner to head back to the house, I happened to glance up over the horizon, and there he was, Orion the Hunter, clubbing all the other stars over the head and making jerky out of them in his garage.

There’s a song I keep hearing on the radio that goes: “Look at this photograph. Every time I do it makes me laugh.” Whenever I hear those lyrics, I think, “It makes you laugh every time you look at it? I even stopped laughing at the postcard I used to have of a horse getting frisky with a cow. I must see the picture that makes you laugh every single time.” I suppose I can understand the sentiment, though; every time I see Orion for the first time, I just have to smile and say, “Hello, winter,” and then try to remember where the heck I left my gloves last March.

I feel a special connection to Orion, because he’s the only constellation I can identify besides the Big Dipper, although I can usually find three or four Little Dippers. I’m also really good at finding triangles in the sky. Those things are all over the place, if you know where to look. Hint: up. It’s a good thing other people came along and gave the constellations cool names like Cassiopeia, the Seven Sisters and Hydra. If it had been left up to me, the sky would be filled with constellations like Square, Messed-Up Trapezoid and Almost Ice Cream Cone.

If you’ve never seen him before, it’s worth taking the time to introduce yourself to Orion. He doesn’t usually let city lights drown him out; if you can see any stars at all, you can probably see Orion. Like Baby from Dirty Dancing, nobody puts Orion in the corner.

He’s shaped like, well, actually like a big rectangle, but if you use your creativity, you can fill in a big dude wearing a belt and wielding a club. If you flip him upside-down, and imagine his head where his feet are supposed to be, he looks like a really cool archer, bent slightly backwards and launching an arrow into the sky.

If you don’t know where to look for him, the best way to find him is to have someone who recognizes him go outside with you, point upwards and say, “Next to that one star. See it? No, the other star.”

When you do finally see him for the first time, if the first thing you think is, “Good lord, Orion, put some pants on!” then you just failed an astronomical Rorschach test.

You can give Mike Todd some jerky online at cox1013@hotmail.com.

Tea with Thurston Howell

Here's the view from my yacht:



I simply must show you my poop deck some time.

How the Wookie crumbles

The best present I ever bought for my wife Kara was the PlayStation2 I got for her college graduation. She hasn’t touched the thing in four years, but I just finished playing “Star Wars: Battlefront” for three hours. I wish every gift worked out so perfectly.

Back when I bought the PlayStation for her, I told my buddy about it, expecting him to tell me what a thoughtful present it was. “That’s great,” he said. “Why don’t you just get her a bowling ball with your name engraved on it?”

“But I don’t bowl,” I said.

It honestly seemed like a better present for her at the time. She didn’t have a DVD player, so I figured that a PlayStation2 was the same thing, but with the added life-sucking feature of being a video game console as well. Plus, she was always bragging that when she was twelve, she beat the original Super Mario Brothers Nintendo game without dying even once. Her sister corroborates this story, but I still have my suspicions. I just can’t believe that anybody with skills like that would rather read books with titles like, “The Lustful Rogue of Vagabondville” than blow up storm troopers with grenade launchers.

Kara and I moved in together shortly after her graduation, partly because we were in love and getting married, and partly because I didn’t have any video games at my place.

I may be a nerd for still playing video games, but I recently read a news story that made me feel like maybe I’m actually not so bad. A Korean guy recently played video games for so long that he died. In real life. The police said that he had played for almost 50 hours straight, barely taking breaks to eat or go to the bathroom. He died from shear exhaustion.

The way to tell if you’re a nerd or not is simple: if right now, you’re thinking, “Well, what game was he playing?” then you are a nerd. Oh, and it was StarCraft.

So as long as you are still alive, your video game habits are not as bad as some people’s. I’ve never had a fatal bout of video game playing, but my ferret Chopper just helped me realize how messed up my priorities actually are.

While I was trying to get some work done at home one evening, I got distracted by a ridiculously stupid game on the internet, in which the only objective was to keep heading soccer balls into the air by moving a little guy underneath them with the arrow keys.

After a couple of hours of not getting work done, I was like Rain Man at this game. My little soccer guy was a blur of motion, juggling eight balls into the air at once. Try as I might, though, I always died before I could get to 500 points.

Then I started a magnificent round – truly one for the ages. I was up to 400 points with my last life. I couldn’t miss. The heavens began to shake, sweat was pouring off of my forehead and with each second, I grew closer to my goal, whizzing back and forth, heading the soccer balls into the air.

At this moment, our ferret Chopper strolled across the room, walking towards his litter box, which was right next to my chair. 470 points. But he did not get into the box. 475 points. He backed up right next to the box, onto our good (480 points) white carpet.

“No, animal. Nooooo!” I said, trying to push him into the litter box with my foot while still (485 points) tapping the arrow keys furiously. But he was determined to go right there, unphased as my foot (490 points) waved ineffectually in his face.

I came to my senses and made a dive for the ferret (too late), as the dreaded whistle signaled that I’d dropped the ball at 495 points. At least I still have my health.

You can kick Mike Todd into the litter box online at cox1013@hotmail.com.

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On-line exclusive! Check out the dumbest game ever here: http://www.gamegarage.co.uk/play/super-headers/. If you score over 600 (my new high score), you will be my hero, along with MacGyver.

Where Koosh balls come from

Here's another good frickin' Guatemala shot-e-mala from Jeff Hofer:



When I take a picture of a tree, it just looks like a dumb ol' tree. Hofer wrings art out of 'em.