Safety Inspection

Here I am disarming a bomb.

Before the end of the month my truck is due for safety inspection. There's really nothing safe about my truck, especially since I just spent the whole morning working on it. If there is any safety feature on it, it's that a lot of the time it doesn't work and therefore can't be a menace to the general public on the roadways. The most dangerous thing, according to the safety inspection, is that the horn doesn't work.

I'm not too sure what the horn is even good for. I obviously never use it and I never get in accidents, except when I backed my boat into my sisters car and ripped her license plate in half. Maybe if the horn had worked I could have alerted someone to move the car, even though I never really even saw it. I probably should just honk at regular intervals, maybe every 30 seconds. That's probably what I'll do once I get the horn fixed. I want to mount it (them actually- there's 2 horns, a high and a low note, in order to produce a beautiful symphonic melody much like a choking moose and an angry mallard- ah, the sounds of nature) facing backwards, that way I can alert people who are following me too closely or are about to be inadvertently backed into. Other than that, I'm not sure what the horn is good for. I guess the horn may help prevent an accident, but I usually find the brakes suffice.

The horns actually work. There's a problem somewhere else. The fuse was blown, so it originally looked like an easy fix. But I replaced that and was still no closer to achieving that elusive safety.

The wire coming from the horn is yellow with a green stripe, but it's pretty much the electrical equivalent of Barry Sanders, juking back and forth and impossible to follow under the hood. I did find a yellow wire with green stripe (more or less- all the wires in my truck are actually kind of grayish at this point) ending at a terminal in the fire wall. I checked with my multimeter and found no continuity between it and the horn, which means either that's where the break is, or it's a totally separate wire. After cutting it I found out it's a totally separate wire. Who would have thought such a little wire would go to the distributor? Ironically, in an effort to pass the safety inspection I totally incapacitated my truck. I was able to fix it, although I'm afraid the next big pump is going to break apart my work and kill my truck. If only I had a horn to alert everyone.

See, you can't even tell where I fixed it.

Miracle on Beretania St.

Today I was blessed by a real, live angel. A hairy, stinky angel walking around Chinatown peddling hot super glue.

For some time now I've been having a problem with the safety of my speargun, an evil mechanism which is basically like a parasite on my gun. From time to time it surreptitiously slides to the safe setting, unbeknownst to me until I sneak up on a nice fish like an 8th degree black belt ninja grand master and then can't pull the trigger (at which point my frustration peaks with a crescendo of profanity through my snorkel). I was slapped in the face with this curse yesterday (which was a tough day of fishing even without gear malfunction), so I finally decided to take matters into my own destructive hands and fix that gun. However, my despair reached rock bottom when I found we were out of Super Glue, which I intended to use to permanently glue the safety off, or more likely, to accidently glue my finger to the safety, so I would always know it's exact position. Dark times indeed.

But today I was walking back to my car across from Aala Park with a bag full of bananas and bitter melon when the heavens parted. I didn't actually see the event when this Saint of Super Glue, Angel of Adhesives, came fluttering down from the clouds. By the time I saw him he was hobbling down the sidewalk looking like a living reminder to get your vaccinations. Then he asked me, with the voice of an angel that has been punched in the throat a few times, if I wanted to buy some super glue for $1. In the store it is $5, he informed me. I was dumbstruck by my coincidental, divinely coincidental even, need for some super glue. Not too dumb to fail to take advantage of the bargain though.

Clearly it is God's will that I buy that stolen glue, fix my gun, and use it to kill fish like a mighty oil spill. I don't plan to disappoint Him.

I just finished working on my boat ALL DAY, save a couple hours in the morning when it was a little cold for my liking. As you can see, I have masterminded a new electrical system that even Clark Grizwald would be proud of. Of course, he wouldn't be able to understand it, since he doesn't know the simple language of electrical tape wrapping I invented to compensate for the fact that I did the whole thing with only one color of wiring, thereby saving $5.

Right after taking this photo I flipped the whole apparatus over and bolted it down, and amazingly it all worked. Except for the one thing I set out to fix. That's still broken.

The more observant of you may be wondering what those loose wires are hanging out of the side of my electrical box. That, in fact, is the start of my LED lighting system. By leaving them to be free-range wires I'm saving $55 over what may be considered the safer option of waterproof 2-pin receptacles. I'm not one that likes to tell people what to do, but I will suggest you sort of avoid that area of the boat.

I know it all looks great, but it also represents a considerable step forward in safety for me. The only required safety gear I'm missing is a throw-able flotation device and visual signaling device. I might even get those at some point, if I can find a good deal. But I still don't intend to get a fire extinguisher, so just look out for those wires.

Sports on TV

Lately there has been some great action in the sports world. Baseball has elected, and more enjoyably denied, players to the Hall of Fame, the NFL is a month away from crowning a champion, and NBA players are entertaining us with their shooting- not just on the court either! (By the way, I think a fair punishment for Gilbert Arenas is to make him wear these uniforms:

) So why, with so many events showcasing million dollar men with face-melting speed and chemically-enhanced power, is ESPN and FoxSports still boring us with Poker and NASCAR?

I'm not going to debate whether these are sports or not. This isn't vocabulary class. I don't care. The fact is, they will make you drowsy. In 37 states you cannot, by law, watch Poker and operate heavy machinery at the same time. Same goes for the other events/sports that sometimes slip in, like darts, bowling, ice skating, track and field (I mean, come on), and I'm sure there's a few others I'm missing here, but that doesn't mean they don't suck and I don't loathe them, it's just that I can't recollect them at present.

I've heard it argued that sure, poker doesn't require a conditioned body, but it takes fatiguing mental focus. Well, so does accounting. Maybe we should film a CPA and watch him for a few hours on ESPN. The World Series of Accounting- a new Olympic sport by that logic. For that matter, getting high and playing Pac-Man on your Sega is a sport. So many corners, so many ghosts, so little brain power.

What people want to see, I've come to realize, are giant people smashing into each other, or if not that, at least throwing something really hard at others. So there it is right there; that's the recipe you have to follow if you intend to entertain me, Poker. It's simple. Maybe every time you want to draw a card, you have to get it from Brock Lesnar.

Maybe, NASCAR, instead of driving in a circle for seven mind-numbing hours you can do ANYTHING else. ANYTHING! Even post-game press conferences, complete with coach meltdowns and star player tantrums, are more interesting than NASCAR. Watching Bob Ross paint is infinitely more interesting than NASCAR. The greatest NASCAR movie of all-time, Talladega Nights, ended in a foot race! That's how you do it. But first take some steroids or something, because Will Ferrell and Borat didn't exactly light up the radar gun with their speed.

In conclusion, here's a simple test so ESPN knows what is acceptable to put on TV. If the "athletes" you are showcasing would get fired for bringing a gun to work, then that's not a sport. Case closed.

Seven Stages of Grief

When affected with bad news- lay-offs, illness, football playoff loss- it is common to feel tremendous grief. Trust me, I know; my boat recently sank. Everyone deals with this kind of stress differently- alcohol, drugs, late night 1-900 calls, jaywalking, human trafficking, grand theft auto, lawlessness. Some people might try to avoid this and call a therapist. I, personally, have always been a do-it-yourself kind of guy. If you're like me, you hate calling for help. Fortunately, there is something called the "Seven Stages of Grief" to help us understand the emotional roller coaster that follows your loss. Now, I should mention I'm not a licensed psychologist, but like I said, my precious, precious boat sank, so I'm pretty sure I know the stages.

Contrary to popular belief, the first stage isn't panic. That's the second stage. The first stage, as many of you should know, is to admit you have a problem. Be brave! Take a stand and say, "Hi, my name is _____, and I have a problem!" This should actually be quite easy, but there are several excellent indicators of a problem in case of ambiguity. If, while at the helm, you are wondering who has the right of way, you or that snapper on your starboard side, that's an indicator that something is amiss. If your anchor line, no longer under tension from a floating boat, is gleefully dancing around in the surge like a cockerspaniel off its leash, that's a sign of a problem. If normally you enter your boat like a bull walrus attempting to board a lifted Ford F-Superduty, but now you smoothly descend into your captain's chair- problemo, pilikia, big trouble. Congratulations, now that you've calmly identified your problem, it's time to kick it into Stage 2.

Begin panicking. At this point, panic is the only emotion that will motivate you to collect the twenty objects floating away in twenty different directions, eighteen of them defying long-standing laws of physics in an effort to elude you. A calm and sensible mind will see an entire ocean-going vessel headed for the abyss and forget about the $3 water bottle headed down-wind at 5 kts. But by panicking you can channel the energy of a hallucinogenic mongoose and retrieve that water bottle, as well as the spare wesuit, gas tank, two coolers, and dry boxes full of valuables (veritable modern day treasure chests!) setting sail for exotic corners of the earth. After all, these provisions will be essential for your next stage, which is to concoct knuckle-headed schemes to retrieve your boat.

Hopefully you've been concocting far-fetched ideas since the first moment of crisis, greatly overestimating your ingenuity as well as your raw strenth. Now, at Stage 3, you get to cling like a refugee to the raft of wreckage you just collected and lay out the details for the brilliant idea you've schemed up to save the day. I personally was inspired with an epiphany from the heavens to make a floating pulley out of a cooler, a gas tank, and miles of rope swinging in the current like the arms of anemones attempting to snag some shipwreck survivors. It would have worked too, if only we had one more person, a carabiner, and there was no such thing as gravity. In the end, if you ever hope to move to Stage 4, you will need to cease with your inane efforts and call someone who knows what they're doing. But don't rush this! As you all know, it is important to futilely toil at length before even considering looking for help. Yes, you face insurmountable odds and certain failure. But that didn't stop them from making laws banning cell phone use while driving, and it shouldn't stop you from tying knots you just invented to produce a bridle so that the extreme force you're imagining your biceps producing will be evenly distributed on the boat's transom. Of course, inevitably you will have to seek help from someone who knows what he's doing.

So I called Mike Hatcher, unparalleled gun craftsman and second only to Robert Ballard in his wrecked boat expertise. He, of course, had my boat floating and towed back to the dock in the amount of time it took me to recover from being shocked by my submerged battery, which at that point had become a chemistry experiment. The revelation of your boat actually floating, right there, on top of the water, is cause for great euphoria, an indicator that you've arrived at Stage 4. Adding to the excitement of that amazing sight is that in order to revive your drowned motor, you'll need to pull apart its every piece for cleaning. I had always wanted to pull the whole thing apart, carefully separating pieces to preserve gaskets, then prying them apart with a screwdriver when that didn't work, just to see what was inside. Up to this point though I had always refrained, since everytime I worked on my motor I seemed to end up with an extra bolt or nut I couldn't quite place, causing crossed fingers and some of my longest breath holds as I hoped for the motor to start when leaving anchor at a remote corner of the island like Kaena Pt. But now there was no choice but to tear it apart, the sooner the better! The excitement! Until you don't have the right wrench to get the bolts out of the intake manifold, the ones on the starter bracket seem stripped, and the flywheel won't budge, even at the urging of a hammer. Alas, it is time to end that wonderful period of optimism and excitement and move beyond the jubilation of Stage 4 into the despair of Stage 5.

Despite your best eforts, you will fail to fix your boat, because it sunk, as in went under the ocean, a very unnatural place for your motor. Agony and despair are a given at this point. Unfortunately, the more you love your boat, the more it will cripple your life. I am an overprotective parent and my boat is my only child. I moped for days wondering how this could have happened, thinking, "I thought bad things only happened to good people." Eventually it got so bad I decided to call and ask for help; my boat was headed to a mechanic. This was only as a perfunctory exercise, since I was sure if it could be fixed I would have had it fixed by this point. I mean, I had already done everything the Evinrude Shop Manual, common knowledge, and Google could recommend to fix the carburetor and starting system. It turned out it was a bad power pack. I was way off.

Your boat fixed, you finally arrive at Stage 6: the stress and uncertainty of venturing back out in the high seas. Leaving for distant reefs on your resurrected boat is like using a parachute you purchased at a recently deceased sky-divers estate sale. To your ears, every noise from the motor sounds like Uncle Buck's backfiring Mercury coupe, and every ripple looks like a ship-swamping tsunami. But you must press on if you ever hope to reach Stage 7 and end your grief.

In Stage 7, my personal favorite stage, you will finally return to normal. You will once again dedicate all your free time, and most of the time you should be working, to cruising on your boat, searching for fish. You will finally put the ordeal behind you. Although you may still need to call friends for help. After all, you can only eat so many fish yourself.

Fantasy Football

When I mention fantasy football, which is often, a lot of people say they don't really understand it. They go on to show their ignorance with blithering questions about points, flex positions, the draft, and a lot of other stuff a real fantasy manager has never heard of. Yes, a working knowledge of those subjects will lead to wins, but those can actually hinder your efforts toward fantasy football's real goal, which is to trash talk like a schoolyard bully (you know, "your mama's so fat she had to get baptised at Seaworld" type stuff). In fact, fantasy football is actually the appropriate forum to take it up a notch and use outright slander and libel.

As an example, at the beginning of every season I post a message entitled "Official Press Release" in which I claim my team, The Hawaii Cocksparrers, is the undisputed favorite, then proceed to question the level of sobriety and sexual orientation of every other manager in the league in turn. Then there are 16 or 17 weeks (WEEKS!) of play in which you have to continue. It is a grueling endeavor, and I'm sure that when Lance Armstrong said running a marathon was the hardest thing he ever did, it's only because he has never played fantasy football. Now, in fantasy football, just like life in general, it's best to pick one weak opponent at which to direct the majority of harassment, rather than try to spread it around the whole league. I, for example, chose the father of one of my friend's, a middle aged man in Tennessee who I have never met. Of course, it's easy since he doesn't know a running back from his back flab, he spends most of his time hungover in a gutter after his gay orgies, and his mama's so fat her favorite food is seconds.

Earlier I mentioned that wins can impede your ability to trash talk. I would know, I'm a winner. This year, as you can imagine, I finished first. For the previous three consecutive years the Hawaii Cocksparrers finished third, and we would have placed higher if it weren't for some poor referee calls and sloppy field conditions. But once I finished last, or maybe slightly below that. That year may have in fact been my most successful season of smack talk. Anytime I would win, and I beat my rival twice for my only two wins (I won't say his name here, but by changing only one letter it conveniently becomes Old Man Shitley), it was a huge disgrace for the losing team (Tennessee Tighty Whities, in this case). No matter what he accomplished for the rest of the year, I could always remind him that he lost to the worst team in the league- The Hawaii Cocksparrers.

Which reminds me of one more point. Your team name is very important. I have been banned from espn.com for using the name Cocksparrers. I was able to briefly trick the system by changing to the o to a zero, becoming C0CKSPARRERS. But that's when I got banned. Could I have picked another name? I guess I could have, but my team would have lost all its mana, its mojo, its swagger. I cite the TN Tighty Whities as a perfect example. That's one you can easily repeat in any company- work, school, church- and therefore it's highly inappropriate. Plus Hawaii Cocksparrers is too long to fit on the scoreboard, so it's abbreviated Hawaii Cocks... which I can only imagine brings titillating laughter to the rest of the league, even if all those homos won't directly admit it.

In conclusion, fantasy football is about superior wit and verbal abuse right to the edge of misdemeanor, which is why I am current league champion. That's basically all there is to know. Except for one other thing. Yo mama's so ugly Tiger Woods wouldn't date her!

OCD

Some people have accused me of being a little bit obsessive compulsive. I'm not too sure if that's true. I cite exhibits A & B, my disorganized hair -do (hair don't) and business receipt filing system (not so much system, as cardboard box) as examples of my ability to deal with adverse situations without anxiety. I've heard of people with OCD that can't drive over bumps without stopping to check if their car is falling apart. And while it may be true that I often think pieces of my truck are falling off, I'm usually right. So I don't think I'm OCD, except in one area in particular.

I'm pretty sure I have Prayer OCD. It stems from childhood, which is a perilous time. As a child your mind is not quite as acute and you don't always fully understand situations around you; all you want to do is eat toaster pizzas and play video games. So in other words, it's like your constantly drunk. Just look at kids- they scream in public, they can't drive, they laugh their grimy little heads off at cartoons. Kids are constantly drunk (this is why kids aren't allowed to drink, they'd be doubly drunk, perhaps a future blog subject), so it's a very dangerous time indeed. Anyway, at some point in my drunken stupor called childhood, some nun or something told me to say a "Hail Mary" every time an ambulance passes. And now I do it every time. I thought about giving it up, but I can't. Maybe I know that sooner or later I'll be the one in the ambulance. Or maybe it's just OCD.

But my condition isn't manifested by praying too frequently. It's not like I'm down here talking God's ear off. I realized my Prayer OCD when I really started thinking about my two main go-to prayers. Ever since I can remember I have always said a prayer right before bed. I always ask for some good rest, specifically requesting that I may sleep well "tonight and tomorrow morning," as though God wouldn't figure out what I meant if I said, "Bless me with some rest tonight." In fairness to me, it is ambiguous. If I don't add that I want to sleep well in the morning also, God may find it fit to have me wake up at midnight and be peppy like a mongoose on Red Bull. Granted, I'm not the type of person who has ever felt even slightly "peppy" in my life (I'm not sure I've ever even used that word), but it could happen if I didn't ask to sleep well in the early morning hours too. I tried to stop laying out the timeline for my sleep in my prayer, but I couldn't stop. Maybe it's OCD. The other time I always say a prayer is when I go diving. I always ask to be free from any hazard that would cause "death or hospitalization." I'm pretty cool with a little mangling, right up until I have to go to the hospital. I haven't even considered changing this prayer to anything more general or brief, except that sometimes when I don't have anything planned for awhile I leave out the hospitalization part. Maybe I have OCD, but I'm not greedy.

Other than that I don't pray for too much. It just doesn't make too much sense to me. For instance, why would my prayer for the person in the ambulance do him or her any good? Did God plan to let that person die, but since I asked otherwise he reconsidered and decided my plan was better? Sounds unlikely. But, I guess it doesn't hurt to throw your petitions up to The Big Man, as long as you realize he is the creator of the universe not a magical genie or Santa Claus. You know, just throw your worries and cares up to Him. I guess that's why I say my prayers. That or OCD.