For those who didn't believe the tale, here are some photos evidencing the mad dancing skilz of my brother and I at the very contest from which we walked away with First Prize. Oh yeah, my brother's the one with the longish hair. Pony-tailed. [and don't worry ladies! he's cut it since then and has become yet another fine addition to the glorious line of the Handsome Hahne tradition]

Pretty cool stuff, no? Oh yeah, and that last one is a photgraphic depiction of the move I illustrated so many moons ago.

The Bible teaches that little children are without sin? Really? Whoever wrote that either doesn't know any little children — especially the outrightly wicked child of my neighbor — or perhaps has such a poor grasp of the English language that he can somehow construe Christ's words in Matthew 19:14 to reflect upon an unlikely sinless state of children. I recall vividly disobeying my parents when I was 5 years old and recognizing full well that I was wrong to do so. Was I some bizarre abberation? Was I possessed of some abnormal moral genius? Or was I just another morally corrupt li'l bugger(like all other children) with no thought toward goodness unless it served my base desires? I'll vote for the latter. Because I was there. And I remember.

Also... "all mature, responsible people sin"? I know what the author is trying to say, but he just doesn't seem to be able to write what he means.

Vexation #1 is alive and well I see....

Yesterday was party day and whilst the gathering was a tad bit on the small size, it was fun nonetheless. As usual, preparations sapped a lot of my energy so I wasn't able to perform the manic host routine with quite as much flair and panache as I might otherwise have been enabled. Nevertheless, as Jack Skellington always guarantees, there was a fun time to be had by all. Last night's pumpkin carving mystified the entirety of the revelers by convincing them into the belief that the famed American figure of literary stature was indeed Albert Einstein. Indeed it was not. But as the majority of the assemblage knew not the works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (author of such funfare as The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Galápagos and the detestable Slaughterhouse Five), I could not really fault the cultureless hoards their ignorance. No, in fact, I think the carved fruit doth bear more semblance to the late scientist than to the soon to be late author.

Hmm... is it in bad taste to say "soon to be late"?

Everyone deals with their bad days differently. When I get slightly depressed because the world is getting me down, I tend toward indulging in my consumer impulses — perhaps to extremes (not yet unhealthy extremes thankfully). Today, feeling ulcerous and mopey, I stopped by Tower to see if they had an available copy of High Fidelity, Dancer Texas Pop. 81, or Apt Pupil. They did not. But instead of coming home empty-handed, I walked into the house with Insomnia (a Norwegian thriller), Kwaidon (a collection of Japanese ghost stories), Amos and Andrew (as I remember, Nicolas Cage and Samuel L. Jackson are funny, funny men), Can't Hardly Wait (very easy to watch mindless teen comedy dealing loosely with fate), and Akira: Special Edition (one of the few anime films that I actually enjoyed). So instead of none, I came home with five. Is that bad? Well, hopefully I've killed that consumer spirit for a while. And hopefully this week will bode better than the last two.

[editor's note: the last two weeks haven't been all bad. Both Friday evenings were passed quite amicably. In fact, last night was really wonderful, from the minute I got off work at 5:12pm to the moment I arrived home at 1:32am. So to all the players of parts that worked toward that wonder: thank you ]

I heard a beautiful thing on Monday. A receptionist spoke up in our Monday morning staff meeting: "Uhm... what's Netscape?" Simply beautiful. I've waited so long to hear that honest sentiment and now, it brings joy untold to my ears. *sniff* Beautiful. Just beautiful. I'm at a loss.

Vexation #4: Gender vs. Sex.
I heard it again. Someone referring to Gary Condit misspoke: "He is a disgrace to the male gender." The thing of it is... there is no male gender. If there is one thing I wish people to take a from this journal, it is this:

"Gender" and "sex" are not synonyms.

Gender is a grammatical term that denotes whether a substantive is masculine, feminine, or neuter, while sex refers specifically to the chromosomal attribute of a thing being male, female, asexual, or androgynous. Here follow some examples to help illustrate:

The Dane is male and prefers the women in his life be feminine. [obvious references: male refers to sex; women refers to sex; feminine refers to gender]

That's a nice looking boat, but it looks like you need to scrap down her hull. [a boat is obviously sexless, but its gender classification is clearly feminine as illustrated by the use of the feminine possessive in describing the boat's hull]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and His spirit was upon the face of the deep. [a little trickier, but there is no reference to sex here; however, the masculine pronoun "He" is a clear indication of gender]

To make the statement about Gary Condit correct (at least grammatically), the speaker should have said either "He is a disgrace to the male sex" — if she meant that all men are shamed by Condit's actions — or "He is a disgrace to the masculine gender" — if she meant that all people (or even things) that possess masculine qualities are shamed by Condit's actions. I prefer to think the she meant the former, but you never can be sure....

Well, I imagine that this refers to me. *sigh* Don't think I'm avoiding your calls boyo! I haven't answered the phone here at the house in ages. I get so many sales calls and whatnot that it's become more trouble than it's worth to pick up. If you wanna get ahold of me to find out whether or not I'm showing films at the house (incidentally, tonight I was not), then simply leave a message with your number on my voicemail. That's what it's there for! I guess I can probably assume that a good portion of the 6 or 7 hangups I got today were you? We've told you this tons of times, but here goes again: when you call, Leave A Message. I will call you back :-)

Well, I've fixed the broken link to the Best of... up in the archival section! And to show my good will, I've added about 15-20 new additions to the section (with more on the way I hope...)!

THE BEDLAM CONTINUES!! [nice crop by the way!]

Many stand entirely unaware of the menacing potential of wood, metal, and a little cork when properly weilded by a tragic master. Yes, I speak true of that calamitous vehicle of modern torture we term "clarinet." Whence human ingenuity first brought into mind the wondrous strains that could be conceived into momentary existence by an instrument created for music, it could not have held conception of the several wicked uses for which such harmonic tools might one fateful day play. Witness here the sheer panic brought low upon these fleeing faces of doom. Their look is fey. Their terror real. And no man may account for the horror to which they would soon succumb.

I saw a bumper sticker today. It said "The Devil Hates Kung Fu." And y'know? I'll bet he does. I know I do.

Oh yeh... and to all those to whom I owe emails: I still owe email to my family and what makes you think that you're worth more to me than they are? [this oughtta be rich...]

Vexation #3: Cleaning the Pee.
I've mentioned this before but here's a new spin. I work in an office with two single-user, unisex restrooms. I also work with 2-5 males and 3-6 females. Because women care about what they're sitting in when relieving their bladders of countless Dr. Peppers, Sprites, Snapples, and glasses of almond milk... uhm, because of this, we have to keep the seat nice and sprinkle free. And here's where my problem lies. No matter when I go in to get rid of the excess Cactus Cooler/Coke/Pepsi/water/chocolate milk in my system, there, on that porcelain juggernaut lies an assortment of yellowish sprinkles in various stages of evaporation/crusting. Actually, that doesn't really even bother me so much as the fact that I absolutely have an obligation to myself to clean it up every time.

Why is that I have to clean up? Simply because if I do my thing (without dribbling of course), leave, and am immediately followed by a young lady, I will be forever labelled as a "messy pee dribbler" — or the appropriate young lady term for such. If this sort of thing happened every so often, that would be somethin' else entirely, but as it stands, I'm wiping down the seat at least four times a day! How hard is it to make it in. I mean Swishing The Bowl isn't exactly like playing Milton Bradley's OPERATION, but these guys hit the sides on almost every shot!! And here's a little secret: the girls sometimes sprinkle too... and no, i'm not even gonna ask the dynamics of that, but its true.

Never let it be said that I don't know how to have a good weekend. First I break up with Slim (which has me feeling bad enough), but then I go to a wedding on the very next day (which in no way serves to remind me of my single estate, no sir!). To add insult to my self-induced injury, I arrive at the wedding site to find that the only person present whom I know (besides the bride and groom) is my own ex-fiancée. Talk about awkward. On the up side though, seeing her helped me realize how little I miss her. Don't get me wrong, she looked pretty hot; but it was that beer commercial kinda hot. You know, where the postcard's nice to look at but you wouldn't wanna visit. You know? Platinum blond, too tight dress, look at me, look at me, &c. I woulda thought the world of the look as a drooling high schooler, but maybe I just went too conservative. I dunno. *shrug*

I just broke up with my girlfriend of a year. We were serious and I'm a jerk. :-(   I felt I had to though. No, nevermind. I won't make excuses for myself. I hope she'll be better off.

Vexation #2: Out of the Past.
I got an email a couple weeks back from someone asking advice (I get this a lot because of my job) because her 32 year old fiancée and boyfriend of three years has just revealed (at her bequest) the answer to the question "Will I be your first?" and now she is distraught because of his answer. Ay, there's the rub! My problem isn't so much the answer (though that can certainly be problematic!), but the fact that the question was ever asked. What was her purpose in asking the question? She had nothing to gain by any answer he could give.

If he says "No, you won't be my first," she's obviously going to have to deal with all the baggage that comes with that knowing this sorta thing: does he still think of her like that? will he compare me to her? will I be as good as her? This answer will also cause her to doubt her value to her future husband: am I special to him? am I just another piece of meat?

If he says "Yes, you'll be my first," but lies to keep the relationship peaceful, they run the risk of the truth being revealed at a later date. And that'll be worse than if he told her in the first place.

And then if he say "Yes, you'll be my first," and is being honest, what has she gained? Some phantom comfort that is only good so long as she trusts him?

Better I think to assume an answer either way, resolve yourself to it, and never ask the question. That way, you'll have already dealt with what you wish to believe before your relationship gets serious. It may be lying to yourself, but I think it's in your best interest. Some of you may think me an evil bastard (that isn't still a bad word is it?) for this, but I have seen two good relationships of acquaintances crash and burn because one partner couldn't get over the fact that he/she wasn't the other's first intimate. I saw another (a married couple) wherein the relationship didn't die, but it seems forever tainted by a certain sadness because though the fact of the previous encounter was forgiven, it could never be forgotten — in fact, after a while, it seemed everything would remind this lady of her husband's "youthful indiscretion" that occurred long before he ever met her.

My advice? Before you ask a question of such import and influence, ask yourself two questions. What do I hope to learn from this? Why does it matter? The first question will probe your motivation for the query; usually, it's asked from a certain insecurity about the strength of a partner's love — and if you can't trust your partner's love enough to care nothing for past foibles and sins, you don't trust that partner enough to deserve answer to such an intimate question. The second question will demonstrate that if such information can truly affect the way you love an otherwise entirely lovable person, you, again, have no right to ask such a question for you don't yet love your partner — for a true love is imperishable and unmerited.

I guess that's it for today's venting, but as a final note, I thought I should mention that an important question (in this day and epoch) and one that can be asked without fear of misjudgment is "Are you a health risk to me?" This is slightly different, because it makes no judgment upon a potential love interest's current moral state, but simply asks an important mortal consequence.

p.s. I know this raises the question of honesty in relationships, but I'll have to deal with that another time

The following is the first in a continuing series of issues or everyday happenstances that vex me. Each will be numbered and collected for your enjoyment, enlightenment, and mentment.

Vexation #1: Bad Haiku.
Rather suddenly it seems (my finger is far from the cultural pulse of modern society), haiku are spurting up from every quarter. Haiku to the left of me. Haiku to the right of me. Or so they claim.

Most of the haiku out there doesn't even come close to haiku. I heard a Budweiser commercial wherein various regular joes would step up to the mic to give "haiku" to the world. Alas, I didn't hear a single haiku in the bunch. Or at least, not any haikus worthy the name. Haiku is not just any collection of words in a 3-5-3 format. I mean where's the art in that?

Put simply, haiku is not necessarily about syllables, but finds its lifeblood in comparison. Hear that? Comparison. The first two lines of the poem present a picture. The final line presents the object of the comparison, poignantly juxtaposed 'gainst the first first picture.

Here are two examples, thought of in this very moment, the first illustrating bad haiku and the second illustrating good haiku:

The Bad

The only problem
with Haiku is that you just
get started and then

The Good

cold winter winds
whip the country's spine
love's goodbye