15 Nov

Every Day’s an Adventure

When I grabbed the bowl from the dishwasher this morning, I looked at it to be sure it was clean. I even moved it around a little to see how the light caught the inner surface of the bowl, which glistened with a sparkle that could only mean it had been run through a dishwashing cycle.

So I poured my Grape-Nuts into the bowl, added a chopped-up apple, and ate my breakfast. Somewhere just past the mid-way point, though, I noticed a slight roughness on the edge of the bowl. A closer inspection revealed it to be a small spot of dried lentil soup, dinner from two nights prior.

“That’s strange,” I whispered to myself, and I resumed eating. Our most recent brand of detergent isn’t quite as effective as our previous one was. The occasional stain seems to get by. But no harm, no foul, as they say.

Like I always do after eating a bowl of cereal, I set the dish on the floor and called the dog to come lap up the remains. “Pre-wash” we call it; our ritual after every breakfast and dinner is to allow the dog to spit shine the dishes before we place them in the dishwasher, fill it up with some good antibacterial soap, and let it run.

That’s when it occurred to me what I’d just done.

13 Nov

Ta-Duh!

Wiscostorm has a new look. Not sure what problems people might encounter, but let me know. The jury’s still out on the artwork — actually, not even: I kinda know that I’m not really fond of the artwork, but I can live with the layout and I like the fun javascript. One of those fun javascript things is that you can choose between two (three, actually) themes by clicking on the little squares on the right, just below the clouds. I’ll let you discover the other stuff.

This new look is a complete and total hackfest on my my part, so please let me know of any problems. If fact, consider this a testing phase. Let me know what you think.

10 Nov

Political Apples

Okay, so. Big delay in the apple article, I know. Weird stuff. Igor emailed me about three weeks ago and informed me that some readers had complained that my articles seemed too politically left-leaning and that as a result, they’d be postponing my column until after the election.

I thought about retorting with a poorly-conceived slam on how people stupid enough to vote for McCain didn’t deserve to be educated on apples anyway; I also came up with a list of the five most Republican apples and considered urging Igor to “print this and see what they say!” But in the end, I just decided to go about my weekly taste-tests and finish out the season with some solid reviews that I could submit after November 4th. Well, that time has come, my friends.

The late October picks:

When I’m at parties meeting new people who ask me what I do, I first tell them I’m between jobs. Then, just as their faces are clearly registering their surprise, I say, “Just kidding. Actually, I write a column about apples.” The surprise doesn’t go away; it just changes character a little.

Eventually, though, most people say something about their favorite apple; the vast majority these days proclaim their love for Honeycrisps. How I respond to them depends on my mood. Sometimes I say, “Yeah, they recently ran DNA tests on the Honeycrisp and found that its parents weren’t the Macoun and Honeygold as previously thought but were rather the Keepsake and some mystery apple.” That reply usually kills any conversation pretty effectively and allows me to get back to eating cocktail wieners and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon.
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18 Oct

An Advertisement

Hi. I’m Tim the Teacher, and I make roughly $30,000 a year. On a global scale, that means I’m filthy fucking rich. Compared to other Americans, however, I earn a little more than the median income of women my age and quite a bit less than the median income of men my age. So I think I can claim that I’m middle class.

If at some point in the future, I were to earn $250,000 a year, I, like Joe the Plumber, would be upset with the government’s taxation – provided they’d continue using that money to spend in Iraq, a country with a budget surplus of $79 billion.

On the other hand, if the taxes would go toward supporting college outreach programs or funding continuing research into green energy or ensuring heating assistance for the poor or reducing crime recidivism, I might be willing to part with some of my ample funds.

Sure, I could use my increased earnings (seven times the amount I currently make) to buy seven houses. But I believe in the Christian ethic articulated by great men like C.S. Lewis and Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus that we should help those less fortunate than ourselves.

So I’m announcing my candidacy to be the next national mascot for the presidential campaign. Like Joe the Plumber, I’ll be just as snippy with the media, but unlike Joe, I’ll be informed on the real issues.

(brought to you by Tim the Teacher for National Political Mascot 2008)