Check your balls at the door

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 49
19:30
01/25/10

As punishment for dragging Airika to an afternoon of soggy pond hockey, she drug me to an orchid show! Huzzah!

Some observations about orchids and their 'people':

- Many of these crackers smell like they've been playing in the dirt just a little too long. Of course, that may be just the actual flowers. Some do, in fact, smell like rancid horse piss. AND THIS IS A SELLING POINT.
- Orchid salesfolk seem like they had to make a decision early in their lives: Cats or flowers. I see some of these old broads sitting around the house, watching Idol in the tropical climate that is their apartment, spritzing the overheated air with chemical water, or flat Faygo, or old Sanka, or whatever it is that these plants eat, while muttering about the color of Ellen's new teeth-caps, waiting for a response from Maya the Guatemalan suneater...AND GETTING ONE.
-Some of these goddamn plants look...ominous. I'm not saying they're meat eaters, but I'd like to see how many stray rodents are hanging around the typical orchid farm. Methinks there's at least one Little Shop of Horrors lurking out there.

Luckily, orchids make for some nice photographin'. There are a ton more vaguely dirty flowers on my Flickr page.

Assimilation

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 48
17:24
01/24/10

Becoming a true Minnesotan involves more than just moving north and bitching about the cost of propane. There are certain things you have to do to actually be from here.

-Buy a 4WD vehicle.
-Prepare a winter emergency kit for said 4WD vehicle.
-Eat and enjoy fried cheese curds.
-Use the phrase ‘Holy buckets!’ in casual conversation.
-Catch a show at First Avenue. The band doesn’t HAVE to be originally from Minny, but it certainly helps.
-Participate during the winter in what sane people from other lands consider summer activities. You know. Fishing. Hiking. Going outside.
-Wear a hat with ear flaps.
-Make a declaration with an upward lilt, so it sounds like you’re actually asking a question.
-Hockey.

In our year and a half in Damn Near Canada, I’ve managed to knock out most of the list whether I’ve wanted to or not. This weekend, I checked hockey off the list. The U.S Pond Hockey Championships take place in the Twin Cities every year. They pick one of the bigass lakes, rope off a bunch of rinks, and let 150+ teams play 4-on-4. The Gus Macker meets Mystery, Alaska. It’s kind of a big deal.

Minnesota in January is the perfect place for pond hockey. Unless Mother Nature decides to dump a week’s worth of Ohio weather on you. Seriously. We had 5 days of 40+ degree weather leading up to the tournament. And then it poured all weekend. Being out on a frozen death trap is unnerving enough when it’s 15 below zero. When it’s melting before your eyes, covered in 2 inches of standing water and you’re sharing it with a 500 yoked-up hockey yahoos and 1000 spectators? FROZEN HELL.

Still. Broke the hockey cherry and did not drown or freeze to death. I’ll consider that a success.


Want to see a near-panic attack? Airika is not a fan of the ice.


The 'warming tent' was...moist.


Players on some of the rinks had to wade through 2 inches of standing water and slush. Not the best or fastest hockey.

Soon I'll be watching Two and a Half Men

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 47
0722
01/08/10

Sigh. I used to be such a fast reader. Once upon a time, I averaged a book+ a week, but now I'm lucky to finish one in a month. In the three years I've been tracking what I read every year (yeah...does anyone else do this? Please tell me someone else does this.), my annual number has decreased every year. 42, 33, 28 1/2.

I'd like to blame the steady decline on the fact that I had much more free time back in the day, but, jaysus, I used to go to school full-time, work full-time and drive an hour both ways to work, and I still managed to knock out at LEAST five books a month. I'd like to blame it on the fact that I'm reading more 'substance' these days, learning more and taking time to reflect on what I've learned. But shit like Men With Balls and all the random sci-fi on this list blow that argument out of the water. I'd like to blame it on the fact that I live in a natural wonderland and I spend all my time Enjoying Nature and Being Active. Yeah. That's the ticket.

I'd like to blame it on a lot positive, progressive reasons. The real answer? Comic books. I hammered back damn near 100 graphic novels this year, in an attempt to catch up on everything I missed last year. Hey, words is words, right? Right?

It's either comic books, or I'm just getting dumber. Valid arguments could be made in either direction. Anyway, here's the list of book-type-books I bagged in 2009. BECAUSE I KNOW YOU GIVE A SHIT.

A Year in the Main Woods, Bernd Henrich
Beat the Reaper, Josh Bazell
Dear American Airlines, Jonathan Miles
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
How I Became a Famous Novelist, Steve Hely
In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien
Men With Balls, Drew Magary
Minions of the Moon, Richard Bowes
Mr. Clarinet, Nick Stone
Old Man's War, John Scalzi
Population: 485, Mike Perry
Prince of Thieves, Chuck Hogan
Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk
The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons
The Book of Joe, Jonathan Tropper
The Digital Photography Book 1, Scott Kelby
The Digital Photography Book 2, Scott Kelby
The Longest Winter, Alex Kershaw
The Lost City of Z, David Grann
Understanding Exposure, Bryan Peterson
Walking Dead, Greg Rucka
Wastelands, Anthology
White Jazz (reread), James Ellroy
Whitetails, Erwin Bauer
Winterbirth, Brian Ruckley

Partial reads
Black Echo, Michael Connelly
Drama City, George Pelecanos
Dune, Frank Herbert