Monthly Archives: June 2010

Going to the Special Place in Hades

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I’m one of those people.

You know, the people who commit hideous crimes against humanity, like talking on the cell phone while they’re shopping. I have done this. Mind you, I don’t text while I drive, because while I am obviously evil, I also value my hide and have no wish to die young. There is, no doubt, a special place in Hades set aside for me, and I wish to avoid going there for as long as possible.

But I’ve done worse than use my phone in the supermarket.

In fact, I’m about as evil as you can get, because I talk at the theater.

Yes, that’s right, folks, I’m the one leaning over in the row ahead of you whispering to the person next to me. I’m one of them.

Usually when I talk in the theater, it’s about something in the movie that strikes me as strange or reminds me of one of my family members. In Iron Man 2 I found my mother and I having a brief (whispered) discussion about how much the main character, who had so many thoughts he couldn’t complete a sentence, reminded us of a family member with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Sometimes I just quote other movies, interjecting "Look! The cliffs of insanity!" or "I have got to get me one of these!" or even "Your lack of faith disturbs me," only I’ll substitute "pants" or "kittens" or "fruitcake" or whatever is in the movie for "faith."

I even laugh at inappropriate times at the theater, something which has earned me hisses and dirty looks in theaters across Minnesota.

I am the one who dissolved into badly-stifled giggles when, in Titanic, Kate Winslet told Leonardo DiCaprio "I’ll never let go" and then promptly shoved his corpsicle off the raft. Priceless timing! How could you not laugh? The teenyboppers in the theater probably believed I was the meanest woman since the Wicked Witch of the West cackled her way through Oz, but I just can’t help myself.

I am the one who cracked up watching Iron Monkey in the theater, when the title cards announced the sadly beseiged province had been plagued by "floods and warlords." Because what popped into my mind? The image of a heavily-armored Chinese warlord in a kayak, waving a paddle around. A film geek turned around and shot a glare at me that would have curdled milk. I straightened up and tried to put on a serious face, but as soon as he turned around again, I couldn’t help but giggle again, this time imagining the kayak was sinking because of all that heavy armor.

But I do have good news for all you people who hope to enjoy going to the theater: I have subscribed to Netflix, so your chances of hearing me giggle hysterically in the middle row or whisper "He’s dead, Jim!" have been sharply reduced.

Horrible Bug Infestation Terrifies Wimpy Reporter

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Last night I was watching an old episode of the X-Files when I noticed a real-life monster not five feet away from me.

It was a big, huge bug about the size of a small aeroplane, just sitting at the end of my bed, where my pillow usually rests. For once, I didn’t scream, even though I am afraid of bugs. I think I said something like "Argh!" and got up to grab poison, a book, a shoe, a small child, anything that could be used to slay the beast, but by the time I found my trusty can of Raid, the bug was gone.

Wily monster.

I sat back down and bided my time, with my bug-slaying spray (not unlike Clytemnestra’s "man-slaying axe") in my hands. Sure enough, the bug came out again, and I sprayed it to death, sending out a cloud of toxic fumes which will no doubt be the ultimate cause of my death in 20 years. Oh well.

The bug, I think, was probably an earwig, a scary but actually rather harmless critter that was probably just searching for food. I’d feel bad for killing it, but I’m so creeped out by the idea of it crawling on my actual skin I can’t, quite. If I’d seen it outside my house, I’d have just quietly avoided it. My philosophy is that bugs who stay outdoors get to live, unless of course they land on me, in which case all bets are off.

Later, though, I found something worse. Ants! There were four ants on my bedroom floor, quietly enjoying the remnants of sweetness left over from a chocolate bar I’d eaten the day before. Normally this wouldn’t matter much, but as everyone knows, where there’s four ants there’s likely to be a whole lot more than four hiding somewhere else.

Today I went and bought some ant-bait, and I’m really hoping it takes care of the buggy problem. The only worry is that the hatches in the little ant death house are definitely not large enough for an earwig.

Is there such a thing as earwig spray?

Local Musicians to Play in the Area

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Nikki and the RueMates will play tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight at the VFW on Main Street in Lakefield as part of Lakefield’s awesome annual festival, Summerfest.

They will also play tomorrow starting at 9 p.m. at Bridget Bucksnort’s in Jackson.

Bass player Carrie Deans, guitarist Rich Rue and lead singer-guitarist Nikki Matteson are all from Jackson County. Nikki graduated a year or two behind me at Jackson County Central, and I remember being absolutely wowed by her rendition of Ricky Nelson’s "Garden Party," which got the song lodged in my brain for oh, about ten years.

If you like live music, I’d strongly encourage you to check it out!

Sunset in Worthington

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I have quite a bit of time-consuming (not difficult, just time-consuming) work to do this afternoon, mostly in the form of editing photos.

We’ll have a gallery of the Relay for Life for tomorrow and I’m also going to do my darnedest to catch up on Reprint this afternoon (after all my June photos were eaten when my old hard drive croaked). We will see how it goes.

In the meanwhile, I will leave you with this gorgeous photo from Janice Oberloh, Worthington’s city clerk, who took it from her backyard on Memorial Day this year.

Technical Difficulties

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My work computer was sick, and I didn’t even notice.

If it had been a dog, it would have been wheezing, staggering around and not recognizing familiar objects, but as a computer, it had a lot fewer options for demonstrating symptoms. So it just slowed down a lot.

Because I know just enough about hardware and systems infrastructure to get myself into serious trouble, I figured I’d run a virus check to make sure I hadn’t run into some nasty worm or virus that could cause my computer to limp around like it had been hit by the online equivalent of a truck.

The virus check caused the system to go even slower, and I wandered away to edit a photograph for the newspaper. When I came back, the computer was napping. But it wouldn’t wake up when I jiggled the mouse. This should have tipped me off that something was wrong, but I just thought the antivirus software was bogging the system down, so I tried to restart it.

Now if you’ve used a computer before, you probably think you know what happened next: it wouldn’t start, there was a smell of smoke, or the screen flashed blue and hopeless.

What actually happened, though, was that the computer restarted just fine. In fact, the computer decided it was a pro at restarting, and kept restarting, without any intervention from me, over and over again. This was something it could handle. Restart! Restartrestartrestartrestart!

According to my systems administrator, who knows these things, the hard drive is toast. Crispy toast. The kind that’s black not just around the edges, but in the middle, too. The kind you can’t even eat if you scrape the top off.

The good news: It wasn’t my fault. Apparently hard drives just go bad sometimes, like eyes or children in Lifetime movies.

The bad news: Some of the stuff on the hard drive will not be recoverable.

The worse news: I hadn’t finished putting up the audio and video of the Worthington Windsurfing Regatta and Unvarnished Music Festival, and some of that material was on my hard drive.

This year, I was at the Regatta all three days, and had recorded snippets of audio and video of every performer. I had edited and put up about two-thirds of it by the end of the day on Monday. Sadly, the other third of the video and audio, including the performances of the New Primitives, the Strollers and Chuck Suchy, may be gone forever.

Fortunately, there’s still a lot there. If you want to see video, audio, or photo galleries of the Regatta, be sure to visit www.dglobe.com. The galleries were unaffected by technical difficulties, and there are a lot of photos there.

There may still be more video and audio coming, but thanks to the untimely death of my hard drive, you may have content yourself with video and audio of the opening ceremonies, the Galactic Cowboy Orchestra, Boiled in Lead, the drumming workshop, the DitchLilies, and Patchouli.

I’m sorry.

Rest in peace, hard drive. We miss you.

Going Global at the WALA Sale

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Today we found these awesome inflatable globes at the WALA sale. (The rest of the stuff on my desk: A retro coffee cup purchased at a garage sale, my Motorola Droid, a samurai sword letter opener, the widget that makes the video camera stay on the tripod, my schedule planner and notes reminding me to do various things.)

The sale will end at 4 today, so it’s probably too late for you to go out there today, but I do know that they’re planning to have another sale day. They had all kinds of things, including some great children’s books, games, chairs and desks.

It was a little sad, though. For those of you who aren’t from Worthington, the Worthington Area Language Academy’s sponsor decided not to go on sponsoring them anymore, so the Spanish-English dual immersion charter school closed at the end of the school year. Now they’re selling their supplies.

Sad to think these desks might not see any more students. Hopefully someone who will use them purchases them.

Summer Fever

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All day long, I’ve been antsy. I’ve had trouble concentrating. I feel sleepy, yet fidgety. No, I’m not coming down with a sudden case of ADHD, and yes, I got plenty of sleep last night.

It’s just the sun.

Children grow old and grow up, but there’s a tiny part of our brains that never quite makes it past the age of 4. It’s the part of the brain that, when you’re sick, whines "I want my mommy," and when you’re unhappy, shouts "I WANNA GO HOME," even when you are home. It’s the part of your brain that might make you buy a candybar or a can of soda at the grocery check-out, and the part of your brain that envies children who have toys or books you never had as a kid.

And now, it’s the part of your brain that makes you think: I don’t wanna go to schoo-er, work! I wanna go play outside!

It’s so nice, and not too humid. The mosquitos are getting worse, but they’re still not bad enough to require a deet-bath prior to porch-sitting.

So go ahead. Go play!

 

Chair Auction Raises Cash for Honor Flight Southwest Minnesota

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The chair auction went extremely well this year and we raised $3,011 for the Southwest Minnesota Honor Flight! The Globe’s going to kick in extra, so the total amount of the donation will be $4,000! Thank you to everyone who donated!

Java Nau five o’clock chair: $350

Avera Star Trek chair: $125

Trends armed forces chair: $200

Quality Auto Body Semper Fi chair: $250

New Dawn parrot chair: $310

Gary’s Painting and Hardwood Lumber Betty Boop chair: $175

Lamperts’ Cookie Monster chair: $150

Erwin & Son Painting Twins chair: $475

Mike Woll Investments Gophers chair: $250

Turbes Drealan Kvilhaug Mammen and Co. music chair: $200

Windsurfing medal and carved frame: $300

And this will be our last post tonight, though I’m still at the Regatta. Sorry about the technical difficulties–you will get to see the photos I took at a later time!

And don’t forget, there will be video and audio as soon as I can manage it!

Chair Donations for the Honor Flight!

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The first round of chair donations is in–the totals people donated to the chairs in order to "vote" for them as their favorites.

Java Nau’s 5 p.m. chair: $78

Mike Woll’s Gopher chair: $54.82

Turbes’ music chair: $52.00

Quality Auto Body’s semper fi chair: $15.25

Erwin Painting’s Twins chair: $9.48

Lampert’s Cookie Monster chair: $6.25

Avera’s Star Trek chair: $5.45

New Dawn’s parrots chair: $2

Gary’s Painting’s Betty Boop chair: $1.50

Trends military chair: $1.25

All the chairs looked absolutely fantastic this year! You can see pictures of them all here.

We got quite a bit of money this year from the votes, which will go to the next Honor Flight! Many thanks to everyone who donated!

Soon there’ll be the chair auction, and I’ll put those totals up too here, as soon as I can. Still no luck with the pictures.