TBT - WSU Delt - Barney, this house dog.

One day or evening at the Delt house the fraternity has acquired a dog.  A very cute coal black puppy that somebody named Barney.  Things I still do not know about Barney:

1. Where he came from?  Shelter, store or stray?  Or, did show up?
2. Was approval given from the fraternity to get a dog or did someone just bring it home and say "we have a dog now"?
3. How did someone not see this as an incredibly bad idea?  We had guys who had fish tanks that couldn't keep basic fresh water fish alive let alone a dog.  

Now we (the fraternity) were responsible for a very cute and very young puppy.  I liked the idea of having a dog in the fraternity.  My thought would have to adopt an older trained/trainable dog.  Not to be.  Barney was here and we now had 60+ guys with different ideas on how to train him.  Barney didn't stand a chance.

Some guys didn't mind him being in the dinning area and others didn't.  Some fed him table scraps and others said that was a bad idea.  With all these different methods and ideas for training our new puppy Barney didn't know what to do.

Barney seemed to become attached to myself and Dirty Stan.  Not exactly sure why but he hung out with us a lot.  I guess it was because we played with him and pretty much let him do whatever he wanted.  You want to chew on Spiger's shoe....go ahead you're just a pup do whatever you want but don't poop in the room.

It didn't take long for everyone to realize that Barney wasn't going to work out.  In short time we had him he didn't learn anything and that wasn't going to change.  There was talk of enrolling him in obedience courses.  Like THAT would work.  If it had worked Barney would have been the only obedient thing in the house.  The decision was made to find a new home for Barney.  We placed an ad in the Daily Evergreen and shortly after he was gone to a new home we hoped would be properly trained and cared for.

One morning a few months later a group of us were on our way to a final for a class we all attended.  On the way there I looked on the hillside and there was a black hair O shaped thing.  As I got closer I realized it was a dog chasing his tail at mach speed.  Like cartoon Tasmanian Devil speed.  I thought to myself "that dog has some real issues with its tail" and then as I looked closer I thought "that kind of looks like Barney"  I decided to see if it was and called out "come here Barney!" and that dog stopped dead in its tracks looked straight at me and came charging down the hill like his tail was on fire.

Sure enough it was Barney.  He was a muddy mess and was jumping all over me.  He followed us all the way to the class. We tried to discourage him from coming into the class.  To no avail.  Barney followed us into the final and parked himself underneath my seat and went to sleep.  As long as he did disrupt anyone I figured it was "okay"  The professor didn't notice or did and just didn't say anything.  Following the test Barney walked out with us and went right back up to the hillside were I spotted him and resumed chasing his tail.  That was the last time I saw him.  I would like to think Barney ended growing into a great dog for it's new owner.

The story of Barney is not to be confused with the "dogs of summer" we had going on in the house the one summer semester I spent at WSU when we had multiple dogs and their neighborhood friends in the house.

That's all for now.

Nano Nano,

-Brent

Novelty Runs: Proof That Mankind Is Getting Dumber.

The rise and popularity of the novelty run is more (as if we needed any) proof that the world is getting dumber.  The formula to start one is easy.  Have a theme that people will dress all "nutty and crazy" add some food or drink or both and you now own a fun run.  Your prize for finishing the run is t-shirt or hat and Facebook "bragging rights" that they were there. I am not sure if social media did not exist that these runs would either.

 I'm not talking about the Turkey Trots and the runs that have been around a long time for charity fundraising.  Also, I don't include the challenge runs such as the Spartan Run or Warrior Dash.  They have a purpose, real obstacles with legitimate challenges.

I'm talking about the novelty runs that should just be an event.  Why even add the running part?  Serious runners don't do these.  I haven't met anyone training for the Krispy Kreme Challenge.  I get it.  They want to add a fun element to running.  I have a hard time believing that these runs are kick-starting anyone into being regular runners like the promoters trying to tell people.  Here are a few of the runs I found:

1. 5K Foam Fest - Oh boy FOAM!  You start out running through a tunnel filled with foam and you get to go down an inflatable slide covered in foam which they have cleverly called "the death drop".   Just for good measure there is a bounce house filled with foam too.  
2. Mustache Dache - Look out wacky runners this one you get to slap on a fake mustache and run.  The wackiness doesn't stop there!  You get a mustache shaped medal to hang around your neck, a chocolate mustache on a stick and of course a mustache themed shirt so everyone knows you ran the Mustache Dache.
3. All the "Color" runs - These are those nutty races that they shot you with colored corn starch before, during and after the race.  It appears these are the most popular ones based on the number of them.  Some of the races include:  Color Me Rad, The Color Run, The Neon Run, The Color Vibe, Run or Dye Run,  The Blacklight Run and so on....and on.....and on.....and on.  New ones are popping up all the time.
4. The Wine Run - All the water stations give you wine instead of water.  
5. The Krispy Kreme Challenge - You have to consume a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts (2,400 calories and 144 grams of fat) before crossing the finishing line of this 5K event.  I like Krispy Kreme donuts but after 2 of them my stomach is sore and I get the shakes.  A dozen of them....while running....I'm dead.  
6. Food Fight 5K - You are given goggles and food to throw.  Instead of the usual break stations.....you guessed it more food to throw.  Why bother with the run?  I "might" be more interested if they held just a big food fight.  
7. The Zombie Run - The 5K "run from the people dressed as zombies".  

I am sure there are many runs I am missing.  You get the point though.  So for around $50 per runner you go home dirty and got an ugly shirt or hat for your efforts.  However, these novelty runs seem to sell out all the time.  So, maybe it's time to jump on the bandwagon!  

I am going to start a brand new run.  I will get all the proper city permits, schedule security, rent Honey Buckets and assemble some volunteers.  Introducing......

The Junk Run - The "run so fun it hurts".  I am bringing back the Kicked in the Nuts guy to promote it and everyone gets an orange wig and one size fits most coveralls for participating.  The zany, crazy part is that a few participants are picked to kick the others in the junk during the run!  So, for only $55 you get to run and the opportunity/chance to take a solid shot to the cash and prizes.  Yes, girls are included.  Boys only kick boys and girls only kick girls.  Who's in?  

Here's an old episode of Kicked in the Nuts to remind you of the fun you could be having.

See you at The Junk Run!

That's all for now.

Nano Nano,

-Brent

You were either a Christian or a Cannibal.

I love documentaries.  Even subjects I really have had no interest in I can get drawn into a documentary about it and watch the whole thing.  Recently Jenn and I pretty much dumped cable television.  We took a good look at what we were watching and didn't take long to realize that for what we were paying and how much we television we watched it was a complete waste of money.  When I gave it some thought our price per hour and price per episode of a show we were watching was ridiculous.  I am not a "kill your television" person but when most new shows coming out are "reality" television that was time for us to pull the pin on cable.  From the standpoint of a cable television station I get it.  Reality shows are very cheap to make and popular.  I have never liked any singing shows, dancing contests, teen mom's, ice road trucking, logging, swamp people or hog hunters.  One thing is very clear is you can put almost anything on television and people will watch it.

We use Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming for television and Redbox for movies.  Works great for us.  On Amazon there was a  PBS special called the Myster of Easter Island.  Sounded interesting enough so we sat and watched all 43 minutes of it.  It was fairly interesting.  One of the historians they used as an expert said something that had me rolling.  He was talking about the early history of Easter Island and how the Northern Europeans claimed there were Cannibals inhabiting the island.  The historian goes on to say "back then you were either a Christian or a Cannibal"  Once he said that I laughed out loud and turned to Jenn and said "let me get this straight.  You were either filled with love for other people or you are filled with other people"  That my friends goes down in my great quotes of all time book.

Then, my mind drifted (as it often does) to a totally different Cannibal related topic.  No, not Hannibal Lecter or any other real or made up Cannibals.  If you guessed Toto Coelo you would be correct.  Remember them?  Kind of a really bad version (if possible) of the Spice Girls from 1982.  A British all girl group that managed to put out 1 hit song called "I Eat Cannibals".  It was one of, if not the worst songs from the 80's.  The video was a glorious mess of horrible choreography, ridiculous stage props, choppy filming and poor lighting. Here is the video.  Sit back and enjoy.

Next time you are thinking about Easter Island just ask yourself "would I have been a Christian or Cannibal?"

That's all for now.

Nano Nano,

-Brent

WSU - Delta Tau Delta - Throwback Thursday

Dateline: Every Saturday morning in the Delt house.  Somewhere between 8am and 9am I would awaken.  I use awaken because I am not sure the term "woke up" would apply when what I had just done could technically be called a short-term, controlled comma.  I would shuffle down the hall to the bathroom.  The smell of cheap stale beer filled my nose along with "other" smells that I did not know or want to know the orgin of.  During this brief walk I found myself asking such questions as "how did THAT get there?", "who is that on the floor?" and "wow, who is going to clean this up?"  Once in the bathroom I find that all the toilets AND the urinal are clogged with puke.  Why, or better yet who pukes in a urinal?!?!  My peeing choices have been narrowed down to 1. the bathroom sink, 2. the shower drain or 3. the garbage can.  The fact is I could have just went on the floor and nobody would have known the difference.

Then I head on down to the kitchen to get some breakfast.  Time for cereal.  My cereal bowl was giant clear plastic bowl that the cook used to mix up salads in.  I filled it to the top with Capn Crunch and proceeded to eat it way too fast and shred the roof of my mouth.  I am pretty sure 1 bowl was the equivalant  of 1.5 full boxes of Capn Crunch.  I was one of the few that would get up at this hour.  This meant I got to read the Sports section from the Spokesman Review Journal before it got torn to pieces and enjoy a fresh copy of the Daily Evergreen campus paper.  This also meant I had front row seats circus that was about to get up head into the kitchen.

Usually, the last people to get up would show up downstairs with a wide variety of colorful "art" all over their face and body.  Unwritten Delt law number one: if you do not make it to your bed you are fair game to be messed with.  Most of the time this meant a LOT of of permanent ink on your face, arms or whatever area could be exposed for inking.  Sometimes it was ink AND something else.

I was one of the lucky and very few to go my entire college career without getting inked up.  I saw the layers of skin being shredded off to remove the ink and I wanted nothing to do with that.  I went to great lengths to ensure I did not fall victim to it.  Others learned the hard way by repeatedly not making it to their bed and paying the price.

When someone got lit up it was not a simple pair of glasses and a mustache drawn on people.  The "inkers" made sure to get the insides of the ears, scalp, inside the nose, eyelids and the entire face.   The volume of scrubbing it took to even fade the ink was incredible.

Karma was always in full effect in the Delt house.  For this very reason I did not ink people up.  However, I did stand by as an observer from time to time.  I knew if I was always inking people up with pens that if and when my time came I would be in serious trouble.  One rule if you're an observer is not to snitch.  We all know snitches end up in ditches!

At times the pens were not enough.  One shaved eyebrow, a hamburger bun stuck to the forehead with silicone or someone getting their underwear filled with cereal are a few examples. One night I heard snickering in the basement.  I went down to investigate.  Snickering is a sure sign there is more than Sharpie pens are in action and I was correct. I look into the room and see a guy passed out in a chair with no legs and leaning against a closet.  He already received some Sharpie action and now had a pretty good pile of shaving cream sitting on top of his head.

The snickering continued.  Finally I asked "what is going on here?".  Someone says "we are doing a Mt. St. Helens reenactment on his head".  Followed by a lot of snickering.  The "mastermind" of this was a guy named Chris (forgot his last name) who was booted out of the fraternity for being a lunatic.  Chris walks into the room with a firecracker.  He walks up and places it in the middle of the pile of shaving cream.  I asked Chris "couldn't that burn his head?" to which he responded "maybe" and proceeds to light the fuse.  BANG.  The shaving cream is completely gone and the guy didn't even flinch.  There we had it.  The 3am geniuses in action.  No burns or other visible damage so the show was over and everyone heads off to bed.

I guess this was a case of "fair game" in accordance with the unwritten rule of making it to your bed.  I guess there wasn't that much difference in this little game than the game most 3 year olds that play called "will my head fit here?"  Chalk it up to life in the Delt house.


That's all for this time.

Nano Nano

-Brent

"I found a dead finger once"

A few years back, I was helping out with church's High School youth group.  Somehow it was decided to go to a music festival in California.  I am not sure if the youth pastor chose this trip or the kids talked him into it. The plan was to stuff a bunch of kids into a van headed off to Joshua Fest in the middle of nowhere California, known as Quincy (a 10 hour drive from Vancouver, WA).

For the adults, the trip was simple - make sure none the kids die or get left behind.  Pretty basic, but this is a group of High School kids.  We stuff the van with the kids and head out.  It took about 5 minutes for the van to acquire 'the funk' that would remain (and grow stronger), for the rest of the trip.  Luckily, this was a good group of kids.  Most of the time you put High School boys and girls together for an extended period of time - there is a LOT of drama and fighting.  Not so much with this group.  A little of both, but not too bad.

High School boys like to tell stories.  Especially when girls are around.  We told them straight up if you are lying we are going to call you out on it.  That is essentially the best way to combat made up stories.  I was pretty good at sniffing them out.  Once I did, it was easy to call them out.  All I did was ask 2 or 3 questions about that would involve details and the story quickly unraveled.  High School boys are full of crap and this isn't really a shocker, but we had one kid that topped them all.  His "stories" were off the charts bad and everyone knew it.  Before leaving we made a special point of reinforcing that we would call him out for lying about his stories.  Didn't seem to matter too much.

Within the first hour of the trip, the kids were exchanging different stories about various things, when a lull in the conversation, we heard, "I found a dead finger once!".  To this point he had not shared any stories and I think he felt this was his opportunity to do so.  Within seconds of those words leaving his mouth the van erupted in laughter and confusion.  Someone asked, "Where did you find a 'dead finger?' "  He replied, "I was walking home from school and I found it in a field."  Then I asked him, "What did you do when you found this 'finger'?" and he said "I picked it up."  I said to him, "Then why would you pick up a 'dead finger'?" and the priceless response was, "I thought it was a turd."  I looked him straight in-the-eye and asked, "WHY would you be picking up turds?!"  You could see the wheels turning as he scrambled to answer that question.  He mumbled a couple different things and then just gave up knowing his bogus story didn't have a chance.

A while later he told the real story.  It was not a 'dead finger' or a turd.  It was simply a rock that at first glance looked like a finger.  I will hand it to him that embellishing the simple story of finding a rock in a field to being a 'dead finger' was creative and pretty gutsy to think that others would believe it. All-in-all, it does go down as the best/worst crappy story I have ever heard.

The trip was a success (nobody died or was left behind).  The kids had a good time and they really were an easy group to manage.  Those 'kids' are now adults and some are married and some have kids of their own but in my mind I will always see them as kids.

Until next time.

Nano Nano,

-Brent

Goodbye to Bob Casale and the end of an era.

Robert Casale (Bob 2) born: July 14th, 1952 deceased: February 17th, 2014.  He passed unexpectedly of heart failure. Bob is survived by his son, Alex, his daughter Samantha, and his wife Lisa.

I was saddened to here of Bob's passing.  Other than benefit show or 2 it means that is also the end of Devo. I was introduced to Devo about a year after the release of the album Q: Are we not men?  A: We are Devo! and have been a fan ever since.  They sounded different and looked different.  I was immediately taken in by both.  They found their biggest commercial success 2 years later with the release of the album Freedom of Choice that included the commercially success song Whip It.

Devo came together in 1972 when two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob) along with Alan Myers while they were all art students at Kent State University.  The name Devo came from their concept of "de-evolution" - the idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind has actually begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society.

These guys were always ahead of their time with their combination of unique music and visual arts.  In the early years they started experimenting with synthesizers that they made themselves and homemade electronic drums.  They created reoccurring characters like "Booji Boy" pronounced "Boogie Boy" and The Chinaman.  The early concerts often became so rowdy that they had the promoters unplugging their instruments and paying them to quit.      

Here is one of their early videos for the song Come back Johnee (this is prior to MTV).  Also keep in this was when the music charts were dominated by The Bee Gees, The Commodores and the soundtrack from the movie Grease.

The video from the same album (Q: Are we not men?  A: We are Devo!) covering the Rolling Stones song Satisfaction was the first music video I had seen of them and it was the first music video I had ever seen.  Again this video was before MTV was even existed.

While in Junior High and High School Devo remained one of my favorite bands.  As they evolved they went to electronic only with their instruments.  The videos became very polished as the "New Wave" era of music was in full swing.  They never reached the same level of success as the "Freedom of Choice" album.  Their popularity slowly faded away.  In 1990 they released "Smooth Noodle Maps" and it was least successful of their albums and they ended up breaking up in 1991.  Below is a video from the "Oh, no! it's DEVO!" album.

After a 20 year hiatus Devo released a brand new album "Something for Everybody".  I was skeptical at first that this was just a quick "cash grab" and the album would suck.  Not the case at all.  They managed to capture the same creative quirkiness that I have always enjoyed about them.  They sounded older but very much still Devo.  From the "Something for Everybody" was the last video made with the whole band.

  

Devo is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and likely won't be.  They did not have enough "hit" songs.  However, the volume of bands and musicians that cite Devo as a source of influence is huge.  It is the end of an era but they have a strong following will continue to have an impact on the music and visual arts.  Intersted in more Devo?  Go to their website at http://clubdevo.com/index.php.  Thanks for the music and the creativity guys.  You will be missed.

Until next time.

Nano Nano,

-Brent 

Analyze THIS!

I don’t believe that dreams can be analyzed or interpreted. This doesn't mean that dreams are insignificant: They may indicate that you are anxious or depressed or worried about a particular situation, etc. But you probably already knew that. I can't even explain my dreams how could anyone else?  

For example, let me give you this dream I had just last week:  I was at the gym jogging on a treadmill.  The treadmills were located inside the racquetball courts.  A guy walks out of the bathroom and shouts "I just laid down the law in there!".  A woman standing next to my wife Jennifer asks "what's that all about?".  Jenn sighs and Jenn replies "for whatever reason Brent has started saying "I just laid down the law in there" after taking a dump".   I guess it's like a verbal "high five" for him.  It looks like it's catching on.  Then I woke up and started laughing.  Analyze THAT! 

I have never spoken or even thought of the phrase "I just laid down the law in there!".  Unless it's an absolute emergency I do not poop in public restrooms and if by chance I do I am not walking out and saying "I just laid down the in there!"  This dream is a simple case of random firing brain impulses.  

Do you believe someone can analyze dreams?  If yes, then guess what I can (for a fee) analyze your dreams!  Please do not miss out on my other services:

• Pet Pyschic
• Credit Repair Service
• Buying Homes with No Money Down
• Fortune Teller
• Life Coach
• Dream Analyzer (of course)

A few years back I had a situation were an entire floor of the building I worked in had one bathroom.  Call it bad timing, bad luck or whatever but every time I had to use that bathroom one particular "big guy with a bad diet" was in there and the funk that clouded the bathroom could only be compared to Mustard Gas.  It got to the point were I was so desperate that I thought about bringing a pigeon in to send in to be sure I could go in.  Luckily, that was the past and is no longer an issue. For those who work in a building that have the extreme displeasure of having to use a "well used" bathroom at work I am here to help you.  Below is a full video of how to poop at work.

Do not worry.  This blog is not going to be dominated by pooping stories or postings of farting contests and the such.  It just so happened this was the first thing that came into my thoughts for a post.  This blog is a place that I will write whatever is tumbling through my head.  You have been warned.

Untill next time.

Nano Nano,

-Brent