ROUNDTABLE

The author is out of town. Please enjoy this re-post (originally published on 3/22/08).

I've now been to roundtable... I'm not even old enough to rent a car, and yet I've been to roundtable. To say the least, it was a slap-in-the-face welcome to the boring world of adulthood.

For those of you who've grown up with parents involved in scouting, you may remember hearing them grumble under their breath about going to some horrendous meeting on a Thursday night. The second Thursday of the month, that is... always has been, always will be. Unless you end up in hell, then it'll be the second and fourth.

When I arrived at the meeting I saw a bigger crowd than I'd expected, all decked out in certified uniforms and neckerchiefs, mumbling to each other about the latest Klondike activity. There were basically three types of people in attendance:

1. The nice lady that serves faithfully as the troop's den mother. Always has a lot of fragile decorations in her house that you're not allowed to touch, but she's good for home-baked goodies.
2. The overly-cheerful guy that serves as the troop's scoutmaster. Dons a beard 90% of the time. Can rattle off at least 9 dutch-oven recipes upon request.3. The newly-called scout leaders that are wondering what wrong they've done to the world to deserve such punishment.
After a few opening announcements, a bona fide scouter stood up and called a person from the congregation to join him on stage. Apparently the chosen individual had completed "Wood Badge," a week-long training course for scout leaders. With his wife in hand, the prizewinner took an honorable walk to the front; he looked proud as a peacock when a new neckerchief was placed upon his shoulders. The awarder then announced, "we can't let him go without singing the Antelope Song!" In a flash the others in the congregation, who'd apparently completed Wood Badge also, stormed the stage and belted out the type of song that makes you want to slam your head against the nearest solid surface. They finished, there was an awkward moment of silence, and the meeting resumed.

I learned from roundtable that there is a pride cycle in the world of scouting. As an 11 or 12 year-old, it's neat to get badges and beads; when you're 17 or 18, it's not so great anymore. But when you become a middle-aged man, racking up badges suddenly becomes cool again.

I'd rather not tweet

It's hard to keep up with the latest, coolest thing. For instance, we still don't have a bagless vacuum or a toaster that fits bagels.

I also didn't have a Twitter account, until just last week. I don't really know why I registered for one. I guess I just thought that someday I may use it, so it would be a good idea to nail down the user name I wanted before it got taken.

For those of you who don't know, Twitter is like a blog, but each post must be under 140 characters. Each post must also contain one or more internet initialisms such as LOL, ROFL, or JK. If you're unsure how to use one in a sentence, just ask a 12-year old girl--or one of the Jonas Brothers--to send you a text.

Each post on Twitter is actually called a "tweet," which is a big reason I was so hesitant to open an account. As a man, I try to limit the number of times I use the word "tweet." It falls right in with "yay," "scrumptious," and "oodles."

The idea of each tweet (*shuddering*) is to give a quick update about what you are doing/thinking/wondering at the moment.

Even though I have an account, I haven't touched it since I set the dang thing up. And I don't intend to. Why? Well, here's an example of how a given day, say... a lazy Saturday, of me on Twitter would read:

8:10 a.m. - Didn't sleep in today. Instead I got up early so I could wander around the house.

9:33 a.m. - Aerating the soil in my houseplant pots. BTW, when will I have a yard and some real earth to till?

12:29 p.m. - Had a good church-ball game: 2 points, 3 fouls, and I made some guy swear. Dude shouldn't have tried to make a lay-up on me.

12:54 p.m. - Great shower. Skipped the soap and just went with water - LOL!

2:02 p.m. - Lunch at the local taco stand... went with the 1-pound Machaca burrito smothered in salsa verde. Now my stomach hurts like hell, but IDC.

3:31 p.m. - I'd like to get on Antiques Roadshow with some random piece of crap. I should start visiting more yard sales.

4:22 p.m. - Just ate a green Otter Pop. Should have gone with red.

4:28 p.m. - Just ate a red Otter Pop. Much better, IMO.

5:49 p.m. - Went to the dollar store, now I'm SFETE. Bag of cinnamon bears, tube of super glue, bottle of Mexican soda, and a mini radio all for just 4 bucks!

I think you get the idea. Not much there. I think I'll keep my energy focused on this blog, where my mindless drivel doesn't have to be capped at 140 characters.

Was it Britney Spears who sang "Smokin' In the Boys Room?"

It all happened unexpectedly: A long time ago my wife mentioned that she kind of liked Britney Spears' music; I recently found out she was coming to town; I got a good deal on tickets; Yada yada... Suddenly I'm a 25-year old guy walking into a Britney Spears concert.

There are a lot of places I never thought I'd end up in my lifetime--North Dakota, a NASCAR race, Denny's--and now a Britney Spears concert can be crossed off that list.

I wouldn't say I was excited about the whole thing, but I was somewhat curious. It's not every day you get to see a former Mickey Mouse Club all-star in person. However, once I got into the venue my curiosity quickly dissolved, and I wanted to get the heck out.

For one, my wife wasn't letting me make any sarcastic remarks. For instance, she got mad at me when I asked the usher if Jamie Lynn was going to be performing with Britney. The usher didn't think it was funny, either.

Secondly, crazy-pshyco-fanatic girls wearing shirts saying "Oops I did it again" and "Hit me baby one more time" were in full force. Hundreds and thousands of 'em. There weren't many guys there, and I told my wife I needed to leave because everyone would think I was some kind of pervert.

However, my concern quickly dissolved when the show started and the Pussycat Dolls, who opened for the concert, were on stage. That's when I saw some dude with binoculars, and he kind of took the cake on the whole creepy/pervert thing:

The show wasn't too bad; lotta theatrics, lights, dancers, and screaming fans. At halftime (technically it was intermission, but we were in an NBA Arena so I'll call it halftime) I headed for the men's restroom, to well, use the bathroom. I also wanted to hear some man-to-man urinal talk and find out how other guys in the place were handling the concert.

When I walked into the men's room it smelled heavily of marijuana smoke. THAT is how they were handling it.

I elected to skip out on sharing in on the high, and I went back out for the second half. More theatrics, more lights, more ear-drum deafening shrieks whenever Britney began to sing (and by sing, I mean lip-sync) a new song.

She sang a song while sitting in the handle of a giant umbrella, hung by the rafters. She sang a song while getting sawed in half by a magician, then came out of the box whole again. Etc, etc. And then it was all over.

Going to a Britney Spears concert is kind of like playing in the mud: it's entertaining enough while you're in it, but after you're done you feel like you need a shower. So as my wife and I walked back to our car after the concert, I was glad it was raining.

What happened to riding bikes?

When I was a kid, my bike was freedom.

For one, a bike provided unlimited options for fun. A popular game in my neighborhood was one wherein some kid was chosen to be on a bike, and everyone else was on foot. The chosen cyclist would then try to ride away from the pedestrians (a.k.a. foot soldiers), who were wielding broomsticks.

The goal of the foot soldiers was to lob a broom handle into the spokes of the rider's front wheel. The goal of the rider was to try to avoid eating the handlebars. When a foot soldier successfully wrecked the cyclist, he was awarded a turn on the bike (I know, the motivation seems idiotic, but it worked). The following embedded video will give you a general idea of the process:



We always talked my younger brother into letting us use his bike for that game; all we had to do was compliment his bike by saying it did the best front flips. He never seemed to mind that his bike was in constant need of an alignment.

Secondly, my bike could have been a tax write-off, had my paper route brought in enough money to merit filing income taxes. My bike was a moneymaker, and delivering newspapers on it was certainly more efficient than doing so on foot.

For instance, the time I threw a newspaper through the glass of someone's storm door I was able to make a quick get-a-way. Unfortunately, a newspaper thrown through glass is an object that can easily be traced back to the paperboy. That dang storm door equaled six weeks of wages.

Lastly, my bike was great for simply getting around. It was nice to not have to beg my parents for a ride into town; I could go buy crap from the the pet shop, the gas station, or the pawn shop on my own volition.

With all the freedom bikes gave us as kids, it's unfortunate that we abandon them so readily once we've got a car.

I bought a bike last fall from some stoned dude at a yard sale. He was also selling a lot of other stolen goods, but the bike was all I was interested in. It's actually a pretty nice bike; it has shocks and everything.

My goal this summer is to ride my bike more often, not just to reduce my carbon footprint (that line is for you, Al Gore), but to see if I can garner the feeling of freedom I once had as a young and reckless cyclist.

Two pets is one too many

"Surround yourself with people smarter than you," is a saying tossed around in the business world. However, at home people seem to prefer to surround themselves with those of lesser intelligence.

At least that's my philosophy on why people have pets. We naturally like to be the ruler of someone or something, and getting a pet is one of the quickest ways to gain a subordinate.

Such was the case with a lady in Lehi, Utah. Last Friday police removed 60 cats from her two-bedroom apartment, then condemned the dwelling. A few years prior, the police had removed 35. I guess she was more of a sovereign queen of kitties, rather than just a ruler of pets.



The thing is, I'm sure it all started with one feline and then snowballed out of control. I went through the same thing last year, but with houseplants. Although they're not pets, they are still something to rule over.

First I got a neat-looking yucca plant, and placed it in the living room. Then I thought a pepper plant by the window would be nice. Then I figured housing an aloe vera plant would be reasonable, for sunburns and what not.

And on it went with herb gardens and palms, until I realized I needed to take a deep breath and step back. Now on our front porch lay half-a-dozen stacked pots, like gravestones to those that I did away with. I guess I'm lucky I was able to nip the craving at the bud (no pun intended); the cat lady wasn't so fortunate.

My wife and I also have a little fiddler crab, that we rule over jointly. It's as far as we've gone in a pet venture. We got it about 10 months ago, and never thought it would live until now. But since it's survived the trials we've put it through (like the time we went on vacation for a week in December and left the heat off), we've grown attached.

I'll even say we've thought of getting a second fiddler crab, so it could have a friend. Thankfully we've been able to resist, because next thing you know we've got 60 and our next door neighbor is calling the police.

Cell phones were originally used to call people

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I recently got a new cell phone for work. The thing does everything from GPS navigation to emailing. Heck, I could even update my MySpace page from it, if I had one. It's a lot different from my first wireless phone.

I decided to finally get a cell phone during my Sophomore year of college. I was sitting in class, watching some guy pick up on some girl--so I started taking mental notes. Before they parted ways, he smoothly pulled out his cell phone and asked her for her number.

That's when I decided to get one, so I could have something to put chick's numbers into. I went down to Cricket Wireless and signed up for the cheapest plan they had. No texting, no voicemail, and my service area was only in-state. All for an even 20 bucks a month, which matched the amount I budgeted each month for dating.

To my disappointment, I quickly found out that women wouldn't flock to me just because I had a mobile phone. When the opportunity finally came, and a girl was standing in front of me rattling off her number, I couldn't figure out how to type in her name with the stupid numeric keypad. And so Dgtmmg became the first female--that wasn't a relative--to grace my phone.

I also learned that I wouldn't suddenly muster the courage to call a girl just because I had her name (some form of it) and number programed into my cell phone.

Since then I've been through a number of phones. My personal favorite was the one that would randomly call 911. I'm not sure how it would happen, but the phone would be in my pocket, think there was an emergency, and dial away.

It happened once on a date. I got a call from the police, saying I had dialed 911 and they wanted to know if everything was all right. I told them it was, and explained my phone's bad habit. Then they told me they looked up my number and that there was a warrant out for my arrest.

A couple month's prior I had received a traffic ticket. I paid it right away, but somehow my payment didn't get recorded. It was a lot of fun handling that call in front of my date.

My new phone sure is slick, but it probably does too much. Looking back, I kind of wish I could go back to my first cell phone and the simple world that went along with it: dial and hang up.

The Kool-Aid tastes funny in Arkansas

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In a particular Simpson's episode, Homer is on tour with the The Smashing Pumpkins. In a scene backstage, he is quizzed by a couple members of the famous rock band:

Billy Corgan: Hey, Homer, looks like our next stop is your hometown, Springfield.
D'Arcy: Is it true that we have to bring our own water?
Homer: We got a little rule back home: if it's brown, drink it down; if it's black, send it back.

In Arkansas, bright blue is the new brown...

Earlier this month, a day-care operator near Little Rock served windshield wiper fluid to 10 children. According to reports, the operator thought the brightly colored liquid was Kool-Aid. It was even chilled in the fridge before serving.

The good news; all 10 kids were quickly released from the hospital and are doing fine. The bad news; Arkansas just reaffirmed its usual stereotype.

I imagine a lot of people are outraged at the incident (like, say... the parents of these 10 kids), but I can understand the screw up. As a youth, I went through many unpleasant experiences while trying to figure out which liquids were palatable, and which were not.

For instance, my mom would always save the juice from cans of vegetables and use it for soup stock. When I came across the pale-colored liquid while sneaking through the fridge, I'd often mistake it for pineapple juice. It shouldn't be a surprise when I tell you the sweetness of green-bean juice certainly doesn't measure up to that of the pineapple.

On that same note, I also vividly remember a time when I found a mason jar full of brown liquid in the fridge. Mmmm... root beer! After taking a hearty swig, I was quickly reminded that my mom was big on homemade maple syrup.

I guess kids just have a knack for expecting things to be better than what they really are. That is, if it's wet, drink it down. How else do you account for Kool-Aid's success?

If this blog were a plant, it'd be a perennial

Experts say 50% of businesses fail within the first year. I should know, my "Abercrombie & Your mom" T-shirt business never made it to the mark... those eBay buyers are cutthroat.


I imagine the same stat pertains to blogs. Take my friend Jeris, who started a blog about a year ago. The introductory post was titled "Just one more thing to neglect." At least he was being frank--three post and three months later, his blog gave up the ghost.

A blogger's life is tough. Regularly coming up with new content and hoping we don't have any typos is the bane of our existence. We're avid expressionists flooding the Inernet with amateur writing and Ads by Google that nobody clicks on. With no reward but the comments left by our readers, we regularly have to look deep within ourselves to find a reason to keep posting.

That being said, please join me in celebrating this blogs one year anniversary. It's hard to believe, but rockmitchell.blogspot.com began on March 12, 2008. Since that date I've offended several family members and friends, had articles published in two newspapers, and made a little over 3 bucks with the Google Ads in my sidebar.

You're probably aware of the Sitemeter thing at the bottom of this blog. It not only keeps track of the number of visitors, but it also keeps tabs on where visitors come from, as well as what search words they may have used to end up here.

My most popular article, overall, is Rubber cement boogers vs. cell phones in school. It's most often stumbled upon by people from Ivy League schools Googling something like "effect of cell phones on education." Those poor saps sure hit a dead end when they arrive.

My most popular international article is Mistaken for something great. For some reason, people from South America and Eastern Europe love to search for "fubu boots." All they get, though, is an article about how much I suck at basketball.

My most popular article with the country folk is Big hunting trucks don't scare me. It's usually dudes from the bible belt or the deep south that are using search words like "I wanna see big trucks," or "cool elk hunting stickers."

The same experts that say 50% of businesses fail within the first year also say 90% of them fail within the first five years. Don't get your hopes up, oh faithful readers.

Why even get out of bed?

http://gothamist.com

Well, I had quite a week. On Monday I got kidnapped, but my captor stopped at a convenience store for a drink and I was able to slip away to the back of the store and lose him. I hid out there for a long time, and survived by sneaking bites of ice cream from the freezer.

Tuesday got really interesting. I was castaway in the ocean on some air mattress with a few strangers. Eventually we floated down to Mexico, where I "woke up" up on some bus. The driver kicked me off and I had to walk home in the snow. I certainly didn't expect snow in Mexico.

The rest of the week: Wednesday - befriended a stray dog; Thursday - ran a marathon; Friday - rolled a stolen RV, then tipped it back up; Saturday - bought a bunch of ice cream, but couldn't keep it from melting.

That all happened while I was in the subconscious. Unfortunately, my waking hours weren't so interesting. Work, filing my taxes, and getting an oil change were highlights of the cognizant moments of my week.

As you can tell, I decided to keep a dream journal. I'm not sure why, maybe I just wanted to find out how messed up my psyche is. And yeah, it's messed up.

I went to a dream interpretation website and checked a few things out. Since two of my dreams involved ice cream, I decided to see what it meant: To see or eat ice cream in your dream denotes satisfaction with your life. Ok, good so far... To see ice cream melt in your dream symbolizes failure to realize your hopes and desires. Dang it!

How about that castaway dream? To dream that you are lost at sea suggest that you are drifting around in life without any direction. Luckily I wasn't at sea forever; as you will recall, I ended up on some bus. To dream that you are riding a bus implies that you are lacking originality and are taking no control over where your life is taking.

After a week of recording dreams, I wondered "why get up at all?" Dreams seemed like a lot more fun than real life, until I found out that all my dreams mean I'm a failure with no direction in life.

Turns out, I'm glad I did my taxes when I was awake: To dream you are paying taxes represents the price you are paying for the way you live. The dream may be stemming from some sort of self-guilt and the debt that you owe to society.

We're all becoming germ freaks

A while ago my wife came home from the store with a big jug of hand soap to refill the soap dispensers in our house. I picked it up and said, "you know this isn't antibacterial, right?" That's when panic set in.

She wanted to throw it away and immediately go buy another jug with antibacterial powers, but I refused. I knew soap in the olden days was made from potash and lard (in fact I made some for a science project in 5th-grade). So I figured that what was in the jug was just as good as the stuff people had been using for hundreds of years prior.

Indeed we were going to wash with it until it was gone, come what microbes may. Funny thing is, over the months that we refilled our soap dispensers with the non-antibacterial soap, we survived just fine.

Not that I was surprised, though. Any boy that's gone to a summer camp has spent a week without coming into contact with anything remotely related to soap--including toothpaste. To men not under the supervision of women, "washing up" is a water-free process consisting of wiping their hands on the front of their pant legs.

I've always had a bad habit of chewing on my pens. I also have a bad habit of never buying my own pens; I just use ones I find laying around or ones I forget to give back after signing my credit card receipt. Studies show pens are one of the most germ-laden things in an office, and I treat them like a piece of licorice.

These days, folks are just too obsessed with sanitation. We're scared of hand shakes, public transportation, and stair rails. I know people that go through their house once a week and Clorox every door handle and every hard surface in their home. This is all done while their kids are in the backyard eating dirt.

And then there's the instant hand sanitizer craze, the biggest "this is better for you" scam since the introduction of bottled water. The stuff kills 99.9% of the germs on your hands, but then the 0.1% left behind go ape because you knocked off all their friends.

I miss the pink powdery soap we used in elementary school; it was better than instant hand sanitizer. Boraxo was the brand name, I believe. It cleaned not so much by creating germ-killing suds, but by abrasion of the outer layer of skin.

I don't think we should stop washing our hands, I just think our germ-free world could loosen up a bit. We ought to get back outside and taste the dirt. We need to learn a lesson from man's best friend and drink water from the toilet. Or at very least, the tap.

Shopping at Costco takes some getting used to

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My parents gave my wife and I Costco Club memberships for Christmas last year. No doubt, it's been great. Yesterday we got a 3-pack of frozen pizzas, an 80-pack of fruit snacks, and a tub of salsa big enough to wade in--all at a reasonable price.

However, there are some things about Costco that I've found rather interesting...

On our first trip we turned in our gift card for a membership card. The process of applying for a membership card at Costco is similar to getting a drivers license at the DMV. You even have to get your photo taken for the card's picture ID. I tried to look cross-eyed for mine.

I'm also pretty sure they run a background check to make sure you're a white, SUV-driving suburbanite. At least that seems to be who fills the store.

My favorite part about going to Costco is trying to get past the membership card checkers at the entrance without showing them my card. I put on the facade of an angry man ready to snap at the next person that crosses my path, and they haven't stopped me thus far. My wife thinks my little game is stupid, though.

Before we had our Costco card I heard a lot about the free samples. However, I've been rather disappointed. When the samples are being prepared, nobody is in line. Instead they're all hovering close by, acting like they're interested in some nearby product. The only difference between them and the people in line at a soup kitchen, I guess, is the soup kitchen doesn't require a membership.

Once the samples are ready, though, you have to box-out soccer moms and shoulder-check CPAs just to get a chance at a 1-oz cup of granola. I guess knowing your cart full of groceries is going to run you 300 bucks makes you want to milk everything you can out of the free samples.

As a member of this wholesale club, I'm also entitled to bulk goods--right off the pallet. Of course Costco outfits you with a 100-gallon shopping cart that is willing to swallow up whatever you want throw in it; be it a 4-pound bag of Sunsweet prunes or a 96-pack of toilet paper... or both.

At checkout Costco is a mix between your neighborhood lemonade stand a 5-star hotel, in that they only take cash or Amex. They also don't bag your groceries, probably because they don't want to be held responsible for smashing your bread (I used to be a bagger at a grocery store, and I've seen nice old women start foaming at the mouth upon finding their bread smashed).

After checkout comes my second favorite part about Costco: trying to sneak past the Sharpie-toting receipt checkers guarding the exit. Then comes my least favorite: hauling unbagged groceries up the stairs to our 3rd-floor condo.

My Utopia

I spend plenty of time in my car--mostly because of my commute. About a year ago I decided to start listening to books on CD, and it has generally made driving much more enjoyable.

So a few days ago I was at the library looking for another book on CD. The library was closing in a couple minutes, and I couldn't find anything interesting. On my last glance I saw Sir Thomas More's Utopia and decided to give it a whirl.

Bad mistake.

I'm sure it's a great literary work and all, but it's as boring as C-Span. The book, written in 1516, is essentially More's ramblings (in very old English, mind you) as he describes the political arrangements of the imaginary island of Utopia to some other boring guy.

If you consider getting stuck in traffic to be lame, getting stuck in traffic AND having listening to Utopia is like salt in the wound.

Anyway, More goes off on the way this Utopia, or perfect society, should punish criminals, conduct sheep farming, monitor excessive fashion, etc... His dissertation got me thinking of how my Utopia would pan out.

What would not exist in my Utopia:

www.theonion.com

1. People that wear bluetooth headsets all the time
2. The Clinton's
3. John Mayer

What would exist in my Utopia:

www.show.me.uk

1. Domesticated penguins
2. A college football playoff
3. Carbonated water running through all culinary water pipes (for some reason I've always wanted to take a shower in club soda)

You may not sign up for everything in my Utopia, but I promise it will be more interesting than Sir Thomas More's.