Thursdays on First was created by Rochester's planning committee as a way to make people come out of their offices each summer for one day a week, and into actual sunlight.

As Midwesterners, we don't see a lot of sun, so we are more apt to miss the cues (ie, sunshine).

But more importantly, we have a proud tradition of appearing as if we're not enjoying ourselves very much. Thus, we need the proper stimuli to coax us from our fluorescently lit environs and emerge en masse. (Self pity is less effective if people are seen in large groups, purposefully enjoying something tangible.)

The methodology is simple: flood the immediate downtown area with local vendors selling everything from homemade jewelry to homemade scarves. Then add music, sugar, and meat, and you've got 2 blocks of a full-blown, unadulterated nice time.

I don't go often myself, but when I do, it's mostly to take in the smoky aromas of sizzling food, get some vitamin D, and practice my weaving skills.

Unless it's raining.

An observance of trees

I just read an article on the Web site Science Daily about the healing power of forests. They mentioned the cleansing properties of the outdoors, the color green, and how nature has an ability to calm that urban settings can't provide.

And that's all true, but they didn't mention the simple mystery of trees, which I've always been drawn to.

Trees are full of knowledge. We can see it in their rings, what they've been through, how long they've lived.

They soak in nutrients from the sun, rain, and soil, grow without seeming to move, and still provide shade and oxygen, and sap for pancakes. Food and shelter for birds and bugs. Books and beds for people. Just by quietly standing in one place for years.

The older ones are stiff and silent, their bark etched in wrinkles. They are sacred. Saplings are softer, eager, untempered by time but easily bent in the wind.

Where the autumn years bring gray to humans, trees unleash colors like fire, then dim like embers against a setting sun that yawns for winter.

I really don't know where I'm going with this. It just seems like the ancient poetry of trees has been diminished by the duller shade of green it lends to the drooping faces of dead presidents.

Face(book)less

When I joined Facebook two years ago, I couldn't wait to reconnect with people. But the Web site wouldn't get out of my way, so I wrote down a few of my friends' emails and left.

If Facebook was a real person, he would tell you who your other friends should be. What "gifts" to send. Who you should talk to.

He would try to sell you things based on what he heard you talking about. He might tell others about it.

And he would give you a 2-week grace period to come back to him if you left.

I miss chatting with my friends. But I'm not going to do it while the Man looks over my shoulder. The value I put on my interpersonal relationships can't be bought by some nosy, lonely brat who thinks he knows what I should do with my social life.

Plus, who would name their kid "Facebook"?

Makeup Specialist of the Gods

A few years ago I had a small role as a non-speaking, out-of-focus extra in the background of a video being shot at Mayo Clinic. There was a makeup lady there. She didn't put too much on me, because I'm already so dashing, and also because I was an extra. Anyway we talked, and she was nice, and then the video shoot was over and we parted ways.

Yesterday I saw her picture on the home page of Mystery Science Theater 3000. She was the makeup specialist for my favorite TV show.

Can you believe it never came up in conversation? Her standard greeting to everyone should be, "Hi, I'm Andrea DuCane, and I worked on Mystery Science Theater 3000! Can you believe that?!"


I can now say that I had the honor of getting my face caked by the same person who did Joel Robinson, Mike Nelson, Dr. Forrester and his mother Pearl, TV's Frank, the Observers, Professor Bobo, and every incidental character who stepped into the laboratory of Deep 13 or boarded the Satellite of Love.


Thank you, Andrea DuCane, for making me feel a little closer to my dream, in a bittersweet way that also involves makeup. I can now die happy. And with a bit more eye liner.

Claiming My Baggage

The other day, I went to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport to pick up my wife and daughter from their trip to visit her sister's family in Germany.


This should not be news, but it's a big deal.


I'm not even talking about their trip to Germany. I'm talking about my trip to the airport to pick them up from their trip to Germany.


I don't like to travel. I hardly ever drive long distances. Airports, like all crowded places, make me nervous. And I have no sense of direction. As a result, it would be easier for me to drive, even with a map, GPS, and travel guide, off the business end of a Norwegian fjord before I could find my way to an airport a hundred miles away in the same state. And I don't like to admit this.


So it's a big deal.


After entering the city and navigating 16 lanes that were actually one lane before the continental drift, I found short-term parking. I paused for a solemn moment and wondered if Christopher Columbus would have felt this way, had he suddenly discovered short-term parking.


I entered the airport and saw two sets of escalators, a stairwell, and several elevators, each going to a different level. And a lady pedaling around on a cart full of flowers. I picked a ramp that led down into the belly of the beast, where people crawled around with their own, visible baggage.


Arrow-studded signs unwrapped from every corner, all at once, from walls, ceilings, and lit-up displays, labeling hallways that branched off in every direction and were designated by colors. Red, blue, yellow, green. I felt like a disoriented Christmas ornament.


None of the signs said "This way to pick up your family from their trip to Germany," so I gave up and headed for a desk with a big yellow question mark on it. I asked the man, who had one crossed eye, how to get to gate 17 (where their flight was coming in). He pointed to a sign that said "tram," and asked if I had my boarding pass, because I would never get past security without my boarding pass.


Then I realized, out loud, that I was supposed to go to baggage claim to meet them, and that Gate 17 was for boarding passengers. (Does it make sense to anyone else that, since I have no luggage, naturally I wouldn't go to baggage claim?)


He kind of looked at me like I had something else in mind besides flying, so without trying to explain ("I hate airports"), I said thanks, smiled, and walked away. After all, how many grown men ask for directions to a boarding gate when they have no intention of boarding?


The intercom then announced that the terror alert for that day was "elevated," for those of us who weren't already walking around with knotted stomachs.


Epilogue


While I waited for Posy and Poppy, someone from London asked me to help him count out the correct change for a phone call. I never felt more useful in my life.

The sound of stupidity

People who use leaf blowers would never survive in the natural world. They can't even control leaves without using a motor.

The lightness of being unbearable

I'm a pessimist.

The beer glass in front of me is half empty. (My liver, though, is half full.)

And now I'm reading my fortune cookie. It says, "A pound of pluck is worth a ton of duck."

I don't know what pluck is, but I bet I could beat it senseless with a ton of duck.

I never liked pep talks, but the ones that rhyme are the worst. They take all the soul out of struggling and replace it with crappy frosting, the kind that's made from egg whites and air and food coloring.

No. I want someone to tell me that it is going to SUCK ON TOAST until it's over and everybody knows it. The will to keep things in an honest light is way more encouraging than a mere "atta boy."

And I know. It's supposed to inspire. But it sounds like you're just spreading fertilizer. Do you think plants can live on poop alone? Can you picture a row of dung-laden potatoes crying, "No pain, no gain"?

Well, okay, I just did, and it was hilarious.

Watt the...

The circular, florescent ceiling bulb in my room, which couldn't spit out more than 30 watts and was once outshone by a lightning bug, had burned out. I went to the store for a new one and they had exactly what I needed. In 22 watts.

Cut from a different cloth

In 1985, our science club took a trip to Mayo Clinic. It was noon, and all the courtyards were crammed with people in three-piece suits, sprawled out on the grass, trying to recharge themselves like a bunch of dying, well-dressed batteries. It all looked so pointless. I promised myself that I would never be like that.

And even though I now work at that exact same clinic, I'm still not like that, because three-piece suits are ridiculous.

At the Movies: District 9

If you get anything out of this movie, it should be the alien kid. He is the soul of this movie. He will make you hope the crap out of yourself that everything turns out okay.

Thirty years ago, an alien spacecraft limped its way into the skies over Johannesburg, South Africa. The aliens inside it were rescued like cats from a dilapidated house, and grouped into a refugee camp called District 9.

In that time, they have done nothing but scavenge hopelessly around, with a little help from local gangs.

The cultural differences between these forced neighbors eventually escalates from racism to violence to rioting, so the government steps in to send the aliens somewhere else. Wikus Van De Merwe is the adorably naive nice guy who gets chosen to lead the task force in District 9, where he immediately sprays himself in the face with an unfamiliar canister he finds in one of the shacks. (This is important, but they don't dwell on it. They let the story unfold on its own.)

The movie seems to say that we treat each other so poorly that we would extend a hand in violence even to alien life, a habit they adopt, but the pace is steady and keeps it from getting too preachy. It stays interesting. The story is always a step ahead.

Special effects are worth mentioning because they are used correctly, like window dressing, not the product they are trying to sell.

Having said that, they should have won an Oscar for Most Realistic Display of Guys Getting Killed With Alien Weaponry. It was seriously unbelievable, and I didn't have to rewind it because it happened a lot. But they don't do it for it's own sake. They only blow someone up if they absolutely have to.

See this movie, but not for all that. See it for the alien kid. He trumps any human kid I've ever seen in a movie. (Want a good example? Compare him to the kid in The Mummy Returns. No 8-year-old has been alive long enough to be that smart, witty, resourceful, and unafraid of a mummy.)

This little guy finds his way into the scenes and makes you see the face of unassuming vulnerability, and suddenly you really care about what happens to him. He doesn't seem to understand how dire things are (how could he), he just wants to help his dad and it's inspiring to watch. If he wasn't a made-up alien, he would be your kid.

Let this movie tell you its story. It's as good as science fiction gets.

The eight different flavors of blueberry, according to Poppy, are:

1. normal

2. sweet

3. medium

4. sour

5. sort of sweet

6. sort of medium

7. sort of normal

8. sort of sour

This information is provided to help anyone else who, like me, has 12 remaining taste buds.

At the Movies

Clash of the Titans opened tonight, and I was all set for that familiar giddy thrill I got from watching the 1981 version.

It sucked.

Liam Neeson (Zeus) looked bored. So did Ralph Fiennes (Hades), probably because the two normally great actors were hidden, even as gods, behind stage makeup and fly wires that were better used on the marionettes in The Sound of Music. Sam Worthington was Perseus. He looked mildly constipated.

The story follows Perseus, whose father, Zeus, falls for a human woman who is married to some non-god, so no problem there.

Anyway, Perseus the half-god must kill Poseidon's pet Kraken, because otherwise it will eat his girlfriend in order to spare her home town. He could use his godly powers, but he hates his father, the creator of everything, and doesn't want to be like him. (I'll give him that. It's a lot to live up to.)

Some soldiers go with him so that the movie doesn't have to kill the hero. They visit three blind witches who share an eye the size of a softball and like the taste of people.

The witches tell him to find the Ferryman, cross the river Styx to the Underworld, and bring back the head of Medusa, a woman-snake hybrid who can turn anyone, including the Kraken, into stone with just a glance.

At this point I'm sure you want to see this as much as I did, but the real jaw-dropper is how they managed to make a great story like this so boring.

A cgi effect played the Ferryman. He took the actors across the river Styx and into Hades, a journey so bland that I felt like I was repeating my stroll through the theater's parking lot.

A pretty good cgi effect starred as the Kraken, hopefully worth all the money they spent giving him one minute of screen time.

There were also giant scorpions. They were awesome.

Whoever played Medusa had a fun, wicked laugh, but she was upstaged by her snake half, and when I saw her gaze I thought, hey, a computer did that. (As an armchair filmmaker, I think that gaze of hers would be much scarier if she did it with her back to us. That applies to the original film as well.)

The action scenes were good, they made me dig for the popcorn. But, like vacations, they were few and far between, with much labor from one to the next.

All the other gods looked like chess pieces hanging out in the lobby of Mount Olympus.

This movie was nothing more than an exercise in special-effects showboating, designed to blow your mind without actually expanding it.

Some Thoughts on Neutrinos and Cotton Candy

I'm reading about neutrinos.

The reason I mention it is because I'm not sure what their purpose is, but they're really interesting, like cotton candy.

Let me explain.

Neutrinos are particles that go through everything at the speed of light. And every time they do they oscillate, or morph, into a new form that becomes undetectable. In fact, there are only three kinds -- or flavors, according to physicists -- that we do know of: electron, muon, and tau.

Like cotton candy.

Neutrinos are so hard to catch that when it happens, it's called an "event." In 1998, some folks decided that the best way to do that would be to line an underground, mineral-fortified cave with stainless steel and fill it with 50,000 tons of purified water. It worked, and they demonstrated that neutrinos have very little mass.

Again, like cotton candy.

You can even make your own neutrinos. Just get some hydrogen atoms, shoot their electrons off with an over-the-counter electrified iron chamber, spin the remaining protons through several miles of progressively spiral pipe until they reach the speed of light, aim them at a small, magnet-engulfed tube on the other side of the world, and fire.

After being shot I-don't-know-how-many miles and getting sprayed through several mineral-related filters at about a zillion miles an hour, the protons are stopped by 50 feet of iron -- what's known as a "beam dump" -- to simmer.

I once saw someone make cotton candy this way at the Watonwan county fair.

Some of what cools off will be neutrinos, which are then aimed at the detection laboratory in Gran Sasso, a mountain east of Rome. If you're lucky, some of them will not pass through the lab and into infinity, but will hang around for observation, much like the sugar from cotton candy after it gets stored as fat and appears on your waist as love handles.

The only thing I don't get is why it's so important to study them, but then, I'm not a scientist. And scientists think that the uncountable number of neutrinos (which, collectively, outweigh every star and galaxy in the universe) might be responsible for up to one-fifth of the dark matter that holds everything together.

Like cotton candy.

On Pants That Fit

Last week I bought a new pair of pants for work. They're great, because they're the correct length.

Apparently, the innumerable pairs of pants I'd been wearing for the last decade were a little too short. Not short enough to be floods, but one of those things where you look at someone and think, "There's something 'off' about that guy." About an inch, to be exact.

I also found out that just because the waist says "32" doesn't mean that it's so. For example, let's say that you buy a pair of slacks. And the reason you bought slacks is because you thought you were buying khakis. But they were on hangers -- so they're slacks -- and not on the khaki shelves, where the khakis are, and you find that the button has been replaced with a metal clip cinched so far back that it aligns with your left kidney, next to a button even farther back in case you want to fasten your slacks to your spinal column. You have now hiked yourself into a pant-flapped lie that cost 12 more inches on top of the $20 you pulled out of your other pair of pants, which still fits. (You're still a "32," but now you look like someone who swallowed a balloon filled with cookie dough and just hasn't gotten around to buying bigger pants.)

Anyway, I'll hem up my story and just say that it's great to own pants that fit.

Now if I could just get the automatic door of the men's room to close faster, people waiting for an elevator in the lobby nearby wouldn't have to pretend that they didn't just hear my extra-loud zipper.

Devil in a Blue Tooth

I just got back from the Verizon store. I would say the "cell phone store," but they said there are 89 million Verizon customers in the US. If you deduct the number of people living in rest homes, that equals the entire country.

I've always been against owning a cell phone. Except for a motor vehicle emergency, I can't think of a good reason to have one. I'm either at work, Target, home, or on a bus in between. I try to lead as unobtrusive a life as possible, which is harder than it sounds.

And companies have made the concept of cell phone ownership so alluring over the last 15 years that they don't even have to try anymore. I feel like I've become a member of a cult. We walked in and there was a guy who's only job was to greet us and sign us up for assistance, on a computer monitor. The other TVs showed their newest line of products and plans, more complicated than any moon landing manual.

Constant commercials shot out palettes of colorful, shiny cell phones, swirling like Borg children who looked like they couldn't wait to assimilate me and all my friends and family. Handouts and hands-on stations awaited us with 17 different models that had just been "launched," each with a phone book of fun features and plans to choose from. (Their newest model is the Droid. Its banner display proudly boasts an evil-looking red eye and claims to "know everything.")

I came home with a new cell phone, but I feel like it cost me my soul. I'll have to check the toilet-paper-length receipt "contract" and see if there's any fine print regarding the afterlife.

If I did end up selling my soul, and I do go to hell, at least I'll be able to send unlimited text of my fire-soaked agony to my loved ones for free.

The Village Idiot

Author's Note: This is a parody. The opinions expressed here are the exact opposite of those of a smart person.

President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize today, and a lot of Americans are upset. And I understand that. I mean we just get done celebrating his epic loss in the bid to host the Olympics in our own country, and now this.

I mean, come on! There are still people without jobs. There are still people without insurance. We've been at war for eight years...

...what am I missing here? Things are great!

But then, "Oh excuse me, we need to 'think green,' we need to insure everybody, the banks have too much power, and by the way my middle name is Hussein and I heart terrorists!"

The guy does nothing but whine for a year, and the folks at Nobel -- socialists from another country -- give him a medal.

Well let me ask one question: where was the Nobel committee on 9/11? Where were they when we liberated Iraq? Where were they...well you get the picture.

If you ask me, and you always should, we don't need peace medals. Look at Dick Cheney. You wouldn't even try to give him a peace medal. George Bush didn't need a peace medal, and look what he did. (Anyone remember "Mission Accomplished"?)

Now it doesn't take a smart man to figure out that Republicans aren't known for winning peace medals. Unless they shot the other nominees.

Because we're Americans. And we take what we want. And we also love our guns.

But we don't want this. So I say, take it back, Mr. President! If you're as smart as the huge majority of the people in this country think you are, take back that medal! You said it yourself: "I'm not worthy to stand among the other recipients of this award."

This great country stands for one thing: freedom, and the right to invade it on others. And if you don't understand that, then you don't understand freedom, and the right to invade it on others.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Adventures on a Sidewalk

Every day on the walk home I encounter the same piece of dog poop. It's in the middle of the sidewalk. After weeks of sitting there it doesn't even look like poop anymore, just a clump of dirt that the flies abandon when I get too close. I forget that it's there every time, and every time I see it I almost step on it and every time I think Whew, that was close.

It reminds me of work somehow.

At the Movies

I found out that Star Trek opened a day earlier than planned, and about three hours after my eye appointment. So, through a blur of tears (a mix of happy excitement and huge pupils) I told my wife, who quickly arranged to have our daughter dropped off at a very understanding friend's house.

I don't want to give anything away, so I'll work around the plot as much as I can. One part of the story focuses on how Kirk gets to Starfleet and meets everybody. The other part of the story is about this guy who wants to do lots of things that are bad, and the good guys have to stop him, which seems impossible because the villain is a really mad grown-up.

But the story is just the half of it. The special effects were seamless, like there's this thing that goes [sucking noise] and then [sound a black hole makes], and then [explosion sound]! and then "Hey you can't do that!" and the other guys are like "What do we do?!" [more explosion sounds] "Aaah!"

I loved it. They made Star Trek edgy again, but without being dark. And they took out all the stupid winks and musical kisses that had become the tired staple of Star Trek films. In McCoy's own words, they made space a place filled with "disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." Now that's science fiction!

Even if you're not a fan of Star Trek you'll enjoy the show. It's funny. It's tragic. The characters are complex. The special effects are unmatched. And it all happens in 2 hours.

By the way, having your pupils dilated is an awesome cover for tears.

I just read that the swine flu has been upgraded to level 5, which means it's officially a pandemic. And yet I'm not scared. At least I don't think I am. I don't know. Should I be?

Because, in the same breath they seem to say Don't panic.

Well, okay.

But it's a pandemic -- but don't be alarmed.

Uh huh.

Level 5.

I see.

That means it's airborne and in more than one country and it could hurt you almost as much as the regular flu, and did we mention that the swine flu is a pandemic?!?!

Yeah I got that. Here's my thing. When you say "global," to me that sounds really bad. And "pandemic" already has the word "panic" in it. But you're telling me that for now I should just cover my sneezes, wash my hands, and avoid public places or I might get the runs and feel really tired?

Guess what, I'm almost 40 -- it's the same thing!! You can't say "Level 5" and "basic hygiene" in the same sentence! If that's true, then every day is Level 5 -- heck, being a dad is level 5! Come on people! I want to hear that those pigs have jammed our radar and they attack at dawn! Tell me to start storing water and conducting air raid drills under the table because HERE COME THE PIGS!!!!

Not, "Wash your hands."

Until then, I have no choice but to go to work tomorrow. In the middle of a PANDEMIC. And if swine flu hits -- and I've just heard Minnesota has its first case -- then I'll probably get sick. But no more than I would from hearing about how casually I should be treating this global catastrophe.

I just touched my face, I better go shower.

My flies have no zip.

I have two pairs of jeans. The zipper on each pair always seems to come down without my help. My wife said I should take them to a seamstress, but that would cost me time, money, brain cells, and pants.

The end.