Oh La La!

10.1.2k1

Who remembers that game Mousetrap? It’s the one where your play piece is a little plastic mouse, and you go around the board and assemble this crazy-ass mousetrap contraption that has steel balls rolling, springs springing and various other bits affecting the end, which is a cage dropping down on your opponent’s plastic mouse. I had the game when I was a kid and I loved it. Today I recognize that it was a very good educational tool: In it, there were lessons about engineering, gravity and simple machines like the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, and the lever. I don’t know if it’s still sold today, but it should be. My only qualm is that there is but one way to build the trap. All the pieces of the contraption were molded plastic that fit into the board. The thing could only be built one way. Seeing the thing work and being unable to try different configurations of the pieces led me to augmenting the game play with one of nature’s most amazing products: The Lego.
With a bunch of Legos, I had that thing stretching across the room. My brother and I got some hand-me-down Legos that were “technical” Legos for big kids. They had gears and differentials and even some electronics. Here I learned lessons about resistance, capacitance, acceleration and velocity. I learned hard lessons regarding the load-bearing capability of Legos. (The bowling ball kept breaking the Lego ramp until I epoxied the Legos together.) However, I think the most important thing I took away from all those long days and nights is the ability to be crafty. To avoid being the mouse in the mousetrap. I could see my brother’s mousetrap begin to take shape and move my mouse away from the nail-gun. That type of craftiness. Which brings me to the point of this walk down memory lane: The other day I narrowly avoided being the mouse in the mousetrap!
I rode Chuck into work as usual, and locked him up in the cage in the garage. I came up into the building and there in the lobby was another collection of bad art … sculpture, if you can call it that. There were towers of Qtips, a dance floor made of bark and rusty nails, a huge collection of rubber bands stretched all over the place, metal poles turning, fans blowing big tarps, various train parts welded together, ball bearings being flung into cans by automated mannequin arms – a gigantic loud ugly mess! I’ve already ranted about my dislike of these installations, so I won’t bore you with it again, but this time was different because as I was taking in this horrific spectacle, I noticed a strange bare spot in the middle of all the machinations. In the bare spot was a steamin’ coffee pot and a stack of Styrofoam cups. Oohhh … but the coffee smelled good! I was in a Homer-Simpson-and-the-donut-like trance going toward the coffee when suddenly it hit me! The sculpture was a giant mousetrap and the coffee was the cheese! That could only mean … I was the mouse! Well fuck that, I thought, and ran for it, startling a bunch of dorks chatting with the bagel-kiosk dude. I could get coffee upstairs and relax in a safe environment. There I could try to figure out who was trying to trap me.

Tonightr: Lucky 13

New to the list: Steve Wood and returning to the list is Woody! How ‘bout that. Now that we have sufficient wood, we can continue with the Venue Announcement.

Comments: tnsc@therein-lies.com

Last Week’s Contest results: Nobody got the reference to The Reverend Horton Heat’s song Bales of Cocaine. Too bad. I bet former list member Uriah would have gotten it.

Dramatic Reenactment: The Amazon dot com bend-over job. Have you ever innocently browsed Amazon’s huge site and happened upon something you want? Perhaps you knew that the new Stereolab record came out and remembered that you told your boyfriend that you would get it for him but never did and maybe he forgot that it’s out and that you said you’d buy it for him but knowing him he’s probably not forgotten and is at this minute waiting for you to hand it over? Amazon dot com is a great place to buy CD’s and whatnot. However, one must beware the Amazon dot com bend-over job. This is when one, like my brother, attempts to buy a book and per usage, adds it to his cart, specifies a shipping address, specifies a credit card and waits for a confirmation – only to be booted off the site! Trying again yields a boot at confirmation! Only the third attempt is successful. Or is it? The email In Box has three messages from Amazon: Thanks for ordering (1), Thanks for ordering (2) and Thanks for ordering (3). Great. Three copies. Thanks. Our players in the Dramatic Reenactment: Bobo plays my brother as he is rapidly losing his patience with the ordering process; Moss plays my brother as he checks his email and flies into a rage; Alan plays his computer; Teensy plays a defiant and defective Amazon dot com; and Mark Bobek plays the three copies of the book my brother ordered: No Shit Sherlock: A Practical Man’s Guide to Being Practical in 2001.

Tonight’s Satanic Word: for

TONIGHT'S SINGLED-OUT LIST MEMBER: Mary Haring

PORN TITLE OF THE WEEK: 5 Card Slut

Well okey. Who wants to meet a real live Australian? There will be one at the 13 tonight and tonight only! Do yourself a favor and come have drinks and listen to someone talk really funny! It’s almost not English! Bring your pals! I sure will!

bye-ee!