The Fall Of 'Epic'

It seems that we’re losing the word ‘epic’ the same as we lost ‘unbelievable’.

I really don’t know when we lost ‘unbelievable’, but I'm quite certain that it had to do with broadcasters overusing it during sporting events. Sometime along the way, any play slightly above average began being referred to as ‘unbelievable’, to the point where the word has now lost all of its meaning:

“A routine ground ball to second base! Unbelievable!”

“He’s got a clear path to the basket and gently lays it in! Unbelievable!”

“He runs a slant and gains five yards! Unbelievable!”

If anything, the overuse of the word ‘unbelievable’ makes the players seem horribly incompetent, like it’s miracle they can even execute an average play as opposed to just falling over and mumbling incoherently.

And now the same thing is happening to ‘epic’, whose dictionary definition is as follows:

1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style
2. heroic; majestic; impressively great
3. of unusually great size or extent

So, based on these definitions, your meal was not ‘epic’, no matter how many times you posted pictures of it on Facebook. For a meal to be epic, it would have to last for several days and consist of multiple courses that included various hot peppers that would kill a normal person.

A baseball game that goes ten innings is not ‘epic’. Get back to me when you get over twenty-five.

The concert you went to was not ‘epic’. Maybe it would be in the running if it lasted for a full day and consisted of a dozen headlining acts, none of whom got arrested or had a temper tantrum and stomped off of the stage so they could then complain viaTwitter about how they don't get any respect.

‘Epic’ should be used sparingly, only in cases when it’s clearly deserved.

The move Braveheart is epic.
The 1980 Olympic U.S. hockey team win over the Soviet Union was epic.
Man landing on the moon was epic.

Think of it this way, what word do we have that’s grander than ‘epic’? What word is the next step up from it? What are we going to say when something truly epic happens? We’ll no longer be able to use ‘epic’ to describe it, because it's been so diluted that it won’t truly capture the magnitude of the event. What does that leave us with? ‘Super-epic’? ‘Epic Squared’? ‘Epic Cubed’? Ugh.

Unfortunately, I think that we’re already past the point of being able to save ‘epic’. Our only hope is to come up with a brand new word to take its rightful place, one that isn’t terrible, like my above suggestions.

Any ideas?

Trotting With Turkeys

I signed up for the first ever Copper Country Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day for several reasons:

1)      It was free.

2)      I figured that I’d feel less guilty about consuming an utterly ridiculous amount of food later on if I ran enough to burn off a quarter of a piece of pumpkin pie first.

3)      It was free.

4)      I kind of hoped there would be a classic U.P. blizzard, which would leave us all running in two feet of snow with almost zero visibility, not sure if we were passing snowmen or men covered in snow. (I’m not sure why I was hoping for this, mind you. Perhaps because it would make a fun story to tell afterwards.)

5)      It was free.

6)      This was my first turkey trot, and I was harboring hope that there would actually be turkeys trotting about with us. I mean, why else would it be named that? They wouldn’t get ones hopes up with promises of turkeys just to crush them, would they?

7)      It was free.

My training consisted entirely of trying to remember to bring my running shoes with me from Minnesota, which I managed to accomplish while only having to turn back once. It was a good plan, and I may incorporate it into future training.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, I rolled out of bed, almost tasting the upcoming feast of turkey, stuffing, and pie. An almost overwhelming urge to not exercise any more than raising a fork up to my mouth almost derailed me, but I was able to fight it off, mainly by thinking of trotting around with turkeys.

When I arrived at the sight of the race, at around 8:40 in the morning, I quickly realized that the demographic of the event was broken down as follows:

Wives of husbands who were out hunting: 98%
Other: 2%

Now I’ll admit that this isn’t hard data, just my own primitive reckoning, but judging by the amount of complaining about toilet seats being left up, I think that it’s pretty darn accurate.

It was a perfect day for a run. The weather was very mild, with no hint of a blizzard in sight.

A little disappointed that I wasn’t seeing any turkeys, much less turkeys trotting about, the event kicked off, and I was on my way.

No times were being kept, as it was all for fun, so the “race” quickly turned into a social event more than anything else, with people catching up to each other, chatting, then going on their separate ways. I tried to fit in with the demographic by trying to swap recipes and discussing shoes, but it didn’t really work out to well, since everybody already knew how to make toast.

Somewhere during the last mile, I gave up on the hope of there being any turkeys present. Talk about false advertising! Already discouraged by this stunning turn of events, I then encountered a hill with a roughly forty-five percent incline that stretched on for about eighteen miles, which is a little weird considering the fact that the course was only 3.2 miles, but physics has never been my forte, so I just tried to power on through it.

On this hill, the friendly chatting pretty much stopped, and all of the runners who were expecting a fun, casual jog, including myself, were now sucking wind and giving thanks for escalators and elevators as means to conquer various ascents in other facets of their lives.

Eventually, I made it up the hill and finished the run, driven on mainly by the realization that if I collapsed, my mother probably wouldn’t be too excited to bring me a plate of turkey dinner to wherever I was still lying, gasping for breath.

After that, there's not much more to tell, and I was soon on my way back home, making a beeline towards more caloric intake than a dozen turkey trots could ever hope to overcome.

Overall, it was a worthwhile and fun experience, one that I’d consider doing again, especially since I’d know what to expect, which definitely wouldn't include real turkeys. But hey, as long as it’s still free, right? Plus, maybe next year it’ll be a good blizzard. Then I’d have a lot to write about.

The Rigors Of Small Business Ownership

I’ve just learned several lessons that I’d now like to share with you, so as to keep you from making the same mistakes that I did. If you later feel the need to thank me, your gratitude can be expressed in a monetary fashion, or with baked goods.

I’d just picked up my mail, and I noticed that I'd received something from a local Dodge/Jeep/Ram dealership. Usually, I never read mail like this, but on a whim I tore the letter open. The first line read as follows: “From one small business owner to another, I am contacting you today about the…”

That’s as far as I got before my head exploded.

Wait, I’m a small business owner? When did this happen? Was it on that one Saturday night I still don’t remember very well? Or did somebody drop their small business on the sidewalk and it got stuck to my shoe when I later passed by?

What is my small business? What do I produce? I hope it’s not golf clubs, because I don’t know a thing about producing golf clubs! Or pacemakers, or industrial fans, or greeting cards! Oh boy, unless my small business makes semi-edible toast, I’m in big trouble here!

Does my small business have a cool name? If not, how hard is it to change a business name? I’ll bet it’s a lot of paperwork. I hate paperwork!

Do I have any employees? If so, how many? Will I be able to walk that fine line of being a no-nonsense executive while still being able to connect to my workers on a human level?

Does my small business have a vision? If so, can I change it? If so, how could my small business possibly succeed when its new vision would most likely focus exclusively on taking vacations and napping?

Do I have a corporate headquarters? Do I have my own office? Is it a corner office, with a beautiful view of some city skyline? Do I have a huge desk? Can I put my feet up on that desk all day and smoke cigars?

Wait, do I need to wear suits all of the time? I only own one suit, and it’s too big! Where can I get more suits? Or can I just change the dress code? What would that dress code be? Could it include tank tops and not be considered tacky?

As you can see, this was a quite stressful several seconds of my life. Then I read a little further down in the letter, where it stated this: “If you are a small business owner, you qualify to receive the enclosed…”

If I'm a small business owner?

My head unexploded, and my stress levels immediately fell to their prior levels. What a relief! I didn't own a small business after all!

After I swore at the misleading letter for several minutes, life went back to normal, and the strain of leading a small business through today's murky economic waters ended.

This leads me to the lessons that I learned. They are as follows:
1.)    Never open junk mail from Dodge/Jeep/Ram dealerships.
2.)    If you do, read them all the way through before freaking out.

These two lessons should definitely be directly applicable to you at some point in your future, and it’s my pleasure to have lent you a helping hand. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go stare out of a window wistfully. I miss my office with the city skyline and the desk that I used to put my feet up onto while I smoked cigars. It made me feel special.

Genetics And My Radio

Many years ago, back when my current car first came into my possession, one of my initial thoughts was to take out the factory radio and put in something else, something much cooler. (Like I said, this was many years ago, back when I was worried about being cool.)

The problem was that I was fighting my genes, which are always telling me to be frugal, especially in the case of when I have a perfectly good working radio in my car already. So, due to the burden of genetics, and perhaps a little bit to my own laziness, the factory radio stayed in. Still, I was for the most part content. Sure, it would have been nice to have an auxiliary input for road trip iPod use, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. (It would keep me from doing Radio Scan, anyway.)

Just recently, however, my situation changed. What happened was, and I’m going to be using technical terms here, so please bear with me, the factory radio crapped out. Or it almost did. Basically, it would sometimes work and sometimes not, kind of like a(n) {insert your own stereotypical employment based joke here}. There wasn’t much I could do about it. Whenever it felt like stopping, it would stop, and whenever it felt like working, it would work. There wasn’t much consistency to it that I could ever determine.

For a while it was almost like a game. A good song would come on, and I’d grit my teeth, hoping that the radio wouldn’t shut down before the song ended. If I made it through the song, I’d yell out “Woo-Hoo!” If the radio died before the song was over, I’d yell out “D’oh!” Eventually, as hard as this may be to imagine, even this seemingly nonstop form of amusement began to get old, and I finally decided to defy my genes and get a new radio.

And that’s where I’m at today. My new radio has an auxiliary input and it plays mp3 discs. It’s the mp3 capability that really intrigues me. Previously, I was limited to perhaps 20 songs on any given burned CD. Now I can get well over that. For example, I made a 64 song Don Williams CD. Now, this may seem all well and good, but who on earth has the time to sit in their car and listen to 64 songs?

Now, if you’d have asked me this question a few years ago, back in my younger “heck-raising” days, I’d have enthusiastically raised my hand, since driving around aimlessly for hours on end is basically your job at that stage in your life, along with ignoring everything that your parents tell you. However, times have changed since then, and now, even when I’m in my car, there’s just as much a chance of me listening to talk radio than there is music.

So basically, while the concept of CDs with an obscene amount of songs on it is wonderful in theory, I’m probably not going to be taking much advantage of it. It almost makes me feel like I should go on a road trip, from one coast to the other, just so I can listen to various incredibly long CDs.

You know, it would be fun to see how my genes would react to that. I’d be getting full use out of my purchase, which should make them happy, but I’d also be frivolously wasting money on gas. Hmmmm…it’d almost be worth it.

Awaiting Inspiration

So it’s been pretty quiet around here.

I’m referring to, of course, my brain, which has recently abandoned me in terms of generating anything interesting to write about. I could, of course, try to write without it, but I’d hate to think what it would mean if there was no drop-off in quality. I don’t think I want to risk it. I think I’m better off not knowing.

So instead I wait for inspiration, which is kind of like waiting for a package to arrive in the mail, except for with writing there’s a much greater chance of it being lost or severely damaged in transit.

That’s not to say, however, that I’ve not been trying. In fact, I’ve tried to jumpstart my brain by feeding it a few ideas here and there, but that’s been pretty much a disaster. To prove it, here’s a rundown of the topics I’ve come up with so far:

The election – It goes without saying that this would be a terrible idea. No matter who you were rooting for, I’m pretty sure that you're sick to death of it. If you’re not, then I seriously worry for you.

A summary of the value I add to my company at my place of employment – That would be much too short.

A poem about the upcoming onset of winter – This might work, but I can’t figure out what rhymes with “hypothermia”.

A recap of that one time I had to save the universe – Ah, who am I kidding? That’d just be the plot of Star Wars, except it’d be lacking the special effects. The dialog, however, might be a tad better.

Another post about how I can’t think of anything to write about – That would be cheesy. Nobody would want to read that

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

For those of you who may be meteorologically challenged, winter is fast approaching us.

This isn’t the best of news for me, because I don’t do winters well. At least not Minnesota winters.

I’m a native born Yooper, so the ability to navigate gargantuan piles of road-clogging snow while avoiding rogue snowplows, all while still being able to sing along happily with the radio, is naturally infused in my DNA. However, Minnesota winters are tough for me. This is because Minnesota would much rather freeze you than it would bury you.

Snow is an enemy you can fight. You can shovel your driveway eighteen times in one day during a blizzard, just to show Mother Nature that you’re not going to give in to her. Cold, however, is a whole other animal, one that’s hard to confront directly. You may be able to fend it off, but you can’t really attack it. For some reason, even though the saying is usually associated with other subjects, the phrase “silent but violent” comes to mind.

And Minnesota is cold. Dave Barry* says that “one of Minnesota’s major industries is trying to get cars started, which is very difficult because the entire state is located inside the Arctic Circle.” You can find YouTube videos where people here throw a cup of water outside into the air, and it instantly turns into a puff of vapor. Now, some may find this scientifically interesting, perhaps even a bit humorous, but I see it simply as a warning to never go outside between November and March unless protected by enough layers of clothing to roughly double one’s body weight.

Minnesota can also be devious. As a Yooper, I spent the first twenty-odd years of my life under the impression that it was impossible in nature for the sun to shine during the winter. I was used to six months of a perpetual gray cloud cover. However, the sun does often show itself during the Minnesota winters. The problem is that it doesn’t provide any heat. It’s basically nothing more than a big tease, where it looks halfway pleasurable outside until you actually get there, and then you realize that your eyebrows have frozen and fallen off, and that your lips aren’t that far behind.

I have several mechanisms for coping with Minnesota winter.

• I stop at every gas station I encounter and buy coffee. Coffee tastes much better in the winter, so I take full advantage of this. My caffeine consumption skyrockets during this time, as does my average number of trips to the bathroom per day. It’s worth it, though, because the coffee is good, the bathrooms are typically indoors, and the indoors are typically warm. That’s a win-win in my book.
• I pretend that I’m going to use the extra time indoors to expand my cooking repertoire, but I never actually do. For some reason, I find that comforting.
• I catch up on my reading. If winter lasts too long, this might stretch out to having to re-read every Garfield comic ever produced.
• I listen to Hawaiian music with the heat blasting while I sway softly to the music. Ha ha! Just kidding! As far as you know.

The first part of winter actually isn’t that bad. This lasts from the time the Lions start losing football games up until New Years Day. During this time, there’s always something to look forward to, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas or eating enough home-baked goods during those two occasions to give birth to several new chins.

Once January rolls around, however, it’s a whole new ballgame, and the bottom completely falls out. There’s no getting around it, this is when a person just has to quit their whining, suck it up, and slog on through, no matter how many times their eyebrows freeze and fall off. (Either that or remember to have scheduled a tropical vacation for all of February.)

Eventually, right before insanity begins to set in, spring finally arrives. By this time, I’m about as sick of coffee as a person can be, I never want to see another book again, Garfield is no longer humorous, and I’ve developed a strong dislike for Hawaiian music.

I cackle happily when I see the ice rinks melting, even though that could very well be an offense punishable by death here in Minnesota. I gleefully watch as the temperatures inch back upwards to near-habitable levels. The local deer population take off their long underwear. My eyebrows grow back, and I fall to my knees in the beautiful new grass to celebrate the birth of a new season.

Then I get a tick on me.

Stupid warm weather.

*If you haven’t read Dave Barry, you should.

Blogiversary Q&A

Q. Um, is this thing on?
A. I think so.

Q. So, are you ready?
A. As ready as I’ll ever be.

Q. All right. For starters, is your three year blogiversary post really going to be one of those cheesy fictitious question and answer interview sessions?
A. Absolutely. Don’t judge me.

Q. Does it mean that since you’ve sunk to this new low you’re out of interesting things to write about, and consequently your blog is about to jump the proverbial shark?
A. I’m actually pretty sure that ship sailed a long time ago.

Q. Hmm. I tend to agree with that.
A. That’s not even a question.

Q. Oh, right. Um, did you know that I tend to agree with your assessment?
A. Oh, that’s clever. Real professional.

Q. Listen buddy, I don’t have to take this from anybody! I can walk out at any time! What, do you wanna interview yourself, or what?
A. I actually kind of think I am.

Q. Oh, yeah. This whole thing is kind of weird, isn’t it?
A. Yup.

Q. Well, shall we try it again?
A. Sure.

Q. So, three years, huh?
A. That’s barely a question.

Q. But was it technically a question?
A. I suppose, technically...

Q. Then do you think that perhaps you should be more focused on answering what has just been established to be a question instead of berating the interviewer?
A. Yes, I suppose I probably should. Sorry. I don’t do many interviews. Hmm, three years…Three whole years…So many posts, so little useful information.

Q. Perhaps you'd like to take us behind the scenes of the creation of a typical blog posting, from inspiration to finished product, so we can all get an in-depth understanding of what it’s like to work behind Curly’s desk?
A. Um, no.

Q. Are you sure?
A. Yes.

Q. All right then. Do you think that you could have spent the last three years doing something more productive than maintaining this blog?
A. Most likely.

Q. Do you regret not doing so?
A. Heck no. This is the easiest job in the world. And also the lowest paying.

Q. Ha! That’s classic Curly humor, right there.
A. Sorry to be a wet blanket, but again, that’s not a question.

Q. Party pooper. How about this then, maybe I use an ‘O’ next time, instead of a ‘Q’? You know, for ‘Observation’?
A. So it would be an observation and response session, instead of a question and answer session?

Q. Actually, that’s a question on your point, not an answer, and you used an ‘A’ for it. I think you should have used a 'Q'.
A. I’m getting confused.

Q. Me too. But yes, maybe it’d be more of an observation and response session - oh wait, I’ve already marked this as a question. Um, what do you say about that?
A. Nice save. But whatever you’d like to do. You’re the interviewer here.

O. Sweet.
R. Hey! Using an ‘O’ actually kind of works. I like it. And I used an 'R'!

O. Sweet.
R. Sweet indeed.

Q. Back to the questions. How weird is it to be arguing with yourself in this post?
A. Not as weird as one may think.

Q. But it’s still somewhat weird, right?
A. A little.

Q. With that in mind, do you think that anybody is actually still reading this, or have they all given up, wondering just what in the heck is going on?
A. They’ve probably all given up. We’ve definitely gotten off track.

Q. True. Let’s move on to the next question. Is there anybody you’d like to thank, or perhaps give a “shout-out” to?
A. Nah, I’m good.

Q. Don’t you think that your readers deserve some sort of acknowledgement for taking time out of their busy days to read your inane posting?
A. I thought we already established that nobody is still reading this, which would make that pretty much a moot point.

Q. But what if somebody didn’t get disgusted with this monstrosity of a blog post and is still reading? What if they’re scrolling through right now? There’s nothing you’d want to say to them, on this, your blogiversary?
A. That was actually three questions. Next time use three Q’s, like ‘QQQ’. But as for my readers, I thanked them last year, and nothing’s changed since then. They know where we stand.

O. That sounds like a veiled ‘thank you’ to me.
R. Think of it however you want to, Mr. Look-Into-Everything-Way-Too-Deeply.

O. Jerk.
R. Loser.

Q. Next question. Do you plan to continue this blog?
A. Yes. With Click and Clack retiring, I don’t think the American public could take another blow like that to their collective psyche.

O. Some classic Curly sarcasm there, folks!
R. {shrugs shoulders}

QQ. Do you still enjoy blogging? Or has it turned into a chore?
A. Hey, you got the multiple ‘Q’ thing right! And, yes I still enjoy it.

Q. Are you ever going to bring back your initial banner, you know, the one that actually had a picture of your desk?
A. I kind of wish I could, but I don’t have that picture anymore. Somehow I deleted it from my computer. I wonder if anybody else has it? That would be weird, but…

Q. Why did you change the banner anyway? I liked the old one.
A. I got a new desk, and I thought I should update the banner accordingly with a new picture. However, as it turns out, I’ve only got one good desk picture in me, and I used it up on my first banner. All subsequent attempts with the new desk failed miserably, and by the time I figured it out, I’d already lost the original picture.

O. Sad.
R. Yes. That was the best part of the entire blog, that’s for sure.

QQ. Any hints as to what’s coming in year four? Something to wet our proverbial whistles?
A. I dunno. More of the same junk designed to get peoples’ minds off of the real world, if only for a little while?

O. Okay. Fair enough.
R. {Does not respond}

Q. Well, I’m kind of getting bored with this whole thing. How about you?
AQ. I was bored by about the second question. Should we wrap it up?

O. Ha! An Answer/Question!
R. {beams proudly}

Q. Well, how about one last question?
A. Shoot.

Q. Could you post, one final time, the picture of a giant slug, even though there have been no documented cases of anybody actually finding it funny?
A. Absolutely.