5/31/2012: Canvas Shoes (White)

Apparently it's true what they say about fashion, everything cycles around again. I had basically these same canvas shoes back in the 80s. They weren't from Old Navy because I don't think Old Navy existed back then. Now I just need to find a linen pastel blazer to wear with the shoes to complete the look.

5/29/2012: Exhaust Fan

5/29/2012: A+D Ointment.

As part of the basic care for my new ink (badasses such as myself often say "ink" instead of "tattoo," it's how you know they're badasses now that they're inked) I was instructed to regularly apply A+D Ointment to the area. Yes, the diaper rash stuff. Which is fine, keeps it from drying out and helps it heal faster. There's only two problems. First, this stuff must be delicious because as soon as apply it to the area of the tattoo the dog follows me around trying to lick it off my calf. And second, it makes my leg smell like a baby's butt after a diaper change. 

See also: Tattoo, bathroom stuff

5/28/2012: Bike Rack

Today I'd planned on going on a bike ride. Downloaded an app for my phone that measures distance and speed and such I was going to try out. As far as I got was to get my bike rack out of the basement (where it was stored for the winter) and reattach it to the spare tire on the back of my Jeep. Then I decided it was hot. But it's a start. Not much of a start, but a start.

See also: Jeep 

5/27/2012: Hardcover Copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy

Figured I might as well keep the weekend's Douglas Adams theme going with the book that started it all, my hardcover copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy. Though technically what started it all for me was the original radio broadcast album, which my aunt was playing when we stopped over for a visit one evening long ago. It was the part where the whale and the bowl of petunias are called into existence above the planet Magrathea and we here the whale's inner monologue as he plunges to his death on the planet's surface far below. Funny stuff, huh? I was probably 13 or so at the time, and picked up the book a few years later. Picked it up again this afternoon.

See Also: Tattoo, Don't Panic Towel

5/26/2102: Tattoo

Yesterday I finally did it, finally got my tattoo. Right leg on the side of my calf. I'd talked about getting one for a very long time, and it's always been this, which is an illustration from the cover of my favorite book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wanted something that was meaningful and would be meaningful long after I permanently scarred myself, not just something I liked now. And that book was hugely influential for me, it helped form my views and opinions on everything from politics and religion to British people and fjords.

(A sidenote to those people who got tattoos from the Harry Potter movies or, worse, Twilight: you're idiots. You love them now but in 10 years? I doubt it.)

See also: Don't Panic towel

5/25/2012: Don't Panic Towel

I received this Don't Panic towel as a gift, but not for my 42nd birthday (believe it or not). I wanted to post it today because May 25th is, as everyone knows, Towel Day. Why a day dedicated to towels? Well, as author Douglas Adams wrote in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a towel is just about the most massively useful thing found in the universe.

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.