Today, I learned about the Chinese Military-Issue Shovel, which, well-

 …yeah, it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. I am prone to hyperbole, so take that previous sentence with a whole heaping truckload of salt, but it’s still the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Look at it! LOOK AT THE SHOVEL! OBSERVE WHAT IT CAN DO!

 It’s not just that it’s Chinese, or military grade, because those are two things that I don’t like. I don’t like those things.

 Rather it’s that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself being more and more attracted to things of Superb Practical Use. I like C-Stands, I like gaff tape, I like my moleskine notebook, I like my measuring tape. Here is a list of things that have, in my opinion, Superb Practical Use:

• sriracha
• Basketball games in HD
• zipcodes
• the internet
• electricity
• gravity
• bread
• PAM

 I guess this makes sense, given my line of work, or maybe because of that pesky little Y chromosome. I mean my father had something like 13 licenses, and I always thought that was really cool. Also, this right here is my leatherman, which I got for Christmas in 2005. I fucking love my leatherman, and it’s with great sadness that I leave it behind whenever I get on an airplane.

 It works with people too. I really like people who Know how to Do Stuff. If you can cook, or sauder, or knit, or fix a car engine, chances are I will like you more because of it. I can’t do anything, and I’m pretty smart, so I find you being able to do stuff really impressive. Do you know people who can do stuff? Send ‘em my way! I’ll try not to scare them. Although I’m not making any promises.

-diggy

This day of all days I learned a fantastic mnemonic device. It was manly and nerdy and incorporates about ten different larger things I learned today, any of which could get me fired for being insubordinate and ostracized for being nuts.

To jump to the middle, I had a conversation tonight with JB about the Dark Tower (which actually sprung from a conversation we were having about the Invisibles). Really, it was a conversation about the story of stories, about how things relate to each other, or how you can start connecting a million disparate stories in your head. That there might exist this larger meta-fictional universe that contains ALL fictional stories; there has to exist a reason that tropes and archetypes exist, right? Why are there such perfect trilogies? And space pirates? Hooker with a Heart of Gold v. the Heart of Gold. Discuss!

Anyway, we were discussing the failures of the Dark Tower and specifically how at one point I thought it was referencing the Lord of the Rings and had that disproved by the limitations of the actual story. I mean, as weirdly self and meta referential as the Dark Tower gets (SPOILER ALERT, FOR SERIOUS: Dr. Doom and Harry Potter and Seven Samurai?! Seriously, Book 5?), it couldn’t really compete with my imaginations lack of limitations. Sorry Mr. King, but Mordred isn’t Mordred and Shardik didn’t end up being Beorn, so fuuuuuuuuck off. Weirder still, he kinda agreed and told me I wasn’t the only one he had heard of who felt let down by the series’ robust potential being shanghai’d by it’s inevitable lack of scope. There actually existed an entire legion of people who felt that it wasn’t meta-fictional enough! Upon realizing this, it occurred to me that for a certain segment of people, their exists no epidermal layer of the universe. Their fiction must be buried amidst a dozen or a hundred other fictions, and the realities amidst a hundred other self-truths.

I have been warned very clearly and with zero interpretation that the contents of my Glog must remain professional in tone, or rather that as good as plausible deniability is, that I should subscribe to a personal responsibility that should naturally preclude such a situation from occurring. And for the record, I completely agree. I never mean for anyone to interpret too deeply into what I’m writing, as 90% of the time it’s indecipherable gobbledygook, and the other 10% seems to be received in exactly the opposite way as I mean it to be. But recently I’ve been battling this bout of not being able to write about ANYTHING because of how it might be needlessly decrypted by some. To jump to the beginning…

…I use to live with this fantastic guy named Nicky. He taught me everything I ever learned about being a young, fun, creative and broke scumbag. He also explained to me what a C-Stand was, how great music could be, and how good some of the movies I was missing out on were. I mean, my obsession with the Dark Tower begins with him forcing me to watch Hang ‘em High, and the dark subtlty of the gunslinger mythos. I mean, you go down the line: Once Upon a Time in the West, Dead Man, Mag. Seven, the Outlaw Josie Wales. I didn’t watch all of them with him, but they all reminded me of him. Of the incredibly furtive time we spent living together, feeling like fucking cowboys (or perhaps to some, as untamed Wild Stallions [I have no idea how to point out that that’s an inside joke and not schmaltzy writing]), stealing drinks from bars and kisses from ladies, and being such charming, handsome rogues.

So we lauded the spaghetti western and cheered the arrival of a cowboy video game called Red Dead Revolver, which merged the aspects of Cabelleros which we liked (shootin’ people, revenge, the old west), with that which we didn’t (getting shot, hard work, actually having to live in the old west). I didn’t actually get around to playing it too much, but it seemed alright and had a kick-ass musical score. And a really, really cool title.

And seriously that’s it. As far as you need to know for this story, you could read that paragraph and then the only uncrossed-out part and get it. But I’m dangerously close to crossing uncrossable lines by just mentioning the title of a videogame with a memorable title. Listen: I’m as guilty as anyone else of overderiving inspiration from already established sources, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  Sometimes a cake is just a cake. Sometimes I’m talking about Harry Stephen Keeler when you think I’m talking about Jesse Keeler, and sometimes I’m writing about my cat when you think I’m writing about a girl. I get how easy it is for smart people to create connections to things where none exist, but I’ve made too many smart frends and professional connections and now live in a perpetual state of worrying that anything I write about will be re-imagined as a barely camouflaged criticism of anyone I’ve ever met, forever and ever, Amen. So to jump to the end…

…if your car battery ever dies, which happened to me for the first time today, I learned a quick little way of remembering how to connect the jumper-cable wires: “Red Dead Revolver”. The Red (positive) cable to the Dead battery first, then the Red cable to the live battery, then keep cycling about to get Black (negative) on the live battery, and finally hook the last Black cable to a piece of inert metal like the engine block or the hood. I read the instructions on the internet a couple times before coming up with this device culled from some very minor thing I only sorta remember, but which I’ll keep in my head forever. Okay?! OKAY!?

THAT’S ALL IT MEANS!!!!!!!!!!

-diggy

I’ve learned a lot about radiators in the last day or two.  Mostly because mine are in need of repair.  I have steam valve radiators.  I need new air vents.  I like saying things like that.  It makes me feel manly.

-andy