Monthly Archive for February, 2005

Canine Socialization Tips

Published
by
Jake
3 years, 7 months ago
in Hooliganimals and Jake's Life
. 1 Comment

Dog-Friendly Dog Training

The technique here is to go outside and sit on a park bench. Whenever you see another dog you say “oh, look, here comes a cookie dog.” And as soon as your dog sees the other, you give him a treat. Even if your dog is tense and growling and one might say that you are rewarding the dog for growling and acting badly around other dogs, things will improve quickly. The dog cannot help but make the positive association between the approaching dog and the cookie and soon he will look forward to other dogs approaching. Any time your dog acts appropriately when a dog approaches, offer a reward. Be sure you give your dog enough space from the other dog to feel safe and comfortable. And watch for early signs of discomfort, such as yawning, and excessive panting or activity. You don’t want to push your dog too far too fast.

Clever.

Mingus needs some work in this area, for sure. Or, I suppose, I do.

Pyrophagia

Published
by
Jake
3 years, 7 months ago
in Curiosities and Obsessions
. 0 Comments

Oakland: Taste of fire sparks feeding frenzy

The experience produced a notable rush. Having eaten fire, I was surprised to find I was greedy for it. All of us were as we raced to dip our fire sticks in the instructor’s martini shaker of Coleman camping fuel, and then crowded around the little votive candle that was our source of flame.

Man, I can’t tell you how long I’ve been interested in fire eating and – more specifically – juggling fire. Hmm… I gotta get out my juggling clubs again sometime…

Here’s the best part:

The office worker, John Sutton, 39, said he wanted to be the first in his group to eat fire. “I don’t know anybody who does it,” he said. “Guys who knit aren’t edgy anymore.”

Good to know. Suttons around the world just want to be cool, I guess.

Anyway, remember always: “Don’t do more than one stupid thing at a time.”

Wannabe Polyglots, Listen Up

Published
by
Jake
3 years, 7 months ago
in Rosetta and The Intarweb
. 0 Comments

You can try to learn German online from Deutsche Welle.

You can also do some self-study in German, French, Spanish, and Italian (plus others, to a lesser degree) with the help fo the BBC.

Nice.

Oscar Summary

Published
by
Jake
3 years, 7 months ago
in Cinerama and Televisio
. 0 Comments

[Since I'm getting Google hits, here's the 37% lamer 2006 Oscar summary.]

The best musical performance (by far!) was Jorge Drexler accepting his award by singing his own Best Song, completely showing up the version Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana put forth. Seriously: The music sucked. Someone tell Adam Duritz it was time to lose the fake dreds five years ago. Please.

When Sean Penn came out I thought to myself, “Man, he’s badass. He looks like he needs to beat someone.” Then he got all grumpy at Chris Rock for asking who Jude Law is, so yeah, I guess he was looking for someone to beat.

I’m sorry I missed his tirade about who’s a movie star and who isn’t, because, other than that Chris Rock was pretty dull. They showed clips of Johnny Carson when he hosted: Too bad for Chris.

Was Dustin Hoffman completely pixelated or what?!

Jamie Foxx is a sweet guy. He should stop acting like an asshole.

Clint Eastwood is just getting started, y’all. His mom was in the audience at age 96. Someday I want Clint to yell at me and make me cry like a little girl.

Hilary Swank is “teh hotness” (as they say on the internets).

The “everyone on stage so the losers can relive their middle school talent show failures” presentations were extra lame.

Why does the foreign film award “go to” the country of origin??

Best moment I didn’t catch (from a pre-show):

“Before you were a movie star, you were a serious actor,” said ABC’s Chris Connelly to Orlando Bloom.

I used to like Connelly when he was on MTV. Now I wish Orlando had smacked him.

The show was over EARLY. WTF?!?! That’s just stupid.

See CNN, NYT, EW, and, well, everywhere else for more…

It’s pretty much my favorite animal…

Published
by
Jake
3 years, 7 months ago
in Hooliganimals
. 1 Comment

Ligers are real.

And really fuckin big!

Powers Irish and Poker

Published
by
Jake
3 years, 7 months ago
in Jake's Life and Obsessions
. 2 Comments

(This post mostly belongs on FtN which may make a comeback soon.)

I had a poker night at my house last night for the first time in what feels like forever, but is actually probably a month. We ended up shorthanded with only four of us at the table, but that actually ended up being rather nice — We only got distracted from the game a couple times and probably ended up playing more hands than we do with six.

My homegame consists of guys from my workplace. Occasionally that means we gossip like bitties at the backyard fence, but mostly it means we are often in similar moods thanks to the current “atmosphere” at work. Let’s just say Matt got things rolling when he whipped out the flask I gave him for being my best man at my wedding. He was rolling with a pocket full of Jameson, which eventually led to a rather deep discussion of whiskeys (focusing on bourbon and Irish). By the end of the night Neal has taken a small dent out of my bottle of Bulleit, I have poured myself a couple fingers of Powers, and Dave has had “sips” from pretty much everyone else’s cup.

The poker ended up being rather incidental, but for the record:

  • Dave and Matt both went through their initial $10 buy-in and re-bought for another $5. Both finished with their five dollars, roughly.
  • Matt was peculiarly cursed. He got dealt 6-2 off-suit a record seven times.
  • Neal ended up with $11, and I took $29.
  • I like to think I’m good at a shorthanded table, but truth be told I caught a handful of straights and several other good hands. I still played pretty poorly — It just didn’t matter much last night.

That’s the poker. The whiskey’s magic had only begun. I slept like I was possessed of demons. I can only hope I wasn’t crawling all over my poor, dear wife. I had dreams – the details of which mostly escape me, but it’s unusual for me to even remember dreaming – of “test driving” two vehicles, one of which was a large pickup with two steering wheels. I guess in case you wanted the passenger to take over…?

The test drives were also road trips involving a handful of women who seemed to have more drama going on in their lives than the Desperate Housewives (no doubt a dream analog to our back fence gossiping). At one point we were all gathered in my kitchen, which was laid out like my current house but featured the wacky knotty pine cabinets of the house we occupied in Quincy, MA. Why the whiskey devils put me in the position of herding these particular cats, I can’t exactly imagine.

I’m just not sure if I want to stay away from the Powers now, or have some more…