Haikus > Cancer

Good morning:

I really can't thank everyone enough who generously donated money and poetic gems of wonder and majesty to support my Swedish Summerun cancer-fighting superhero team. It is a constant source of delight that my guest book is, to the outside observer, inexplicably signed with only haikus, many of which are inexplicably bacon-related.

While every entry is a winner of a piece of my heart, unfortunately history only has room for two glorious winnerz of the highly sought-after X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™ fabulous prizes.

The first winner is easy: The first haiku was submitted by the esteemed "satty", which is an alias used to disguise the identity of my buddy Taco (Zing! I just scandalously outed you on my blog!) When presented with his choice of the fabulous prizes earmarked for the first entry award...

I'll take some Ice cream and is it possible to get a double order of the "Uncomfortably frank and unqualified opinions about your clothing".

1.) Dress your age.
2.) You live in Seattle now, not Michigan. Geez.
BONUS.) Pull your pants up.

Herein lies a good lesson for us all: When you make fun of Taco's clothes, you are making fun of yourself. If you dress like him. Which I do. [ed note: pull your pants up.]

The Ultimate Winner of Bestest Haiku award was not nearly so easy. As I stared searchingly at the glorious array of haikus before me, I realized that this was like choosing a favorite child, but harder, and also there are 17, which is 5 more children than I plan on having. Since there was no one haiku that really jumped out of a dark alley and mugged my heart more effectively than the rest, it became clear that I was going to have to approach this selection with some sort of objective system. I stole what I gather from the commercials is the idea behind my favorite mainstream matchmaking site that I have never actually used and probably never will, eHarmony, and decided to score the haikus based on "dimensions of haiku compatibility and awesomeness".

I whipped up a few appropriate scoring "dimensions" (Misery, Truth, Factual Accuracy, Shameless Pandering, Self-Referential/Meta, Absurdity, Needless Over-dramatization, Imagery, and of course, Alcohol References) and got right to work tabulating the final scores. My thinking was that when I summed everything up at the very end the Ultimate Winner of Bestest Haiku would emerge triumphantly from the shadows to claim the throne of ultimate victory.

Unfortunately, when I finally finished tweaking the checklist for each haiku and hit "calculate" I had, I kid you not, an 8-way tie for 1st. Hmm, well, I guess I should remove "objectivity" from my list of the 2 things I am good at.

List of things I am good at:

• objectivity
• pepperoni

So you know that classic superhero situation where the supervillain has captured the hero's mom and also the love interest, and they are both suspended in cages above a heaving lake of fiery zombie alligators with lice and herpes, and the hero must choose only one to save, but then he (or she) somehow manages to save them both and also put the supervillain behind bars? My haiku scoring is exactly like that except that they both fall into the lake, and also my friends that aren't even there somehow fall into the lake, and the supervillain becomes Evil Mayor of the Universe, and my cat runs away (I am assuming I will have a sassy sidekick cat in this situation). Failure!

Fortunately, whereas my objectivity skillz pulled a 2007 Mets (Zing! Grant 1, New York 0), my bribing skillz are still hovering around "passing". I offered my friend Hillary an irresistible bribe platter consisting of booze, boundless fame, and any leftover fabulous prizes in exchange for use of her completely unbiased judgment skillz. Not only did she add her own awesome categories and thinly-veiled but good-natured derision, she also completely blew my world away by including negative points! Hahaha! Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? [ed note: next time, think of that]

Anyway, I hope you've been pacing your down arrow key jabbing, for what follows is the highly anticipated unveiling of the X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™ haikus followed by score! Full scoring details available here. Note also that each haiku will be accompanied by a thumbnail image derived from entering the entire haiku into Google Image Search.

I

How I miss bacon
Not that I cant get it here
Its no Baco though
Score: 2

II

Cow tipping is mean
but bird hypnosis is sweet!
Oh life on the farm
Score: 3

III

Du kan vet inte
Vad är jag skriva till du
Jättebra är mig
Score: 3

IV

Being in Japan
makes my brain hurt all the time
I miss you English.
Score: 3

V

add one dumb kitten
mix in some laser pointer
mmm, that's delicious!
Score: 3

VI

Haiku, I hate you
You make my brain hurt so hard
No last line for me
Score: 3

VII

Skipped spring this year
now it's a stormy summer still
drown my pain in beer
Score: 3

VIII

money to bac-log
prizes follow afterwards
also, cancer sucks
Score: 4

IX

a haiku flatter
than the abs i wish i had
is all i can write
Score: 5

X

There are times I wish
that all communication
was in haiku-form.
Score: 6

XI

crisp pink how perfect
the noble pig's sacrifice
as the chicken smiles
Score: 6

XII

I tried to Haiku
pondered counted racked my brain
formatting failure
Score: 6

XIII

The smell of the rain
Is made of spores breath-ed in
how is this healthy
Score: 6

XIV

Is there a surface
I did not vomit upon?
No, no there is not.
Score: 7

XV

kid and finger trap
once hilarity ensues...
I was never there
Score: 7

XVI

Run, kids, run! Cancer
shall hear your quickened footfalls,
and, knowing, cower.
Score: 10

AND...

XVII

There in tears and sweat
desiccating shriveling
salt cures the bacon
Score: 11
ULTIMATE WINNER of BESTEST HAIKU
Author: Grant's mom

Okay, so I have to admit that I cheated on the image search for XVII, but it is only because there is seriously nothing else that's good. Also, I love me the 1th Place meat trophy so hard.

The best part about sourcing out the haiku scoring to an unfortunate victim a lucky volunteer is that I can totally wash my hands of any and all possible grievances and disputes. If you have any complaints or would like to request an appeal, please send 10 emails to hillary@justkiddingiwouldprobablyneverdothat.org.

I'm pretty sure I know what my mom is going to want, even though it wasn't even on the right list (geez, mom, you are so embarrassing), but I should probably ask again, and I still have to pay off my haiku-scoring hitwoman, so stay tuned for the anticipated distribution of the fabulous prizes! I guess this means Vik gets to extend his ruthless domination as Bac-Log's patron saint for a little longer...

Again, if you've made it this far, thank you all SO much for making this such an awesome and fun success. Also, you are probably hungry.

Ok, I think I've molested your scroll bar enough for the next hour or so.

UPDATE: Courtney just made me realize that fielding complaints is actually a totally fun idea. If you have any complaints or disputes, please leave them in the comments. It's like a food fight with 15% less cottage cheese in my hair!

blanche?

Do you ever have one of those days where you have too much to say to ever say, and too much to do to ever do, and so you find yourself incapable of doing anything, and you are so caught up in the strong currents of life that you feel that maybe you would rather just hang out on the shore for a while with some lemonade, or a Corona or something, something with an umbrella in it, and wait for the world to finally have enough time for you and your thoughts and dreams, and you wish that you could represent the exact opposite of this feeling with an animated picture of a llama?

I used to.



Wishes do come true.

Blanche?

(Does anyone else ever feel that the internet is like reading only ten pages in the middle of a novel?)

mobile blogging: tease edition

guess what, people-- the breathtakingly exciting X-Treme Haiku Charity Challenge has been tabulated and judged!! And the winners are... I can't remember because they are on an online spreadsheet and my network is down at work.

No Internet at work? I am going to get so much work done today that I might never need to work again...

-if not back in 72 hours, avenge
death

UPDATE: busted. Internet is back. Now it is just the affliction known as "the lazy" that is keeping you all on the edge of your seats.

taking proper care of your tools is important

Coworker 1: Why are there colored pencils in the microwave?
Coworker 2: They were cold.

intercalary

Although you wouldn't know it from Bac-Log's consistent level of precision and polish, I usually do not really plan out blog posts in advance. However, the other day I thought of something REALLY IMPORTANT to write about (probably something that I ate), and before I could even begin to put my keyboard-shaped pencil to my computer-shaped paper, the idea had branched and split and grown beyond any hope of containment.

Okay, I am going to steal this awesome idea from sports writer Joe Posnanski wherein I will do loosely-related asides in italics. These "intercalary" paragraphs are not necessary parts of the narrative sequence and serve primarily to support rather than interrupt the storyline. For example, I will here mention that my above pencil/paper, keyboard/computer metaphor does not actually make sense because I am typing this on a laptop-- unless there is such a thing as a pencil that is attached to a paper, in which case why are you reading this and not using your "penper" (papcil?) for the benefit of humanity?

Often people refer to things as "trains of thought", which implies that the progression of an idea follows a consistent linear pattern, and that a previous, um, "car of thought" can be revisited by simply moving backwards through the train car-by-car. (I guess this would only work if the train has those little doors at the end of each car. I don't think this would work for freight trains, which is probably why hobos can't explain how they arrived at their awesome ideas, no matter how many swigs of your malt liquor you bribe them with).

Speaking of trains, way back in the deeps of time my roommates and I used to say, "WOO WOO! Random train, coming through" whenever one of us (BRIAN) would interrupt a conversation mid-sentence to say something really random. We did this so much that we bought one of those wooden train whistles one day when we were in Oregon for some reason (a note for younger readers: in college, sometimes you wake up in a different state). We thought that we would use our "random train" whistle all of the time, but it turns out we were just too busy. Instead, we would only blow the random train whistle when one of us happened to randomly find it every few months, which I guess is actually a better story in the long run.

So anyway, my head was bursting with a cacophony [NEW FEATURE: word of the day] of disassociated ideas, and I decided to reverse engineer my thought process in order to pare things down to a manageable state. I tried to maneuver back through my out-of-control train of thought, but I couldn't find the door at the end of the car, or maybe there were too many doors, or maybe someone detached some of the cars for routine maintenance.

This metaphor is getting out of hand.

You see, the problem is that I had made an assumption about how my thoughts were arranged. When I failed at retracing a one-dimensional sequence, I realized that I was being much too close-minded. The reason why I could not structure my thoughts to create the second most amazingly earth-shattering blog posting of all time is that my ideas were not one-dimensional, which unfortunately is the only level of blog dimensionness that Google currently supports (out of Beta).

Here is a startling true statistic that I just made up about the word "intercalary": If you mention "intercalary" in casual conversation, 95% of people will think of Grapes of Wrath and how much they hated high school except hey--remember how awesome Senior Skip Day was? And also, I bet all of those cheerleaders are fat now.

A drawing of a cube is a way of visualizing a 3-dimensional object in a 2-dimensional space (similarly, an animated tesseract is a way of visualizing a 4-dimensional hypercube in a 2-dimensional space. You can't make this shit up). This led to me hope that perhaps there is a method by which I could "project" my n-dimensioned storm of ideas into a one-dimensional structure and finally be done with this stupid blog post so I could go get tacos. The problem, of course, is defining the question-- exactly how many dimensions are my thoughts in? 2? 3? Am I being too close-minded about the dimensionality being an integer? Or even a number? Maybe my thoughts are banana-dimensional.

Anyway, I don't really know where I was going with this.

Time for tacos.

* * *

My friend Ian [Ladies: Ian is in town this week! Get him while he's hot and in the same state as you!][disclaimer: I guess this applies only to residents of Seattle][disclaimer: Ladies: make out with Ian] came up with the best title ever for my mixed emo CD, one of the fabulous prizes of the spectacular X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™, which is currently being judged by an outside agency (ZING! I just called Hillary an agency. Grant 1, Hillary 0). His title, "The fading day-old impressions of the snow angels we made that winter when we were five" obliterates all of my ideas so completely that I think we must have been playing entirely different games. I was still playing Sorry while Ian had moved on to Battleship.

In retrospect, I think that my titles were just too spot-on to be suitably ironic. I haven't been able to determine for sure yet, but I sort of feel that "accident knees" might actually be a real emo song or album title. However, if not, I may have finally found my calling in life, which apparently is to be an emo song-name consultant (which is where the real money is). Unfortunately, my savant-like naming skillz are of little use here in the present, and to capitalize on my amazing gift will require me to go back in time 15 years to the heyday of emo. While I'm there, I may as well also become rich and powerful using my knowledge of the future (in my spare time, when I am not naming songs).

Becoming rich and powerful using your knowledge of the future might seem easy, but have you ever thought about exactly how you would do this? Converting knowledge to whatever wacky form of currency they used 15 years ago might be difficult. For example, how exactly would I get the pastlings to give me rubies or credits or whatever for explaining to them that there is going to be a movie about the story of Batman, but not the movie that just came out for them, but a *different* one that is pretty much the same but the actor who plays the Joker in the future also is dead in the future? Also, how can I profit from bringing the concept of "Twitter" to the past? Are their tiny past brains even capable of processing this knowledge? I think this is why Future Biff gave Past Biff the book of sports scores in the seminal movie, Back to the Future II, because betting on sports seems like something people in the past can handle.

Kids, this is why watching sports is important.

And I guess that's the point here. [Psst, wake up]

Bacon-Tini!!!

Check out this animation I made of my friend BRG enjoying a bacon martini:



I think probably the best way to enjoy this is to clear your calendar, pull up a big comfy chair, and watch this for a few hours accompanied by some African drumming.

Unfortunately, the two source photos were not oriented the same way so I had to cut them down to squares. This is sad because it cuts out Meghan's priceless expression from the first picture:


That expression can only say, "this is probably the last time I will look at you with a functioning heart, but I will know it is how you wanted it to be."

Also, since evidently this has devolved into "share random photos day", check out this amazingly accurate picture of me and my friend Courtney (who I guess I have been picking on a lot recently because she moved to Sweden so I can't make fun of her in person anymore):

I call this picture "PUPPYORSHINYTHINGORICECREAMTRUCK!!!"

Important stats

So I know that I am supposed to be tabulating the winnerz of X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™, but I also know that I am lazy. What I don't know is why I felt necessary to blog that.

ANYWAYS: Check out my awesome pitching stats from my softball team:

GS	W	L	IP	H	R	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2	0	2	13.0	51	38	8	0	1	26.31	3.92

That's right-- I totally struck out a dude. I am the best pitcher ever. Also, look at my pristine K/BB ratio (yes, I consider "ERROR - div by 0" to be the most pristine error). Also, I may have actually allowed more hits and home runs, but they don't record those on our team page.

UPDATE: Also, is anyone interested in purchasing a really sweet solid cherry entertainment hutch?

Interim patron saint of Bac-Log

For some reason my friend Vik decided the other day that he really wanted to be Bac-Log's patron saint (not that this is unusual-- most children include being Bac-Log's patron saint amongst such other desirable career paths as firemen, princesses, molemen, and superhero astronaut cowboys. I just think it took Vik a little soul-searching to finally make peace with his inner child). The sudden realization that the only thing keeping Vik from achieving complete contentment with himself and the world was holding this highest of offices spurred a complete reversal of attitude about the great X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™. His former hard-shelled, two-pronged position of "I don't want to write a haiku" and "No, I don't want to write a haiku, stop bothering me" melted away to reveal a soft center of sweet, sweet poetic desire.

Vikram: If you were not a
   raging bitch—I probably
   would have banged you hard.
me: thanks dude!
Vikram: for the haiku contest
me: oh, right, haiku

As Vik opened up with a poetic deluge, undaunted by such minor setbacks as "suitability for a charity website guestbook" and "taste", I realized that his tenacity and blind desire truly represent the spirit of Bac-Log, and should be rewarded and celebrated. The sancity of the contest must be upheld, and no one yet knows who the Ultimate Winner of Bestest Haiku will be, but I felt that there must be a way to honor sweet Vikram for his selfless outpouring of saintliness regardless of outcome. I asked Vik for a head shot, and as if he already had the email queued up, he provided me with a portrait described as "masculine, yet gentle-- sexy, but not trampy."

Ignore my D-minus photoediting skillz (if only this had required a gradient, I would have been all over it), and BEHOLD: Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce Vikram, the [INTERIM] Patron Saint of Bac-Log!!



Let this be a taste of the glory that can be yours if you either write a haiku to support cancer research or bother me enough.

Waiting to be amused post (5/5)

It just occurred to me that I was probably trying too hard to amuse Courtney when I could have just linked to a Google Image search.

ANYWAY, I am extremely pleased that my persistent nagging for people to pop open their souls and pour out some refreshing haiku juice has been very successful so far! A HUGE thanks to everyone who has donated money and 17-syllable increments to support cancer research! I figure I will probably give people until the end of the week to slip in their last minute cancer-fighting poetry. If you haven't jumped on the X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™ train yet, now is the time! Hurry! Ride the cancer research rails like some sort of socially-conscious hobo!

If you are skeptical about participating, maybe this will change your mind. Here is a teaser for the cover of the mixed emo CD, one of the many fabulous prizes that can be yours if you participate in the challenge:



This will become a valuable conversation piece in your music collection.

I am still trying to decide on the perfect title and subtitle combination. Here are some of my ideas so far:

• nobody crashed my party
• i was the interstate
• i wear my sleeve on my heart
• cokebottle transmission
• swim lake stevens
• accident knees
• (you were a) moment
  

Let me know what you think or if you have any of your own submissions you would like me to consider.

Waiting to be amused post (4/5)

HEY! Guess what?! This is Bac-Log!'s ONE HUNDREDTH post!

WOOOOO! Happy 100th birthday to me!

I feel that this quote from Tricia pretty much sums up Bac-Log!'s first 100 polished gems of merriment and wonder:

you started a blog with a retroactive post about what you ate?
boyyssss
i guess it is a blog called bac-log though

Alright, back to the business of amusing Courtney:

Waiting to be amused post (3/5)

No joke, this might be my favorite thing I've ever found on the internet.

Waiting to be amused post (2/5)

Ian: This whole month should be a weekend
me: this whole year should be a weekend
Ian: ooh, you beat me
me: also, next year
   but not the week after, because we got to get shit done
   then: 2 more yearends
Ian: I like your schedule
me: me too. I keep emailing it to "goodideasforweekends@world.internet"
   but so far no luck
Ian: those mutherfuckers never know a good idea when they see one!
me: seriously
Ian: oh, also, have you seen this?
me: HAHAHAHAHAAAaahahha
   haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Ian: yeah, that's how I felt

Waiting to be amused post (1/5)

Courtney: ok- well i should finish up my next blog- the people await
me: I know how that feels
Courtney: must keep the masses apeased
me: (no i dont)
Courtney: (whatev- i check your blog like 5 times a day waiting to be amused)

Desperate Plea For Help: SummeRun Edition

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was thinking (not really) the other day (no) about how sad it is (true) that I haven't leveraged the most important blog in the history of time into giant piles of cash to sleep on instead of my nest of leaves and wadded-up newspaper (half true). But then I was visited by the Spirits of Giving last night, dressed in matching 16oz Rainier beer costumes, who took me on a Dicken's Christmas Carol-esque time-travel adventure to inspire me to use my awe-inspiring blogging power for the greater good instead of just free bedding. They also tried to explain that I probably shouldn't have laughed so much at the kid who bit it on his bike while trying to do a victory wheelie after yelling at his sister the other day, but there are some things you just can't change about people.

ANYWAY, next month I will be running a 5K for the 2008 Swedish SummeRun which benefits the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. My team, the Hand State Warriors, are trying to raise $150 each for this cause. The SummeRun people are really on top of this whole fundraising thing, and they provide participants with the means to passive-aggressively hit their friends up for money via a personalized website. (Mine is available here HINT HINT). I was a little disappointed that I didn't have more customization opportunity on the web page, because I thought an animated dancing bacon background would be pretty sweet on a health-related charity run website, but sometimes you just have to take what life gives you.

After I set up my website, I realized that THIS was the perfect opportunity to finally tap the amazing dollar potential of the Bac-Log! money machine- to create bloodthirsty hordes of cash to mercilessly burn and pillage my $150 SummeRun goal! But how? I aggregated a quick mental profile of all 2 Bac-Log! readers (hi Mom!) and quickly determined the obvious course of action: Bribery. (Blackmail was a close 2nd, followed distantly by shameless pandering).

Bac-Log! is no stranger to bribery, although I find it vaguely disconcerting that the Final Four round of our Babe Rally Team Name CHALLENGE was stocked solely with my own contributions. (At this very moment, a crack team of Bac-Log! lawyers is trying to determine if this means Jason is legally obligated to wash my car). I guess I'm just that good. THIS time, however, I promise I'll give you all a chance by not participating myself.

Most (all) of you have been reading this post as "blah blah blah BRIBERY blah blah", but it is time to pay attention again, for BEHOLD: brace yourself for X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™!!

Here's how it works:

• Go to my donation website [here].
• Donate whatever amount you feel comfortable with. Even $1 helps. You will not be judged (except by myself, everyone else who visits the site after you, and whoever they might tell. Also, God).
• Sign my guestbook with an awesome haiku!
• The best haiku, determined by a selection process which I haven't come up with yet, will win fabulous prizes.

And here are your required bribe payments:

The first person to leave a haiku, regardless of quality, will win THEIR CHOICE of the following fabulous prizes:

• Ice cream
• A broken solar-powered garden light that I dug out of a river
• Endless glory
• Uncomfortably frank and unqualified opinions about your clothing

The ULTIMATE WINNER of BESTEST HAIKU award will win THEIR CHOICE of the following fabulous prizes:

• A backstage pass to the [spoiler alert] forthcoming unveiling of Baco 2.0, where you will be showered in fame and nitrates. In the future, when you tell people you were actually there, they will worship you.
• A mixed CD of early-90s Midwestern Emo music.
• A digital picture of yourself pasted onto a fantasy background of my choice using Microsoft Paint.
• Pet naming advice [disclaimer: Pet name will be "Dr. Archibald Peanut Catbutt Worthington Turtlepants, Esquire", regardless of species]
• Election as the Patron Saint of Bac-Log! [must provide classy headshot, preferably with chin resting on fist]

You are probably stunned by the quality of prizes so I will give you a moment to recover.

[pause]

Now GET HAIKUING! And think; not only will you be in the running for the aforementioned fabulous prizes, you will also be supporting valuable cancer research! Resisting the tag-team bribing power of Bac-Log AND Karma? Impossible!!

SPECIAL OFFER: Oh, and for ADDITIONAL KARMA BRIBES, available for no extra charge, tell all of your friends and financially solvent hyper-intelligent pet monkeys about X-TREME HAIKU CHARITY CHALLENGE 2008™!!

Go go go!