Crunch Time

Okay, here we are, down to the wire. Bottom of the ninth, 10 seconds left on the shotclock and 3 more yards to a first down. This jumbling of sports references is to mark the very last two weeks until we have to move out of this apartment.
As it is with most things, I have procrastinated. Quite a bit. I probably could've found a place within the first week of June if I wanted to. But now, the pickin's will be slim, because of the dreaded Return of the College Students all the old people that live in the east end worry about all year long.
I can see their problem now. Umpteen campus mites parade in any given fall semester, swoop down with their big bags of money, and wrestle homeowners to the ground with their demands of cheap-rented apartments. Then they trip the elderly and steal the medicine, because robots use it as fuel.
So, if any residents out there can hear my voice, this is an S.O.S. to any sane landlords in Duluth that wish to rent a three-bedroom place(possibly a duplex) to a few slacker townies with full-time jobs for less than $800 per month(ideally). Hopefully pets are okay(please?), since there is a mild-mannered neutered male, whose full-time job, it seems, is to sometimes lay on the floor, or perhaps lay on a bed. Or even sit on the couch, as a rebel cat would.
I realize that this is probably a shot in the dark(loud noise, no one sees where it's coming from), but I'm desperate. Drop me a line?

Herph

The Rotating Glass

You ever have that favorite glass, or cup, or mug or whatever, that you refuse to wash because it'll take too long, and you may miss another opportunity to fill it up? I've had a variety of them.
A few years ago, when I was still in high school, I had a grey, plastic cup, one that I had found at a gas station. You know, one of those tall ones, like you get when you buy like, 50 gallons of pop, but a generic one, very plain grey. I had a holster for it too, a belt clip I bought for holding my prop lightsaber. To convert my cup for easy access without having to carry it and books and stuff, I stuck a keyring on the handle, and clipped it to my belt. Eventually, I lost the cup, but it's not really gone, as long as I remember the way it lived(*sniff*).
Then, I had a blue one, and a red one, just tall, plain-looking cups, and oddly colored. They only served their purpose, I really didn't feel anything about them. But their loss still hit me.
Recently, I've had a tall, plain-looking green one. Like a neon green, it nearly keeps me up during the day, it's so bright. But as with my other cups, it's used to hold only water. I really don't understand the coffee thing, I'd rather drink something that's not pushing my stress levels up and forcing me awake, thank you. Not that the water here is anything fantastic. It's kinda hard, and a little fluoridic(is that a word?). But it's water, and fulfills my requirement.
One day, I'm sure I'll lose the green one, as I have with the others. On that day, I shall go out and buy a new cup, as a way of remembering the great loyalty and strength shown to me by its predecessor.

Herph

America, the beautiful. 

Old Archive - April 27

The last column(actually, the first) of my old, dearly departed website, hawkbatdesign.com. (Sniff) We hardly knew ye.

Well, this is the first of many, I hope. Knowing that people perhaps like to keep track of me, I am going to write columns, possibly weekly ones, about random stuff. Could be about me, other things, whatever I feel like ranting about at the moment.
For example, today, I did my laundry, which really needed to be done, because Matt's cat Sebastian puked on my comforter. Twice. So, I went to my parents and, of course, was assaulted with too much food. I swear to God, my mother is turning into my Grandma. And my dad, having two of them, gave me his gigantic recorder (the flute-ish kind) and a couple books on learning the recorder.
Now, this is not a regular kind of recorder. As mentioned before, this thing is MASSIVE. Like two feet long. Or, maybe a foot-and-a-half, more like that. So, I try it out, and of course I have no idea what I'm doing with the damned thing. Most of the time I have it in my hands I'm trying to figure out where to put my fingers. And I don't know how much air to blow into it, or how to put my lips around it. And for most of you, this is funny because it sounds like I'm describing someone else's penis. And now I've made you uncomfortable. Well, good. Take that, science class.
So, anyway, I look in one of the books and find out how to work it, and it's not the right model in the description. So, good, I have no idea what I'm doing. I take a guess and it pretty much works, so I go with it. A couple pages later in the book, they have a sample song you can play, using the first note you learn, B. Now, I'm no teacher, but as an ametuer musician, I'm pretty sure most songs must have at least two different notes in them. I might be wrong, but the first two songs only use B as a note. I play one, not moving my fingers, because it's the same note over and over. Just blowing into it, and it sounds like crap. Not because I can't play it (see above), but because someone wrote an actual song using one note. It sounds a lot like this: Doot, doot, doot doot doot, doot, doot, doot doot doot. This is not music. This is one note over and over pretending to be music. It sounds like I'm trying to send morse code, for God's sake. And they have horrible names for these one-note songs, too. 'My Kayak'. 'Winter Song'. 'Autumn is Coming', crap like that. Then, at last, a few pages later, they introduce another note. 'A'. So, now I know two notes, A & B. You'd think the songs would improve, but they don't. Instead of sounding like doot, doot, doot, now it's doot, deet, doot. Doot, deet, doot. Doot doot, deet deet, doot, deet, doot. Still crap.
So, I do my laundry and come home, and my neighbor Devorah calls me up and wants to hang out. So I go next door, hang out, watch a couple of movies, but all the while her cat Chai is watching me and hissing. I look over and she's, like, scowling at me. I try and pet her, and I get scratched. I pull my hand away and she bites it. Finally, tired of getting scratched and bit, I pick her up, and she's furious. She lunges at my face and hits my lip with her claw, ripping it open. It was like someone gouged a chunk of flesh out of my lip. Blood was all over my lip, Chai's paw, and my hands. Devorah locked Chai up in one of those cat-carriers as I tended to my lip. So now, even though I've had a horrible experience with cats today, I come home and grab Sebastian, even though he vomited on my comforter, and hug him. It's kinda cathartic to see an evil cat, then come home to a happy, affectionate pair of cats. Even though they're not mine.