spare time

2012-01-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

I stopped in at Homer's this morning to drink a little coffee and visit with an old friend of mine, Dave Cedillo.

If you're interested, Dave has a great blog that he's titled, Yesterday's Future Now. Here is the link, so you can check it out! (Clicking through the archive on Dave's blog is also a good way to spend ten or fifteen minutes chipping away at your writer's block if you're trying to decide how to finish a blog post!)

One more thing about Dave's blog: I wrote a coffee review at Homer's this week, and I'm finally published!! (feel free to congratulate me, send me cards, give me money, etc.)

Now, about Homers:

Homer's, located near 80th & Metcalf, is legitimately one of the coolest places in Kansas City. If you're a coffee snob, they consistently pull good espresso and serve an exceptionally-well-foamed cafe au lait. They brew a flavorful Mexican fair trade organic coffee, which is comparable in taste to Starbucks' Guatemala Antigua. On a bad day, the chai latte at Homer's is still competitive with HiHat, and about equal to Longview Coffee (formerly JP). Although, if you're wanting ecstasy, you'd be wise to try the chai latte at Hattie's in Prairie Village, KS.

If you aren't a snob, the Homer's house blend coffee is surprisingly tasty! A rare thing, because "house blend" is usually just a synonym for "crappiest coffee ever" (a.k.a., the "house blend" at Black Dog). Also, Homer's has a great selection of hot tea, served in a stainless press with a cup and saucer, and an hourglass so you don't lose track of time (my favorite is the "Dragon Well"). And the staff are friendly to boot and won't balk at you if you need a reheat. When you get sick of coffee, you can go next door to Mi Ranchito and mack on their espinaca - it will knock you on your butt.

Or, you can take your coffee for a stroll up the block to the Sante Fe Commons Park where, on a park bench under an oak tree, you can sit in the lamplight with your coffee and a lit pipe, and contemplate the meaning of life, while you make another journal entry about how blogging is stupid and dumb... that's what I like to do, anyway.

ownership, or: the first time I saw Star Wars

2011-12-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

"Glued" does not even begin to describe it. I was six years old, and I stared at that TV with bated breath while Alec Guinness, his eyes misting into a thousand-yard stare, meditatively rubbed the corner of his forehead, and hollowly whispered, "It's as if millions of oysters suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...!"

I didn't know it at the time, but the line was actually, "millions of voices," and it'd be lying to say otherwise: Star Wars changed my life.

I had a favorite tree in the front yard: a crabapple with knurled branches and a nasty patch of dirt beneath it where no grass would grow. "Too much shade," my parents said, when I asked them about it. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure it had less to do with the shade, and more to do with the fact that my dad bought me a bag of those plastic green army men that year, and I was using a trowel I'd found in our toolshed to dig an underground rebel base for them...

I had tinkertoys growing up, but after watching Star Wars, I'd lost quite a bit of interest in being the Lone Ranger, so my tinkertoy guns soon became blasters. I mean, who needs a faithful Indian companion (sorry, Robert) when you can tromp around the galaxy with a seven foot Wookie?

I did it all.

I tied a rope to my tree to use as a grappling hook because "we can't extend the bridge!" I got blisters and practiced - a lot - until I could swing across my shady dirt patch with only one hand holding the rope... I was convinced this was an important skill to have because... well... Princess Leia's safety depended on it.

Other times, my friend Andrew and I would climb the tree, pretending we were in the Millenium Falcon fighting off waves of TIE fighters. One part of the tree had lots of "controls" (aka, gnarly branches), so it was the cockpit. The platform we built at the top of the tree was, of course, the gunner's turret, complete with a purple nerf crossbow* mounted to one of the branches with a piece of rope. Andrew spent a lot of time in the turret blowing things up, while I was relegated to the more mundane task of manning the cockpit. The first time we switched places, Andrew continued shooting at the TIE fighters from the cockpit. This sparked a heated debate about the Falcon. Having never thought to shoot anything from the cockpit, I was insistent that you had to be "in the turret," to control the guns. Andrew informed me that he had his own gun, in the cockpit, and that it worked just fine. He proved this by sighting between a forked branch and pulling the "trigger" with a loud "ptchoomCHOOM!!"

I was just getting ready to tell Andrew that, if he'd spent as much time in the cockpit as I had, he would know that that particular branch was used to make the jump to light speed, not fire the guns... but I got interrupted: we were being attacked by more TIE fighters and I had to return to my crossbow if we were going to make it out of there alive...

*On a side note, shooting the purple crossbow while it was tied to the tree was cool; carrying it into battle against stormtroopers, on the other hand, was NOT cool; it meant you were pretending to be Chewbacca

Another time, while playing Star Wars with my childhood friend, Paul Pickett, I ran into some trouble. You see, I wanted to be Han Solo, but Paul was always Han Solo. Rather than opt for Luke Skywalker, I decided to be Ben Kenobi. The conversation went like this:

Paul: "Ok, I'll be Han Solo.... we're about to attack the Death Star!"

Me: "Ok."

Paul: "Ok, so, I'm watching Threepio and Artoo, you ready?"

Me: "Yeah."

Paul: "Ok, I'll start: 'That's because a droid doesn't tear your arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookies have been known to do that.'"

Me: "Ungnnghh!" (rubbing forehead)

Paul: "What's wrong?!"

Me: "It's as if MILLIONS OF OYSTERS HAVE CRIED OUT AND WERE SUDDENLY SILENCED!!!"

Paul: "Oysters??!"

That's when I realized just how embarrassing it is to mis-quote Star Wars... it's even more embarrassing than swinging on a rope with one hand for hours on end...or arguing about whether it's cooler to shoot a purple nerf crossbow tied to a tree, or just carry it around the neighborhood making "blaster" sounds... like Chewie.

Yeah.

joggingfool

spare time

ownership, or: the first time I saw Star Wars