The Truth Behind Social Media

I’ve considered this for a while now. Social media is one of the few things I had done even close to correctly. So much so that my writing group has staged an intervention to get me catching up on other aspects. At the same time though, people whose opinions I respect are very anti-social networking. As an example, the Ice Bucket Challenge.

I understand, people are “wasting” one of the world’s most valuable resources. Several US states are in severe drought right now. Other countries don’t have access to clean water. But then, ALS has historically been underfunded. Drastically. Not to mention, the effects of it are pretty horrific. And I read, write, and watch horror.

Orlando Jones took his challenge to a new level. Raising awareness for the disease, contributing money to the cause, but also using it to raise awareness of the violence that is gripping us at home, in places like Ferguson. Now I’ve been a fan of Orlando Jones for as long as I can remember… MadTV was the first thing I remember seeing him in. But without social networking, I’d not know much of what he has had to say these days. And then man has some brilliant messages dropped between his jokes and behind the scenes photos.

Enter today and I get two very pointed reminders to appreciate the beauty of Rule 32…

Rule 32 – Enjoy the Little Things

The first comes from social media, but let me give some preface to this. Only a few people who it would directly affect know that my wife and I are adopting a rescue dog. We were looking for something to help out with after our Aladdin passed, so took dog food to donate to a shelter. And found a dog. Only one there that fit, but we found her. We were supposed to pick her up tomorrow. An outbreak of kennel cough has pushed the date back to next Saturday. I know it has to be that way, but it’s like we’ve accepted she’s part of the family and it feels weird not having her home.

This morning I was having breakfast and getting ready for work when my phone dinged. A Twitter friend had mentioned me in a tweet. We’ve never met in person, but we have things in common. We’re both writers for one. She was working at a writing conference in New York, brainstorming on a project and had thought about me. She sent the message on Twitter to see how I was doing.

Probably 30 seconds of her day, for someone she hasn’t event met in person. It was enough to give me a smile this morning. Well, that and the thought that my wife is getting doused in ice water today with her team at work. I’m a little twisted like that.

The second came in a more traditional, less interactive way. Through the radio. Which is to say, they were taking callers for someone who could name what the “demons in Evil Dead” were called. How sad would it be if I missed deadites? Good thing I didn’t.

In short, on September 12th I have tickets to take my wife to Evil Dead the Musical. Or at least I will once I go pick them up from the radio station. Though that will be a full weekend. The musical on Friday, Sonic Boom on Saturday (full day puppy duty for my wife, early morning for me and the son as we have the Sound Lounge tickets for the pre-show), and an pet remembrance event at the Dane County Humane Society that Sunday. I may be over-caffeinated by Sunday. And by “may” I mean to say “definitely will be.”

If you read to the end…

I have a challenge for you. It doesn’t involve water, ice or embarrassing videos. It only involves you. I challenge you to be less cynical about what everyone else is doing on social media. There is no inherit good nor evil attached to it. It’s all in what we do with it. So go out there and enjoy the little things.

• The message from someone you’ve never met in person telling you “Happy Birthday.”
• A video of a friend dumping ice water on their head… no matter how silly or wasteful it is.
• That video of a dog playing with a baby deer.
• Or people singing songs about the living dead…

Sparked Image Thanks to @ChazztheJazz

For those of you not familiar with the YouTube guy known as “chazzthejazz” in most social networks (or Charles St. Micheal in his actual videos), he is a rather irreverent east coast actor. And while he leans more to the right as opposed to my left of center leanings, I get his sense of humor. Quite often it is obscenely off color, but then again… so am I. Follow along, it’s a windy road. Use the buddy system. Hold hands if you need to.

He has a schedule of events, one day being “Drinking and Smoking”, a video where he drinks, smokes (vapors) and talks about whatever strikes his fancy. This past week there was one where he was talking music and bands. Though he was part of a Queen cover band at one point, he told a story about a friend doing music in LA in the 80’s. If you want to get it straight from the tap, I’ll embed the video here. It is just under 30 minutes though.

For those looking to get straight to the point, in the mid 80’s, even though there were bands in every bar on the strip, you could step into any pawn shop on Sunset Blvd. and see the most amazing vintage guitars hanging on the wall. So, in theory, you could get a hell of a deal on a really sweet guitar. But that wasn’t it.

Each piece hanging on the wall represented the corpse of someone’s dead dreams. They came out to LA to break into music and were left with selling their piece to be able to eat, get home… so they could live. It hit me pretty strong considering the story of one of my favorite bands, Wayland. It had some parallels.

They had gone out to LA and were told they were a midwest band. They needed to tour. To play the midwest. They needed to live where their home was, the heart of their music. So they did. Phill’s white guitar didn’t wind up on the wall somewhere the memorial to the death of a dream.

Why do I bring this up? Musicians aren’t the only one facing this. I was in a meeting with an editor here in town. His office is the attic of a three story house. And, as you would expect from an editor, the attic is filled with books, more books, a couple desks… some more books. You get the idea. I sat at one desk and he sat at the other. We talked over a length of bookshelves that held manuscripts. Two of them stood out to me. The name written on the page that bound them together catching my attention.

It really pressed upon me on the drive home. The well-known and prolific author whose name was on those manuscripts died recently. The man was gone from the world, but there his story sat, awaiting revisions. Awaiting print. They may decide to release it as is, it may get a polishing by someone else to ready for final release. The holder of his estate (his widow) may choose to leave it unreleased.

The thought of the last novel of this great writer potentially being unreleased reminded me of that Les Paul hanging on the wall of a pawn shop in LA. The final display of a lost dream. Though in this scenario, it isn’t the dream of the artist that is potentially lost and gone from the world, but the dreams of the readers that would be inspired by the last telling of a tale this man would ever do.

Of anything in the last couple years, this is the most motivating. I can think my writing is crap. If nothing else I need to have someone else tell me that. Because even if my stories fit a niche market and I need to self publish to get them out in the world, I’m fine with that. The idea that someone’s day could be lightened by the story of me doing horrible, horrible things to my main character, but it wasn’t… seems like a loss to me. A loss for both of us.

The music of Wayland, Halestorm, Bobaflex and others inspires a lot from my stories. They drive them. Their art fueling mine. What if somewhere, some kid would feel the same connection to something I write? That seems like the best reason ever to keep going. Doesn’t it?

Having problems staying focused? Unsure if the effort and time put into this art is worth it? Consider the potential loss to the other person and what potential to create they may lose by not having that inspiration. Sit your ass in the chair and write.

Stop planning. No more outlining. You don’t need Neil Gaiman’s fucking gazebo* (unless you are Kelly McCullough). Sit your ass down and write. I have heard the first million words you write are shit. Best to get them out of the way early.

*with compliments to Doyce Testerman on the quote

Dance Like Nobody’s Watching

Cliche, no? How many times have you heard this? How many friends have tried to be “helpful” with this advice? How many people have you actually seen do this? These answers and more on today’s blog…

Actually that sounds like the opening to a video blog more than a blog. I blame it on the videos I have been watching on YouTube lately. Mostly Charles St. Micheal a funny, irreverent and kind of offensive guy that leans to the right like I lean to the left. My personal proof you can disagree and still discuss. But I digress (as he does in nearly every video too).

The idea from this blog came a while back, after the episode of Supernatural titled The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo. Specifically from the opening scene. If you haven’t seen it, check it out over on YouTube. Consider it 45 seconds of homework. Fun little scene, no?

It probably won’t shock anyone to hear that after that episode aired there was a string of posts to FB and the like touting that “I’m totally going to do this from now on.” I sort of did myself, but for different reasons. My posts looked similar to this;

I’d totally do the elevator dance, but I don’t take the elevator from where I park.

Seriously, I take the elevator today but now out of the 8 albums of music I have a Felicia Day song!

WTH? 3 songs out of several hundred and this is the 2nd time this week!

You get the picture. Out of five days of that first week, I had one of the three Guild songs come up on my shuffle three different times. This is after loading up several albums into it so I had some appropriate scene music for my morning writing. Sort of like a playlist for the book – which I totally have now for when it publishes. The odds of probability there were pretty astounding. My thought? It must be serendipity. In short, the message is coming in and I am ignoring it.

Seriously, considering that scene from the video above, what better music to elevator dance to? Keep in mind I am a large redneck looking dude with a multitool strapped to his belt. I have actually had people speed up in walking or cross the street to avoid being on the sidewalk near me. Nobody wants to see me dance like that. Which is more than enough reason for me to do it. Of course I am the geek working “behind enemy lines” in a university athletic department. They already think I am just too odd.

This is my challenge to y’all. Don’t just say “dance like nobody’s watching.” Do it. Out in the open. On the street. Let people look at you strange. I had this attitude for a long time and something in my recent (last 10 years) past changed it. I remember my last flight to Texas the TSA agent asking if I was uncomfortable or embarrassed taking my tub back up for scanning. My answer was, “Sir, I am a gamer. I could carry it back over my head singing Zipadee Doo Dah and not be in the least bit embarrassed.”

Now, do I do this every day? No. Last thing I need is getting a “talking to” at my day job because I’m scaring the straights. But every now and again do I bust a little dance move going up the stairs to my office? Yup. The Athletic Director doesn’t take the stairs, so I’m okay with scaring a coach or two.

Steak Fajita “Stew”

Yeah, not the most exciting “here’s a sample from my work in progress” blog entry, but someone requested a recipe for a dish I made for lunches this past weekend. I’m going to let you all in on a secret, but it’s… y’know… a secret. So don’t tell anyone. Most of my cooking sports little to no recipes.

Once in a while I’ll venture out (like the chicken tortilla soup recipe, which did need some adjusting to get the Mrs. Zombie seal of approval), but mostly I’m making this shit up as I go along. I hear tell it’s the Italian way. That’s really the only excuse I can come up with for how I can eyeball amounts and remember the recipes that I’ve been brushing up over the past couple of months. That and a strange memory that will hold onto small details. For example, when I couldn’t remember the cupcake base I’d been doing for the past year and a half I knew that I was having problems. I hadn’t eaten anything in over five hours. When you eat five or six small meals a day, you do not go five hours without food. Not without a price to pay that is. And memory really is the second thing to go.

That said, I do remember exactly what went into this experiment. My goal was to make some fajita stuff to put into a tortilla or a pita bread and eat. I made this in the slow cooker as I was making steak, mashed potatoes and pan seared asparagus for supper that night. And doing laundry. June frickin’ Cleaver with a beard – that’s me. (Note to Self: buy a pearl necklace.)

Okay, by the numbers…

1. Chop up 3-4 jalapeno peppers. For this, I used the two and a half I had left over from the cornbread experiment. Put them into the slow cooker. (make sure to clean out all the seeds)
2. Chop up 1 pasilla pepper into small bits. Put this into the slow cooker. (If you don’t have them fresh, get the dried one and stew it in olive oil first. Shoot for fresh if possible.) (make sure to clean out all the seeds)
3. Note on 2. If you can’t find pasilla try for ancho chiles or a pepper on the lighter side of spicy, like a poblano pepper. If you like the hot, you could replace with 2-3 serrano peppers, but you’re rolling the bones on that one. 😉
4. Slice up one large or two medium sweet onions. If you like cooking, look into a mandolin slicer. You can get them as cheap at $20 in a big box store. I use mine to julienne the onion. Larger julienne slicing if you still want to be able to see the onions in the finished product. Guess what you do with it when you’re finished slicing. 🙂
5. Open up two large cans of diced tomatoes. I use canned instead of fresh because I’m lazy. Just make sure the cans you get aren’t sporting a bunch of sodium in them. Low sodium where possible. Put them into the slow cooker.
6. Throw in 2 pounds of lean stew meat. You can trim it if you wish or not if you’re lazy. (Note: were I to want more stew in this stew, I’d oil the meat and brown it covered in whole wheat flour and spices. Stew wasn’t what I originally was going for though.)
7. For flavor I sprinkled in some grey sea salt, ancho powder and the Penzey’s chili mix I use (good cayenne kick to it). I also crushed in a couple of cloves of garlic – I’m Italian, it’s a law.
8. At this point I considered adding some low-sodium V8 to give it more liquid for the cooking, but I figured it would be a bit spicy for Mrs. Zombie so I wanted to tone it down. That meant some sweet and something to counter the oil. I had grabbed a can of Pepsi that was in the frig, but stopped. I went over to the pantry and picked up a can of Vanilla Coke. Soda is awesome for slow cooker meats, but I thought the vanilla would be just enough to tone down the spice but leave the flavor.
9. Set to cook for 4-6 hours. (The high setting on our slow cooker.)

End result was something that my wife ate as a soup. She loved it, which showed me two things. One that the vanilla was a good call. And two, that she’s learning to accept the peppers in everyday life. 😉

And for the record, the steak fajita “stew” pairs up all sorts of nice with the jalapeno bacon cornbread I made the day before. Still is in fact.

Dare to Suck

You might think this a cautionary tale, but it is only in the loosest sense. It is more the caution of not letting that little voice inside you talk you out of doing something that could be potentially embarrassing. Before the “don’t touch my junk, bro” session of the TSA tales, I once said to the guy with the metal/bomb detecting wand at the airport, “Sir, I am a gamer. I could take that tub of belongings over to the scanner holding it over my head singing YMCA and not be embarrassed.” Today I might do the same thing, just replacing the word gamer with writer.

But this identity wasn’t born overnight. Hell, it wasn’t even really born but spat from my brain through the cleansing fires of a lot of childhood hassles. It really was a miracle I came out of it with as few broken bones as I did. Specifically there are two stories from early on in high school that I remember in the wake of my failing memory of those years. Well, two stories that have any entertainment value to them whatsoever.

The first takes place during Homecoming Week. I want to say my Sophomore year. Our choir was doing a stirring rendition of Jailhouse Rock on stage for the school. If you are not familiar with the song stylings of Elvis, here are the only lines you need to know from the song;

The sad sack was sitting on a block of stone.
Way over in the corner weeping all alone.
The warden said, “Hey buddy, don’t you be no square.”
“If you can’t find a partner, use a wooden chair.”

Can you see where this is headed? Any ideas who the “sad sack” was in our rendition?

Now before I get into the humorous part of this tale, let me set the scene for you. I was 6’2″ and around 148 pounds. I was a year into my training in Tae Kwon Do Open, but had not yet learned that my lack of a torso beyond skin and bones would start to really hurt my ability to breathe. I was just agile enough to be really dangerous – as was to be proven in front of the entire school.

The idea was that I would sit on the lunchroom chair being the “sad sack.” Four girls would come up and heft up each of the four legs of the chair and do one of those 1, 2, 3 rocks and then throw me in the air. I was to land on my feet, grab the back of the chair and dance with it. Lucky for me I was allowed to not sing that verse.

Thanks to martial arts, I also had an affinity for those black cloth shoes with the brown rubber bottoms that we saw in all of those Hong Kong martial arts films. Needless to say they’re great when you’re practicing or want to be able to move quickly. That would make them great for dancing, right?

First show, during the school pep rally day for Homecoming. The girls heft my scrawny ass up, do the 1,2, 3 countdown and launch me. Benefit was at under 150 pounds they could do it. The disadvantage was at 150 pounds it was like they were launching Sputnik into friggin’ orbit. Thus I fly up much higher than I did in any of the practices… at the edge of the stage. Having trained in how to fall, I was able to angle myself enough that I didn’t drop 15 feet or so to the floor below. I landed with both feet on the stage – and my center of gravity all off.

My feet slipped from under me and I hit ass first onto the stage with an audible thump. I sat there for a quarter of a second considering how it is possible to break one’s ass before hopping up and dancing with that stupid chair like it was my prom date.

As I came out into the lunchroom I was given a couple of “nice moves” comments to which I replied, “Hey, it takes skill to break your ass on command like that.” Should I have been embarrassed? Maybe. But where’s the fun in that?

Fast forward to spring the same year and we are doing a cabaret. For the event we chose some Doobie Brothers song to sing, I forget which one. The important part was a friend and I deciding to do Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” bit for the show. We had plenty of time to practice, wrote up a transcript of it and our Drama teacher even let us perform it for extra credit in class.

The issue was in dealing with the roles. My friend wanted to be Abbott’s role – the straight man. Classic paired comedy like that, the straight man takes some serious work. It not only involves timing and style, but you have to know the act backwards and forwards so that if the goof takes it off on a tangent like Robin Williams hyped up on nuclear espresso beans you can follow it up.

He really wasn’t ready for that.

So here we are on stage, he has his normal suit and fedora style hat (which all geeks who saw Indiana Jones during that time had). I’m doing Lou Costello’s part so I have my suit but with a baseball hat and a bat. Props, lines, audience. Check. Check. Check.

We’re going along fine until a little over half way through, he gets hung up on a line and keeps repeating it like he was a scratched record. For those of you too young to get that reference, like a corrupted MP3 file. So I kept stepping back to his cue line, but after the 3rd or 4th run through it I figured he need a more solid cue.

“No, who’s on first?” THUMP!

My line was followed by a straight swing of the back as I nailed eye contact with the audience. Without looking, and breaking the 4th Wall I buried the bat squarely in his belly. After a whoosh of air flying out over the audience like watermelon at a Gallagher show he remembered his line and we moved on – even if his first couple lines after that were a little stuttered.

Should we have been embarrassed? Maybe. Did it suck? We switched roles for a couple lines, but some of the comments from the parents were how they had always wanted to see Costello take a shot at Bud Abbott like that.

Never be afraid to suck.

I have heard this several times at writing conferences or simply repeated in social media by published authors and professors. The strongest quote I took away from the GenCon Writer’s Symposium was Anton Strout saying, “Don’t be afraid to suck. We all suck!”

So no matter if it is falling on your ass in front of the school, performing assault and battery in front of a hundred witnesses or writing a story about a young party girl socialite when you are neither young, nor a girl, nor a socialite – don’t be afraid to suck. You might be surprised.

Rule #32: Core Values

Enjoy the Little Things.

That is what Rule #32 (and the associated blog entries) are all about right? But what are the little things? Are the “Little Things™” for me the same as for you? Would you consider popping a feeding zombie in the melon with the car door as you drove by one of them like Tallahassee? Or for you would it just be a simple cup of coffee on a cool spring morning? That is what I was considering this past weekend.

Remember back a ways I had posted about how I would not begrudge anyone their love of the Twilight books? I meant that. Even in light of my own feelings on the characters and messages I see in the books – I meant that. The thing is that I expect to see that same effort given towards me and my opinions. For instance, is my active dislike of Twilight because I am jealous of her success? No. Which is not to say I am not jealous, because I am. I am so jealous it takes me from a fall pallet to a summer. (Obscure green joke, I know.) But, that does not invalidate my logical look at the characters and situations in the book. That does not invalidate my opinion. Especially if I am able to state a logical opinion and back it up with evidence. I am not simply saying, “It’s crap and I could write a novel ten times better!”

This came up as I was discussing the upcoming movies. With a new truck payment I have found the need to cut corners. That means holding off on new books (Leaguers and Local Authors are the exception to that rule – in moderation), limiting trips to the coffee shop (with the occasional emergency trip there to stave off the DTs) and limiting which movies we go to in the theater. That last one is the core of this discussion. Mainly this is the case as there seems to be a drop in the “blockbuster” or “must see” movies this season. So I have been prioritizing. Jonah Hex? Probably not until DVD. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? I know what I am doing that Friday night.

Which brings me to this coming weekend. I am at a loss. The A-Team comes out and while it may be cheesy and campy, it will be cheesy and campy in all the best ways. Enter in the Highway 18 Drive In. A treat that we have not done in over a year and a half. Two movies for the price of one. Food is a bit costly, but damn good burgers. They are showing The Karate Kid (also opening weekend) and Bounty Hunter (Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston). The Bounty Hunter never made it to the list of “gotta go see,” but was one we intend on seeing at some point. Karate Kid was dancing the line. It is really the Kung Fu Kid, but I love me some martial arts movie and I not only wanted to see Jackie Chan in the Mr. Miyagi-like role, but I also want to see what kind of moves Jaden Smith can bring.

At least one person scoffed at me for my voicing of wanting to see these two movies. One person even went so far as to claim it was silly I would ever want to see the karate kid much less choose it over the A-Team. Here is the thing, (and I have noticed and inability to do this from many people my age) I can enjoy things that I enjoyed as a kid/teen. Now I am not about to go swimming through a ball-pit at Chuck E. Cheese popping up every now and again to claim, “Bazinga!” But that does not mean I cannot enjoy watching a remake of The Karate Kid.

Now let me put out a couple of disclaimers here before things go too far. First of all, in the event that you have an argument as to why you think the choice of that book or movie would be a bad idea that cannot be rebutted with quantifiable evidence, you have a valid point. An example of a non-valid argument is, “The sentence structure in that book was horrible! It was completely unreadable!” (In that situation the book in question was written in proper English. That was the “poor writing” that made that book “unreadable” to the commenter.)

Also, be forewarned that this idea of keeping an open mind and allowing yourself to enjoy things that might be considered “poor quality” has its pitfalls. While you can go see a campy movie, or one that is getting horrible reviews based on the fact that you are not going to see it to seem more intelligent or to catch the first glimpse of an Oscar Award winning performance, you can get caught with some genuinely unentertaining movies. Hell, I myself have seen several zombie movies that even I felt were not worth the time. One of them I even shut off and didn’t watch the full movie.

Earlier this week Stacia Kane challenged male readers to pick up a book whose female-oriented cover or genre (like paranormal romance) might normally fly under our radar. She challenged us as male readers to pick up a book that would be considered a normally female dominated genre and read it, claiming we may just like it. I issue the same challenge to the readers here.

Find a movie in the next month that may look like it has something fun to it, but is normally not something you would go see. Maybe take a look at skipping the air-conditioned, huge screen and comfy chairs and go watch a movie at a drive-in for the experience. Go watch the A-Team because, “hey, I want to see shit get blown up tonight!” You never know, if you go to a Michael Bay movie wanting to see shit get blown up followed by the cheesy pan-up-and-circle-the-main-characters camera shot, you may just enjoy it. Try to remember that going to see a movie like that is not a mortal sin that instantly proves you to be unintelligent or low class. It shows that you are human and you wanted an entertaining night out with your spouse, family and/or friends.

Rule #32: Memorial Day 2010

If you are following me in a social networking site, are friends with me locally, or simply a frequent reader of this blog and have no idea what Rule #32 is, then get thee to Netflix and start your homework! (Hint: the movie is Zombieland.) But Rule #32 isn’t just something that is taken in a 90 minute increment whenever you have time to bust out the DVD. It is taken in small doses every day. At the very least you should be finding a little thing to enjoy every other day. I would rephrase that, but those little “slips” are one of the little things I enjoy.

Even though this is the Memorial Day edition of the Rule #32 category, I am going to go back a bit further. If you have the misfortune of following me on Twitter, you will know that a week ago I was posting that people should get their numbers in the pool now. The pool was how long it would take before I made one of my wife’s cousins bleed. In general that weekend was a weekend of REALLY searching for those little things that kept me from opening up on her family. We were there for my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary – and for the record, my wife was the only one of their three kids to attend, much less organize and cover the whole affair.

The little things I found up in Wisconsin Dells that week included:

• A Starbucks with a drive through in it. That saved someone’s life that weekend.
• A bar and grill that made faaaaantastic burgers and featured monkeys all over the place. Seriously. Monkeys.
• A book store that not only had Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane out early but also had a shelf that was labeled Urban Fantasy.
• Battle of the Network Zombies by Mark Henry being in the New Romance section of said book store.

By far though the best of them came during the ladder golf tournament her cousins want to run every year. Sixteen teams of two players – every year. Double elimination – every year. And – every year – they are shocked at how many games doing double elimination adds. I have given up explaining it to them. In addition, we do not talk as freely around her family as we do mine. They are just not as “open” as my family is. The “little thing” came when one of her cousins commented on how he was going for points because he “wanted more of a spread.” To which I replied, “Isn’t that what all men want? [pause] Oh, was that my outside voice?”

That leads into Memorial Day weekend. Which brought a whole mess of little things but I will try to wrap them up quickly.

We bought a truck so that we can pull our camper since we have given up our seasonal site. The truck is definitely not the little thing. In fact, in addition to curtailing my book spending for the next seven years, it is big enough I am concerned it will not fit in the garage of my condo. (I have not attempted it yet.) The little thing is the salesperson bringing Robin her keys and fiddling with that big red thing on her keychain. Her container of pepper spray. Lucky for him just pushing the button doesn’t activate it – as it was pointed in his face when he clicked the button a couple times.

As we pulled in to the camp site that our friends were on in Governor Dodge State Park on Sunday, I knew I would take some abuse. A new truck, I was using my phone to check in to foursquare, and the friend who was camping is my hunting partner (so a bit of a redneck). But said redneck was giving me crap for my phone syncing to my truck and checking “the Internet” in the middle of the woods when we were hunting… as he is using his cell phone to give his laptop an Internet connection in the middle of a state park. The irony of that was definitely the one of the little things. And for the record, he still defends that he was using his cell phone like a modem so that is totally different.

Last, but surely not least was at the Monday cookout at my parents house. We were discussing campers with my brother-in-law and he was commenting on a smaller camper that had the bed lengthwise on the trailer. He claimed this was better as you would not have to “roll over each other when getting in and out of it.” As he was preparing to go into the backyard I replied, “But what if we like rolling over each other to get in and out of it?” He flushed up, opened the sliding door and walked straight into the screen door. My wife gave me a high five for that one.

What instances of Rule #32 have you had lately?