August 21, 09:42 AM Swimming is Not for Me (or Why I’m an Amazing Lifeguard) Every summer since before I was even a young Schrute, my family has dug out an area in the Northwest fields to use as a swimming hole. We fill it with water and a variety of unmarketable beets (to use as flotation devices) and then all of the Schrute children are allowed to visit the pool once a week. Swimming in Schrute Hole is purely for instructional purposes. Since the loss of poor Great Cousin Cordula to a horrific drowning accident in Lake Wallenpaupack back in the early Sixties, it is a family requirement that all Schrute children learn how to swim. Unfortunately for me, I hate swimming. My swimming lessons were simultaneously extensive and short-lived. I was eight years old, which is the age all Schrutes begin their aqua-training. From the very moment I was thrown into the center of the swimming hole, I knew that I was not meant to be a swimmer. As with all things for Schrute children, however, I had no choice in the matter. My father took on the role of swim instructor and began teaching me. I hated every second of it except for the fact that it was the first occasion I had ever spent time alone with Father. Continue reading "Swimming is Not for Me (or Why I’m an Amazing Lifeguard)" »

July 17, 12:46 PM Maintaining a Normal Body Temperature During the Summer Months Attention readers: this web log will be doubling as a public service announcement because people are literally DYING out there. We are in the thick of summer, people. The sun, while a huge ally of the Earth, also serves as one of our biggest enemies. It provides light that we use to see, but it can also scorch your skin into a red blistering mess. There are so many heat-related illnesses that it’s almost impossible to name them all: heatstroke, heat rash, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat edema, heat tetany, heat syncope, heat mumps. The list goes on and on. The sun lurks silently in the sky, waiting to claim its next human victim and it’s up to us to stop it. In the wintertime, nobody bothers to care about the sun at all. That’s because it’s busy resting. Just like bears, the sun hibernates in the sky during the winter. Sure, it still provides sunshine – but just enough to get us through the day. When the sun wakes up, usually around mid-April, it begins a program of solar destruction that takes so many lives each year that it should be at the top of every Most Wanted list in the world. I feel that it is my duty to combat the sun’s evil efforts by providing you with this list of helpful sun-fighting tips. Continue reading "Maintaining a Normal Body Temperature During the Summer Months" »

June 19, 09:25 AM Digital Photography: Careless Power for the Masses Good June to you, or as we say on Schrute Farms: Guttenjuni! There is a topic I’ve been meaning to bring up and this appears to be the appropriate time. I have noticed many more people taking photographs of things now that the true start of summer is nearly upon us. Photography is an “art” that I do not endorse. If you’d like to see how something looks, go see it with your own eyes. If you want to see a representation of something, then go look at a drawing or painting. Grandma Mannheim was especially adept at illustrating Strullpeter stories, so don’t try and tell me that photographs are better than drawings. Photographs merely replicate the human visual experience as a frozen moment in time and that insults the eyes and the memory. When I was a tyke, my family did not have a camera. The general belief was that if a camera were introduced into our lives, our eyes would revolt, leaving us all blind and unable to operate our farm. Now that I’m an adult, I realize that this is unlikely. The eyes are very rational and I think they would adjust to sharing their optical duties with a camera, if a person chose to use such a device. I, however, still refuse to use a camera out of pure ocular respect. Continue reading "Digital Photography: Careless Power for the Masses" »

May 22, 09:27 AM The Curious Rise of Tentacle Sex in Manga Salutations, weblog reader. I hope you are reading this at home and not during working hours because this weblog entry has nothing to do with your job, unless you are an anime scholar, sexual education expert, cultural examiner with a focus on bizarre sexual matters, or a marine biologist. If you do not hold one of these jobs, please stop reading and continue in the privacy of your home where your time belongs to you. You may also proceed to read this if you are self-employed, but that is a slippery slope. Continue reading "The Curious Rise of Tentacle Sex in Manga" »