I’ve been talking to one of my coworkers about going fishing for a while now. He’s been talking a lot about this pond near his home that is almost literally crawling with bass. And not just any bass, either. Big bass. Bass so big that grown men are intimidated by them. Or so I was told. So yesterday I finally decided to go to this pond and see for myself.
We pulled up to the fishing hole to find that during the night, some evildoer had stolen the pond and replaced it with a filthy, smelly, muddy puddle with an equally muddy and smelly island in the middle. Turns out that some construction workers had driven a backhoe up to the culvert where the water ran out of the pond and cleared out the debris that had allowed the pond to form. Props to the helpful construction workers who singlehandedly destroyed a thriving aquatic ecosystem to say nothing of my afternoon.
So we decided that since we were already there, and there was still some water, we would go fishing anyway. We blew up the rafts and threw them into the puddle and shoved off to begin our fishing adventure. However, as we tried to paddle, we began to realize that the water was so thick with weeds, it was like trying to paddle a raft across your living room carpet. Less effective. As we examined our plight, we looked across the island and realized that the other side of the puddle was actually fairly weed free and somewhat deeper and we began to muscle our raft across the weeds in that direction. Much to our dismay, however, we soon found that the island actually cut off any access to the other side of the puddle via water (or weed as the case may be.)
We boldly decided to take the overland route, and my boat buddy, another coworker of mine, jumped out of the raft onto the deceptively solid-looking shore of the island, immediately sinking up to his knees in the reeking mud, which released a foul rotten-egg odor as he broke through it. I’m not sure if the sick feeling that came over me at this point was because of the horrible odor or the realization that I was spending my afternoon in a filthy stinking swamp. In any case, my boat buddy managed to extricate himself from the slimy mud and clamber back into the relatively safe confines of our raft. Needless to say, we wisely decided to stay on our weedy side. My other coworker who had been so enthused about this fishing hole dragged his raft over the mud to the other side. He told me afterward that the smell was so bad, he actually threw up. That’s dedication.
Back in my raft, we started to fish, hoping to salvage some part of an increasingly doomed expedition. I was so focused on catching as many weeds as possible that I failed to note the quickly darkening skies above us until some raindrops hit me. I looked up in time to see a furious downpour sweep across our little muddy puddle, drenching us in our small unprotected rafts. The rain was cold, and adding insult to injury, it rinsed a lot of mud off of my boat buddy into the bottom of our raft, where it ran to my end, allowing me to partake in the fun.
At this point, we had finally had enough. After paddling our raft around the weeds for a little bit longer, we pulled it out of the lake and waited by the cars for our fellow fishermen. We piled the muddy, smelly rafts into my nice, relatively clean car and went home.
Jack Handy once said “If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ‘em go, because man, they’re gone.” I think that this is true. To this useful advice I add my own: “If you’re going fishing and you show up and the lake’s disappeared, just go home.” Trust me.

I never cease to be amazed at the things people will do for free stuff. But allow me to begin with a disclaimer: I believe that awards that are offered to incent desirable behavior or to recognize remarkable achievement are an excellent idea. However, it appears that somewhere down the line, someone discovered that if free stuff will incent people to good behavior, it would incent them to gross behavior as well. For example, look at the success of “Fear Factor.” In this TV show, individuals compete for large sums of money by eating or doing absolutely disgusting things. We, the audience, are grossed out (and engrossed, apparently) and the winner gets their free stuff. This idea is taking root elsewhere. In fact, this article covering a “Fear Factor” knockoff at QuakeCon is what got me thinking about this topic initially.
This evokes the question “why is this popular?” Perhaps it is the same motivation that makes us rubberneck by a bad accident as we stare in morbid fascination at the twisted metal and shattered glass, with a half hope, half fear that we will see a body. Maybe it’s a cultural trend. Perhaps humankind just has a strange attraction to the bizarre and disgusting. I don’t think so, though. I think it’s an attempt to recapture childhood.
Children seem to have an obsession with grossness. I can attest to this on two different counts: one, I was a child, so I know. Two, I spent this summer volunteering as a scoutmaster, and I discovered that virtually all 12-year old humor is based around grossness and “your mamma” jokes. That said, children therefore look for grossness for their entertainment. They poke dead things with sticks. They play with bugs that any normal person would be repulsed by. They laugh uproariously at bodily functions. And most importantly to my point, they try to get each other to eat gross things. Who hasn’t been offered a quarter to eat a bug as a child? I am convinced that I spent a great deal of time trying to convince my classmates that I was offering them a great deal to ingest that bloated drowned worm. I mean, a whole quarter went a long way back in those days! Now that we’re older and (supposedly) wiser, the stakes have risen to much higher amounts, but we still like to see our peers do gross things. I guess some things will never change.

I moved into my new digs today, and I must admit, it’s nice to be back in “the bubble.” I have no doubt, however, that I will find plenty of things to comment on. This is the bubble after all. Probably the best part about being here is that I no longer have to commute. There’s just something about sitting in a traffic jam with the realization that you are absolutely powerless to change the situation that really grates on me. I have had time to observe an interesting phenomenon, however, during my long sojourns home after work. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the ubiquitous Jesus fish that graces the back of many a jalopy. I’m also fairly confident that you have seen the Darwin fish that has arisen to join in combat with the Jesus fish. I don’t want to get into the complex tale of these two car-bumper belief billboards and the evolution thereof. (for those of you who are dying to learn more about this epic battle of belief symbols, here is an excellent article that was published in the New York Times a couple of years ago.) Rather, my interest is in furthering the tale of the evolution of the Jesus fish.
I believe that the day of the Jesus fish is at an end. What’s more, I think that the Darwin fish has fallen prey to the very theory it represents. Not to put to fine a point on it, a more advanced species of car-decoration has evolved. With the current war in Iraq, there has been an outpouring of support for our soldiers serving in harm’s way. As part of that support, concerned citizens have been placing ribbon-shaped magnets on the backs of their cars. These ribbons come in various hues including the standard yellow, the patriotic red, white and blue, or even green and white (MIA-POW). Their presence on freeways across America is undeniable. This brings me to my point: these magnets happen to be in the same shape as the Jesus fish. I think that we have seen an evolutionary leap from the generic, pointed-nose chrome Jesus or Darwin fish of days past to this colorful, easily removable (there’s evolution for you!) symbol of patriotism.
My only question now is what does this mean? Is this a harbinger of things to come? Are we going to see a radical shift in belief systems leading to a new “religion of patriotism?” Only time will tell. However, should a revolution occur, remember that you heard it here first.

It has occurred to me that the very best advertising comes from alcohol companies and automobile manufacturers. For example: who could forget Louie the disgruntled lizard, and his bitter hatred for the Budweiser frogs (and didn’t we all hate the frogs?) And those who have seen the TrunkMonkey campaign for Suburban Auto Group have to admit that they are a work of singular comedic genius. In fact, this car commercial got me thinking about this topic in the first place. These are just a few of the humorous, innovative marketing ideas that these two industries have spawned. Now, I understand that these are two sectors that rely particularly heavily on advertising, but of all the industries to be put next to each other in advertising prowess, I think it’s funny that it would be drinking and driving.