im not a surfer. ive never surfed. i dont know anything about surfing let alone big wave surfing. nevertheless there was a surf movie made a few years ago called "riding giants" which i find fascinating. real nice blend of music, historical footage, and interviews which explores the history of surfing and looks at some of ways the boundaries are being pushed in that sport.

toward the end of the film, theres a lot of attention paid to laird hamilton, and a wave he catches over an unusual reef structure in polynesia. all the surf guys freak out over it, all of em. i think one guy says something to the effect of "it totally redefined what was possible."

but this post has nothing to do with surfing.

i saw, at work today, something which for me, and the rest of us who were present, totally redefined what was possible. what i do for a living isnt really important, but youll just have to trust me when i say we see a lot of things which most people dont usually see. were pretty jaded. until today i think most of us had a pretty good sense of where some of the sharp edges of human behavior lie.

or at least we thought we did.

so im walking into work and i see kind of a rough looking couple, not that unusual. and then i notice the guy has a face full of ink, and not particularly good ink, though it was noteworthy for the sheer area of his face it covered. and of course everyone takes note and we all shake our heads and think wow, that aint a good look. it aint a good look but at the same time, it aint nothing we aint seen before.

its busy, this fella is waiting in the hall and im shuffling back and forth trying to get a few things done. so i walk past him in the hall, and i notice on his left cheek, he actually has a portrait about 3 inches high. now i could, and probably should have, just done the full on double take but i played it cool and just did the "dramatic lemur" style sidelong glance. i believe i recognized the face he had memorialized there, on his face.

but it wasnt particularly well done, so i couldnt be sure. i get back into the room with my coworkers, and i just wanted to double check what i thought i had just seen. so i call my coworkers over discreetly and i say something to the effect of "look, you know how mike tyson has those two portraits on his arms, of arthur ashe and mao tse-tung? theres a guy out there with a portraiture on his face and i think i know who it is. but its not particularly well drawn. so go out there and get a look at it, and come back in and tell me who you think it is. you know just get out there and use your peripherals."

so they discreetly pop out there and they roll back through. but nobody sees this fellow. frankly i think he stepped outside because his face was drawing a crowd. so we work through most of the stuff we have to get done but im haunted by what i think ive seen. cause i know, i got to have independent verification of this shit. and i think its fair to say, any time we might be looking at something which is going to move the frontier, thats going to chase that demon that lives just beyond the known edge, it gets everyone excited.

now i have to digress for a moment and mention that initially my methodology was flawed. the first fella i spoke to after seeing what i saw, i said "i think this guy in the hall has so-and-so tattooed on his face. he has so-and-so tattooed on his face. but im not sure so get out there are take a gander." but this fella points out ive now kinda biased him to see so-and-so and he was right of course, so i was careful not to bias any further potential witnesses.

nevertheless, who it might be on this gentlemans face sort of got into the wind and the mood became electric.

now for reasons that arent important, there is a security staff where i work. they are in the hall and at the doors of the building all the time. so they had plenty of time to notice this fellow, and a few even struck up some quick conversations with him.

we get things pretty much wrapped up for the day and i roll on over to the security people. "yall see that fella out here with the tattoos all over his face? did you see the little portraiture he had on his left cheek? i think i know who that was, but im not completely sure. was it who i think it was?"

and they all agreed, "yeh, it was."

now im an old man. i was alive when man landed on the surface of the moon though i was only a baby. yes, im going someplace with this. now as a kid, i saw the footage of neil armstrong climbing down the ladder from the lunar module and speaking the immortal words, "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." its a moment that those who saw it as it happened will never forget.

and i dare say it was a similar mood there at work today.

it was like we were watching neil armstrong, climb down from the lunar module, and then TATTOO HITLER ON A MANS FACE.

thats right, he has HITLER TATTOOED ON HIS FACE.

ive seen a lot of things. ive seen twin bolts, swastikas, totenkopf, even seen hitler before. on arms, on legs, on the back. but i had never seen hitler, on the face. i didnt know that level was out there. but i know it now. now, we can never go back to the time before we had seen a man with hitler tattooed on his face.

perhaps dorothy parker said it best when she said "they sicken of the calm, who knew the storm."

HITLER. ON. HIS. FACE.

also, im looking for a good sourdough recipe. now not just any sourdough will do mind you. im looking for one which has a lot of rise and gluten so i can make small rounds to use for muffalettas. so hit me up with your suggestions.

The internets report bin Laden is living a relatively stable life in a region of Pakistan where hes surrounded by sympathetic villagers. If this is true how far should the US go to "get him"?

If you were a lawyer, would you be willing to defend someone against charges for crime you were certain that they were guilty of?

• Yes.
• No.

LOL, what on earth could be easier than defending the guilty?

How do you feel about women openly displaying tattoos?

• I Like It
• I Don't Mind
• I Dislike It

the problem with this is there are no qualifiers about the ink. is it good, bad, mediocre, tasteful, shameful? i can admire good work as much as the next guy, but there are few things less appealing than bad ink. and lets face it, there is a lot of bad ink out there.

I frankly dont expect much commentary on this one but heres what Im ruminating over this evening.

Outside the very committed fringe of thought on either extreme I think most people accept that there is such a thing as "just war" though of course what that means depends on a number of factors.

At the moment Im wondering if we can interpolate from this to derive a theory of "just violence" on an individual level?

Or does extrapolation of our basic notions about self preservation/individual dignity ultimately form the basis of just war theory?

Is there some sort of fundamental difference or is this merely a matter of scaling?

Some of you have already heard part of this story, but others havent so you get to hear it again. Joy!

I was speaking with my older nephew on the telephone and he was telling me what he would like for his upcoming birthday (6). So I say, "OK, got it, liquor and fireworks."

He tried to repeat this for his mom and dad but being 6, he didnt really have a firm grasp of "liquor" so he kept saying, "Uncle Chris is gonna get me licorice and fireworks for my birthday."

Eventually my brother figured out what I ws saying and he picks up and says, "No more unsupervised telephone calls between you and Emmett."

WTF?!? Is that not a slap in the face? To speak this way to his own brother?

So my backup plan if liquor and fireworks didnt work out was a BB gun, naturally. I mean its so obvious.

But yesterday I was over assisting in the senior care at mom's and my "step aunt" Jean pointed out that I was just getting all tied up by my tired conventional thinking. I was trapped "in the box", and what was needed here was a total paradigm shift.

Using creative out of the box thinking, Jean was able to revolutionize the "gifts for 6 year olds space" by pointing out that my backup plan was totally inadequate.

What was really needed if liquor and fireworks wasnt working out wasnt just a BB gun, but a BB gun AND a copy of Hustler magazine. (El Hustlero in Spanish, huge ups if you know that reference)

I was like I had been shot with a diamond bullet when I realized the brilliance of that.

It really just drives home that by pairing two or more "Uncle Wins" you can achieve a synergistic creativity exceeding the power of a single Uncle Win by several orders.

In response to Do you like to gag girls?
by cupidtestname:

Do you like to gag girls?

• Yes

• No

• I'm Not Sure

Is this question asking what I think its asking? Wow, thats a frank one. I suppose some folks are into this, but I dont get it. Sometimes you have a little too much enthusiam one way or the other inadvertantly, but as a goal? I dont know, maybe its some sort of BDSM plus if thats your thing. Not my cup of tea.

Oh, I guess I should add, whats with the female only bias? If it is what it is, shouldnt this question be sex neutral?