Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Goat with the Flow (Maybe?)

I hope everyone is slowly easing into the week, perhaps recovering from their raucous Bastille Day festivities.  A half-day on Friday prevented me from distributing a Report at the end of last week, bringing me one day short of having a five-for-five distribution week.  That blasted Friday the 13th, foiling my plans!  And with a Monday meeting yesterday, it looks like this won't be the week we return to perfect distribution, either.

The lack of a Report on Friday was particularly tragic, in that it delayed the distribution of an important news item.  My desk phone at work, as some of you may know, has a rotating news display, which provides headlines gathered from the AP.  It is not unlike an RSS feed, except I cannot click a link on my phone, meaning if I want to know more about the story, I need to search for it on Google.  Which is why, on Friday, I found myself taking a break from the document I was working on to search for "Surfing Goats Ride Waves in Southern California."  Yes, that's right, surfing goats.  I can't decide whether this is more or less ridiculous than the surfing dogs discussed a few weeks ago.  On the one hand, goats, given their impressive balancing abilities when climbing, seem a natural animal to have hang-hoof.  On the other hand, bringing your goat to the beach is much less common.  Luckily, surf goat owner and trainer, Dana McGregor was on-hand to explain his logic:  " He taught his goats to surf because he loves to ride the waves and thought they would like it, too."  Oh.  Of course.  I discussed this with Jon, who decided to apply a similar logic pattern to another animal situation:  "I taught my horse to ride horses because I love riding horses and thought he would like it, too."  No doubt there are many other humorous applications of McGregor's poor logic.  ("I taught my fish to fish..." "I taught my snake to ski..." "I taught my rat to cook...")

Today we also offer our continued coverage of that breakout song of the summer, "Call Me Maybe."  In past reports, we've seen it sung by corgis and Cookie Monsters, but today we offer it explained by Harold Brodkey.  A note before you read: This interpretation is a bit more mature than those we've covered in the past.  That is to say, when I riffed on the "C-word" in introducing the Sesame Street piece, I did not foresee linking to a piece where C would not be for Cookie.  (Nor, here, is it for "Carly" or "Call Me.")  Still, even with its inappropriate language, the piece is worth a read for its hilarity.  This interpretation's repetition certainly highlights the absurdity of the song's insistence that this guy is so attractive that it is hard to look directly at him.  (Is he a solar eclipse?  A metaphor, maybe.)  My commentary on the piece can't add much more to its humor so just... Read it.  But only if you feel like it, you know, because I don't want to be controlling, so I say, "Read it, maybe."

If Tuesday is getting you down, head over to the Happiest Place on Earth!  Disneyland is celebrating the 57th anniversary of its dedication and opening today.