L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

Admiral, this one’s for you.

I nearly brought an end to LobaBlanca this weekend, through hot sauce-induced self-immolation.

Okay, that might be a tad bit hyperbolic…but it sure felt like the truth while it was happening.

Allow me to set the scene: To satiate a craving for barbecue that I’ve been fighting for a while, we decided to have lunch at a local barbecue chain that does some pretty decent brisket and pulled pork. As part of my plate, I ordered a side of collard greens. The only way I know how to eat greens is with hot sauce. If you’ve never tried it, you simply don’t know what you’re missing.

Mind you, I love spicy food. I will add hot sauce to practically anything, but I particularly love it on collard greens. Therefore, I didn’t think twice about going over to the condiment shelf and looking for an appropriate hot sauce. Several of the bottles had kitschy labels like “Fart Machine” or “Ass in a Bucket.” I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bring myself to select these options. Kitsch or not, anything pertaining to someone’s posterior is simply not appetizing at all.

Dogs, however, are always the way to hook me in. I’m a sucker for a cute dog cartoon, especially a cute, smiling dog in a chef’s hat…which is what was on the bottle of Mad Dog 357 Magnum that I ended up choosing. Because of the dog on the bottle.

BAD DOG. BAD, BAD DOG.

I opened the bottle, poured what I thought was an appropriate amount of hot sauce over my greens, and stirred it all up to give everything a chance to marry. I’d mostly mixed it, but there was still a nice, shiny dollop of sauce (about the size of a chocolate M&M) right on the top. So I scooped up that section of greens and popped them into my mouth.

Have you ever wondered what it might feel like to carry Satan’s baby inside you? I don’t have to wonder anymore. See, what I learned (regrettably too late) was that the 357 in the name stood for this sauce’s level on the infamous Scoville Scale.

No, not 357 on the scale. More like 357,000.

357,000. You can see it right there, printed on the label. I would have seen it if I’d been paying more attention to the words and less attention to the cute Hell Hound.

I think the highest range to which my preferred spiciness has heretofore reached is maybe…maybe into the 100,000 range on the Scoville Scale. (I do loves me some Thai chili peppers).

The scale range of this hot sauce? I can’t say with absolute certainty since I’ve never actually been stabbed in the stomach, but I think this is as close to such a feeling as I ever want to experience.

AND I NEVER WANT TO EXPERIENCE THIS AGAIN.

It started out okay, slightly hotter than what I was used to, but not too terrible. This is a slow build of the worst kind. Next came the tears, trickling out of my eyes uncontrollably. Next, my lips turned the brightest shade of red they have ever turned. It was like I was spontaneously transforming into Pennywise the Clown. Without the awesome fangs, of course. Then came the myriad trips to the soda fountain, for water refill after water refill after water refill…to the point where I just wanted to shove everyone out of my way, wrap my mouth around the spigot, and flick the switch until the hell fire brewing in my gut melted the entire machine.

Then came the true agony. I struggled through the rest of my lunch (minus the collard greens, which had gone from tasty side dish to cruel and unusual punishment that should be banned by the Geneva Conventions), but when I stood to leave, I was struck by searing pain. My first thought? Oh dear prophets, that hot sauce is eating its way through my stomach! Ironically, my second, third, and many subsequent thoughts were the same.

It was horrible. And unending. And nearly unbearable. As long as I was sitting, I was somewhat fine. Movement, however, made the earlier knife wound analogy seem almost preferable. This was like that creepy “intestines wound around a barbed spool” scene from The Cell. Although honestly? I think having my intestines reeled out of my body onto a barbed spool might have been slightly less painful. This pain took the better part of Saturday evening to finally recede to a point where I could once again stand upright.

What lesson did I learn? READ THE LABEL. Don’t be swayed by the cutesy dog cartoon. The cutesy dog is actually trying to kill you, especially when he appears above the words “MAD DOG.” I also learned that there is a distinct limit to my own personal enjoyment of hot sauce. This surpassed that limit by about a thousand light years.

Here’s a review of Mad Dog 357 Magnum. Please note that I’m one of the doofuses (doofi?), not for want of showing off but for lack of general awareness.

See, Admiral? We all make spicy mistakes

Someone really should take away my PhotoShop access when I’m in moods like this…

So, today saw the release of a movie based on the board game Battleship. You know, as in “You sank my battleship!” The game was all about strategy and intellect and cunning. The movie is apparently all about aliens and splosions.

Viva la…whatever. I never really was a Battleship fan. Connect Four was more my kind of game. But today’s movie release got me thinking: What will the next board game-based piffle will they think up next? Someone already beat me to the movie/board game crossover that I was initially going to do. Really, though, this one is simply perfect, and perfectly hilarious.

So I went with another of those perennial sleepover favorites, Twister! I actually used to love to play Twister. That sexy PVC smell will still take me right back, either to opening up the Twister box or the black vampire cape from my favorite Halloween costume. I’m by no means bendy like a pretzel, but I could keep up with the demands of that little cardboard and plastic spinner, regardless of the bizarre combinations it would come up with.

But what would a movie based on the game be like? Honestly, I’ve no clue, denizens. Then again, I couldn’t really imagine what a movie based on Battleship would be about either. Those Hollywood folk are just way sharper than I’ll ever be.

I could, however, envision what the poster would look like. It would have to be a horror movie, of course. With a name like Twister, it would only be a horror movie or a stupid action movie based on a meteorological event, complete with CGI cows being blown around. Who’d want to watch that?

Hmm.

Anyway, it was…interesting try to come up with the components for this latest PhotoShop trickery. First thing I learned? Do not type in “dead body” into Google Image Search. Just don’t. Best bet for a dead body-type image? Look for people who have passed out. Preferably from alcohol consumption. Second thing? It’s really hard to find a photo of a Twister mat without people standing on it! Stupid narcissists!

If any of you is particularly inspired by this image and has a brilliant idea for a story line, by all means, go for it! If it’s clever enough, I’ll let you use my poster idea. If it’s not clever, please don’t blame me. I just come up with the warped imagery…I can’t be held accountable for what you all do with it once it’s out there…

While driving home from a weekend stay in the great hate state of North Carolina, we spent a large portion of the journey past Richmond being treated to a view of the back-end of a “dualy”—a dual-wheeled pickup truck—decked out in chrome, including giant chrome-plated side mirrors, running boards…and a chrome-plated scrotum dangling from its chrome-plated trailer hitch.

Yeah, you read that correctly. This dualy had balls.

I’m not going to post a photo. If you must see what I’m referring to, you can visit this site. And, oh look…they’re made in the USA. Could I be any prouder?

I’m actually quite mortified that I live in a country where hanging ersatz balls off the back of a gas-guzzling vehicular atrocity is acceptable behavior. I’m even more mortified by the fact that there are enough people in this country who, upon reading my previous statement, would immediately attack me, call me all variety of unfavorable names, and then invite me to STFU and GTFO!!!111!!111! And you wonder why I keep my comments section locked.

But I digress.

The thing that I can’t help but wonder is that hanging a pair of balls from your truck is supposed to be an indication of what exactly? I know that people say things like “Boy, that took balls” or “he’s got a pair of steel ones” or “That was ballsy” to indicate that someone has done something brave. Something strong. Something manly.

Here’s the thing, though. Aren’t balls kind of…just dangly and there? I mean, I understand the biological function of the scrotum…but beyond that, why do we automatically assume that, when someone has done something gutsy or brave or brazen that they’ve “got balls”?

I’d argue the exact opposite. Balls aren’t brave. They hide when they get too cold. They’re a work hazard if you’re an action hero (Arnie taught me that). They’re shrivelly and dangly and kind of seem like the antithesis of brave to me. You want strong and brave? Look to the part of the anatomy the size of a fist that’s able to stretch to accommodate something the size of a watermelon.

Yeah, try that, Mr. Chrome Sack.

This brings me to my next point of contention: I’d also argue that this fad would be the outcry of the nation if it was women dangling labia from their bumper hitches.

[Loba Tangent: I know that labia aren't biologically equivalent to balls, but I question whether there are enough people left in this country who would even be able to identify an ovary, especially if it was dangling from the back of a car. Then again...]

This does not mean that I would like to see women getting in on this simple, sanguine mindset. I’d like to think that we’re a little classier (says the one from the same gender as those wacky Kardashian girls…and that Snookie person). I’m just pointing out yet another hypocrisy of our patriarchal country.

Hey, I know! Let’s get a giant pair made, to install at the base of the Washington Monument!

Hilarity would undoubtedly ensue, no?

Other than being re-sized for posting, this photo is completely unaltered in any way:

A rarity, indeed, denizens. Typically, I always do something to my photos before posting them, whether it be something simple like cropping it in a certain way or tweaking the color levels, or something…a bit more dramatic.

I can’t help myself. I am a PhotoShop devotee, to the very depth of my CMYK/RGB soul.

That being said, the moment I saw this photo, I loved it just as it was, without one plea. We’d gone out walking early on Sunday morning, our last full day in New Orleans (in case you were wondering, that’s part of the reason I barely made it to the lair in April…prep work followed by onsite support for a conference in the Big Easy, after which I played tourist for a few days).

It was already in the mid-70s and the sun was just reaching the point where it could cast its light down into the magnificent maze of the French Quarter. We were already heading to a place for breakfast, but I couldn’t resist stopping and filling my lungs with the scent of coffee wafting from this corner Community Coffee House.

As I stood, watching the light cast shadows of street lamps and signage against the wall, I was struck by how so many of the aspects of New Orleans that I love were right there in front of me: the cast-iron quaintness of the lamp posts; the bilingual street signs, each pointing us deeper into the tangle of delights that the Quarter willingly offers up to everyone who wanders through; the local brew house, churning out yet another delicious aroma to cancel out Bourbon Street’s unseemlier smells; the strong glow of sunlight, pouring down on it all, bright and bounteous.

The entire tableau made me so happy that I couldn’t resist snapping a shot before moving along to our breakfast destination. I didn’t even review the shot after taking it…simply slung the camera back over my shoulder and ambled on down the Rue Royale, thoughts of coffee and fried green tomatoes and biscuits and gravy taking precedence once more.

Imagine my surprise when I finally saw the shot.

True, the longer I look at it, the more ideas flood my mind regarding what I could do with it in PhotoShop…age it, fade it, bolster the color, crack it, rip it…the temptation is engulfing. However, for this post, I give it to you in its simplest, truest form.

I have to confess this to you, denizens: I’m severely confused by this book. See, the reason that I checked out Frederic Lindsay’s My Life as a Man was because the cover stated it was a thriller and scarier than Satan’s nightmares. Or something like that. Point is, it was supposed to be a chilling thrill ride, which sounds precisely like something I wanted to read.

There was nothing chilling, thrilling, or, ultimately, fulfilling about this story at all, denizens. I suppose as a coming-of-age story, it succeeded in being different. The problem, however, is that I wasn’t sold just a coming-of-age tale. I was sold “The scariest coming-of-age story you’re likely to read. Lindsay will scare the bejesus out of you.”

So wrote Kirkus Book Reviews.

Apparently, bejesus no longer lives inside me, because he certainly wasn’t scared out by this book.

I will grant Lindsay this: He had an interesting hook for the start of his novel. After being fired after only a week at his factory job, 18-year-old Harry Glass decides that it would be a good idea to leave the factory for the last time in his former boss’s car. Only problem is that the former boss’s wife is in the car. They go back and forth for a little while before deciding to keep going…then they realize there’s something in the trunk of the car that certain dangerous people might want back…then they end up with this really odd couple who might be married or might be siblings…or might be both…and hilarity thus ensues.

I honestly kept expecting things to get interesting, especially when our daring duo end up in the hills with the questionably related creepy farmers. The cover wouldn’t lie to me, would it?

Yes. Yes, it would.

Final Verdict: Back to the library you are sent. I have no interest in ever reliving my life as a man.

I actually have a few recently finished books waiting in the wings for their big blog review debut. I’m hoping that now that my schedule is slowly clearing itself, I’ll have a little more time to work on them.

Hopefully not too much time though. Ahem.

Now, on to the first review. I read Alan Lightman’s novel Einstein’s Dreams last year and loved it so much that I knew I wanted to read more by this author. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised when I discovered two more of his books at my local library.

The first of these two books that I read was Lightman’s 2007 offering, Ghost: A Novel. The story follows protagonist David Kurtzweil, a former bank employee who, after being laid off, finds new employment at a funeral home. As one can easily deduce from the title, David has an inexplicable encounter of a possibly paranormal variety while at his new place of employment.

Actually, one of the things that I loved most about this book was that Lightman doesn’t at first reveal what David saw. He keeps David’s experience a mystery, alluding to it, circumnavigating it, flirting with it…but never quite meeting it face-to-face. It takes a delicate touch to be able to write a novel called Ghost without actually discussing…the ghost.

Unfortunately, Lightman does finally reveal what David witnessed, and I have to admit, it was a bit of a letdown to me. I think it’s because I was hoping that Lightman would simply not reveal what David saw. I think the further along the story progressed and the longer Lightman remained vague, the more I was convinced that the novel could only possibly work if the reveal never occurred. Perhaps that was my own failing as a reader. I don’t know.

I do know that Lightman once again enraptured me with his clean, elegant prose. His style is stark and simple, extremely reminiscent of Hemingway in many ways.

Unlike Einstein’s Dreams, this novel is a little less stream-of-consciousness, far more regimented, and a lot longer. Perhaps a bit too long. I found myself growing weary of some of the plot twists toward the end, but, again, this might be a reflection of my response to the reveal that I had hoped would never arrive.

Final Verdict: I don’t know whether or not I would ever want to re-read this book. While I very much enjoyed the experience on a holistic level, the devil is, indeed, in the details…and the few negatives that I have detailed in this review are enough to convince me not to purchase a copy, but to keep this in mind for a future library revisit.

I still think that Lightman is very much worth reading. I still treasure the experience of reading Einstein’s Dreams, and I promise that the next Lightman book that I review here will be a much more ebullient posting than this one.

There are certain editorial errors that are like kryptonite to a word nerd. Every word nerd has something that affects them in a particularly nerve-scraping way, but, rest assured, denizens, we all have those niggling little pet peeves that simply drive us crazy.

Me? I have a few, but one of my definitive “wailing and gnashing of teeth” moments is this:

It’s probably because I am quite a morbid wolf, but I loathe seeing the word “cemetery” misspelled. There’s an episode of Scooby Doo that has it spelled this way, and I can promise you, it has always driven me a wee bit batty.

In other news, yes, I have returned. I’m appalled that April passed so quickly and left me with the lowest entry count I’ve ever had here at the lair (minus the first month of my revampitude). I can’t promise that I’ll be making daily entries…but I promise to strive to beat last month’s record. And look! I’m already halfway there!

Something extraordinary just happened, denizens. I’ve been driving people crazy all morning about it. The Space Shuttle Discovery has come to her new home.

She left Kennedy Space Center early this morning; I heard her departure during my commute into work. I had wanted to take the morning off, join the rest of my geek peepz down at the Udvar-Hazy to watch her arrival, but I’ve got too much going on at work right now for that to be feasible.

Welcome to the Digital Age.

I still got to watch her arrival, thanks to a streaming video provided by NASA. Here are some screen captures, in case you missed the video:

Even better? My cousin was able to snap this shot of Discovery on her fly-by up the Potomac River:

Want better still? I got to see her on her fly-by. Totally unexpected. I didn’t think that my office would be anywhere near her flight plan. As I was waiting for the coverage video to start back up, I heard a group of my coworkers running around the corner toward our conference room. I swiveled around in my chair…and there she was, gliding across the cloud-dappled sky on the back of her chaperone.

AMAZING.

I have no photo of this moment…she was there for but a moment before streaking off into the ether…but I can still see it, replaying in my mind.

Silly as it might sound, this has made my morning.

Such bittersweet emotions right now. She shouldn’t be moth-balled for museum fodder, but I’m so thankful that I live in an area lucky enough to have been selected to give one of these beautiful shuttles a new home. I can’t wait for Udvar-Hazy to reveal her glorious debut. I’ll miss the Enterprise, but now it’s time for others to enjoy her.

Welcome home, Discovery.

Commemorative poster designed for Smithsonion National Air & Space Museum

I’m sure you can tell that things are a bit crazy at the moment for the White Wolf. It’s astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll.

But listen closely…because it’s Flashback Friday time!

(What? Did you really think I was about to Time Warp for you? Loba don’t dance…I don’t rock and roll either.)

So you know that whole “nature versus nurture” argument about…well, about everything pertaining to what makes us who we are? Well, in regard to geekery, I think it’s a fair argument to say that my dad played a very nurturing role in turning me into the geek who blogs before you today. Among his many nerderific influences was this delightful…well, I’m not really sure what to call it. It wasn’t a game. I don’t even think it’s fair to call it a toy. I suppose it was an educational toy.

It was Capsela. Like Lego on steroids.

The kit came with these strange spherical pieces that were designed to interconnect. Some were hollow, some contained gears, some contained little motors that you could power through battery packs. You also had wheels, belts, propellers, flotation balls, even a little light. I spent hours piecing together all the various components, creating fantastical ships, vehicles that spun in never-ending circles, lighthouses, or even a fan for my desk in the hot summer months.

Capsela gave me an enhanced level of confidence when it came to understanding the mechanics of things…a confidence that I still rely on whenever I’m faced with trying to figure out how to fix something. I think it’s a shame that they no longer make Capsela, because I think that having a stronger mechanical aptitude is important for anyone, but especially for girls. It’s bogus that this commercial that I found on YouTube is so blatantly geared toward boys.

Of course, if they had decided to market Capsela for girls, it would have come in hot pink plastic and had instructions for how to build a makeup case for Barbie. Maybe it’s better that they stuck with the boys in the marketing campaign. Nothing is more indecent than hot pink anything…

Stand back, denizens! It’s another one of those toys from the 80s loved by wacky suburban White kids!

Actually, the Magical Musical Thing hit the market in the late 1970s. It was, quite possibly, one of the silliest things I can remember from my childhood…and that’s saying a lot since I did have Strolling Bowling (and willingly admit to still having it stored in my closet).

The Magical Musical Thing was a long plastic stick, Smurf blue and trimmed in white (at least mine was). Along the spine were rows of pressure-sensitive pads, little color-coded rounded rectangles whose coloring always reminded me of billiard balls. Maybe this was the root of my future fascination with that game…who’s to say, really.

I remember going through the little music book that was included with the Magical Musical Thing, tapping out stilted renditions of classics such as “Oh, Susanna!” or “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” for a little while before growing bored and rubbing the Magical Musical Thing against the top of my head to make it make a noise not dissimilar to someone trying to cram a synthesizer up an android’s bum.

I had mad skillz when it came to the Magical Musical Thing, denizens.