July 2007 Archives

I killed a rabbit today.

In front of my kids.

With a golf ball.

We had a rabbit living in our backyard. I loved the rabbit because he routinely ate the clover, dandelions, and broadleaf that continually invades my lawn. Some in my house cast aspersions on him because he also ate the green beans in the garden, but I thought was in general a good guy. The kids loved looking out into the yard and seeing him back there.

So we were all a little distraught this morning when I saw a hawk swoop into our backyard and fly away with something. We assumed it was probably the rabbit and we mourned a little for him. The rabbit had outwitted the hawk a few times already, once by diving underneath the kids’ playset at the last minute, but we’d assumed the hawk would win eventually. And then the rains came, pummeling the house and yard over and over again, and still the rabbit was nowhere to be seen.

And then, surprise! He showed up with the sun, and headed to the garden to finish off the beans. I knew I was going to hear more complaints if I let him, so I headed into the garage and picked up one of the golf balls we have in a bucket, and walked onto the back porch. The rabbit looked at me and kept eating. The kids stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind me, watching me. My daughter never stopped her litany of questions while I moved. My wife stopped in mid-stride and watched me too.

I aimed for a spot near the ground on the other side of the rabbit. I hoped that a golf ball landing right next to him in the brush would be sudden enough and noisy enough to scare him. I wound up, swung my right arm back and down and kicked up my left leg and pitched. The ball streaked through the air, straighter than I intended. It flew faster than I intended. I feared for the worst, but still…I admired my throw. I admired it’s power and the truth of its aim. I’d never learned how to throw. Most times I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, so this throw was magical, this throw was wonderful. This throw was something I was proud of…until I heard a loud hollow popping noise.

I closed my eyes for a minute and offered a sinking prayer. There was no noise behind me. The birds were silent, the planes and lawnmowers and distant traffic hushed. My heart drained and stopped beating forever.

Owen spoke first "I think you killed it. The Easter Bunny won't be happy." Heather took a step forward and looked at me. Tears filled McKenna's eyes.

"Daddy, is the bunny okay?"

"I don't know. Go play."

"Is the bunny okay?"

"I don’t know. I think so, I think I just scared him."

"But is he okay? Daddy, why is he laying down? Why isn’t he getting up?"

"I just scared him, okay? Seriously! Go Play!"

"I think he's dead" Owen repeated.

I looked across to the garden. The rabbit laid on his side his legs still twitching in the air. I thought I should call a vet before I heard the whole phone conversation in my head, explaining the garden and the golf ball and a trip to the county jail and decided I'd better go check on the rabbit first before I made any decisions.

I walked across the yard and when I got to where the rabbit laid only his tail was twitching. He didn’t seem right, but he looked okay. I prayed: "Please let him be stunned. Maybe it’s just a head injury. I’m okay with scratches on my arms and trip to the hospital for a rabies shot, just so he'll be okay. Please let him be okay"

I brushed a fly off his hindquarters already crawling on him and touched his side. It was warm, and his fur was soft, but he wasn't breathing any more. I looked back at the house. My wife and kids stood in the living room watching me. I looked at Heather and shook my head slowly, in tiny movements so the kids wouldn't see.

I cursed myself, I cursed the rabbit, I just cursed. For a minute I sat on my haunches and cursed everything, then I turned and walked back to the house.

My wife was waiting for me.
"I would have used a tennis ball."
"Yeah that probably would have been good."
"So now what? Are you going to bury it?"
"Yeah. Keep them upstairs."

And I buried the rabbit. I dug a deep wide hole on the back property line, underneath the bushes with the large white flowers he lived under. I wrapped him the softest white shop towel I could find, put him in hole, threw the golf ball in the hole as well and filled the hole back in. Then I took a few minutes and piled all the large stones from around the house onto his grave. And I prayed again for the rabbit and myself.

Later my kids asked me what happened to the rabbit. I told them that I'd had a long talk with the rabbit, and I apologized for hitting him with the golf ball, but that he'd decided to go live somewhere else for a while, and might not come back until next summer.

My son and daughter seemed to accept that answer.

I just hope the rabbit can.

I'm sitting in my car right now working on the laptop and waiting for my wristband to pick up my copy of the last Harry Potter book. Yes it's 6am. No, there's no one else here, but I am, and I'm okay letting my freak flag fly this way.

Anyway, it's a gorgeous morning and I'm out in the fresh air.

I know I said I was waiting until Friday, and I was cutting off all ties to the internet so the book wouldn't be spoiled for me, but I couldn't resist. The temptation was too great. So I might as well jump on the bandwagon and present these spoilers. Be warned, there's some pretty intense stuff here, so don't look unless you really want to know....

I am going dark this weekend. I will not connect to the internet. I will not listen to the radio. I will not watch TV. I will turn off all forms of communication with the outside world and sequester myself in my house. Why?

Because on Friday night I pickup my copy of the final Harry Potter book and I dare not risk some spoiling motherf***er ruining the ending for me.

Oh you may laugh, but leaked copies of the book are already showing up on BitTorrent networks as we speak.

The last thing I need is for some tempting news story to roll across my RSS reader like

"Bill Gates and Steve Jobs photographed in South Beach holding hands; Office 2007 for Mac released early"

only to have it link to some page with 72 point font proclaiming "Voldemort is Harry's Father and Harry kills Ron!" because then I will have to find said asshat and beat them.

And I'm certainly not going to let some shitard on TV or the radio try to spoil the ending for me like Rosie O'Donnell did with "Fight Club". Sorry Andy, for bringing up your GF and all, but what she did was uncalled for.

So, email me all you want. Email me about a million bucks lying on the street free for the taking. Call me, text me, do whatever the hell you want. I won't respond. This weekend, I don't exist.

(And so help me God, if I so much as see a skywriter or airplane pulling a streamer near my house I will shoot it out of the sky, and I will unleash the dogs of war on anybody with a megaphone within a mile of my house, no questions asked.)

Owen: "I spy with my little eye something that is....yellow"
Me: "Is it your truck?"
Owen: "No"
Me: "Is it a banana?"
Owen: <giggling> "No"
Me: "Uhm, is it that flower over there?"
Owen: <laughing> "No Daddy! It's your teeth!"

The FBI announced this week that they believe Brian Douglas Wells was in on the bank robbery that eventually ended with him blowing up.

I can't say I'm totally surprised. The elements of the case were just so bizarre that it spoke of something cooked up over beers between friends:

"You know what would be a perfect crime?????"

Unfortunately for him, it wasn't the perfect crime.

I went and saw Harry Potter last night. My suspicions were confirmed. The critics were confused and walked into Die Hard 8 when they thought they were reviewing Harry Potter.

"Hrm, he sure has grown. Look, more of the same stuff. Oh well".

Harry Potter was awesome, and we loved it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to open the next door on my Harry Potter Advent Calendar.

When I drove into work this morning I listened to Kenneth Turan's review of "Order of the Phoenix", the new Harry Potter movie coming out. It seemed to me that he wasn't quite sure what movie he was reviewing because he says:

"It's a cog in a brisk, well-oiled machine, the fifth in a seven-film series, and it unfolds like a chapter in the world's longest-running serial."

Well...DUH! That's exactly what it is.

He goes on to complain:

"Phoenix may be thinned down from the series' longest book, but it can't shake an episodic feeling that makes it difficult to develop momentum. Though many of its elements are strong, it finally can't transcend being a way station in an epic journey — a journey whose cinematic conclusion is several years in the future."

I wrote it off as one bad review, and forgot about it, until I read this review.

" "Order of the Phoenix" sticks safely and at times monotonously to the Potter formula: Show a bit of Harry's drab summer among his heartless Muggle relations, branch off into a magical interlude, then land him back at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, where the same old issues resurface — classmate rivalry, teacher trouble, and a slow build toward another showdown with Voldemort."

Riiiiiggghhhhttttt. Isn't that what the book is? Isn't that what the movie should portray? Perhaps they were expecting "Brokeback Hogwarts":

"The stunning visuals provide a backdrop to the sweeping love story between Hagrid and Harry. This "beauty and the beast" reimagining of Harry Potter has it all. Romance, passion, leather. This is the real magic we have been missing..."

This is not a fairy tale ripe for interpretation, or reinvention. The critics seem dismayed that the director hasn't taken any steps away from the book when that's what the fans are clamoring for.

The AP review goes on to comment:

"Familiarity is not quite breeding contempt for Harry and his friends and enemies. But it's starting to breed indifference"

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Borders have all reported that more orders have been placed for the final Harry Potter book than any other in their history. Bookstores are staying open until 3am to sell the book to massive crowds. The movie's already selling out showings around the world. That doesn't sound like indifference to me.

I saw the headline "Smoking could kill 1 billion this century" and my first thought was "Well at least somebody's doing something about global overcrowding".

Yeah, I'll be the one handing out the pitchforks by the front door.

Today we have two stories for state government greed:

1. First off, we have this story from California (via the Consumerist) which talks about how the State of California has been seizing assets from people's safety deposit boxes and selling them at marginal value on eBay if the owner of the box hasn't visited in as little as 3 years. To add insult to injury, any paperwork seized is shredded, so grandma's birth certificate, the deed to your house, you know, the important paperwork you put in the box to keep it safe from....destruction, is being destroyed by the State. Adding further insult? The State of California made sure that they were protected from litigation during these activities by passing a law giving them immunity.
2. Secondly, we have news from the Commonwealth of Virginia that they will begin instituting traffic fines over $3500 for residents in the name of public safety. They're calling the additional fines "Driver Responsiblity Taxes". You will get taxed for every point on your license for up to five years, up to $700 per year. The law also forbids judges from reducing the fine OR other penalities.

The rationale behind the Viriginia is supposed to be about doing something to make the roads safer. I'll agree that in Northern Virginia the traffic can be a little scary. Well, a lot scary, and people aren't respecting the existing traffic laws, so maybe this law was originally born out of an attempt to scare people into compliance. But they've morphed into a source of revenue for the State. The article I linked to talks about how the lawmakers are already budgeting their expected income from the increased fines. If this law were truly about justice, respecting the law, and making the roads safer than Virginia would have given their magistrates the ability to reduce fines as they see fit. There are times in everyone's life where speeding is appropriate. I don't have to enumerate them for you, you can think of at least a dozen scenarios where you'd be willing to let someone speed down the highway.

But instead, the lawmakers wish to provide additional money, which, while they claim it will go to maintaining the roads, will end up in other people's coffers too.

This situation is all to like the uproar amongst the alderman of Chicago who are upset that there's now a radar detector that warns motorists of traffic cameras. If the only purpose of the traffic cameras were to save lives, and people were warned ahead of time about the location of a camera, then these detectors are a good thing.

But the alderman interviewed at least had the guts to state the truth:

Revenue from the $90 fines at camera-guarded intersections "is budgeted in our annual appropriation ordinance," the alderman said. "That is why all these cameras are being installed. ... The reality is that people blow through these intersections and they are going to be caught and they are going to be fined. It has become a big revenue source, absolutely."

(emphasis mine)

Which brings us back around to the actions of the State of California. They're seizing people's assets without any intention of notifying the original owners and selling WHAT IS NOT THEIR'S to generate money for their own purposes. It is not the job of the State to seize property willy-nilly and turn itself into the largest pawn shop in the world. It is not the job of the State to knowingly shred people's personal documents without concern for the people they're impacting. But they're doing it anyway. They're doing it because they can make money doing it and again, fill their coffers with ill-gotten money that they spend on pet projects, pork, and largess. The highway named after that State Senator's family? Paid for by stealing people's prized possessions. That museum built in a town of 500 people in the mountains of Northern California that no one will ever visit or care about? Paid for by breaching a sacred trust between the people and the government they established to protect them from the very actions the State is perpetrating on its citizens. It's a disgrace that this kind of thing has ever happened, but it's a perfect example of the politics of greed in this century.