hurling invective dot com

Come here, son. Have a seat. There’s something I want to talk to you about.

Now, I know what a young man like you thinks about. You may not believe it, but I was your age myself once! Haw haw haw!

You want to have… a blog. It’s perfectly natural. It’s part of becoming a man. But as your father, it’s my job to tell you that having a blog is a serious responsibility, mister. You can’t just have the blog around whenever it’s convenient for you. You need to nurture it and take care of it. Make the titles catchy. Talk about what’s happening this week in the news. But most of all, don’t neglect it.

You see, son, every now and again something will pop up in your life that will make it difficult to take care of your blog the way you should. Say, for instance, and I’m just coming up with this off the top of my head here… a bottle of Jägermeister and a week-long Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion binge. Yes, it’s a responsibility, and it’s your responsibility. Who’s going to ferret out the traitor in the Dark Brotherhood, restore Lucien Lachance to his rightful position and protect the Night Mother from destruction? You are mister, that’s who. And while you’ve living under my roof, you’re also going to keep up on your blog, even if it means reposting something. I hope I’ve made myself clear. Now pour me a shot of Jägey, you little shit.

Originally posted May 19th, 2006, on a vastly inferior blog and reposted here for your enjoyment or disgust.

The Goodyear Airdock was constructed in 1929 by the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation in my fair city of Akron, Ohio. This fuckin’ thing is huge. It’s original use was – you guessed it – a screen door factory. It has seen myriad uses over the last several decades, but it now rests safely in the hands of Lockheed Martin, one of the many companies bent on destroying all those freedom-hating people (read: Arabiacs) who just don’t understand liberty, Jesus, free-market capitalism, traffic signals, etc. Incidentally, they wouldn’t mind if you fucked off and died, too. Be patient with them. They’re working on that.

Back to the dock – it is a monolithic – nay, a megalithic – and downright imposing figure on the eastern Akron skyline, and for nearly 60 years was the largest building in the world without an internal support structure. Take THAT, East St. Louis! It’s approximately the size of four football fields. It has been rumored to have its own atmosphere. This is no joke. Something to do with air pressure and moisture and all that other meteorological shit. Of course, it is also rumored to house the skull of Adolf Hitler, and I heard that your sister made out with the bass player from Death Cab for Cutie in the parking lot there once, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t get sucked into the rumor mill.

So, yeah… the fucking thing caught on fire yesterday. Check it out.

Figure 1.1: Before

Figure 1.2: Unbefore

Now you have to understand just what a big deal this is round these parts. Here in Akron (Motto: The City That Is Trying To Sleep, Thank You Very Much) this is just nuts. Jake called me with the news, and in true high adventure fashion, I picked him up from work on our lunch hour and we high-tailed it over to the inferno. On the way there, we were talking about inviting some other friends out, grabbing the hibachi and some brews and getting down with some serious barbecue in the warming glow of the devastation. Nothing brings friends together like wanton, unexplained conflagration.

Well, we got there too late. By the time we arrived they had already managed to get firemen and hoses to the roof to put out the high flames that the first responders couldn’t reach. They looked like tiny, tiny men with huge, huge docks whizzing down the size of a big, black, half-buried turd. Not nearly as exciting as the towering inferno we were hoping for, but boy does it make for a shitty blog entry that no one will read!