(Not) On Thin Ice

So Kathleen and I went to the skating party.
Neither of us actually skated – Kathleen doesn’t know how, and I haven’t skated in probably close to 20 years.
When I was a kid there was a local community recreation building – known most commonly simply as “The Building” – which in the non-winter months was used for things like basketball and roller skating, and in the winter was frozen over and used for ice skating and hockey.
And yes, I did play hockey. I was a decent goalie, as my head would naturally draw any slapshots straight toward it.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning that my brother Stuart was one of the few people who could actually manage a decent slapshot, and, if he was on the opposing team, he generally aimed them for my head anyway, so my cranial magnetism was kind of irrelevant.
For the record, even a soft puck can hurt if it hits you hard enough.
Lacking natural grace, I was never a terribly skillful skater, but I could at least manage to remain upright most of the time.
I remember one night of skating in which we were playing “It” or, if you prefer, “Tag,” which is considerably more challenging on ice skates, and all of the other kids decided to gang up on me to insure that I was always “it.” Little did I know that it was the pale harbinger of torments to come.
Anyway, tonight’s outing did not involve breahtlessly chasing after my cruel and vicious peers in an effort to no longer be it, but it was kind of marred by the fact that it was cold and rainy and that it was held at an outdoor rink.
We talked to David, of course, and a few other people, but for much of it we were standing sort of off to the side near the hot cocoa and cookies. Eventually we moved over to where other people were standing after Kathleen said that we looked like we were anti-social. I pointed out that we are anti-social, but we still moved over anyway.
We hung out long enough for the raffle drawing. Kathleen actually won one of the prizes.
Even though it was his party, David didn’t seem to know what the prizes actually were. When Kathleen told him it was a gift certificate he asked how much it was for and said, “That’s so cheap!” when she told him.
He asked if I was going to write about that here. I told him that I pretty much had to.
In introducing me to a few people he talked up my talent and Heroic Portraits, saying that I could probably make a living off of that alone. When I pointed out that I’ve never had any actual customers, he said that it’s because I don’t market it. Kathleen agreed.
When we were leaving, he asked if I was serious about wanting to develop Heroic Portraits.
Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, sure, it’d be cool, I guess, but the one problem I foresee is dealing with unsatisfied customers, in particular people who would give me the vaguest description of what I want, then complain when I failed to bring their vision to life.
It would be kind of difficult to keep from responding to any complaints with an angry “Draw your own damn portrait then!”
Kathleen suggested some strategies for dealing with that sort of thing.
The biggest problem with marketing the site, though, is that it sucks. I don’t really want people to go there because I know they won’t be impressed, and I just don’t seem to have the wherewithal to make it any better.
Anyway, the point is that it’s a question I’ve asked myself and I’m just not sure what the answer is.
But that was my big adventure out in the world.

The Sky Is Still Blue

So I’m not terribly despondent over being shot down, as that would be like going to bed one night hoping that in the morning the sky would be plaid and then getting depressed upon waking to find that it’s still blue.
Getting shot down was a foregone conclusion is my point.
Overall it was relatively painless, though there was one thing that was kind of bothersome.
When she said that she didn’t think it would be appropriate given her position, I rebutted that, since I’ve found employment without her company’s services, it seemed to me that there was no real conflict and that I figured it was worth taking a shot anyway.
Her response was to say, “Awww” in exactly the manner in which one would do so upon seeing a puppy perform a cute trick. It just felt strangely demeaning, as if she were saying, “Oh, look at him trying to use logic to talk me into going out with him! It’s adorable the way he’s not immediately taking the hint and thinks that he’s someone I would go out with if I didn’t have a built-in excuse not to.”
Of course, I’m sure that was all just my perception. It could be that she was genuinely flattered by my offer and disappointed that she was prevented from accepting due to her job.
Sure, and maybe tomorrow the sky will be plaid.
The “Awww” was followed with, “Well, I’m still going to have to decline.”
Meh.
You win some you…no, wait. Scratch that first part, then finish the expression.
On the topic of other attractive women who will never date me –in this case owing first of all to the fact that she lives on the opposite side of the country and will thus never even encounter me, and then moving on to all of the standard reasons – I’ve found myself largely foiled in my attempts to find a decent portrait-worthy image of actress Danielle Panabaker of the TV show Shark.
Not many pictures of her exist online, and one of the drawbacks to my Verizon DVR is that there’s no way to transfer recorded files to another device, such as my computer, which I could then use to make my own HD screen captures.
As an alternative, I tried downloading an HD episode from the newsgroups, but the only HD version I could find was in a format that can only be played by a specific player – a player that doesn’t have screen capture capabilities – and my attempts to convert it to a usable format were all, as my dad often liked to say, for naught.
However, one thing I like to do with my DVR is to pause a show when it goes to commercial, then go about the usual commercial time activities like going to the bathroom, grabbing a snack, or overthrowing the government of a small Baltic nation. You know, the usual stuff.
When I get back, I then have some time in the bank that I can use to skip through future commercials.
Anyway, while watching Shark, I paused it during the opening credits just in time to freeze an image of Danielle on the screen. It then occurred to me that there was a solution to my screen capture problem that straddles the line between high tech and low tech: take a picture of the frozen screen with my digital camera.
Thus, I was able to capture a reference picture from which I was able to produce this image:



Looking at her IMDb entry, it seems that in addition to being unbearably cute, Ms. Panabaker is also extremely smart, having graduated high school at 14 and earned her Bachelor’s degree (in English!) at 19.
Of course, the fact that she’s actually younger than my niece Jourdan ratchets up the creepiness of my infatuation with her, especially when you factor in the fact that she’s at her hottest when wearing a schoolgirl outfit, but what are you gonna do?
And, as mentioned, it’s not as though I’m ever going to meet her or start stalking her (stalking, of course, requiring far more effort than I’m willing to put into any endeavor), so there’s no real harm.
I will say that she might very well be poised to take the place in my heart currently occupied by my beloved Rachael Leigh Cook.
(Hey, it’s your own fault, RLC – I’m not the one who went and got married to Man-Wolf. Geeky note: RLC is married to the actor who played John Jameson in Spider-Man 2, a character who, in the comics, is a sort of werewolf known as Man-Wolf, and sometimes Stargod, but he’ll always be Man-Wolf to me.)
Anyway, my harmlessly creepy infatuation with women I’ll never meet that manifests itself primarily in the form of drawing pictures of said women aside, apart from the failed attempt at getting a date with a woman who lives in the same geographic region as I do, not much has gone on today.
I went out to Super Target to pick up a few things and had lunch at the Pizza Hut Express located there.
While I was sitting there eating my pizza, a very unhappy-looking woman came in with a heavyset and obviously developmentally disabled teenaged boy and sat at the table next to me. The woman proceeded to pretend that the boy wasn’t there, while the boy began having a lengthy conversation with himself on the topic, from what I could gather, of the soap opera General Hospital.
From there I ran the obstacle course of unmoving senior citizens and little screaming ballerinas and non-ballet-attired children, got what I needed, and was on my way out, overhearing a young cashier talking to another cashier about how she’d told someone, “To hold up, because I still have feelings for Josh and for this guy.”
On my drive home there was someone behind me driving as though he was in a movie chase scene, yanking the wheel hard to make even the slightest turn.
And that’s been my day so far.
On Sunday it appears that I’ll be going to a holiday ice-skating party hosted by my Realtor, David, along with Kathleen.
Being from the Frozen North, naturally I know how to skate, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve done any skating, so I think I’ll probably stay off of the ice.
I encouraged Kathleen to go simply because I thought it would do her some good to get out of the house. I would say the same about me, but it seldom does me any good to get out of the house.
In extending her condolences over today’s shoot down, Kathleen suggested that maybe I’ll meet someone at the party, and went on to say that she’ll try not to be too much of a cock blocker.
I don’t foresee any likelihood that cock blocking will be an issue.