r o b o t m i n i o n

A Somewhat comprehensive list of names we call or have called our dog, in addition to his actual name

Some may know that Turkey's AKC registered name is actually "The Earl of Turkey Sandwich." Some of you may also know that when you are over at our house we only occasionally call the dog Turkey or Turk for short. For the first year of his life with us, I'm fairly certain he thought his name was Turkeygoddamnit, but I'm sure that is not all that uncommon for a puppy of terrier persuasion.

The following is a list of names we use to talk to or to talk about our dog.

Dagobear
der doggen
ze dogge
dogface
Buster
Buster Bunny
Bunny face
Tacopants
Clownpants
Clownpants McGee
Monster Truck
Optimus Prime
Hefeweizen
Clownface
Nutkins McNoodlepants
Schnooky Bear
killer
Blanket Shark
Furry Nutsac
Fur-for-Brains
Idiot Patrol (can refer to multiple terriers)
Noodle Brain
Noodle Head
Fluffy Puffy
Princess Fluffy Puffy
Peanutbutter Addict
Noodlepants McGee
drunkalupagous
beer monger
bitchtits
bitchtits MGee
bizzle teats
Turkey-saurus
Munch

I'm sure I can add to this list.
Do not judge me. He answers to all of them.

Birthday Giving Update

Thanks to everyone who gave me great charity ideas and helped make my birthday wonderful.

Here are the 10 places I donated:

1.) BARCS Franky Fund Each year, the Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) receives hundreds of animals that are seriously sick or injured and in need of immediate medical attention.

2.) This American Life  I listen to their weekly free podcast regularly. This show has done an amazing job reporting on the financial crises. It has made a difficult topic easy to understand. While their show is usually poignant, funny and interesting, I can now say that I understand credit default swaps because of This American Life.

3.) Honduras Outreach Inc.  The Olancho region of Honduras has one of the highest concentrations of infant mortality and poverty in the country. Honduras Outreach, Inc. arranges for groups of North American volunteers to visit nearly every week of the year to work on community projects ranging from home improvement to school and medical clinic establishment.

4.) Relay for Life  Relay For Life® is the American Cancer Society's signature event that brings more than 3.5 million people from 4,900 communities across the country together each year to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against a disease that takes too much.
This donation was to support a family friend in Arizona. She also has a personal Relay for Life fundraising page.

5.) Human Rights Campaign  HRC seeks to improve the lives of LGBT Americans by advocating for equal rights and benefits in the workplace, ensuring families are treated equally under the law and increasing public support among all Americans through innovative advocacy, education and outreach programs. HRC works to secure equal rights for LGBT individuals and families at the federal and state levels by lobbying elected officials, mobilizing grassroots supporters, educating Americans, investing strategically to elect fair-minded officials and partnering with other LGBT organizations.

6.) Orphans of Rwanda Dedicated to helping orphans and other socially vulnerable young people in Rwanda pursue a university education and ultimately become leaders in driving economic development and social reconciliation.

7.) Guide Dogs for the Blind  Guide Dogs for the Blind provides enhanced mobility to qualified individuals through partnership with dogs whose unique skills are developed and nurtured by dedicated volunteers and a professional staff.

8.) Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing Building Addition Fund  The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing is a place where exceptional people discover possibilities that forever change their lives and the world. With more than a century of established excellence in connection with the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University, the School of Nursing is both connected to the past and focused on the future.

9.) Planned Parenthood  The mission of Planned Parenthood Federation of America shall be to provide leadership in ensuring the provision of comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings that preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.

10.) Student Radio at The Ohio State University  Student Radio Project includes, but not limited to, Improving Station's Service to University and Surrounding Communities, Efforts to Explore and Develop New Communications Technologies and Paradigms Fund Number: 301438

Thanks again!

Birthday 3.1

For my birthday this year, I'd like to try a little Social Networking experiment and I would love your help.

Today, I'm going to donate $100 to charities and non-profit organizations. The way that I'm going to do this is by donating to 10 different causes in "micro-donation" chunks of $10 each. What I'd like from my friends and family are ideas about where to donate the money. I'll be soliciting ideas all day via the web, Facebook and Twitter.

Causes that accept credit card donations over the web are preferable, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't consider an organization that didn't. If you'd like to help out, send me your idea for a donation. Tomorrow, I'll post the 10 entities I choose to donate to, links to their websites and why I chose to give them money. If you feel like you'd like to give me a birthday present I would love it if you gave $10 to a charity or cause that you like to support and send me an email letting me know. 

Thanks for all of your help! I'm really interested to see what we come up with!

South Baltimore Moment # 432

Sunset reflecting off Domino
Originally uploaded by emjones

Overweight Baltimoreans on Fort Ave. complaining about all of the neighborhood joggers in the evenings: "Why can't these people just get a treadmill? It's like this all night long!"

Carson Palmer Can Suck an Egg

I know I haven't posted here in a long time, but it's July and I have ants in my pants for Buckeye Football to start up. Earlier today, my attention was called to this item from Men of the Scarlett and Gray about how Mr. USC Heisman was talking smack about how his beloved Trojans were going to rough up the Buckeyes.

And then he started talking smack about Ohio football fans.

I grew up in Cincinnati, but I am a Buckeye before I am a Ben-gal. I was 11 years old when I was at the Cincinnati/Seattle "You do not live in Cleveland!!!" game in 1989 when Sam Wyche had to yell at the Bengals fans to stop throwing beer bottles and snowballs after a bad ref call.

My point is this: Carson Palmer should shut his pie hole.
Cincinnatians are some of the meanest people I know. (True story: I almost got run over by a pickup truck on Christmas Eve in the parking lot of the Eastgate Meijers. When we gave the guy a dirty look, he threatened to come after us and kill us. ON CHRISTMAS EVE.) Cincinnatians are known for long memories and good aim. It probably has something to do with high levels of alcohol-fuled rage and propensity to own firearms. California, it ain't, Carson.

Listen to This

It might not come as a shock to anyone who knows me that I am a This American Life addict. Since I'm hardly ever in my car on the weekends, I download the podcast and listen to it when I walk Turkey after work. This week I actually caught a smidgen of the broadcast on my way home from Hampden, so I knew ahead of time a little of what the show was about.

If anyone hasn't heard this week's episode, (#258 "Leaving the Fold") I would like to say that the first piece of the show, on Jerry Springer, is absolutely terrific. I grew up in Cincinnati and most of my memories are of him and Norma Rashid (she had hair like my mom!) anchoring the channel 5 news. Everyone knows about the hooker and the check, but nobody knows that incident happened before he was Mayor, while he was a councilman.

It's an awesome episode and anyone from the 'Nati will recognize the names of the Springer friends interviewed in the piece.

RIP Zach Sowers

We've been following the story of Zach Sowers since we moved her a year ago. Zach was about our age, lived in the city in what most would consider a "safe" area, and just seemed like a regular guy. He was attacked a few months after we moved by four vicious thugs on his own street and has been in a coma ever since. We didn't know Zach, but some of our friends did. A lot of people I work with knew him because we share an employer. When I went to meetings on Wednesdays, I would often see notes posted on his condition over the past few months.

He died Tuesday from his injuries.

From the Sun:

The attack resonated because he was an innocent victim in a city where most killings appear to revolve around drugs. Sowers and his wife were, in many ways, the faces of the new Baltimore, willing to live in neighborhoods that had struggled with blight but showed promise.

and

Anna Sowers told a reporter that she wanted politicians to do something about crime. "It's people like me and Zach who will make Baltimore a better city," she said. "I should be able to walk two blocks to my car at night and feel safe."

Who are you?

This morning as I was leaving my neighborhood I saw a silver Honda Civic with an Ohio State Sticker and an old City of Columbus parking permit sticker. It's my Doppelgänger!

JB said he saw the same car the other day. I want to meet them.

Because Musical Theater Majors were insufferable enough...

  SCPA 
  Originally uploaded by emjones

Cincinnati boy and fellow SCPA alumna Nick Lachey is apparently trying to pimp out my high school for an MTV reality show.
He must be stopped.

The untitled pilot from Lachey revolves around the students at his alma mater, the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati. Tony DiSanto, executive vp series development and programming, said the project boasts a unique format that breaks new ground in the reality arena, similarly to how MTV's "Laguna Beach" launched a new form of unscripted storytelling.

It organically will blend performances by the students with the narrative about what takes place in the school. For example, it might feature students breaking out into dance in the cafeteria or use a student's practice session on his or her instrument as the soundtrack for a scene. DiSanto added that the project also features a "unique visual language that sets it apart" from other shows.

Let me just tell you that if you're sitting in the cafeteria and someone breaks into song, the only unscripted quality might be the mashed potatoes that get thrown that way. Also, unless they're going to wait until the school moves into their new campus, the "visual language" will be one of Cincinnati Public School's deferred maintenance plan.   

It is what it is

So.

Michael became Omar.
Dukie became Bubbles.
Sydnor became McNulty (Season 1 McNulty — not bullshit serial-killer McNulty)
Carver is on his way to becoming Daniels.
Slim Charles becomes Prop Joe.
And Marlo, who looked like he was on his way to becoming Stringer, not surprisingly proved instead to be cut from the same cloth as Avon — unable to walk away from the game.

Some things I particularly liked from the episode:
- Slim Charles killing Cheese (If you heard a group of white people in Federal Hill being too loud last night, that was us... we cheered)
- Michael becoming Omar (not that this was a positive development for his character, I just feel like we need an Omar to restore balance to the universe)
- Valchek (Valchek!) becoming the stats-faking Police Commissioner of Shelia Dixon Nerese's dreams
- the return of Freamon's near-blind stripper girlfriend Shardene
- Prez
- Chris Partlow befriending Wee-Bey (though I would've like to see Avon there as well)
- and Norman's inability to keep his shit together and not laugh

I also liked this bit from Slate's TV Club:

Instead, we got Jimmy and crazy Larry. I suppose this particular pairing was meant as grim commentary on the fate of the American city? Jimmy's final "let's go home" was intended to remind us—as if the previous 64 hours and 59 minutes hadn't—that only lunatics and hopeless romantics would want to make their home in Baltimore.

When Slate started running TV Club on The Wire I started reading Slate again. Guess I'll stop now.