My Very Own Polysyllabic Spree: June 2005

June 30, 2005


June 2005

Books bought/borrowed:
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise: Ruth Reichl (borrowed)
Beowulf: Seamus Heaney (translator)
An Englishman in Paris: L’education Continentale: Michael Sadler
From Here You Can’t See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and its Restaurant: Michael S. Sanders
Moneyball: Michael Lewis (borrowed)

Books read:
The Adventure of English – The Biography of a Language: Melvyn Bragg (abandoned)
Deliver Me from Nowhere: Tennessee Jones
A Year in Provence: Peter Mayle
The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life: William Brandt (not finished)
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise: Ruth Reichl

Before I begin, I have a few apologies to make. I’ve been a very bad column writer this month.

1. Nick Hornby. Aside from stealing not only your idea and the title that goes with it, I have somehow snuck my column on the second page of results when “Polysyllabic Spree” is searched for on Google. I’d like for people to think that I’m somehow associated with you by this discovery, but unfortunately, I’m not.

I begrudgingly admit now – to any new reader – that my name is Corey Vilhauer and I am in no way associated with Hornby, as much as I would like to be.

2. William Brandt. Mr. Brandt, I started your book and thoroughly enjoyed the first half of it. That’s as far as I’ve made it, though, because the public library called with two books that I had been on a waiting list for weeks to get. I couldn’t let the opportunities pass me by, so I had to drop your book. It’s still there on the shelf ready to be read, but just not now. Have patience, please.

3. Ruth Reichl. I’m sorry that I read your book after reading Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. I believe it may have dampened the effect of your writing. I’ll explain more later.

Okay. Let’s begin.

Tags: What I've Been Reading, Books, Literature |

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Mus musculus

June 29, 2005


We have a mouse.

It’s been living in our house for at least the past four days, but I’m not really that sure how it got in there. All I know is that, a few days ago, I heard a faint scuffling. I stopped what I was doing and listened. The sound had vanished.

The next day I heard a similar sound, this time from the other side of the attic. I turned off the air conditioner and strained to hear something – anything. Silence again.

This morning, however, Kerrie heard it. She mentioned something to me while I was in a coma-like state at 7 am and I quickly forgot about it – until I came home from work and something reminded me of it.

“Did you say you heard a squirrel in our house this morning?” I asked, suddenly confused as to why that thought popped into my head at that time.

The comment was confirmed, and we both tramped up stairs to search for the source of the elusive sound. We crawled back into a side closet, after reassembling the contents all over the floor, and pulled back a hidden wall to reveal the rest of our attic. It was dark.

I flashed a light inside and noticed something immediately: a stain, with rodent droppings scattered in a small circle inside of it, joining together to form a lovely piece of “excretionary” art. We asked for a second opinion, and Don gravely agreed.

A mouse. In our house.

So today I begin the battle of the attic. I have purchased mousetraps, which are every bit as stereotypical as those shown in Tom and Jerry cartoons. I’ll place them in the crawl space tonight, and I’ll await the first shot in our mammalian war. Peanut butter is my ammunition of choice.

I’ll have to kill them in an area I can catch them, so poison is out of the question – what if the mouse crawls back into the hidden and inaccessible recesses of our dormer and disappears, only to make itself known every summer when the room heats up?

Armed with balsa wood and peanut butter; some warrior I am.

–UPDATE–

After a long deliberation with her mom, Kerrie has come to the conclusion that it is probably not a mouse, but a bat. We’ve jumped the gun a little too much, I guess.

I’ll have to take my balsa wood mouse traps back.

*sigh* I thought I was so witty to put the scientific name of the house mouse as the title, but alas. Bats.

Tags: Vilhauer |

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Nick Hornby interview

June 29, 2005


Just a quick post to invite everyone to read the Nick Hornby interview over at Powells.com. If you don’t think he’s a wonderful author, then at least you can read this and realize that he’s a cool guy who you’d probably want to go have lots of beers with.

The interview is here.

Tags: Writers |

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Google sightseeing, now 50% more!

June 28, 2005


The Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France

Are you kidding me?

Just when I thought my obsession with Google Maps had died down three things happen to me.

First, Google Maps has updated their satellite views to include other countries. This has allowed my favorite blog (Google Sightseeing) to branch away from the United States and Canada just as both countries were beginning to dry out.

Second, Google Maps has released a standalone satellite program called Google Earth. It looks pretty good, and I’m sure I’ll be downloading it to the chagrin of Kerrie and my friends. I’m addicted.

Third, Chris led me to two more sites: a Google Maps scavenger hunt at Scavengeroogle.com (which is awesome, and as their catchphrase says, it’s designed to be something “to waste more of your time on,”) and Google Globetrotting, which is almost like a Google Map landmark database.

I wonder how many more times I can type the word Google.

Wow. Please help me.

Tags: Random Links |

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Claimed currency

June 27, 2005


It’s been exactly a month since I discovered my name on an unclaimed property list for the state of Minnesota, and I had been wondering if they were ever going to get back to me. I was curious what I had left behind in the Land of 10,000 Lakes – was it a simple retro-paycheck from some unpaid hours at FuncoLand? Or was it something more significant; a forty-dollar goof that somehow landed back at my old store and was not forwarded on to me.

Today, my wait was over. I received what looked like a rebate check from the Minnesota Department of Commerce and realized that I had finally received something that apparently was already mine. I opened it up, expecting a check for fifteen dollars at the most.

The check was much larger.

I somehow had left $300.76 in Minnesota.

How could this have happened? How did I manage to find, on total chance, my name on a Minnesota Department of Commerce website for a paycheck that I never picked up from a job that I hadn’t worked at for at least eight months before I left the state? There are so many reasons that this never should have happened:

1. I gave my forwarding address to FuncoLand (which had just changed into GameStop). In fact, on my last day of work I gave my address (to send my final check) and then when I left the state I gave them my new Sioux Falls address. Why, then, was this still listed as my college apartment – an apartment I didn’t even live in when I worked at FuncoLand the second time?

2. Why was my forwarding address not followed from that apartment building through all of the apartments until we moved? I know I gave a forwarding address to every apartment I’ve lived in since my first, so there shouldn’t be too much trouble. This one is easy: I’m pretty sure that the Minnesota Department of Commerce doesn’t really put too much work into finding owners for lost money. It probably just gets funneled into some sort of huge pool of money, which the DOC then uses for their Christmas parties and Fourth of July picnics.

3. Here’s the big one. How the hell did I manage to completely forget that I had another paycheck coming? How did I not realize that I was missing $300.00 in my checking account?

I may sound mad. I’m not. I’m a little confused, but incredibly happy. This was like finding a dollar in a coat from the past winter – except about three-hundred times cooler. I just don’t get how I could have lost this in the first place.

Regardless, it’s mine now. Forty hours of unpaid work have been returned to me. It really just goes to show how important keeping track of your money can be.

Who wants lunch? It’s on me.

Tags: Career |

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