We’ve all been waiting for this: Bad Scrabble Hands.

[via jess]

Drowning the kid.

Also: Raising Hell is looking for your hellish summer stories. Go look.

We went for a walk. The kids were at their grandparents’ and we went for a walk through the fields surrounding the village. The sun was setting behind the coal-fired power plant, it was beautiful.

Alpha stopped me. “Ssh.” A bunny.

A little bunny by the side of the path hadn’t noticed us yet. This had happened the week before, too. Long eared skinny little guy noticed us at the last moment, ran off into the corn field.

But this one was different. He stuck around even after he noticed us. He looked different too.

“That’s no wild rabbit,” Alpha said.
“You’re right.” He was a fat, short-eared little domestic rabbit, running loose.
“Someone must’ve set him out,” she said.
I walked closer. I wanted to see how close I could get. I got within a yard of him. “Maybe we could take him home to play with the cats?” He looks as though he’d let me pick him up.
“Maybe he has rabies,” she said.
“Rabies?”
“Rabies – you know how they act weirdly friendly with rabies.”
“Rabies.” Rabies. I take a sloow step backwards.
“Or maybe they just let him loose because he was a biter. I just read about a rabbit biting someone.”
“Biting.” I take another step backwards. I stand up straight and return to my wife.
“Cute little guy, though.”

Aries personalities like to win, as you know, so what better way to encourage them to run than to make them think they are kicking your ass? Alpha is an Aries. She’s been running. If I were to tell her, “go running” she wouldn’t. So I did this instead:

Alpha: “Hurry up, you snail.”
Miguel: [wheeze] “The hell with this. Sure is hot.” [walks a few steps, feigning fatigue]
Alpha: “And to think you used to tease me about running so slow.”
Miguel: [starts running again] “Watch out for those people on the bikes.” [bikes pass them, Miguel goes back to walking]
Alpha: “You’re such a fake!”
Miguel: “What?” [starts running again, backwards, then runs a circle around Alpha, starts walking again, then running again.]
Alpha: [shakes head, runs]
Miguel: “Are we there yet?”

Anyway, it worked, Alpha loves running now.

It is now more than six months since the president promised “a lot of government inquiry into Enron.” Since then, Playboy has done a better job of exposing the women of Enron than the Bush administration has done at exposing its men.

.enigne hcraes wen citsatnaf siht tuo kcdhC

I have had enough of the coarseness of modern life. Kill, kill, kill. Yawn, bo-ring. Why can’t we all just get along? And while we’re at it, why can’t adults stop wearing short pants except in special cases, like when they’re mountain climbing? And when did the human metabolism change so that we now die of thirst if we go ten minutes without a drink, so that everyone is now constantly suckling on a bottle of some beverage as they walk down the street in their short pants? My contribution will be to stop saying “fuck” here, at least, and to stop trying to run tailgaters off the road and giving them the finger.

Alpha and I went for a walk last night. She expressed her concern about Gamma, who, when she meets people, neglects to greet them or shake their hand. See, I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but here in Austria it is considered proper when you meet people – unless it’s like a party of 100 or something, but up to a dozen at least – that you go around and say “Grüss Gott” and shake everyone’s hand. Maybe Austria is a country of psychos, but if you don’t do this, someone will feel insulted. To me it seems sick, as if people are looking for reasons to feel insulted – “your 5-year-old didn’t greet me!” – but it results in a generally higher level of politeness. When you pass someone on the street (walking) you greet them – the younger person greets the older person. In small towns, not big cities, that’d take forever, of course greeting everyone, so you don’t do that. But in my village, I encountered a group of hard-core punks, with the usual body modifications and fantastic hair colors, and they all politely said, “Grüss Gott”. So I laughed at them.

Austrians can be rude, I’m just saying there is a code of manners here that, like it or not (and I don’t always like it), I think is not all bad. I know this site is named Feral Living but I sometimes question the value of absolute savagery.

I’m not saying children should not get into mudfights or spray their grandparents with high-pressure squirtguns. But I’m starting to think that Francis was right when he said it is good to be nice. I argued that kindness is better than niceness, but I now think they’re both good. What’s wrong with being polite and civilized? What’s wrong with giving other people a chance to speak, and listening to them?

I would encourage people to dress better and in accordance with their age, to get better haircuts (lose the mullet), to wait their turn and not take cuts, and to listen to people, to clean up after themselves, and not to carry around the fucking stupid drink bottles everywhere they go. And dozens more. What would you change if you had the power?