Clint Sharp’s Blog an’ Vlog

Some of you are familiar with Clint’s talent as a nighttime conversationalist. For those of you who are not, let me assure you that his daytime wit and charm continues long after he has fallen asleep. I often climb into bed after he’s drifted off to la-la land, and if I’m lucky, I get to hear part of what I’m sure is a very interesting dream. Last night’s admission was of particular amusment - so much so that I have added it to my list of favorite nighttime Clintisms, which I will present now.

1. “The Republicans and Democrats are skewing my queue!”

2. “Alright folks, we’ll begin our decent into O’Hare International in about 15 minutes so sit back and enjoy the bumpy ride.”

And finally, last nights particularly emotional revelation:

3. “The fractions got me here! The fractions took me there! Ohhhhhhh! The fractions!! The fractions got me here. No! Not the fractions again.”

The first two make a bit of sense when you consider that number 1 was spoken shortly after the 2000 elections and the second was within this last year of frequent travel. The meaning of the thrid is truly lost on me. Perhaps Clint himself will have some insights. If he has been working with fractions, this is the first I’ve heard of it. If you have any theories, or if you have knowledge of any medication that keeps one from talking in their sleep, let me know.

’till then,
Adidas

I did something different today. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and have spent hours reading up on it, but today I finally did it. I colored my own hair. Now, coloring my hair is not different at all for me. In fact, if you were to ask me what my natural hair color was I would honestly have no idea. I think it’s a light brownish, reddish, with lots other weird colors (like black) mixed in - but I can’t be sure. I’ve wanted to go darker for a while but no stylist wants to do this. I’m really not sure why, but they always convince me to do blonde highlights - unless I want red, then everyone’s willing to do that. Red, I think, is a stylist’s favorite color because it fades so quickly you have to go back every two to three weeks to have it re-done. But I digress. I decided on Clairol Herbal Essences #62 - Cocoa Infusion which is described as a medium brown. I bought two boxes because my hair is really think, and it’s fairly long now so I thought it would be smart to make sure I had enough. After reading the directions and deciding to skip the allergy test and the strand test I set to work. The process is quite simple, but I did run into a couple of snags. Pouring the contents of bottle #1 into bottle #2 was simple, but after you combine, you must Place gloved finger over applicator tip and shake until the mixture is totally blended. Sounds easy enough….. I shook those bottles (decided to mix both at the same time) for over 15 minutes and it still didn’t look “totally blended”. But since I’d shaken for a good amount of time I figured that it was probably as blended as it was going to get. In the end, this didn’t turn out to be any kind of problem. What was a bit of a problem was getting all of my hair saturated with this stuff. I sectioned off my hair and worked with one section at a time, but I think I should have made more sections. I used over half of the second bottle because I kept looking for missed spots. I found a lot of missed spots. In the end, confident that every inch of my hair was coated in a a nice brown goo, I loosely piled my hair on top of my head and waited. After 30 minutes, I hopped into the shower. There is one thing that no one tells you about this step - when the water hits your head, the color flies all over that shower. I spent 10 extra minutes in there just washing down the walls and shower curtain. It was a mess. After blow drying it and putting on some makeup, I am pretty happy with the results. The only problem is that either A. some of my hair refused to accept this new color. or B. Despite my checking and re-checking, I missed a couple of spots. None of these “spots” are that bad, of course it’s kind of hard to make that determination on my own. I’m guessing I can wait a week and then re-apply color to the missed spots if it still seems necessary. The color of my hair is considerably darker than the picture on the front of the box. I would describe this as more a very dark brown…. chocolate might be closer. It’s different, I don’t think my hair has ever been this color before. My hair is pretty soft and smells nice - it even smelled good while the color was on there. Coloring my own hair was an interesting experience. The last time my hair was made a different color in my home was back in 1992 just before christmas. A friend helped me with it and while it was supposed to turn out a sandy blonde color, I remember it being more of a gross brass color. I wasn’t fond of it - about 4 months later this same friend set me up on a blind date with my now ex-husband. We’re no longer friends.

BTW: I’m still reading Atlas Shrugged, it’s got me interested, I just haven’t had much time to read. Hopefully, I’ll have more time this week.

’till then,
Cheers!

Whoever invented Surround sound must have never been in an average living room. In the last 4 years, I have lived four places. Besides how scary it is that I’ve been willing to move that many times (twice already this year, once 2000+ miles away), it’s amazing how I’ve managed consistently chose places that seem to have a big hole in nearly every wall which prevents running cables around to behind my sofa(s) for my surround sound speakers. In every place I’ve lived, the living room seems to be a gateway to everywhere else, when in reality what I want is it to be the destination. I don’t care to go anywhere from my living room. Once I’m there, I’m fine with traversing any other room to get where I need to go, as long as there’s only one small hole in the walls of my living room for a doorway.

In fairness, both my wife and I are to blame for choosing this shitty place. One, I was guilty for choosing this place to begin with (which Mel has no problem reminding me of), but she was the one who looked at this apartment. When I came back from Cayman, I’d never seen the place. However, I’m digressing, because that’s not really relevant to this rant.

We have been able to harness the airwaves for almost 100 years now. Transmitting audio over the airwaves was a close second to transmitting short bleeps of on and off. So, why the hell am I still worrying about cables for my speakers 100 years later? Seriously, there’s no reason that in 100 years someone hasn’t found a way to eliminate nearly everything but the power wire. If Tesla hadn’t died early, we might have all had wireless power too (and cancer). Even in the last twenty years, I don’t understand why everything I have still doesn’t talk wirelessly. I don’t care if it’s digital, I’d be fine with analog wireless that everything uses to talk. Every computer on the Internet can speak the same language, why can’t every device in my entertainment center send video and sound to each other wirelessly? I can receive television signals from miles away, but my Tivo can’t talk to my tuner and my television that’s less than 3 feet away.

I’m still not seeing the Bluetooth equipped tuner yet. I thought Bluetooth was going to revolutionize the way everything hooks up? So far, the only application I see is getting your cell phone to talk to a headset or your PC wirelessly. It really should be taking over home entertainment. Having amplification in the tuner isn’t really necessary anymore. There’s no reason they can’t fit a 50 watt amplifier in my 10″ speakers and a 10 watt in my 3″ surround speakers. There’s no reason I can’t tell my speakers through a dip switch which channel (front left, front right, front center, etc) I want them to listen to and play. I don’t think I should have to pay extra for this, not at this point anyways. Where’s Apple in my home entertainment life, making everything as easy as an Airport base station?

Someday, after I move, I’ll just stack everything up in the Entertainment center, plug it into the power and start watching TV. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone’s ignoring this ease of use. Whoever gets it first will get my money, that’s for damned sure.

I always feel kind of lazy whenever I fill out one of those “Getting to know you” questionaires because they always ask the dreaded question; “What are your hobbies?”. Sometimes I consider lying just to make myself more interesting, but I end up jotting down the same boring answers.
I enjoy reading, watching movies, and spending time with friends.
I guess I could add sewing to the list, but I don’t know if that’s really a hobby. I would prefer my answer to look like this:
I enjoy snow skiing, rock climbing, ice sculpture, fight club, and am a member of the Vidocq Society.
But no…. instead, I read and watch movies and then talk about my most recent mental adventures with other people who are also not members of the Vidocq Society.
At any rate, reading is my main hobby and I guess it’s a pretty decent one to have. Recently, I’ve read some books I normally wouldn’t have bothered with. For ages, I only read classics and newer books by certain authors. So in between Stienbeck and Dickens, I would indulge myself with a nice, hollow Michael Crichton or Tony Hillerman book. I know neither Crichton nor Hillerman are exceptional authors. Both of them write one book over and over again. I’ll sum up for you in case you’ve never read one of their books.
Every Michael Crichton fiction novel: Science minded people invent something new and remarkable. The something new and remarkable does something unexpected resulting in a crisis. Science minded people spend the rest of the book trying to control said crisis and the world is saved at the very last second.
Every Tony Hillerman fiction novel: Navajo Tribal police officers investigate a crime that to them and all the locals, at first, appears to be related to supernatural activity. Upon further investigation (usually by Jim Chee or Joe Leaphorn), a logical explanation is uncovered, arrests are made, and everyone is just as miserable as they were in the beginning.
Despite the seemingly repetitive nature of both these authors, I truly enjoy almost everything they write. Recently, I realized that surely others are writing good, even spectacular, fiction as we speak. It started when a friend loaned me a copy of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I read it and loved it. It was really quite good - one of the better books I’d read in the last 5 years. So I started looking at the bestsellers list, and the “Popular Fiction” displays at my local bookstore. My quest for good, recent fiction has been mostly successful. Life of Pi by Yann Martel was fantastic, as was A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines. I was a bit dissapointed in The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (good story, but not the greatest writer) and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (again, great story but would have been much better in the hands of a more competent author). The real gem in all of this has been Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This book was simply fantastic and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a book as much as this one. If you haven’t read it, I can’t recommend it enough. Unless you don’t read too good, then you should pick up the audiobook…. or maybe just skip it altogether. I also picked up his The Virgin Suicides which was also very well written, though not as enjoyable as Middlesex. So after the Eugenides books, I know the next book will most likely suck. That is why I have chosen Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as my next undertaking. And undertaking is likely to be an understatement. This book is 1069 pages long and with a much smaller font size than what you normally see in a mass market paperback. I’m guessing I’ll have to put in at least 2 weeks of reading to get through this one. I know this book is considered important and I’ve known many people who think it’s one of the greatest books ever written. Unfortunately, I’ve disliked a great many of these people who deem it required reading. I admit, the back cover isn’t overly inspiring.
The astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world - and did.
It goes on to tell me that this book is tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense. The breathtaking part sounds pretty good, but tremendous in scope? I’m not liking the sound of that… maybe 3 weeks is more realistic. I am going to try to enjoy it. This book is promising to answer the immortal query “who is John Galt?”. Personally, until I read the back cover, I didn’t know that was a question that was supposed to haunt me. Maybe after I read the book it will. Time will tell, it might be really fantastic. I’m 21 pages into it and I haven’t tried to hang myself with a leather belt yet. If you’ve read this book, let me know what you thought. I might give up on it and move on to something less tremendous. At any rate, I’ll be back in 2 to 3 weeks to give my final word on it. Not that my final word is definitive, but I figure if you’ve read this whole post you deserve to know how it went.

‘Til then,
Cheers!