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Wednesday, November 19, 2003
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 this journey
Thank-you for sharing this journey with me.
7:45:31 PM 
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 murphy's law
Of course when the ducks were plopped in the fountain, they did the stupidest, most un-photogenic thing possible. They all fell on their sides and drifted over to the cement wall.
(I was imagining them bobbing proudly atop the ripples, looking very appealing to curious passersby).
7:43:27 PM
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7:39:26 PM
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 at last
At last here is the fountain that the rubber ducks have been set to bob in.
As part of an ongoing Duh! feature, anyone who retrieves one of these ducks from this fountain and can prove they have possession will be entitled to 5 Duh! points. (And the ducks have been specially marked, so you can't just buy your own.)
(Contest is not open to Matt).
7:38:23 PM
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 my nemisis
There's always something a little strange or coincidental when I undertake something like the duck project. This time it was my encounter with the fountain man. First, remember that the ultimate goal with the ducks is to put them in the fountain. Also, remember that last night I settled for throwing hot dogs in a fountain as a plan b substitute, since I couldn't find any ducks yet.
Well, anyway, sometimes I will wonder about the person or persons who will have to deal with the consequences of my absurd actions, that is, clean up my ducks and hot dogs when all of the fun and games are over and real life has to go on. This of course would be the professional fountain cleaner.
Now, I have never met or even heard of a professional fountain cleaner until this afternoon when I was about to throw my ducks in this beautiful fountain. In fact, I didn't even know such a specialty existed. (I figured it was a side job for pool guys, or just something that the general maintenance man took care of. But this guy was strictly a fountain man, it even said so on his van, and I've got pictures to prove it.)
So anyway, fate would have it that today I would have my first encounter with a flesh and blood fountain cleaner man. He spent most of his time scooping out various things with his net.
I had noticed earliery in the day that the hot dogs in the other fountain were nowhere to be found. Could the fountain man have already extracted them.
I thought about asking him if he'd ever pulled hot dogs from a fountain in the course of his profession, but then I thought better of it.
7:25:38 PM
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6:08:12 PM
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6:06:35 PM
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5:56:39 PM
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5:53:51 PM
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 I bought some cheap towels at bed, bath and beyond the other day. Now every time I wipe my face with them I have little fuzzies that cling to my stubble.
*When I'm doing something like photographing rubber duckies in public places, I really don't want anyone to look at me or aske me what I'm doing. I'm always in kind of a rush to get my shot before anyone gets too curious, or starts standing behind me looking over my shoulder.
If I could have my druthers I would have a"freeze everyone in the world" button so I could go about my important work and not be bothered.
5:45:43 PM
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terrible dilemma
 I have this terrible dilemma with my blog. I will want to write a funny, unflattering thing about somebody, but then I will remember that I just gave them one of my blog cards the night before.
Or I will want to give somebody a blog card, and then remember that I just wrote a funny, unflattering thing about them.
What I need is a large group of people to write funny, unflattering things about who are kept in total ignorance about blogs. Then I need a huge audience of blog readers that I never come in contact with.
5:27:59 PM
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duh.cc
 Feeling an urgent need to start promoting my blog I rushed out to kinko's to get some "Duh!" business cards made. Of course, the lady at Kinko's was no high design genius and was able to offer no imagination or advice on how to make a hip, eye catching business card. She just let me pick through a meager collection of fonts which you would have found on Microsort Word, 1986 version.
And since my blog is hosted by salon.com it has a long jibberish trail of letters and numbers that you have to type in to get there. But I just put the jibberish trail on the card and figured if anyone was really interested they would type it in.
A few days later I got the cards back from Kinko's. They didn't look too bad for something made on the fly. The cards featured the slogan, "Mark Michaels' life caught in the net."
Then that very night, my friend Matt told he got me a present. "Your own unique web domain: duh.cc."
"Cool," I said. "Now I just have to write that on one thousand business cards."
5:12:09 PM
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even funnier
 I can't help but have a funny feeling when I got to a store and buy nothing but rubber duckies. A grown man buying tub toys in the middle of the day. I always have some sort of excuse ready in case the cashier at the dollar store raises an eyebrow or asks me about my purchase. My excuse was going to be something about my kid's birthday party. Last minute party favors or something.
But of course the cashier is just tired, and jaded, and underpaid and she says nothing at all except, "have a nice day."
Somehow this makes me feel even funnier.
4:56:15 PM
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what our troops are fighting for
 Part of what our troops are fighting for over in Iraq and Afghanistan is to defend our freedoms. What freedom is more sacred and cherished than our freedom to photograph rubber ducks in an urban area on the middle of a Wednesday.
4:41:41 PM
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1:48:05 PM
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 Everything is going according to plan
Despite an obvious conspiracy to thwart me from my rubber duckie project, I have nontheless procured a small number of high grade specimes.
Now all that remains is to plant them in the appropriate public forum. Of course I will have to change cabs three or four times along my route, and use body doubles to shake the many shadowy counteragents which are constantly lurking nearby.
1:46:16 PM
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I have no idea why my screen has become so ridiculously wide. Somebody please help me.
Anyway, I have the day off unexpectedly due to inclement weather. This means I have ample time to look for rubber ducks. I feel like if I can't find rubber ducks I will settle for used bowling balls.
10:55:32 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Mark Michaels.
Last update: 12/1/2003; 7:05:01 PM.
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