Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Times They Are A Changin'
It's been a really long time since I've posted anything here, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's been nearly equally as long since you've read anything here. I'm kind of going out on a limb assuming anyone will ever read this post. But in case you are here, and not merely a figment of my overactive imagination, you should head on over to my new photo blog that is up and running as of today. I don't know how often I'll update it... I'm not all that reliable when it comes to stuff like that... but I can guarantee if you visit there will be at least one relatively cute picture of my son awaiting your arrival. Because I've already posted that. You can get there either by clicking on the link in the title of this post, or by navigating to my profile, where I'm pretty sure there is also a link. That's about all I have to say about that.
Friday, November 25, 2005
I'm pretty sure at least one of these is funny
From The New Yorker, Nov 21, 2005:
"The woman, Doxy Nash, had been married to an undertaker and worked beside him. Stubbs had entered their funeral parlor one day, just to browse. Smitten, he tried to make flirtatious conversation with her, but she was too busy cremating someone. It wasn't long before Stubbs and Doxy Nash began having a secret affair, although soon she found out about it. Her undertaker husband, Wilbur, liked Stubbs and offered to bury him gratis if he would agree to have it done that day. Stubbs knocked him unconscious and ran away with his wife,but not before substituting a rubber bow-up doll in her place. One evening, after three of the happiest year's of Wilbur Nash's life, he became suspicious when he asked his wife for more chicken and she suddenly popped and flew around the room in ever-diminishing circles, coming to rest on the carpet." - Woody Allen
From Overheard in New York, Nov 22, 2005
"Guy: I'm domestic.
Chick: You are so not domestic.
Guy: I'm a lazy domestic.
Chick: You leave bags of garbage on the floor of your room for days at a time!
Guy: Whatever. Domesticated cows shit inside." - Overheard by: djlindee
"The woman, Doxy Nash, had been married to an undertaker and worked beside him. Stubbs had entered their funeral parlor one day, just to browse. Smitten, he tried to make flirtatious conversation with her, but she was too busy cremating someone. It wasn't long before Stubbs and Doxy Nash began having a secret affair, although soon she found out about it. Her undertaker husband, Wilbur, liked Stubbs and offered to bury him gratis if he would agree to have it done that day. Stubbs knocked him unconscious and ran away with his wife,but not before substituting a rubber bow-up doll in her place. One evening, after three of the happiest year's of Wilbur Nash's life, he became suspicious when he asked his wife for more chicken and she suddenly popped and flew around the room in ever-diminishing circles, coming to rest on the carpet." - Woody Allen
From Overheard in New York, Nov 22, 2005
"Guy: I'm domestic.
Chick: You are so not domestic.
Guy: I'm a lazy domestic.
Chick: You leave bags of garbage on the floor of your room for days at a time!
Guy: Whatever. Domesticated cows shit inside." - Overheard by: djlindee
Friday, October 21, 2005
This year's winner of the Excellence in Journalistic Integrity Award is...
If you're like me, spending most of your days in a dark cave buried deep underground, you may have missed this example of journalism at its finest. Click on the link. PLEASE click on the link. I spent the better part of an hour this morning at work laughing at the ridiculousness of this video. A grown woman pretending to paddle a canoe down a flooded street. A grown woman desperate to convince YOU, the viewing audience, that there was no other way she could possibly report on this flooding, while maintaing dry ankles at least, other than from inside a canoe. This is news. This and celebrity gossip at least. I heard something recently about ummm... genocide? Someplace? Didn't hear about it on the news mind you. Africa is awfully far away to have to paddle your News Canoe.
You know what the great thing is? That she got caught. You know what the even GREATER thing is? That she maintains that there was nothing wrong with her approach.
Quoting from http://www.observer.com/media_nytv.asp:
"Her one lingering concern: “That it might have looked to some people like we were trying to put something over on viewers,” she said.
“That would just be idiotic.”"
Right. Idiotic. Unlike paddling a canoe through 3 inches of water. THAT my friends, is brilliant.
You know what the great thing is? That she got caught. You know what the even GREATER thing is? That she maintains that there was nothing wrong with her approach.
Quoting from http://www.observer.com/media_nytv.asp:
"Her one lingering concern: “That it might have looked to some people like we were trying to put something over on viewers,” she said.
“That would just be idiotic.”"
Right. Idiotic. Unlike paddling a canoe through 3 inches of water. THAT my friends, is brilliant.
Witggen-who?
"God may say to me: 'I am judging you out of your own mouth. Your own actions have made you shudder with disgust when you have seen other people do them.'" - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value
P.S. Apologies for my recent absence, unfortunately, I was taken ill. I think that's the first time I've ever typed the phrase "taken ill." How antediluvian of me.
P.S. Apologies for my recent absence, unfortunately, I was taken ill. I think that's the first time I've ever typed the phrase "taken ill." How antediluvian of me.
Monday, October 10, 2005
BTW, Happy Columbus Day.
In celebration of this great American holiday, a holiday whose sole purpose is to recognize the achievements of a man who got hopelessly lost one day while travelling to India, I have reprinted a bit of writing that was once (and actually still is somewhere...) on another website of mine. This way, if you were looking for this piece of writing on my other website, but got hopelessly lost and came here instead, all would not have been in vain. HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY!!!
Hi. My name is Mike Moore. I live in Maryland. For the benefit of those of you out there reading this who are generally ignorant of things, let me explain. Maryland is a state in a country called the United States of America. Maryland is a happy, fun, joyful place where many people of different backgrounds live and work. Maryland became the 7th state to enter the Union on April 28th, 1788. Since that time many wonderful things have happened in Maryland, such as in October of 1998 when milk officially became the state drink. Lots of other stuff has happened here too, but I think you get the idea. Let’s move on to the United States of America. It is a fine country where many people of different backgrounds live and work. Sometimes, when people want to cut down on how much they have to say or type, instead of calling it the United States of America, they just call it America. I think I’ll call it America from here on out. Typing is very time-consuming, and people only live so long.
Sometimes I digress. This just happens to be one of those times. Digressing is when you mean to talk about one thing, but in the course of your discussion you discover that there are many other fun things to talk about too. Eventually you forget what it was exactly you had started talking about. That’s why typing comes in handy. Instead of having to try and remember what it was you were talking about, you can simply glance back at the words that you had been typing before you began your digression. In this instance, I was talking about America. America is generally considered by its citizens to be one of the greatest and most powerful countries in the world, but this wasn’t always the case. A long time ago America wasn’t even a country. It was inhabited by long-haired people who didn’t wear many clothes. They were called hippies. Ha-ha. That’s a joke. A joke is like a little story with a funny surprise ending. Your brain doesn’t expect the surprise ending and becomes confused. When people are confused they tend to laugh. That’s because they feel awkward and out of place, and laughing helps them feel more comfortable. The jokes that work best are the ones that make people feel awkward and out of place, though other people might tell you different. That’s because they’re misinformed. Misinformation happens to be one of the two most popular forms of information. The first one being, of course, no information.
But I should get back to the hippies. Back before America became a country they weren’t called hippies. Back then they were called… come to think of it; I have no idea what they were called back then. Right now I am doing something that is called admitting I don’t know everything. It’s always good to admit you don’t know everything from time to time, that way, when you’re making stuff up about things that you know nothing about people will take your word for it, because they’ll remember that other time when you admitted you didn’t know everything, and they will assume that if this was one of those times then you would admit it here too. Assuming is when you make an ass out of you and my dad. At least that’s what he used to say. That’s another joke, though possibly not as funny as the first. But I digress… I was saying that I didn’t know what the hippies were called back before America was a country. I know that today we call them Native Americans. At least that’s what we called them the last time I checked. We used to call them Indians until somebody pointed out that they weren’t technically from India, but were instead from America.
You might think that this would lead us to call them Americans, but that’s not what happened. Calling the Native Americans just Americans would upset a lot of people who live in America but aren’t native. That’s why we call them Native Americans. They’re not the only Americans that receive special designation based upon their ancestral heritage. Some people call people whose ancestors lived in Africa, African Americans. Some people call people whose ancestors lived in Asia, Asian Americans. People whose ancestors lived in Europe are not generally called European Americans. They are called just plain Americans. I’m not sure why this is other than the fact that the people whose ancestors lived in Europe are generally the ones making up the names for the people who live in America. Getting back to the hippies, they lived here before anyone else. Then, in August of 1492, a man named Christopher Columbus decided to sail around the world. Christopher Columbus was from Europe. He thought the world was spherical. The world is actually an ellipse, but that’s pretty close. Columbus also thought that the world was much smaller than it really is. This is because Europeans back then were unaware of the existence of America. Many Europeans today would like to pretend that they are unaware of the existence of America, but we like to remind them by blowing things up on their side of the world from time to time. Columbus thought he could sail around the world and get famous and was awfully disappointed to find all these hippies in his way.
He went back to Europe and told important people about what he found and all of a sudden everyone with a boat was heading to America, which seemed like a great place, aside from the hippies. Eventually the hippies were moved further and further away from where the Europeans wanted to live and today reside mostly in Arizona and San Francisco near the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. About the same time that the hippies were being moved, a group of people called the “British” started to take over. They were called “British” because they were from a country named England. Generally speaking the British believe that the things they do are much better than the things that other people do. They believe it so much that they used to go around the world telling people from all sorts of cultures to stop doing things how they had been and start doing them like the British. They don’t do that anymore. That’s the job of the Americans now. So the British started to colonize America and soon there were all kinds of British people living here. The problem with that was that the British who lived in England kept telling the British who lived in America what to do and the British who lived in America, being British, didn’t much like that. So on July 4th, 1776, the British people who lived in America declared their independence.
And that is, in a nutshell, why we celebrate Columbus Day, because without Christopher Columbus, we'd probably all be living in England right now, forced to listen to a bunch of British people tell us what to do. And nobody wants that. Hooray Columbus!
Hi. My name is Mike Moore. I live in Maryland. For the benefit of those of you out there reading this who are generally ignorant of things, let me explain. Maryland is a state in a country called the United States of America. Maryland is a happy, fun, joyful place where many people of different backgrounds live and work. Maryland became the 7th state to enter the Union on April 28th, 1788. Since that time many wonderful things have happened in Maryland, such as in October of 1998 when milk officially became the state drink. Lots of other stuff has happened here too, but I think you get the idea. Let’s move on to the United States of America. It is a fine country where many people of different backgrounds live and work. Sometimes, when people want to cut down on how much they have to say or type, instead of calling it the United States of America, they just call it America. I think I’ll call it America from here on out. Typing is very time-consuming, and people only live so long.
Sometimes I digress. This just happens to be one of those times. Digressing is when you mean to talk about one thing, but in the course of your discussion you discover that there are many other fun things to talk about too. Eventually you forget what it was exactly you had started talking about. That’s why typing comes in handy. Instead of having to try and remember what it was you were talking about, you can simply glance back at the words that you had been typing before you began your digression. In this instance, I was talking about America. America is generally considered by its citizens to be one of the greatest and most powerful countries in the world, but this wasn’t always the case. A long time ago America wasn’t even a country. It was inhabited by long-haired people who didn’t wear many clothes. They were called hippies. Ha-ha. That’s a joke. A joke is like a little story with a funny surprise ending. Your brain doesn’t expect the surprise ending and becomes confused. When people are confused they tend to laugh. That’s because they feel awkward and out of place, and laughing helps them feel more comfortable. The jokes that work best are the ones that make people feel awkward and out of place, though other people might tell you different. That’s because they’re misinformed. Misinformation happens to be one of the two most popular forms of information. The first one being, of course, no information.
But I should get back to the hippies. Back before America became a country they weren’t called hippies. Back then they were called… come to think of it; I have no idea what they were called back then. Right now I am doing something that is called admitting I don’t know everything. It’s always good to admit you don’t know everything from time to time, that way, when you’re making stuff up about things that you know nothing about people will take your word for it, because they’ll remember that other time when you admitted you didn’t know everything, and they will assume that if this was one of those times then you would admit it here too. Assuming is when you make an ass out of you and my dad. At least that’s what he used to say. That’s another joke, though possibly not as funny as the first. But I digress… I was saying that I didn’t know what the hippies were called back before America was a country. I know that today we call them Native Americans. At least that’s what we called them the last time I checked. We used to call them Indians until somebody pointed out that they weren’t technically from India, but were instead from America.
You might think that this would lead us to call them Americans, but that’s not what happened. Calling the Native Americans just Americans would upset a lot of people who live in America but aren’t native. That’s why we call them Native Americans. They’re not the only Americans that receive special designation based upon their ancestral heritage. Some people call people whose ancestors lived in Africa, African Americans. Some people call people whose ancestors lived in Asia, Asian Americans. People whose ancestors lived in Europe are not generally called European Americans. They are called just plain Americans. I’m not sure why this is other than the fact that the people whose ancestors lived in Europe are generally the ones making up the names for the people who live in America. Getting back to the hippies, they lived here before anyone else. Then, in August of 1492, a man named Christopher Columbus decided to sail around the world. Christopher Columbus was from Europe. He thought the world was spherical. The world is actually an ellipse, but that’s pretty close. Columbus also thought that the world was much smaller than it really is. This is because Europeans back then were unaware of the existence of America. Many Europeans today would like to pretend that they are unaware of the existence of America, but we like to remind them by blowing things up on their side of the world from time to time. Columbus thought he could sail around the world and get famous and was awfully disappointed to find all these hippies in his way.
He went back to Europe and told important people about what he found and all of a sudden everyone with a boat was heading to America, which seemed like a great place, aside from the hippies. Eventually the hippies were moved further and further away from where the Europeans wanted to live and today reside mostly in Arizona and San Francisco near the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. About the same time that the hippies were being moved, a group of people called the “British” started to take over. They were called “British” because they were from a country named England. Generally speaking the British believe that the things they do are much better than the things that other people do. They believe it so much that they used to go around the world telling people from all sorts of cultures to stop doing things how they had been and start doing them like the British. They don’t do that anymore. That’s the job of the Americans now. So the British started to colonize America and soon there were all kinds of British people living here. The problem with that was that the British who lived in England kept telling the British who lived in America what to do and the British who lived in America, being British, didn’t much like that. So on July 4th, 1776, the British people who lived in America declared their independence.
And that is, in a nutshell, why we celebrate Columbus Day, because without Christopher Columbus, we'd probably all be living in England right now, forced to listen to a bunch of British people tell us what to do. And nobody wants that. Hooray Columbus!
So you think you know worthless trivia, do you?
In a previous post it was suggested that there should be a worthless trivia day on my blog to go along with the INCREDIBLY popular, albeit somewhat erratically chosen, quote day. Would that be the day or the quote which is erratically chosen, you ask. It's not important. The point is, not one to let such a lovely gauntlet lay idly, I am now pleased to present to you: Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Day. Of course, today is half over, so maybe we should make it Worthless Trivia Week. Yeah, as a matter of fact I'm not even going to ask opinions on this one. Instead, I am now overjoyed to present to you: Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week.
This week of raucous festivites and madcap celebrations begins today, and will be filled with all sorts of exciting goings-on, rest assured. For example, today will be the beginning of the succinctly-named, First Annual "Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week" Ultimate Worthless Triva Contest.
The Rules are simple. And apparently capitalized. Not sure why that is really, except maybe I haven't been getting enough sleep at night. Anyway, all you have to do is submit your most worthless piece of trivia, and voila! My readers... ok, me actually... everyone knows I'm the only one who reads this drivel... ummm... what was I saying? Readers. Right. My readers will attempt to answer your trivia question. Maybe they'll post one of their own. Or maybe they won't. It's quite possible they're all incredibly lazy. Birds of a feather and whatnot. Anyway, at the end of the week, a panel of experts... yeah, me again, will convene and pore over all the entries received, before ultimately crowning one of them the Ultimate First Annual "Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week" Ultimate Worthless Trivia Contest winner.
Also I plan on saying ultimate a lot. And trivia. And worthless. So this week might be a good week to skip reading my blog. Which makes this week a lot like last week, only more contemporary. Funny how that works.
ANYway. To get the ball rolling I will offer up my first entry into the First Annual "Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week" Ultimate Worthless Triva Contest.
In what century did metallic currency fall below 50% of the money supply in England?
That's it! Good luck with the question, and I look forward to laughing at your implausibly incorrect attempts to answer.
This week of raucous festivites and madcap celebrations begins today, and will be filled with all sorts of exciting goings-on, rest assured. For example, today will be the beginning of the succinctly-named, First Annual "Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week" Ultimate Worthless Triva Contest.
The Rules are simple. And apparently capitalized. Not sure why that is really, except maybe I haven't been getting enough sleep at night. Anyway, all you have to do is submit your most worthless piece of trivia, and voila! My readers... ok, me actually... everyone knows I'm the only one who reads this drivel... ummm... what was I saying? Readers. Right. My readers will attempt to answer your trivia question. Maybe they'll post one of their own. Or maybe they won't. It's quite possible they're all incredibly lazy. Birds of a feather and whatnot. Anyway, at the end of the week, a panel of experts... yeah, me again, will convene and pore over all the entries received, before ultimately crowning one of them the Ultimate First Annual "Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week" Ultimate Worthless Trivia Contest winner.
Also I plan on saying ultimate a lot. And trivia. And worthless. So this week might be a good week to skip reading my blog. Which makes this week a lot like last week, only more contemporary. Funny how that works.
ANYway. To get the ball rolling I will offer up my first entry into the First Annual "Underdeveloped Thinking's First (Annual?) Worthless Trivia Week" Ultimate Worthless Triva Contest.
In what century did metallic currency fall below 50% of the money supply in England?
That's it! Good luck with the question, and I look forward to laughing at your implausibly incorrect attempts to answer.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
It's Quote Day, It's Quote Day, Come and see what I wrote Day!
"We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us." - Osama Bin Laden, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
This post protected by the First Amendment
"I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. No constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." - Judge Learned Hand, (1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals
Where did THIS come from?
Indulge me for a moment while I go off on a rant of Chicken Littlesque proportions. Our democracy is failing. Back in the day, when the threat of communism was being exposed as not much of a threat at all, when communist regimes were falling by the handful due to that form of government's seeming inherent inability to sustain itself, conventional wisdom told us that communist, socialist governments were a silly idea that could obviously never work. Today the same is being proved of capitalist democracies. Our country is tearing itself apart, day after day the rhetoric becomes uglier and more offensive, and nobody I know seems the least bit concerned.
Over on the far left The Michael Moore’s, Cindy Sheehan’s, and John Kerry’s of the world are all screaming at the top of their lungs about how horribly the current administration is handling everything from the war in Iraq, to the nomination of judges and supreme court justices; from tax cuts, to the weather. The folks on the right aren’t much better or brighter, promising a smaller, more efficient government and military, while real world events necessitate spending billions of unbudgeted dollars.
Meanwhile everyone keeps attacking everyone else, using ridiculously flawed arguments to try to win public approval in the media. When Cindy Sheehan disgraces the memory of her heroic fallen son, the lefties cry “She has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!” When John Kerry calls an ongoing military operation “the wrong war at the wrong time,” demoralizing troops by calling into question the legality and morality of their actions, the message repeats, “He has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!”
Well I say take your freedom of speech and shove it up your ass. I don’t care what Cindy Sheehan or John Kerry think. I don’t really care much anymore what the Bill-o-Reilly’s of the world think either. Freedom of speech is a good idea in concept, but to use it as an excuse to sling hatred and animosity around, well, I just think that maybe some of those free speakers should shut the f*** up.
Look, as far as I can tell, we’re all in this together. Everyone would be much better served by the politicians and the folks in the media trying to figure out some way we can all get along and play nice together. Unfortunately, playing nice doesn’t generate high ratings for the nightly news, or eye-catching headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Could you imagine? “Bush, Kerry Agree To Share Toys.” Details at 11.
I hate to take the side of the president, since everyone knows what a horrible God-fearing person he is, but is there even a remote possibility that Bush did not dream up Hurricane Katrina as a way to kill black people? Is it possible that the war in Iraq was meant to stop the atrocities of a crazed dictator who was killing off his own people by the tens of thousands? Is it also possible that tax cuts across every economic spectrum were meant to spur a lagging economy and make this country a better place for lower, middle and upper income folks alike? Maybe?
It’s a wonder that no president has ever gotten up in front of his presidential pulpit and said “Screw you guys; I’m going home.” Everyone these days seems to want to hate on the president and his cabinet of merry pranksters. But truth be told, it looks to me like the guy is trying his best amidst a time of terrible events. Why can’t we all just take a step back and say, “Hey, just because you prioritize differently than I do, maybe that doesn’t make you a bad person. Do you want to play with my Legos®?
And that’s my political rant for this year. I promise for the rest of the year to focus on more pressing issues like oatmeal, and National Talk Like A Pirate Day. Actually, I’m almost finished with my National Talk Like A Pirate Day entry. So you have that to look forward to… which is nice.
Over on the far left The Michael Moore’s, Cindy Sheehan’s, and John Kerry’s of the world are all screaming at the top of their lungs about how horribly the current administration is handling everything from the war in Iraq, to the nomination of judges and supreme court justices; from tax cuts, to the weather. The folks on the right aren’t much better or brighter, promising a smaller, more efficient government and military, while real world events necessitate spending billions of unbudgeted dollars.
Meanwhile everyone keeps attacking everyone else, using ridiculously flawed arguments to try to win public approval in the media. When Cindy Sheehan disgraces the memory of her heroic fallen son, the lefties cry “She has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!” When John Kerry calls an ongoing military operation “the wrong war at the wrong time,” demoralizing troops by calling into question the legality and morality of their actions, the message repeats, “He has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!”
Well I say take your freedom of speech and shove it up your ass. I don’t care what Cindy Sheehan or John Kerry think. I don’t really care much anymore what the Bill-o-Reilly’s of the world think either. Freedom of speech is a good idea in concept, but to use it as an excuse to sling hatred and animosity around, well, I just think that maybe some of those free speakers should shut the f*** up.
Look, as far as I can tell, we’re all in this together. Everyone would be much better served by the politicians and the folks in the media trying to figure out some way we can all get along and play nice together. Unfortunately, playing nice doesn’t generate high ratings for the nightly news, or eye-catching headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Could you imagine? “Bush, Kerry Agree To Share Toys.” Details at 11.
I hate to take the side of the president, since everyone knows what a horrible God-fearing person he is, but is there even a remote possibility that Bush did not dream up Hurricane Katrina as a way to kill black people? Is it possible that the war in Iraq was meant to stop the atrocities of a crazed dictator who was killing off his own people by the tens of thousands? Is it also possible that tax cuts across every economic spectrum were meant to spur a lagging economy and make this country a better place for lower, middle and upper income folks alike? Maybe?
It’s a wonder that no president has ever gotten up in front of his presidential pulpit and said “Screw you guys; I’m going home.” Everyone these days seems to want to hate on the president and his cabinet of merry pranksters. But truth be told, it looks to me like the guy is trying his best amidst a time of terrible events. Why can’t we all just take a step back and say, “Hey, just because you prioritize differently than I do, maybe that doesn’t make you a bad person. Do you want to play with my Legos®?
And that’s my political rant for this year. I promise for the rest of the year to focus on more pressing issues like oatmeal, and National Talk Like A Pirate Day. Actually, I’m almost finished with my National Talk Like A Pirate Day entry. So you have that to look forward to… which is nice.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Formatting Experiment
For the next couple of days I am going to have all of my previous posts displayed on the starting page of my blog. Not sure if this will slow down the page loading, or be a convenient way to look over the history of my blog, or whatever, so if you have any thoughts feel free to share them here. Seriously, any thoughts at all... Who do you like in the Dolphins-Jets game this weekend?
Where there's smoke, there's a good chance that my son is fixing oatmeal
I hate my alarm clock. Loud, shrill noises first thing in the morning in general annoy me, and I tend to try my best to ignore them. That's why my actions this morning were not all that surprising to me.
My alarm started going off early this morning, and as usual, I was doing my best to pretend I couldn't hear it. Every so often I would pound at it with my fist, and it would quiet down for awhile. It's a game we play every morning that I have to be at work. It normally results in my oversleeping and having to rush around like a madman to make it into work on time, or occasionally, a few minutes late.
The odd thing about this particular morning was after playing a few rounds of snooze-button-wack-a-mole, the shrill bleeping of the clock was joined by a somewhat softer, gentler bleeping, coming from downstairs. This new bleeping wasn't nearly as annoying as the alarm clock though, so I quickly decided I could probably just ignore it, as it wouldn't be that much of an impediment to my sleep. That's when my wife chimed in.
"Is that the fire alarm?"
"Yeah." I said, before rolling over to continue attempting to get back to sleep. I like to think of myself as a man of action, not just words.
"Do you think you should check to see why it's going off?" She continued, obviously not taking the hint that sometimes a comfy pillow trumps knowing definitively whether or not your house is burning down.
"Oh, ok." I said, and got out of bed.
About this time I began to realize that maybe the fire alarm going off was a cause for concern. Let's just say I'm not the brightest cookie in the jar first thing in the morning.
I hurry downstairs and hear my son start calling out for me or his mother. Smoke is billowing across the living room, but I notice no open flames there, a good sign to be sure. I continue on to the kitchen and behold, there on the stove top a cozy little blaze is burning away.
For awhile I watch it burn while my brain processes the possibility that this does not belong. It's a rather complicated thought process for this early in the morning, after all, it's a fire in the kitchen. Isn't the kitchen supposed to have fire? I mean, it is where we cook our food.
Eventually reason wins out and I pour a glass of water. Well, actually before I pour the water I try blowing on the fire for awhile. Yeah, I'm smart. Mensa member and whatnot. So, surprise, feeding a fire extra amounts of one of its key ingredients doesn't work, so that's when I pour a glass of water and dump it on the stove. Fire out, crisis resolved by the lightning quick response of a former member of a Naval firefighting team. Or something like that.
Apparently, what had happened was this. My son woke up early and decided to make himself a bowl of instant oatmeal. He turned the burner on under our teapot to heat up some water. Unfortunately, an oven mit was still on the handle of the tea pot, and at some point the mit slipped down onto the gas burner and ignited. How any kids survive past the age of 5 is all I can wonder...
After it was all over I dedicated the Talking Heads song "Burning down the house" to my son, tapping him on the shoulder every time they got to the part in the song where they sing "Burning down the house." We laughed and laughed, or at least I laughed while he smiled sheepishly, but the point is a good time was had by all. I think it's important to make it fun for kids when they all but burn your house down. It encourages them to try harder next time.
My alarm started going off early this morning, and as usual, I was doing my best to pretend I couldn't hear it. Every so often I would pound at it with my fist, and it would quiet down for awhile. It's a game we play every morning that I have to be at work. It normally results in my oversleeping and having to rush around like a madman to make it into work on time, or occasionally, a few minutes late.
The odd thing about this particular morning was after playing a few rounds of snooze-button-wack-a-mole, the shrill bleeping of the clock was joined by a somewhat softer, gentler bleeping, coming from downstairs. This new bleeping wasn't nearly as annoying as the alarm clock though, so I quickly decided I could probably just ignore it, as it wouldn't be that much of an impediment to my sleep. That's when my wife chimed in.
"Is that the fire alarm?"
"Yeah." I said, before rolling over to continue attempting to get back to sleep. I like to think of myself as a man of action, not just words.
"Do you think you should check to see why it's going off?" She continued, obviously not taking the hint that sometimes a comfy pillow trumps knowing definitively whether or not your house is burning down.
"Oh, ok." I said, and got out of bed.
About this time I began to realize that maybe the fire alarm going off was a cause for concern. Let's just say I'm not the brightest cookie in the jar first thing in the morning.
I hurry downstairs and hear my son start calling out for me or his mother. Smoke is billowing across the living room, but I notice no open flames there, a good sign to be sure. I continue on to the kitchen and behold, there on the stove top a cozy little blaze is burning away.
For awhile I watch it burn while my brain processes the possibility that this does not belong. It's a rather complicated thought process for this early in the morning, after all, it's a fire in the kitchen. Isn't the kitchen supposed to have fire? I mean, it is where we cook our food.
Eventually reason wins out and I pour a glass of water. Well, actually before I pour the water I try blowing on the fire for awhile. Yeah, I'm smart. Mensa member and whatnot. So, surprise, feeding a fire extra amounts of one of its key ingredients doesn't work, so that's when I pour a glass of water and dump it on the stove. Fire out, crisis resolved by the lightning quick response of a former member of a Naval firefighting team. Or something like that.
Apparently, what had happened was this. My son woke up early and decided to make himself a bowl of instant oatmeal. He turned the burner on under our teapot to heat up some water. Unfortunately, an oven mit was still on the handle of the tea pot, and at some point the mit slipped down onto the gas burner and ignited. How any kids survive past the age of 5 is all I can wonder...
After it was all over I dedicated the Talking Heads song "Burning down the house" to my son, tapping him on the shoulder every time they got to the part in the song where they sing "Burning down the house." We laughed and laughed, or at least I laughed while he smiled sheepishly, but the point is a good time was had by all. I think it's important to make it fun for kids when they all but burn your house down. It encourages them to try harder next time.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
My First Blog Recommendation
I haven't made a habit of linking to other people's blogs. To tell you the truth, there are very few out there that seem at all interesting to me. Hypocritical you say? Do I envision myself as somehow superior? Not really, after all, I'm not 100% convinced that if I found this blog while surfing the net, and had no prior knowledge of this Michael Moore Jr character, that I would spend very much time reading this drivel that I keep typing day in and day out (with the obvious exception of the days and weeks that go by when I type nothing...) Nevertheless, I was at work tonight and stumbled across this blog: http://thevelvetgoldmine.blogspot.com/, and I really enjoyed reading it. I'm not sure why. The author is obviously from the other side of the political spectrum, from the other side of every conceivable spectrum as a matter of fact. His writing however is refreshingly clear and intelligent, and at the same time completely devoid of pretentiousness. Also he seems to read a lot, a trait I find endearing. So I'm making my first blog recommendation. Other than my blog. I still recommend it.
The Pudding Man
For those of you old enough to remember the heady days of Mike's House-o-Chocolate Puddin', today's post is a repeat. This story originally appeared on that site way back in 2000. Since that time I've toyed with the idea of turning the story into a three-part saga, and at one point actually started working on part two. Currently part two remains unfinished, but it shows signs of being ready for posting any day. In anticipation of this, I thought it might be a good idea to post Part 1 here first. Enjoy!
The Pudding Man
His descent into madness had occurred quickly and had started with that last, fateful chocolate pudding run. His mind was ablaze with hatred, hatred for those who so thoughtlessly paraded their seemingly endless supply of pudding in front of him as if to mock his own inability to supply pudding for his family. He knew it was through no fault of his own that his children frequently came to him in tears over the lack of pudding in the cupboard. What was he to do? He owned an extremely successful advertising firm and brought in well over six figures a year. When he was younger this had seemed like more than enough to support a family of four, but as the years passed, so did his hunger for chocolate pudding grow, until it had eventually become something beyond his control. He laughed cruelly as he found himself checking once more for any stray pudding cups that might have fallen behind some of the other dried goods which he stored in the pantry. Not that there was much other food in the house these days. He sullenly recalled the reaction which he had garnered from his wife on his return from his last trip to the grocer. She had become uncharacteristically enraged as she watched him unload case after case of chocolate pudding cups from the back of their SUV.
"Didn’t you buy anything besides PUDDING at the store, Harold?" She had screamed in what seemed to him to be a rather unprovoked attack.
"Umm, no honey... why would I? We need the pudding. The... the kids... they need the pudding. I tried to get some Raman noodles, but the cashier said it brought the total over my credit limit so I had to put them back. You understand, don’t you sweet’ums?"
And just like that, she had left him, taking the kids, the dog, the SUV and, most painful of all, at least to Harold, a case of his sacred chocolate pudding. She had left over a week ago, and still Harold felt certain that she would return at any moment, possibly with the unfinished case of chocolate pudding in tow. How sweet would that be, to be reunited with his beloved pudding? Oh yeah, and his family too, as long as they stayed away from his pudding cups.
But Harold knew this kind of thinking was getting him nowhere. Sure mistakes had been made, mostly on his wife’s part for never fully appreciating his powerful need for chocolate pudding, but now was not the time to point fingers, now was the time for action. He grabbed his coat, a pair of his wife’s nylons that she had fortuitously left behind and his 9mm, and made his way outside to hail a taxi.
When he arrived at the grocer’s he exited the taxi, politely thanking the cabby for the enjoyable conversation, and slipped through the grocery store’s automatic doors into the harsh, glaring light of his destiny. He would have his pudding, all the pudding he ever needed and more. He slipped the nylon stocking over his head and purposefully wrapped his sticky fingers around the handle of his 9mm pistol. The other customers, engrossed in intense mathematical equations involving cost to package weight ratio comparisons, did not even notice as Harold strode to the storage room in the back of the store.
"Hello there." Harold calmly intoned as he entered the office of the store manager, who was busily poring over invoices and had failed to notice Harold, "This is a stickup. Please have one of your boys load the chocolate pudding into a truck for me. I mean no harm, and if you do what I say you’ll be back to your paperwork in no time."
The store manager looked up slowly from the mound of papers. He squinted thoughtfully at the figure standing before him. Then it came to him.
"Harold? Harold... Peterson? That’s you, isn’t it?"
"Yeah... I mean no. I mean... don’t worry about who I am, just get your boys loading that pudding," Harold answered, trying to fight off the embarrassment of being recognized. He knew he should have gone to a store further away from his home, but he had been a little short on cab fare.
"Harold, what in blazes do you think you’re doing? First of all you look ridiculous in that pantyhose and secondly, you just came in here last week and bought up the last of my pudding. I told you then that I don’t have anymore, and I don’t."
Harold was not about to be thwarted that easily. He had been ready for the manager’s lies.
"Don’t GIVE me that crap. I KNOW you keep extra stuff in the BACK here, so just get your BOYS to load it into a truck and I’LL be on my WAY." He jabbed outward with the pistol in his coat pocket with each stressed word, to emphasize that he was not fooling around.
"Now Harold, just calm down. You don’t want to..."
"Don’t tell me what I want! And stop calling me Harold! Now do what I say or you’re going to be sorry!" Harold liked the feeling of power that was coursing through him, and even more he liked the anticipation of all the sweet, delicious pudding that would soon be his.
"Okay, okay, I admit we’ve got some extra boxes of pudding cups laying around, but the thing is..."
"Just shut up! I’ve heard enough of your mouth. Now go get your boys to load them up or there’s gonna be trouble!"
The store manager could tell that Harold was out of control. Sighing heavily, he stood and led Harold into the storage room where, much to the surprise of the boys working back there, he ordered them to load up a truck with the extra boxes of pudding. While they were loading, the manager tried again and again to plead his case with Harold, but Harold would immediately shush him before he could get more than a few words out. Harold was enraptured watching all of that wonderful pudding being loaded into the truck, cases upon cases, more than he had ever imagined would be there.
About a half hour later, Harold rushed into his house carrying a case of the chocolate pudding. Ripping off the top of the box he proceeded to devour pudding cup after pudding cup until he was soon feeling quite bloated. He knew that he didn’t have much time, since the store manager had surely alerted the authorities by now, but as he was getting up a sudden sharp pain cut into his midsection. Harold dropped to the floor, grasping his belly and writhing on the ground in agony. What was happening to him? He suddenly felt quite dizzy and noticed the room around him start to go blurry. Just as the last corners of his vision began to close in around him he heard a door open and his wife’s voice seeming to come from a great distance.
"Harold, I’m back, I thought maybe we should try to work through this together. What’s that truck doing in the driveway... Oh my! Harold! What’s wrong?" She ran forward to her dying husband, throwing the case of pudding and a newspaper that she had been carrying onto the kitchen table as she passed. The headline of the paper read: "Poisoned Pudding Delivery Baffles Local Grocer."
Back at the grocery store, the store manager was shaking his head. "Poor bastard," he said quietly to himself, "Poor dumb bastard."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
The Pudding Man
His descent into madness had occurred quickly and had started with that last, fateful chocolate pudding run. His mind was ablaze with hatred, hatred for those who so thoughtlessly paraded their seemingly endless supply of pudding in front of him as if to mock his own inability to supply pudding for his family. He knew it was through no fault of his own that his children frequently came to him in tears over the lack of pudding in the cupboard. What was he to do? He owned an extremely successful advertising firm and brought in well over six figures a year. When he was younger this had seemed like more than enough to support a family of four, but as the years passed, so did his hunger for chocolate pudding grow, until it had eventually become something beyond his control. He laughed cruelly as he found himself checking once more for any stray pudding cups that might have fallen behind some of the other dried goods which he stored in the pantry. Not that there was much other food in the house these days. He sullenly recalled the reaction which he had garnered from his wife on his return from his last trip to the grocer. She had become uncharacteristically enraged as she watched him unload case after case of chocolate pudding cups from the back of their SUV.
"Didn’t you buy anything besides PUDDING at the store, Harold?" She had screamed in what seemed to him to be a rather unprovoked attack.
"Umm, no honey... why would I? We need the pudding. The... the kids... they need the pudding. I tried to get some Raman noodles, but the cashier said it brought the total over my credit limit so I had to put them back. You understand, don’t you sweet’ums?"
And just like that, she had left him, taking the kids, the dog, the SUV and, most painful of all, at least to Harold, a case of his sacred chocolate pudding. She had left over a week ago, and still Harold felt certain that she would return at any moment, possibly with the unfinished case of chocolate pudding in tow. How sweet would that be, to be reunited with his beloved pudding? Oh yeah, and his family too, as long as they stayed away from his pudding cups.
But Harold knew this kind of thinking was getting him nowhere. Sure mistakes had been made, mostly on his wife’s part for never fully appreciating his powerful need for chocolate pudding, but now was not the time to point fingers, now was the time for action. He grabbed his coat, a pair of his wife’s nylons that she had fortuitously left behind and his 9mm, and made his way outside to hail a taxi.
When he arrived at the grocer’s he exited the taxi, politely thanking the cabby for the enjoyable conversation, and slipped through the grocery store’s automatic doors into the harsh, glaring light of his destiny. He would have his pudding, all the pudding he ever needed and more. He slipped the nylon stocking over his head and purposefully wrapped his sticky fingers around the handle of his 9mm pistol. The other customers, engrossed in intense mathematical equations involving cost to package weight ratio comparisons, did not even notice as Harold strode to the storage room in the back of the store.
"Hello there." Harold calmly intoned as he entered the office of the store manager, who was busily poring over invoices and had failed to notice Harold, "This is a stickup. Please have one of your boys load the chocolate pudding into a truck for me. I mean no harm, and if you do what I say you’ll be back to your paperwork in no time."
The store manager looked up slowly from the mound of papers. He squinted thoughtfully at the figure standing before him. Then it came to him.
"Harold? Harold... Peterson? That’s you, isn’t it?"
"Yeah... I mean no. I mean... don’t worry about who I am, just get your boys loading that pudding," Harold answered, trying to fight off the embarrassment of being recognized. He knew he should have gone to a store further away from his home, but he had been a little short on cab fare.
"Harold, what in blazes do you think you’re doing? First of all you look ridiculous in that pantyhose and secondly, you just came in here last week and bought up the last of my pudding. I told you then that I don’t have anymore, and I don’t."
Harold was not about to be thwarted that easily. He had been ready for the manager’s lies.
"Don’t GIVE me that crap. I KNOW you keep extra stuff in the BACK here, so just get your BOYS to load it into a truck and I’LL be on my WAY." He jabbed outward with the pistol in his coat pocket with each stressed word, to emphasize that he was not fooling around.
"Now Harold, just calm down. You don’t want to..."
"Don’t tell me what I want! And stop calling me Harold! Now do what I say or you’re going to be sorry!" Harold liked the feeling of power that was coursing through him, and even more he liked the anticipation of all the sweet, delicious pudding that would soon be his.
"Okay, okay, I admit we’ve got some extra boxes of pudding cups laying around, but the thing is..."
"Just shut up! I’ve heard enough of your mouth. Now go get your boys to load them up or there’s gonna be trouble!"
The store manager could tell that Harold was out of control. Sighing heavily, he stood and led Harold into the storage room where, much to the surprise of the boys working back there, he ordered them to load up a truck with the extra boxes of pudding. While they were loading, the manager tried again and again to plead his case with Harold, but Harold would immediately shush him before he could get more than a few words out. Harold was enraptured watching all of that wonderful pudding being loaded into the truck, cases upon cases, more than he had ever imagined would be there.
About a half hour later, Harold rushed into his house carrying a case of the chocolate pudding. Ripping off the top of the box he proceeded to devour pudding cup after pudding cup until he was soon feeling quite bloated. He knew that he didn’t have much time, since the store manager had surely alerted the authorities by now, but as he was getting up a sudden sharp pain cut into his midsection. Harold dropped to the floor, grasping his belly and writhing on the ground in agony. What was happening to him? He suddenly felt quite dizzy and noticed the room around him start to go blurry. Just as the last corners of his vision began to close in around him he heard a door open and his wife’s voice seeming to come from a great distance.
"Harold, I’m back, I thought maybe we should try to work through this together. What’s that truck doing in the driveway... Oh my! Harold! What’s wrong?" She ran forward to her dying husband, throwing the case of pudding and a newspaper that she had been carrying onto the kitchen table as she passed. The headline of the paper read: "Poisoned Pudding Delivery Baffles Local Grocer."
Back at the grocery store, the store manager was shaking his head. "Poor bastard," he said quietly to himself, "Poor dumb bastard."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Feel free to treat this picture as though it were not really here
I know I said no more pictures today, but that was before I stumbled across this guy. How could I keep this guy all to myself?
Michael Moore's Day Off - Pt 2
Ok, I obviously have far too much free time on my days off during the week. Case in point, the pictures I'm about to upload to my blog. Just downloaded the picasa software that automatically uploads photos to your blog, so now I feel obliged to try it out a little...
Truly Underdeveloped Thinking
I just downloaded Blogger for Word, so I thought I’d test it out. I’m also going to be updating a couple of past posts, and who knows? I might just babble about a couple of new things while I’m at it. First I want to address the Kanye West post. It actually surprised me a little that of all of my recent posts, this would be the one without anyone making a comment.
Nobody has any opinions on this? I mean, I obviously think the man is retarded, but I’m sure there are tons of people out there who disagree, and think that he eloquently summed up the situation. I would particularly like to hear from those people, not to make fun of them or debase them in any way, but merely to let them know how stupid they are. Anyway, a friend of mine sent me a link to a lovely article about President Bush’s reaction to Katrina and if you’d like to read it, just click here.
The second post that I feel needs updating is the one where I mentioned a quote by Douglas Adams, but didn’t at the time specifically know what it was. Well, I’m all about information dissemination, so since no one else was nice enough to supply me with it, I went ahead and found it my damn self. It is as follows:
"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
It’s a good quote, I think, so I felt like I should share it with you. Any search engines out there who want to make life easy on people should feel free to link the search “Douglas Adams technology quote” to this page. You’ll save everyone a lot of time and effort I promise. Google I’m talking specifically to you. Stop being such a little bitch about how you rank pages and just give the people what they want.
Well, I do have some more stuff to talk about today, but right now I’m hungry, so instead of finishing what I intended to, I’m going to go eat a salad. Before I go, did you notice the new thing on the side of my blog that tells you how many people are on my blog? How cool is that?
Nobody has any opinions on this? I mean, I obviously think the man is retarded, but I’m sure there are tons of people out there who disagree, and think that he eloquently summed up the situation. I would particularly like to hear from those people, not to make fun of them or debase them in any way, but merely to let them know how stupid they are. Anyway, a friend of mine sent me a link to a lovely article about President Bush’s reaction to Katrina and if you’d like to read it, just click here.
The second post that I feel needs updating is the one where I mentioned a quote by Douglas Adams, but didn’t at the time specifically know what it was. Well, I’m all about information dissemination, so since no one else was nice enough to supply me with it, I went ahead and found it my damn self. It is as follows:
"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
It’s a good quote, I think, so I felt like I should share it with you. Any search engines out there who want to make life easy on people should feel free to link the search “Douglas Adams technology quote” to this page. You’ll save everyone a lot of time and effort I promise. Google I’m talking specifically to you. Stop being such a little bitch about how you rank pages and just give the people what they want.
Well, I do have some more stuff to talk about today, but right now I’m hungry, so instead of finishing what I intended to, I’m going to go eat a salad. Before I go, did you notice the new thing on the side of my blog that tells you how many people are on my blog? How cool is that?
Michael Moore's Day Off - Pt 1
When I first envisioned writing this post, I imagined that it would turn out a lot like that classic 80's movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I'd ride around all day in my friend's father's convertible, visiting museums and possibly becoming a central figure in a huge parade. It didn't take much of my actual day transpiring before I realized that being a 32-year-old father is not quite the same as being the main character in a John Hughes's coming of age movie...
My day did start with a little John Hughes-like tension. Comfortably wavering in bed between blissful sleep and the uncomfortable state known as "wakefulness" which has marred so many of my otherwise pleasant days, a frenzied commotion began to assert itself into my limited consciousness, and before I was even fully aware of what was happening, wakefulness had won out, and sleep was no more than a faint memory. It seems my son was on the verge of missing the bus.
I heard my son frantically running around upstairs, asking for lunch money, of which my wife apparently had none. I myself was rather short of any coinage or currency, so my first words of the morning were along the lines of suggesting to my son that he use his own money for lunch and that we would reimburse him at some later time, preferably one in which he was not in danger of missing his ride to school. This offer must have seemed reasonable enough to him, because he was soon running downstairs and out the door. As he was running downstairs I heard a sound coming from outside which resembled greatly the sound that a bus makes as it drives off without my son.
Sure enough, my son soon reentered the house to declare that he had missed the bus. I finally found myself with enough motivation to actually get out of bed, knowing that since today was my day off, I would be the one tasked with taking Caleb to school. As I began to dress the incriminations, rebuttals and recriminations began. Why had Caleb missed the bus? What was he doing instead of getting ready? From what I could gather he had had 40 minutes to get dressed, during which time he maintained he only dressed and watched a pair of his socks dry on a chair. My wife believed that there was more involved, and that he was withholding key information, information that quite possibly involved his interactions with electronic equipment, not to exclude a Gameboy, a certain downstairs television, or a PC version of his favorite video game, Zoo Tycoon. I personally fealt that the Zoo Tycoon angle was a much more likely scenario than the 40 minutes of watching socks dry on a chair, no matter how much I like to try to believe my son.
In my son's defense, the sock-drying story does have at least some basis in reality. A day earlier my wife had informed me that Caleb was out of clean white clothes. I had loaded the washer with whites that night, but had failed to move said whites into the dryer. So it's completely possible that my son fealt he had to let a pair of his socks dry on a chair. A better solution may have been to throw the same socks into the dryer for 15-20 minutes, but my son is only 10 years old, so cut him some slack here. His story only breaks down when he begins to maintain that while his socks were drying, he spent 40 minutes doing nothing other than dressing and watching them dry.
I tried to ascertain the truth of what happened through logic, a poor tactic to use on a 10-year-old under any circumstance. I went so far as to offer to recreate the experience tomorrow, watching him while he dressed and watched socks dry for forty minutes. I tried to point out the ridiculousness of his claims. All of my efforts were for naught however, and my son was still maintaing his story as I drove him to school.
What are those victories that you win that aren't really winning? Anyone? Anyone? A Pyrrhic victory. That is what I eventually won that morning as I pulled into his school's parking lot. I had told Caleb that if he wouldn't tell me what really happened this morning I was going to punish him. All I wanted was for him to tell the truth about what he did that made him late for the bus. I asked him time and time again and he maintained his story time and time again. Caleb is nothing if not committed to his stories. He'd make a good mobster. Finally, as we pulled into the parking lot of his school, I offered him one last chance. Admit that he did more than watch socks dry and get dressed or he would be punished. His response?
"Well, I guess I'll lie and say I was watching television."
Game, set, match. He's a wily one this child of mine. I still have no idea what he spent his time on this morning. I'll probably never know.
So that was the start of my big day off. After the excitement of the morning I took it down a couple of notches by fixing myself a bowl of oatmeal and watching President Bush address the United Nations, while I typed up this blog entry. What adventures await me for the rest of my day? Only time will tell. I might do more laundry. Or even fix myself a second cup of tea. I'm crazy like that. All I know is you'd be crazy to not check back and see...
My day did start with a little John Hughes-like tension. Comfortably wavering in bed between blissful sleep and the uncomfortable state known as "wakefulness" which has marred so many of my otherwise pleasant days, a frenzied commotion began to assert itself into my limited consciousness, and before I was even fully aware of what was happening, wakefulness had won out, and sleep was no more than a faint memory. It seems my son was on the verge of missing the bus.
I heard my son frantically running around upstairs, asking for lunch money, of which my wife apparently had none. I myself was rather short of any coinage or currency, so my first words of the morning were along the lines of suggesting to my son that he use his own money for lunch and that we would reimburse him at some later time, preferably one in which he was not in danger of missing his ride to school. This offer must have seemed reasonable enough to him, because he was soon running downstairs and out the door. As he was running downstairs I heard a sound coming from outside which resembled greatly the sound that a bus makes as it drives off without my son.
Sure enough, my son soon reentered the house to declare that he had missed the bus. I finally found myself with enough motivation to actually get out of bed, knowing that since today was my day off, I would be the one tasked with taking Caleb to school. As I began to dress the incriminations, rebuttals and recriminations began. Why had Caleb missed the bus? What was he doing instead of getting ready? From what I could gather he had had 40 minutes to get dressed, during which time he maintained he only dressed and watched a pair of his socks dry on a chair. My wife believed that there was more involved, and that he was withholding key information, information that quite possibly involved his interactions with electronic equipment, not to exclude a Gameboy, a certain downstairs television, or a PC version of his favorite video game, Zoo Tycoon. I personally fealt that the Zoo Tycoon angle was a much more likely scenario than the 40 minutes of watching socks dry on a chair, no matter how much I like to try to believe my son.
In my son's defense, the sock-drying story does have at least some basis in reality. A day earlier my wife had informed me that Caleb was out of clean white clothes. I had loaded the washer with whites that night, but had failed to move said whites into the dryer. So it's completely possible that my son fealt he had to let a pair of his socks dry on a chair. A better solution may have been to throw the same socks into the dryer for 15-20 minutes, but my son is only 10 years old, so cut him some slack here. His story only breaks down when he begins to maintain that while his socks were drying, he spent 40 minutes doing nothing other than dressing and watching them dry.
I tried to ascertain the truth of what happened through logic, a poor tactic to use on a 10-year-old under any circumstance. I went so far as to offer to recreate the experience tomorrow, watching him while he dressed and watched socks dry for forty minutes. I tried to point out the ridiculousness of his claims. All of my efforts were for naught however, and my son was still maintaing his story as I drove him to school.
What are those victories that you win that aren't really winning? Anyone? Anyone? A Pyrrhic victory. That is what I eventually won that morning as I pulled into his school's parking lot. I had told Caleb that if he wouldn't tell me what really happened this morning I was going to punish him. All I wanted was for him to tell the truth about what he did that made him late for the bus. I asked him time and time again and he maintained his story time and time again. Caleb is nothing if not committed to his stories. He'd make a good mobster. Finally, as we pulled into the parking lot of his school, I offered him one last chance. Admit that he did more than watch socks dry and get dressed or he would be punished. His response?
"Well, I guess I'll lie and say I was watching television."
Game, set, match. He's a wily one this child of mine. I still have no idea what he spent his time on this morning. I'll probably never know.
So that was the start of my big day off. After the excitement of the morning I took it down a couple of notches by fixing myself a bowl of oatmeal and watching President Bush address the United Nations, while I typed up this blog entry. What adventures await me for the rest of my day? Only time will tell. I might do more laundry. Or even fix myself a second cup of tea. I'm crazy like that. All I know is you'd be crazy to not check back and see...
Sunday, September 11, 2005
I think crap like this is funny
Do me a favor. Open up yahoo and do a search for "greatest quote of all time". Feel free to include the quotation marks and the lower case format there, because that's how I found it. Afterwards, come back here and tell me what you found. Right now I'm particularly interested in the 10th site that comes up...
Funny thing is, it doesn't even point to the greatest quote of all time, which we all know to be from Donald Rumsfeld...
Funny thing is, it doesn't even point to the greatest quote of all time, which we all know to be from Donald Rumsfeld...
Ancient wisdom from the west
The following comments do not reflect the opinions of anyone I know who is not terminally ignorant.
“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!”
“George Bush doesn't care about black people!”
- Kanye West, Sep, 2005.
I encourage everyone to help anyway, despite the fact that apparently George Bush does not like black people.
“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!”
“George Bush doesn't care about black people!”
- Kanye West, Sep, 2005.
I encourage everyone to help anyway, despite the fact that apparently George Bush does not like black people.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
What's with all the quotes?
"F*** you and your family and the Afghans."
-Ahmed Badeeb, Chief of staff of Saudi Intelligence, to Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, prime minister of the Afghan interim government, on Sayyaf's anti-Americanism, autumn 1990.
Ok, that may be the greatest non-Donald Rumsfeld quote of all time. Is it just me, or are my favorite quotes somewhat negative?
-Ahmed Badeeb, Chief of staff of Saudi Intelligence, to Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, prime minister of the Afghan interim government, on Sayyaf's anti-Americanism, autumn 1990.
Ok, that may be the greatest non-Donald Rumsfeld quote of all time. Is it just me, or are my favorite quotes somewhat negative?
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Greatest quote of all time.
"We would be happy to capture them. We would be happy to have them surrender. And if they don't, we would be happy to kill them."
- Don Rumsfeld, Dec, 2003
- Don Rumsfeld, Dec, 2003
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Ancient wisdom from the east, now even fresher!
Excuse me. I hate to interrupt this lovely blog, but I have something I'd like to share.
The i ching is widely regarded as one of the greatest sources of wisdom ever compiled. Seen by many to be a near-complete guide to life, it has for thousands of years stood alone as a one-volume tool for use in both contemplation and decision making. Imagine the shock felt around the world when an ancient sect of Chinese philosophers recently announced that they had uncovered a second volume of text, written by the same author, shortly after he completed the i ching. Intended for use as a companion volume, the writings focused on the more mundane aspects of daily life. Currently the translation of this "new" volume of ancient teachings is in process, and thus shrouded behind a veil of secrecy. Underdeveloped Thinking has, however, obtained copies of various excerpts of this historical document, despite great risk to both life and limb. Without further ado, I present to you the first fully translated section from the upcoming two-volume set The I ching and the Scra ching: Books of answers and motherly home remedies.
1. Di'en, Di'en
Presentation is everything
Your intentions are good, and your motivation strong, but the chicken dinner you are planning for tonight will nonetheless be met with tepid excitement. Much happiness may be gained by inner contemplation, as well as not skimping on the Saki. Maybe wear something loose and fun, but not too trampy.
Clearly these new teachings are every bit as useful as the originals. I hope you enjoyed sharing in our historic find, and I'm pleased to announce that future kuas will be made availabe as they are translated. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
The i ching is widely regarded as one of the greatest sources of wisdom ever compiled. Seen by many to be a near-complete guide to life, it has for thousands of years stood alone as a one-volume tool for use in both contemplation and decision making. Imagine the shock felt around the world when an ancient sect of Chinese philosophers recently announced that they had uncovered a second volume of text, written by the same author, shortly after he completed the i ching. Intended for use as a companion volume, the writings focused on the more mundane aspects of daily life. Currently the translation of this "new" volume of ancient teachings is in process, and thus shrouded behind a veil of secrecy. Underdeveloped Thinking has, however, obtained copies of various excerpts of this historical document, despite great risk to both life and limb. Without further ado, I present to you the first fully translated section from the upcoming two-volume set The I ching and the Scra ching: Books of answers and motherly home remedies.
1. Di'en, Di'en
Presentation is everything
Your intentions are good, and your motivation strong, but the chicken dinner you are planning for tonight will nonetheless be met with tepid excitement. Much happiness may be gained by inner contemplation, as well as not skimping on the Saki. Maybe wear something loose and fun, but not too trampy.
Clearly these new teachings are every bit as useful as the originals. I hope you enjoyed sharing in our historic find, and I'm pleased to announce that future kuas will be made availabe as they are translated. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
How come it takes three Californians to screw up a light bulb?
Sometimes I'm reminded of how pathetic and boring my life really is. Take this morning for example. Here I had just posted a pointless entry on... what was it on again? Well, whatever it was, it couldn't have been all that important, when one of my coworkers comes up and starts talking to me. It was Mary Ann, but just because I've mentioned her twice in my blog, and the rest of my coworkers a total of zero times, doesn't mean that she's the only one worth pointing out. She's just the only one I've gotten too yet. There's this guy Jack, and he's just a blog entry waiting to happen.
I find that that last sentence is a lot funner if you put the emphasis on the "he's" and the "waiting". Try it for yourself, you'll like it.
Anyway, (emphasis on the "any") Mary Ann starts talking to me about something, and then we start talking about books, and I tell her she should write a book, and she tells me she doesn't even have a blog, so I says to her, I says, "you should get a blog..." and then there was some more conversation that was pretty much as interesting as the part I just shared, but then she starts talking about how when she was a kid they didn't have cheese or bread and they just ate sugar, except on Fridays when her brother would earn money selling newspapers on the corner, and then they would have cream of mushroom soup, sometimes with the little oyster crackers. Also, she mentions as an aside, she and her brother used to eat ants in their backyard.
Now to someone who spent their childhood mired as solidly in the world of the middle class as I did, this just sounds like a scene from Raising Arizona, so I smile and nod, but then she goes on describing how there weren't enough ants to fill them up, because ants are so small, and I mean, wow. Eating ants. Almost puts things in perspective a little bit. Almost makes you feel bad for wasting your time making fun of Californians. Almost, but not quite, if for no other reason than "'cause they're so darn stupid!" (Which, coincidentally, is also why it takes three of them to screw up a light bulb...) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ahhh... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I find that that last sentence is a lot funner if you put the emphasis on the "he's" and the "waiting". Try it for yourself, you'll like it.
Anyway, (emphasis on the "any") Mary Ann starts talking to me about something, and then we start talking about books, and I tell her she should write a book, and she tells me she doesn't even have a blog, so I says to her, I says, "you should get a blog..." and then there was some more conversation that was pretty much as interesting as the part I just shared, but then she starts talking about how when she was a kid they didn't have cheese or bread and they just ate sugar, except on Fridays when her brother would earn money selling newspapers on the corner, and then they would have cream of mushroom soup, sometimes with the little oyster crackers. Also, she mentions as an aside, she and her brother used to eat ants in their backyard.
Now to someone who spent their childhood mired as solidly in the world of the middle class as I did, this just sounds like a scene from Raising Arizona, so I smile and nod, but then she goes on describing how there weren't enough ants to fill them up, because ants are so small, and I mean, wow. Eating ants. Almost puts things in perspective a little bit. Almost makes you feel bad for wasting your time making fun of Californians. Almost, but not quite, if for no other reason than "'cause they're so darn stupid!" (Which, coincidentally, is also why it takes three of them to screw up a light bulb...) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... ahhh... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
What the hell am I babbling about this morning??
So yeah, isn't technology great? Apologies to all for my little display of texting/emailing posts. Sometimes I like to play with stuff. I'm like a little kid, only much taller. Douglas Adams had a great quote about technology, a little more specifically about how technology introduced at different stages of your life will affect you differently. Anyone who finds that quote for me will have my undying respect. At least for the rest of the summer.
Basically, I really like most technology, even if I'm not sure how to use it, or if I get so far as to figure that out, what I could possibly do constructively with it. Take texting my blog from my cell phone as a perfect example. I just can't envision a situation where I would be so desperate to post something that I couldn't wait until I got to a computer. Plus I'm pretty sure anything I would have to say that was that important would cause my fingers to cramp up from using my cell phone number pad to write about it. Plus, aparently you can't send pictures from your phone to your blog, even though I could almost see the usefulness in that.
Speaking of technology, how about that online poker. Oh. My. GAWD, is that addictive. Somehow I stayed up until 3 in the morning playing that last night. And I'm really old. I have no business staying up past the ending of Matlock, never mind 3 in the morning. But I did. One thing I noticed is that the skill level of my opponents seemed to diminish rapidly in those last few wee hours. I'm thinking this has something to do with a higher ratio of players living in California, where I'm pretty sure most people are dumb.
So I've decided now that if I want to win any money playing online poker, I just need to make sure I'm playing against Californians. Stupid Californians. Let's all have a good laugh at them. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahhhh... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Basically, I really like most technology, even if I'm not sure how to use it, or if I get so far as to figure that out, what I could possibly do constructively with it. Take texting my blog from my cell phone as a perfect example. I just can't envision a situation where I would be so desperate to post something that I couldn't wait until I got to a computer. Plus I'm pretty sure anything I would have to say that was that important would cause my fingers to cramp up from using my cell phone number pad to write about it. Plus, aparently you can't send pictures from your phone to your blog, even though I could almost see the usefulness in that.
Speaking of technology, how about that online poker. Oh. My. GAWD, is that addictive. Somehow I stayed up until 3 in the morning playing that last night. And I'm really old. I have no business staying up past the ending of Matlock, never mind 3 in the morning. But I did. One thing I noticed is that the skill level of my opponents seemed to diminish rapidly in those last few wee hours. I'm thinking this has something to do with a higher ratio of players living in California, where I'm pretty sure most people are dumb.
So I've decided now that if I want to win any money playing online poker, I just need to make sure I'm playing against Californians. Stupid Californians. Let's all have a good laugh at them. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahhhh... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
I tried this once before
Supposedly there is some way that you can post to your blog by sending off an email. I don't really believe this works though. Maybe someday blogger will prove me wrong. Could that day be today? Hmmm...
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For more information on Michael Moore Jr please visit www.michaelmoorejr.com
Book of the Moment Club
As I may have mentioned at one point or another in these unrelenting ramblings of mine that I call a blog, I work at a library. For the benefit of those perusing this page who might be unfamiliar with the term, a library is the place where out of work books go to languish and die. Much like a nursing home, without the crowds of people.
Occasionaly, through the benevolance of that great god Chance, a small number of these lonely tomes might make it off their dusty shelves and out into the real world. Not the MTV the real world, but the actual real world. You may have heard of it, it's what goes on when youre not watching TV or surfing the net. Once there these books odds of being read leap from infintesimally small, to upwards of only 40 or 50 to 1 against.
Clearly a checked out library book's being read is far from a certainty, and more often than not these books, these lucky few, whose faded glory had momentarily been resurrected by the hope of their imminent return to usefulness, find that they have merely changed locations of where they gather dust, at least until a few friendly overdue notices make there way to the mail box of the library patron in question, at which point the books make their return, often unopened during the entire process, to their place on the library's shelves, bringing with them the sad stories of what really happens to library books on the outside.
Now those of you reading this obviously know how to read, unless you're having it read to you, but in that case you're technically not reading it, so I wasn't even talking to you, now was I? Plus you suck. That's right, you heard me, or more to the point you heard whoever is reading to you, you suck. I'll be your hollaback girl.
Of those who know how to read, some of you might actually enjoy doing it. I have a confession to make. I enjoy reading too. At this point you might be thinking to yourself, "Wow, this guy works in a library AND enjoys reading? How serendipitopus is that? I wonder if I changed my underwear?" The odd thing is that while I do work in a library, for some reason we are not encouraged to spend our whole work day reading. It's crazy I know. It's like working in a beer factory and finding out that drinking on the job is discouraged. The worst part is that I see all these great books come into the library everyday.
So what I'm going to do in some future installments, is throw out random book titles that look interesting to me, and if anyone has read them, they can feel free to post their thoughts on them, and if those thoughts are positive enough, I'll know I should take the time to read the book. Also, I might add some thoughts on the books I am currently reading.
Right now I'm reading a book called: "The Turk : the life and times of the famous eighteenth-century chess-playing machine". It's a pretty good read, and manages to mix chess, artificial intelligence, scams, edgar allen poe and napoleon bonaparte into a nice little story that doesn't take too much time, even for me, to get through. That's all for now, maybe I'll tak more about it later. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll ramble on and on about something completely unrelated. Either way, you should go to your local library and check out some books. Maybe even read them at some point. Because library books rule.
Occasionaly, through the benevolance of that great god Chance, a small number of these lonely tomes might make it off their dusty shelves and out into the real world. Not the MTV the real world, but the actual real world. You may have heard of it, it's what goes on when youre not watching TV or surfing the net. Once there these books odds of being read leap from infintesimally small, to upwards of only 40 or 50 to 1 against.
Clearly a checked out library book's being read is far from a certainty, and more often than not these books, these lucky few, whose faded glory had momentarily been resurrected by the hope of their imminent return to usefulness, find that they have merely changed locations of where they gather dust, at least until a few friendly overdue notices make there way to the mail box of the library patron in question, at which point the books make their return, often unopened during the entire process, to their place on the library's shelves, bringing with them the sad stories of what really happens to library books on the outside.
Now those of you reading this obviously know how to read, unless you're having it read to you, but in that case you're technically not reading it, so I wasn't even talking to you, now was I? Plus you suck. That's right, you heard me, or more to the point you heard whoever is reading to you, you suck. I'll be your hollaback girl.
Of those who know how to read, some of you might actually enjoy doing it. I have a confession to make. I enjoy reading too. At this point you might be thinking to yourself, "Wow, this guy works in a library AND enjoys reading? How serendipitopus is that? I wonder if I changed my underwear?" The odd thing is that while I do work in a library, for some reason we are not encouraged to spend our whole work day reading. It's crazy I know. It's like working in a beer factory and finding out that drinking on the job is discouraged. The worst part is that I see all these great books come into the library everyday.
So what I'm going to do in some future installments, is throw out random book titles that look interesting to me, and if anyone has read them, they can feel free to post their thoughts on them, and if those thoughts are positive enough, I'll know I should take the time to read the book. Also, I might add some thoughts on the books I am currently reading.
Right now I'm reading a book called: "The Turk : the life and times of the famous eighteenth-century chess-playing machine". It's a pretty good read, and manages to mix chess, artificial intelligence, scams, edgar allen poe and napoleon bonaparte into a nice little story that doesn't take too much time, even for me, to get through. That's all for now, maybe I'll tak more about it later. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll ramble on and on about something completely unrelated. Either way, you should go to your local library and check out some books. Maybe even read them at some point. Because library books rule.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Here on Gilligan's Isle
Today I got to work with Automation. For those of you who are not familiar with the unique nomenclature of federal employment, Automation is the department that dresses up in blue glowing body suits and rides around on motorcycles that trail solid walls of light, just like in that movie, Tron. Or wait. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Yeah... no, that's the movie Tron I'm thinking of, not the Automation department. Automation doesn't do anything like that.
Instead they walk around to all the computers in the library, alternately breaking them or fixing them. Actually only one member of Automation ever seems to fix anything, so I assume the other members' job descriptions focus more on the breaking side ofthe house. Anyway, today I was assisting the fixer person. Her name is Mary Ann. She used to be stranded on an island with a guy named Gilligan, much like in that TV show... wait. No, that was just the TV show. I don't think this Mary Ann was ever stranded on a tropical island. If she was it must have been a horrible experience, because she never speaks of it at all. I imagine it would be pretty horrible having to drive a car made out of coconuts and bamboo everywhere you go. And then somehow the Harlem Globetrotters come and visit, but after they're gone you're still stranded on the island? How much would that have to suck?
But I digress. Mary Ann showed me how to update something on the library's computers, so I got to go around for awhile doing that, which was way funner than my normal job duties, so I've pretty much decided that I need to get a job where I do stuff like what they do in Automation. Either that or a job working as a park ranger. I think I'd be pretty good at outwitting picnic-basket-stealing bears. I'll get back to you on that one though. As it stand now I'll just have to be content with helping Mary Ann from time to time.
Instead they walk around to all the computers in the library, alternately breaking them or fixing them. Actually only one member of Automation ever seems to fix anything, so I assume the other members' job descriptions focus more on the breaking side ofthe house. Anyway, today I was assisting the fixer person. Her name is Mary Ann. She used to be stranded on an island with a guy named Gilligan, much like in that TV show... wait. No, that was just the TV show. I don't think this Mary Ann was ever stranded on a tropical island. If she was it must have been a horrible experience, because she never speaks of it at all. I imagine it would be pretty horrible having to drive a car made out of coconuts and bamboo everywhere you go. And then somehow the Harlem Globetrotters come and visit, but after they're gone you're still stranded on the island? How much would that have to suck?
But I digress. Mary Ann showed me how to update something on the library's computers, so I got to go around for awhile doing that, which was way funner than my normal job duties, so I've pretty much decided that I need to get a job where I do stuff like what they do in Automation. Either that or a job working as a park ranger. I think I'd be pretty good at outwitting picnic-basket-stealing bears. I'll get back to you on that one though. As it stand now I'll just have to be content with helping Mary Ann from time to time.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Shoutout to my homey "jrve8qglk59woji"
Hi there. Today we are going to talk about how spam sucks. I do not appreciate unsolicited spam on my blog. No one appreciates unsolicited spam on their blog, or anywhere else for that matter. Spammers are about the lowest level of human life on the planet. They have small penises, dress poorly, and generally maintain a low level of personal hygiene. Spammers are universally hated and derided by everyone on the planet.
It's one of the few things we can all agree on. You should all just do everyone a favor and die. You serve no purpose. You accomplish nothing. You live your life annoying others, much as musquitoes do. The only difference is that mosquitoes have more refined social graces. And larger penises. Dumbass spammers might think that my blog makes an easy target, because it's not updated all that regularly, and a decent amount of comments get posted.
As far as my lackadaisical approach to posting goes, just because I don't post everyday, doesn't mean I'm not capable of checking for and removing spam on a daily basis. As far as the comments are concerned, the people posting these comments are all a lot smarter than you. My friends in general are all a lot smarter than you. My dog is a lot smarter than you. Please do me a favor and die, and before you take your own meaningless life, feel free to not post here again. I thank you for your support.
It's one of the few things we can all agree on. You should all just do everyone a favor and die. You serve no purpose. You accomplish nothing. You live your life annoying others, much as musquitoes do. The only difference is that mosquitoes have more refined social graces. And larger penises. Dumbass spammers might think that my blog makes an easy target, because it's not updated all that regularly, and a decent amount of comments get posted.
As far as my lackadaisical approach to posting goes, just because I don't post everyday, doesn't mean I'm not capable of checking for and removing spam on a daily basis. As far as the comments are concerned, the people posting these comments are all a lot smarter than you. My friends in general are all a lot smarter than you. My dog is a lot smarter than you. Please do me a favor and die, and before you take your own meaningless life, feel free to not post here again. I thank you for your support.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Who's up for punching some cows?
If there's one thing I can't live without it's my morning coffee, and, not that I want to sound all hoitey-toitey, or come off as all superior or anything, I'm not talking about American coffee. Which isn't to say that I don't ever imbibe a nice hot cup of the American version, it's just that I much prefer a couple of shots of espresso.
An Italian friend of mine once explained the difference between the brewing processes of espresso, and what we who live below Canada and above Mexico call coffee, but the explanation was extrememly complicated and may have involved the metric system, so suffice it to say that a double shot of espresso is not only pleasing to my palate, but will also perk me up for the better part of my morning, whereas American coffee seems primarily useful to make me jittery and upset my stomach. For some unknown reason I still drink it occasionally, but when I do I prefer it in a tin cup with only a little sugar, and hopefully whoever fixed it doesn't mind being called "Cookie", because that's what they will inevitably hear for the next 30 minutes or so while I fantasize about rustling cattle.
I'm weird like that. It's a lot like my somewhat erratic feelings for pancakes... but that will have to wait until next time.
An Italian friend of mine once explained the difference between the brewing processes of espresso, and what we who live below Canada and above Mexico call coffee, but the explanation was extrememly complicated and may have involved the metric system, so suffice it to say that a double shot of espresso is not only pleasing to my palate, but will also perk me up for the better part of my morning, whereas American coffee seems primarily useful to make me jittery and upset my stomach. For some unknown reason I still drink it occasionally, but when I do I prefer it in a tin cup with only a little sugar, and hopefully whoever fixed it doesn't mind being called "Cookie", because that's what they will inevitably hear for the next 30 minutes or so while I fantasize about rustling cattle.
I'm weird like that. It's a lot like my somewhat erratic feelings for pancakes... but that will have to wait until next time.
Return of the semi-regularly rambling guy
No news is good news, so a couple of months ago when I stopped posting my insignificant thoughts on my life, possibly your life, or even other people's lives, and just life in general, on this, arguably the most pathetic attempt at a blog ever, I naturally thought that I would be universally lavished with praises. Unfortunately, such was not the case. I think one person might even have complained.
Maintaining my long-standing policy of trying to please all the people all the time, I am officially announcing today that I will return to posting on this bit of cyberspace soon. Be on the lookout for my first new post, which will be a thing of beauty and joy and might also involve happy bunnies. This is not that post, btw, in case you thought it might be. This is merely a warning announcement to get your attention and make you check back later. It's what we in "the biz" call a tease.
I also might have information about how common household cleaners could pose a dangerous health threat. So now you just HAVE to check back. Tah-tah for now.
Maintaining my long-standing policy of trying to please all the people all the time, I am officially announcing today that I will return to posting on this bit of cyberspace soon. Be on the lookout for my first new post, which will be a thing of beauty and joy and might also involve happy bunnies. This is not that post, btw, in case you thought it might be. This is merely a warning announcement to get your attention and make you check back later. It's what we in "the biz" call a tease.
I also might have information about how common household cleaners could pose a dangerous health threat. So now you just HAVE to check back. Tah-tah for now.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
thought of the day
You don't deal with the cards you're dealt. You deal with the cards you're about to deal.
Friday, April 29, 2005
This post sucks
Ok, I'm really not happy with this paper, so I'm thinking it's not going to make it to my other site. However, since someone out there did request to read it, here it is. I haven't bothered correcting what now seem like glaringly obvious errors, but which for some reason I missed before turning it in for a grade. Maybe that had something to do with finishing writing it 15 minutes after I was already supposed to be at school. Rough, rough draft this is, and a shame too, because Mr. Adams deserved better. Oh well, I think I've put off posting this for as long as possible, normally at this point I would encourage you to enjoy the paper, but I'm afraid that's just not possible this time. Struggle through it if you dare!
Drunk, and lying in a field in Islington, Douglas Noel Adams, a relatively unknown writer/performer from Cambridge, England, was struck with an idea for a radio show that would eventually become a cult classic and the source of material for multiple books, a television series, and a soon to be released motion picture. This is not the story of that idea. In my paper I will instead humbly attempt to analyze the personality traits of Douglas Adams, outlining the events and biological influences which helped to shape him, and applying both the humanistic and trait theories to my conclusions. Finally I will offer my opinion as to which of these theories best helps to understand his personality.
Douglas Adams is described by those who knew him as an exceptionally gifted thinker with a broad array of interests which he always seemed to throw himself at with an equal degree of extreme passion, despite their seeming unconnectedness. As far as his being a writer is concerned, Neil Gaiman, long-time friend of Adams, and author of the book, Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once remarked that “writing novels was a profession he had backed into, or stumbled over, or sat down on very suddenly and broken.” (Simpson, 2003, p.xxv) He was referring both to Douglas’ serendipitous career in writing, and his tendency towards clumsiness. Gaiman goes on to say that Adams wasn’t so much a writer, as something else that we might not necessarily have a word for yet. “A Futurologist, or an Explainer, or Something… the most important job out there is for someone who can explain the world to itself in ways that the world won’t forget.” (Simpson, 2003, p.xxv)
But Douglas was not always lavished with such praise. When Douglas was young his parents were convinced that there was something wrong with him. Douglas did not learn to speak until the age of four. Concerned by this, they had him tested for hearing problems, or a learning disability. (Simpson, 2003, p.6) Personality traits are generally divided into two groups of influence, biological and environmental. (text, p.320) Biologically speaking, there is not a great amount recorded on Douglas Adams. His mother was a nurse, and his father reached the postgraduate level of study in theology. Since both of these accomplishments speak to a somewhat elevated intellectual capacity, and tendency toward kindness to others, it seems that Douglas did inherent much from his parents. Douglas is quoted as saying, ““My mother’s a great lady, she is somebody who is always at her best dealing with anybody else’s problems – and can never deal with any of her own.” (Simpson, 2003, p.7) This trait was passed to Douglas in the form of wanting to share his enjoyments with other people, (Webb, 2003, p.8) and his propensity for missing his writing deadlines. (Webb, 2003, p.6) From his father, Douglas may have borrowed the trait of career-hopping. When Douglas was young, his father suddenly quit his pursuit of a postgraduate theology degree and pursued employment sporadically as a teacher, a probation officer, a lecturer, a management consultant and even a computer salesman. While Douglas was quick to point out the inconsistency in his father’s employment history, at one point stating ironically that, “I’m sure there is some rationale behind my father’s life,” (Simpson, 2003, p.7) Douglas himself worked a multitude of unrelated jobs prior to his emergence as a successful author. (Gaiman, 2003, p.9)
Douglas’ experiences seem to have played at least as significant a role as biological factors in his development. According to Douglas, his desire to become an entertainer stemmed back to one night while watching The Frost Report, a British Satire which featured John Cleese. Douglas was struck by the tall comedian and later remarked that while watching he thought to himself. “I can do that! I’m as tall as he is!” (Gaiman, 2003, p.7) Douglas was well-known as a perfectionist. This trait could perhaps be partially explained by an anecdote that Douglas was fond of telling. According to him, whenever he would get writer’s block, which he admitted was anytime that he was writing, he would think back to a paper that he wrote for school at the age of ten, for which he received a ten out of ten, the only time that the instructor of the course ever gave a perfect mark. “In a way it gives me more of a boost than having sold a million copies of this or a million of that.” (Gaiman, 2003, p.7)
The humanistic theory of psychology addresses personality in terms of innate motivations to achieve the most that you can achieve, and a view of self, learned by interactions with others. (text, p.480) Douglas Adams began his career as a writer amidst much rejection and unhappiness. While he would write the most amazing works for submission to radio programs, he was continuously being told that they just weren’t right for the particular formats. Due to this rejection from peers, Douglas soon became depressed and convinced that he was a failure. Although his inner drive told him that he could “change the face of comedy” (Gaiman, 2003, p.13), by the age of 25 he was convinced that he would never earn any money by writing. (Gaiman, 2003, p.23)
The trait theory of psychology states that our personality can be explained by enduring patterns of behavior, or traits. (text, p. 476) When Douglas Adams is described, the description is invariably consistent with what others have said about him. In the forward to M.J. Simpson’s Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman sums up the majority of these traits. He states that Douglas was: gawky and coltish, kind funny and talkative, keen on computers and clumsy. Plugging this description into the big five personality traits, we can surmise that Douglas was high in the traits of neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. His missed deadlines, which Webb described as “not quite an industry record, but impressive,” (Webb, 2003, p.6) would lead us to the conclusion that his conscientiousness was relatively low. Gaiman, in his own book, described Douglas as Solitary, which would leave us to assign the final personality trait in the big five as low also.
While both the humanistic and trait theories do much in illuminating the motivations and personality of Douglas Adams, I believe that it is easier to use trait theory to describe his personality. Although it is difficult to do so with absolute perfection, due to lack of complete information, and Adams’ wont to stretch the truth in tales about himself, through the use of trait theory we can at least begin to understand the man who while drunk on his back in a field somewhere, came up with a story to make us all feel a little less alone.
Drunk, and lying in a field in Islington, Douglas Noel Adams, a relatively unknown writer/performer from Cambridge, England, was struck with an idea for a radio show that would eventually become a cult classic and the source of material for multiple books, a television series, and a soon to be released motion picture. This is not the story of that idea. In my paper I will instead humbly attempt to analyze the personality traits of Douglas Adams, outlining the events and biological influences which helped to shape him, and applying both the humanistic and trait theories to my conclusions. Finally I will offer my opinion as to which of these theories best helps to understand his personality.
Douglas Adams is described by those who knew him as an exceptionally gifted thinker with a broad array of interests which he always seemed to throw himself at with an equal degree of extreme passion, despite their seeming unconnectedness. As far as his being a writer is concerned, Neil Gaiman, long-time friend of Adams, and author of the book, Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once remarked that “writing novels was a profession he had backed into, or stumbled over, or sat down on very suddenly and broken.” (Simpson, 2003, p.xxv) He was referring both to Douglas’ serendipitous career in writing, and his tendency towards clumsiness. Gaiman goes on to say that Adams wasn’t so much a writer, as something else that we might not necessarily have a word for yet. “A Futurologist, or an Explainer, or Something… the most important job out there is for someone who can explain the world to itself in ways that the world won’t forget.” (Simpson, 2003, p.xxv)
But Douglas was not always lavished with such praise. When Douglas was young his parents were convinced that there was something wrong with him. Douglas did not learn to speak until the age of four. Concerned by this, they had him tested for hearing problems, or a learning disability. (Simpson, 2003, p.6) Personality traits are generally divided into two groups of influence, biological and environmental. (text, p.320) Biologically speaking, there is not a great amount recorded on Douglas Adams. His mother was a nurse, and his father reached the postgraduate level of study in theology. Since both of these accomplishments speak to a somewhat elevated intellectual capacity, and tendency toward kindness to others, it seems that Douglas did inherent much from his parents. Douglas is quoted as saying, ““My mother’s a great lady, she is somebody who is always at her best dealing with anybody else’s problems – and can never deal with any of her own.” (Simpson, 2003, p.7) This trait was passed to Douglas in the form of wanting to share his enjoyments with other people, (Webb, 2003, p.8) and his propensity for missing his writing deadlines. (Webb, 2003, p.6) From his father, Douglas may have borrowed the trait of career-hopping. When Douglas was young, his father suddenly quit his pursuit of a postgraduate theology degree and pursued employment sporadically as a teacher, a probation officer, a lecturer, a management consultant and even a computer salesman. While Douglas was quick to point out the inconsistency in his father’s employment history, at one point stating ironically that, “I’m sure there is some rationale behind my father’s life,” (Simpson, 2003, p.7) Douglas himself worked a multitude of unrelated jobs prior to his emergence as a successful author. (Gaiman, 2003, p.9)
Douglas’ experiences seem to have played at least as significant a role as biological factors in his development. According to Douglas, his desire to become an entertainer stemmed back to one night while watching The Frost Report, a British Satire which featured John Cleese. Douglas was struck by the tall comedian and later remarked that while watching he thought to himself. “I can do that! I’m as tall as he is!” (Gaiman, 2003, p.7) Douglas was well-known as a perfectionist. This trait could perhaps be partially explained by an anecdote that Douglas was fond of telling. According to him, whenever he would get writer’s block, which he admitted was anytime that he was writing, he would think back to a paper that he wrote for school at the age of ten, for which he received a ten out of ten, the only time that the instructor of the course ever gave a perfect mark. “In a way it gives me more of a boost than having sold a million copies of this or a million of that.” (Gaiman, 2003, p.7)
The humanistic theory of psychology addresses personality in terms of innate motivations to achieve the most that you can achieve, and a view of self, learned by interactions with others. (text, p.480) Douglas Adams began his career as a writer amidst much rejection and unhappiness. While he would write the most amazing works for submission to radio programs, he was continuously being told that they just weren’t right for the particular formats. Due to this rejection from peers, Douglas soon became depressed and convinced that he was a failure. Although his inner drive told him that he could “change the face of comedy” (Gaiman, 2003, p.13), by the age of 25 he was convinced that he would never earn any money by writing. (Gaiman, 2003, p.23)
The trait theory of psychology states that our personality can be explained by enduring patterns of behavior, or traits. (text, p. 476) When Douglas Adams is described, the description is invariably consistent with what others have said about him. In the forward to M.J. Simpson’s Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman sums up the majority of these traits. He states that Douglas was: gawky and coltish, kind funny and talkative, keen on computers and clumsy. Plugging this description into the big five personality traits, we can surmise that Douglas was high in the traits of neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. His missed deadlines, which Webb described as “not quite an industry record, but impressive,” (Webb, 2003, p.6) would lead us to the conclusion that his conscientiousness was relatively low. Gaiman, in his own book, described Douglas as Solitary, which would leave us to assign the final personality trait in the big five as low also.
While both the humanistic and trait theories do much in illuminating the motivations and personality of Douglas Adams, I believe that it is easier to use trait theory to describe his personality. Although it is difficult to do so with absolute perfection, due to lack of complete information, and Adams’ wont to stretch the truth in tales about himself, through the use of trait theory we can at least begin to understand the man who while drunk on his back in a field somewhere, came up with a story to make us all feel a little less alone.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Paper Tease
Drunk, and lying in a field in Islington, Douglas Noel Adams, a relatively unknown writer/performer from Cambridge, England, was struck with an idea for a radio show that would eventually become a cult classic and the source of material for multiple books, a television series, and a soon to be released motion picture. This is not the story of that idea.
That's the beginning of my personality profile of Douglas Adams. Tomorrow maybe I'll post the whole crappy paper on my other site. It could have been a good paper. At one point it had serious potential. And then I started writing it. I was, as usual, constrained by time. I have to stop procrastinating. Just not today. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow too.
That's the beginning of my personality profile of Douglas Adams. Tomorrow maybe I'll post the whole crappy paper on my other site. It could have been a good paper. At one point it had serious potential. And then I started writing it. I was, as usual, constrained by time. I have to stop procrastinating. Just not today. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow too.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
I only worry about the ones for which this makes sense
"It's really not what you've done in the past that determines who you are, but rather, how what you've done in the past has made you who you are." - michael moore, circa 2005, feeling a bit vague.
I don't normally go in for this sort of thing...
A friend of mine recently asked me for a quote from a book for some peculiar reason that I'm sure you wouldn't understand even if I could grasp it well enough to explain it to you, and while I don't normally go in for that sort of thing, I am, for equally inexplicable reasons, feeling uncharacteristically generous this morning, so I present you now with a quote from Douglas Noel Adams, taken from the playbill of a self-produced show which he co-wrote and performed while in school called Several Poor Players Strutting and Fretting. Thank you and enjoy.
I apologize to those of you who had hoped to see a post by yours truly, and instead had to suffer through the eloquence of one of the greatest writers of English prose ever. I can assure you we will not have that sort of thing going on here in the future. As a matter of fact, starting tomorrow, all of my blog entries will be translated into baby talk prior to their being posted. Awwww, dat'll be a widdle annoying, don't you think? Yeees, yeeees it will. Yes it will. You got a poopie in your die-dey? Yeah? A poopie in your die-dey?
"By the time you've read the opposite page (cast and credits) you'll probably be feeling restive and wondering when the show will start. Well, it should start at the exact moment that you read the first word of the next sentence. If it hasn't started yet, you're reading too fast. If it still hasn't started, you're reading much too fast, and we can recommend our own book 'How to Impair Your Reading Ability', written and published by Adams-Smith-Adams. With the aid of this slim volume, you will find that your reading powers shrink to practically nothing within a very short space of time. The more you read, the slower you get. Theoretically, you will never get to the end, which makes it the best value book you will ever have bought!" (taken without even the semblance of permission from Don't panic: Douglas Adams and The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)
I apologize to those of you who had hoped to see a post by yours truly, and instead had to suffer through the eloquence of one of the greatest writers of English prose ever. I can assure you we will not have that sort of thing going on here in the future. As a matter of fact, starting tomorrow, all of my blog entries will be translated into baby talk prior to their being posted. Awwww, dat'll be a widdle annoying, don't you think? Yeees, yeeees it will. Yes it will. You got a poopie in your die-dey? Yeah? A poopie in your die-dey?
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Unabashed Gleefulness
It's no great secret that I work at a library. More specifically, I work at the United States Naval Academy Library. Drop by anytime and we'll chat. Or Maybe I'll have security remove you. It's hard to say without meeting you first. But that's not the point. Today while I was working at the circulation desk of said library, a member of the United States Naval Academy Glee Club came up to me and said, "I'm a member of the Naval Academy Glee Club, and I'm showing member's of (fill in the blank with unmemorable school name)'s Glee Club around and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah"
And at this point I have to admit that I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying anymore, but rather thinking to myself, "Well, gosh. If we could get all the members of the Academy's Glee Club, as well as all of the member's of this other school's Glee Club in here, well, that would sure be a heck of a lot of Glee."
And I guess the point I'm trying to make is, at what point should you stop and say, "There's just too much damn gleefulness in here."
And one final thought. Click on my link for this entry and then ponder this, "why exactly DON'T I have permission to access /Music/mensglee.html on this server?" My guess is you are not nearly gleeful enough.
And at this point I have to admit that I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying anymore, but rather thinking to myself, "Well, gosh. If we could get all the members of the Academy's Glee Club, as well as all of the member's of this other school's Glee Club in here, well, that would sure be a heck of a lot of Glee."
And I guess the point I'm trying to make is, at what point should you stop and say, "There's just too much damn gleefulness in here."
And one final thought. Click on my link for this entry and then ponder this, "why exactly DON'T I have permission to access /Music/mensglee.html on this server?" My guess is you are not nearly gleeful enough.
Oh Those Wacky Brits
Leave it to the Brits to come up with a study showing emails to be more damaging to IQ than smoking pot. Apparently some crack team of British researchers has found that workers who over-actively check their email lose on average 10 points of IQ during the course of their workday. They contrasted this with the mere 4 point drop experienced immediately after smoking marijuana, and voila! We now have a new study, helpfully telling us something we probably all already knew in the first place.
You can’t really be too surprised that the Brits would take on such an important social issue as this one though. After all, it was the ever-perceptive Britons who spared no expense to be able to announce to the world first, and I know for a fact that there was stiff competition from a group of drunk Germans to be first to publish, unfortunately the Germans were waylaid at a tattoo parlor on their way to mail off their findings, seems a likeness of Underdog was found in the shop's window, and we all know how rare that is, but I may be moving away from my original point now, namely, that drinking beer made people seem more attractive.
I personally have conducted this same research on numerous occasions, without the benefit of any grant money being thrown my way, and would concur that most Brits become positively tolerable to look at once I’ve had a pint or two. Back to the Brits latest contribution to the academic world, I think we're all well aware of the fact that emails are making us dumber.
Do me a favor. Take a random email message in your inbox, copy and paste it into any word processing program that checks the grade level of the writing, and I'm sure you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Now it could be said that many people view email as equivalent to an oral conversation, and therefore write in a more relaxed style than they would, say, a doctoral dissertation, or a study on, oh I don’t know, maybe emails and pot.
The fact of the matter is that while speaking like an idiot has always been socially acceptable, and in my opinion should continue to be, I'm a big fan of the whole not thinking too much about what you say before you say it system of conversations, as anyone who has ever had the unfortunate privilege of speaking to me can attest, writing in the style of a ten year old was once frowned upon. Those enlightened times are long gone. I would go so far as to say that these days, the vast majority of what people read and write consists of fragmented thoughts, incorrectly constructed quasi-sentences, and simplistically stated, low-brow, pathetic tripe.
Of course, this trend is upsetting to practically no one you meet, as most of the people you meet don’t want to write well in the first place, and in the second place, probably prefer the illiterate society that we are cooperatively creating. So Brits, jolly good show mates! My question to you is what are you planning to do with your findings?
I know that personally, I expect any emails received from the land of the Sex Pistols and spotted dick, to, from this day forth, be as well organized, thoughtfully constructed and intellectually stimulating as the rest of their contributions to the world of letters have been. And yes, here I’m thinking specifically of Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson.
You can’t really be too surprised that the Brits would take on such an important social issue as this one though. After all, it was the ever-perceptive Britons who spared no expense to be able to announce to the world first, and I know for a fact that there was stiff competition from a group of drunk Germans to be first to publish, unfortunately the Germans were waylaid at a tattoo parlor on their way to mail off their findings, seems a likeness of Underdog was found in the shop's window, and we all know how rare that is, but I may be moving away from my original point now, namely, that drinking beer made people seem more attractive.
I personally have conducted this same research on numerous occasions, without the benefit of any grant money being thrown my way, and would concur that most Brits become positively tolerable to look at once I’ve had a pint or two. Back to the Brits latest contribution to the academic world, I think we're all well aware of the fact that emails are making us dumber.
Do me a favor. Take a random email message in your inbox, copy and paste it into any word processing program that checks the grade level of the writing, and I'm sure you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Now it could be said that many people view email as equivalent to an oral conversation, and therefore write in a more relaxed style than they would, say, a doctoral dissertation, or a study on, oh I don’t know, maybe emails and pot.
The fact of the matter is that while speaking like an idiot has always been socially acceptable, and in my opinion should continue to be, I'm a big fan of the whole not thinking too much about what you say before you say it system of conversations, as anyone who has ever had the unfortunate privilege of speaking to me can attest, writing in the style of a ten year old was once frowned upon. Those enlightened times are long gone. I would go so far as to say that these days, the vast majority of what people read and write consists of fragmented thoughts, incorrectly constructed quasi-sentences, and simplistically stated, low-brow, pathetic tripe.
Of course, this trend is upsetting to practically no one you meet, as most of the people you meet don’t want to write well in the first place, and in the second place, probably prefer the illiterate society that we are cooperatively creating. So Brits, jolly good show mates! My question to you is what are you planning to do with your findings?
I know that personally, I expect any emails received from the land of the Sex Pistols and spotted dick, to, from this day forth, be as well organized, thoughtfully constructed and intellectually stimulating as the rest of their contributions to the world of letters have been. And yes, here I’m thinking specifically of Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Continued slide into unshaven animal madness
Oh the depths to which I have sunk! The other day I remarked in a post on how my deteriorating appearance was frightening small, neighbor children. Unfortunately, I yet remain unshaven and I fear that I am losing all touch with humanity. Walking through my neighborhood the other day I could not help but notice how agitated my neighbors' dogs became when I passed them. The barking irritated me to what can only be described as an irrational degree, and I soon found myself running through the woods behind my house, tearing off my clothes and howling as I went. After that everything was a confused blur of violent images.
When I finally recovered a modicum of lucidity, I found myself in a pool of blood next to the carcass of a large deer. I wandered around for hours, ocasionally unrinating on trees that I passed. Eventually I found my way home and spent the rest of the day watching Animal Planet. Please God help me! I am attaching a picture of my current condition in an attempt to document my horrible transformation. Those of you with weak constitutions should avert your eyes now.
When I finally recovered a modicum of lucidity, I found myself in a pool of blood next to the carcass of a large deer. I wandered around for hours, ocasionally unrinating on trees that I passed. Eventually I found my way home and spent the rest of the day watching Animal Planet. Please God help me! I am attaching a picture of my current condition in an attempt to document my horrible transformation. Those of you with weak constitutions should avert your eyes now.
The ongoing saga of Captain Mike, scourge of the seven seas and lover of the ladies
Question: Why are pirates called pirates?
So anyway, today I had what I think might be a decent enough idea for a book. Of course I get these all the time, and they never amount to anything, so we'll just have to wait and see how this one turns out. I have felt a stronger than normal desire to write lately, but between work and fam and school and the ocassional night of drinking beer with either Lori or my classmates, I just don't have a lot of time that I can devote to writing. Not like I'm not writing anyway, between the pathetic displays of nonsense that I post on this blog, the updates to my OTHER site (I often wonder if my blog ever gets jealous of me talking about my other site as much as I do...), and my writing assignments for school, I'm actually producing more than at any other point in my life. So at least that's a positive trend. Oh well, I'm at work so I suppose I should go perform some mind-numbing task. But before I do I'll share with you a small slice of the pizza pie which is my life, My next classroom assignment is to do a personality profile on a famous historical figure, and I had fully intended to do mine on Douglas Noel Adams, longtime personal hero, we even share a birthday, but after much time spent shelving books in the pirates section of the library today, I've begun to change my mind and am now considering doing my profile on one of the great pirates. How cool would that be? I could even use the joke I found online the other day: Why are pirates called pirates? Answer: Because they ARRRRRRRR! LOLOLOLOL... Ahhh, I kill me.
So anyway, today I had what I think might be a decent enough idea for a book. Of course I get these all the time, and they never amount to anything, so we'll just have to wait and see how this one turns out. I have felt a stronger than normal desire to write lately, but between work and fam and school and the ocassional night of drinking beer with either Lori or my classmates, I just don't have a lot of time that I can devote to writing. Not like I'm not writing anyway, between the pathetic displays of nonsense that I post on this blog, the updates to my OTHER site (I often wonder if my blog ever gets jealous of me talking about my other site as much as I do...), and my writing assignments for school, I'm actually producing more than at any other point in my life. So at least that's a positive trend. Oh well, I'm at work so I suppose I should go perform some mind-numbing task. But before I do I'll share with you a small slice of the pizza pie which is my life, My next classroom assignment is to do a personality profile on a famous historical figure, and I had fully intended to do mine on Douglas Noel Adams, longtime personal hero, we even share a birthday, but after much time spent shelving books in the pirates section of the library today, I've begun to change my mind and am now considering doing my profile on one of the great pirates. How cool would that be? I could even use the joke I found online the other day: Why are pirates called pirates? Answer: Because they ARRRRRRRR! LOLOLOLOL... Ahhh, I kill me.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
All-time Great Decisions I've Made vol. 1
Last night, while faced with the impending deadline of an essay for my PSY 200 class, I made a wonderful decision. Instead of researching the material, maybe making an outline, or heaven forbid, actually starting the writing process itself, I accepted an invitation from my wife to hang out on our back porch and drink beer all night. Fast forward to this morning and in addition to having a slight hangover, I have accomplished absolutely nothing in regards to my homework assignment, which btw, is due in 8 hours. Meanwhile I have a full day at work ahead of me, and later I'll have to pick my son up from advanced band practice, leaving me maybe an hour and a half of free time to work on my essay. Oh well, at least instead of working on it right now I am composing this blog entry...
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Habemus Papam
Today Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany became the 265th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He chose the name Benedict XVI. I used to go to a church named St Benedict's in Broken Arrow. Anyway, nothing goofy to say about any of this. Just thought I'd share the news for those of you living in a cave whose only source of current events happens to be my blog. How pathetic are you? BTW, in case you hadn't heard about this either, the Red Sox defeated the Yankees to advance to the World Series last season, only to be defeated by the St Louis Cardinals in 4 games. It was all very sad for Red Sox fans. And that's the news for Tuesday, April 19th. I now return you to your regularly scheduled barage of nigh-incomprehensible ranting.
Not quite a deep thought.
"God actually intended for us to walk on the grass. That's why he put it on top of the ground." - michael moore, circa 2005.
My least meaningful post to date.
Dear Diary,
I really need to shave. The hairs above my upper lip are starting to interfere with the food that I shove into my piehole. Did you ever see the movie "Anchorman", diary? It was a good movie. At one point Will licks his upper lip and says something about the yummy ribs he had for lunch. That is what I am becoming. A monster. A freak. Today as I was driving to work I saw one of the neighbor kids pointing at me with an excited look on his face, and then, as I drove closer he began to clutch his mother's leg and cry violently. Oh dear God what have I become?! A furry, Bar-B-Q sauce retaining monster! I must find a way out of this downward spiral! Maybe I'll shave tomorrow. That's all for today diary. xoxo
M.
I really need to shave. The hairs above my upper lip are starting to interfere with the food that I shove into my piehole. Did you ever see the movie "Anchorman", diary? It was a good movie. At one point Will licks his upper lip and says something about the yummy ribs he had for lunch. That is what I am becoming. A monster. A freak. Today as I was driving to work I saw one of the neighbor kids pointing at me with an excited look on his face, and then, as I drove closer he began to clutch his mother's leg and cry violently. Oh dear God what have I become?! A furry, Bar-B-Q sauce retaining monster! I must find a way out of this downward spiral! Maybe I'll shave tomorrow. That's all for today diary. xoxo
M.
Monday, April 18, 2005
And in the highest tradition of the non sequit(u)r - Lemons!
The other day I went to a Chinese restaurant and received the strangest fortune cookie. It said: "Growling boys lurking underneath your window are most likely rehearsing a play." I still don't know what that means.
Lather, rinse, repeat(optional)
Sit at desk. Grab pile of paper. Lift a paper from atop the pile (or actually, grabbing from anywhere else within the pile works just as well.) Unfold the paper. Sort the paper into new, smaller piles. Count the papers in each of the new piles. Enter data from the paper count into the computer. Repeat 28,000,000,000,000 times. Ram head into brick wall. Combine small piles of paper back into one pile. Put a rubber band around the pile. Place a sticky note on the top paper in the pile. Write "Week 2, April" on said sticky note. Go home and contemplate a pleasant way to end all of this tragically. Congratulations! You've just been trained to be a Library Technician at the United States Naval Academy. The ramming your head into the brick wall part is of course optional.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Frustrated musing on the futility of life. Mine moreso than yours.
I wanted to write a book. I’ve always wanted to write a book, for as long as I can remember, longer actually, because I don’t really remember very much. My only problem was I could never decide what I could write about. I’ve never felt comfortable with writing about people my own age. For one thing I haven’t been at my own age long enough to feel like an expert on it. I’ve never felt qualified to write about people older than me either, seeing as how I've NEVER been at their age. As far as writing about people who are younger than me, well, that’s no good either, since, like I said, I really don’t remember very much. So there's a problem there somewhere. A conundrum if you will. Even if you won't, because this really isn't about you see, it's about me. And my inability to write intelligently on you and people like you. So maybe it is about you. You bastard. Why won't you make yourself easier to write about? Maybe if you were more one-dimensional and goverened by more simplistic motivations. Work with me here. Ok, I've complained enough for today's post. Maybe I should change my blog's name to "Underdeveloped Bitching."
Friday, April 15, 2005
Feel free to ignore this.
I'm not really posting twice in one day. I just had to share something real quick. Give me one second of your time and then feel free to get back to your life, which is much more exciting than mine I'm sure, I mean, I'm sitting here typing about a goofy thought that ocurred, and this is probably going to be one of the high points of my day. So anyway, let's get this over with. I was just reading over my last post, checking for typos, semblance to coherency, possible applicability to the furtherence of the understanding of the meaning of life and whatnot, and I thought to myself, "How pithy am I now, bitch?" And that made me laugh. That's all. It's not even my sentiment really. The pithy thing I stole from Bill-o-Reilly, a rather stolid Irish boy with a superiority complex, and the ending of the sentence in "bitch" thing I stole from Dave Chapelle, a sassy young black man with a penchant for the chronic, as well as a propensity for appending sentences with bitch. Also, I may have borrowed "sassy" from a friend of mine, one Miss Parker. So if practically none of the above content is directly attributable to me, why did I feel inclined to post it? Now that is a truly good question...
Early morning venting
All this week I've been scheduled to be in at work at 6:30 in the morning. Which really sucks. What kind of world do we live in where people are supposed to be working already by 6:30 in the morning? I mean, farmers I can understand. They have to go around grabbing cow teats, and I suppose that is easier when the cows are still a bit groggy. I know my wife complains about it less when she's still half asleep. But I'm dangerously close to digressing. Scheduled to be in at 6:30. Of course I never actually make it in by 6:30, but still, the fact that by 6:31 in the a.m. I am already late for something is fairly depressing. It's like the Van Halen "Hot for Teacher" video where the kid says "I don't FEEL tardy." How in the world can you be late for anything at 6:31 in the morning? It's just not natural.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Today Spring is earnestly considering being sprung
Spring is here! Well, not technically here, here, but undeniably approaching at a rather quick clip anyway. Just between you and me (and possibly that guy reading over your shoulder there,) spring is my favorite time of year. Not too hot, not too cold, spring is like that vast portion of life that is lived in the middle area. It's all very Buddhist. Like Hawaii. Not that Hawaii is very Buddhist, but rather eternally-springlike. Hawaii is like a fairly warm spring day all year round. If you've never been there, I recommend packing up your things today and going. Even if it means quitting your job, uprooting your family, and living a life of poverty for the rest of your days, the trip will be well worth it. Trust me. It's like a Corona commercial without that annoying narrator guy, and with a lot less corporate smarminess and cynicism. Even the airport is beautiful. One of my favorite things about Hawaii is the weather forecasting. High of 75. Low of 75. Chance of scattered showers. Repeat indefinitely for an extended forecast. One of the few places in the world whose weather is simplistic enough for the meteorologists to get it right. Not like Maryland. Today is about the 6th day out of 10 where snow was forecast and instead a remarkably lovely, sunny day has shown up. So to sum up, go get a job as a hawaiian meteorologist. You'll be successful, happy and tan. And you'll thank me for it later.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
My 32nd birthday, or How to age ungracefully.
So the other day was my 32nd birthday. All in all an almost completely meaningless number, 32. Still, it was a convenient excuse to drink a lot of beer and behave foolishly. I regret only the shots that kept being ordered for me. Oh those damnable shots. Their acidic, fuity aftertaste haunts me yet.
Friday, March 11, 2005
This almost seems like a real entry
What is this desire in people to journal-ize their lives? Does it stem from loneliness? A desire to be remembered? Maybe there are just too many hours in the day, and writing out the occurences of the more eventful hours serves as a good way to waste the otherwise uneventful ones. Regardless, today's entry will be almost bloglike. I'll even put a link in. Granted it's a link to my personal website, but a link's a link, and you're lucky to be getting one at all. I've recently returned to school. As I will be forced to write while in class, I thought it might be worthwhile to have a place to post my scholarly musings, so I've come up with this place. If you ever find anything worthwhile there, don't blame me. It's probably just the inevitability that the more you write, the more of a chance there is that something you write will actually turn out meaningfully. Pure coincidence I assure you. Just ask Shakespeare and his monkeys. Now there's a man with a lot of damn monkeys.
Monday, February 21, 2005
And an even more auspicious continuance
My second post. Which itself will be fairly short. As a matter of fact, the only reason that it exists at all is because a friend of mine recently reminded me that somewhere out there, there existed a first post. Not that she knew that at the time. It was just something she said that rang a bell. I think she was talking about peeing on herself.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Here's to an auspicious start
My first post. I'll keep it short because frankly I'm scared. I'm scared that one day my grandchildren will look at this and say, "Grampa, could you please stop peeing on yourself."
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