Mr. E's History

The Illicit Gelatin Trade

2011-08-20T21:56:00.001-04:00

The folks down the street are allegedly engaged in an undocumented entrepreneurial venture. They might even be indoor farmers ... and while they never tend to the lawn outside, I am certain that there is a great amount of care provided to any vegetation that may exist inside.

I usually avoid going near their property, but since my daughter left an item of value on top of a car, and since that item was not still on the car when she arrived at her destination, and since that item of value was not on the street when I came home, I had to check with the neighbors to see if anyone found anything.

Unfortunately, nobody in any other house had.

Damn.

As I was walking towards their house, a car pulled up and a guy jumped out of the passenger seat and ran up to the door. He was inside for a bit, but when I rang their bell he was on his way out. He seemed awfully surprised to see someone standing on the landing.

"Hi," I said in my best don't-worry-I-don't-have-a-warrant tone.

His eyes were somewhat wide and he seemed to be about as uncomfortable as I was at that moment. He was holding two small dark plastic bags in his hand and he kept that hand turned away from me, but he glanced in their direction.

"Umm ..." he stammered, "I don't live here. Let me get them." He darted back into the house to summon the owners, then came back to the door. The bags were still in his hand. "They'll be here in a second," he assured me.

At this point I could not not look at the bags in his hand. He glanced at me, then at the bags, then back at me. He was nervous. That split-second of silence was apparently too much for him to bear.

"I just came by to pick up some ..." he started.

His eyes darted back to the bags again. He now realized that he just committed himself to describing the contents of the bags. This was clearly more thought than he could muster at that moment.

"Jell-O."

With that he darted past me and to the safety of the waiting car.

All this time I suspected their home business involved the buying and selling recreational pharmaceutical products. Who would of guessed that they are merely dessert distributors!

Where does the Nth star go?

2010-06-10T07:43:00.000-04:00

Maybe we could just combine North Dakota and South Dakota. I mean, do we really need two Dakotas?

Fly the flabby skies

2010-02-14T22:50:00.000-05:00

Kevin Smith, Fatso

Director and actor Kevin Smith got booted from Southwest because of a "safety concern". The problem, they said he couldn't fit in the seat. Southwest policy is that you must be able to get both armrests down. He showed them that he could. They still kicked him off the flight!

Southwest tried a feeble apology, but in it they lied about the situation.

Here's the big fat ugly truth.

Warning: this link contains offensive material. Mainly Southwest's actions, but Kevin has a few potty words as well. (BTW, Southwest threatened to charge one of his fellow passengers for the exact same extra seat that they made him pay for.)

On landing, Mr. Smith tweeted the following:

Hey @SouthwestAir! I've landed in Burbank. Don't worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

Southwest screwed up on this one. Bad. So bad that Toyota's PR people must be ecstatic that they don't work for Southwest.

The airline is clearly unashamed that they have reduced seat sizes to cram more people in, then set up a policy in which people who haven't reduced accordingly pay extra. Before you get all high and mighty about how people shouldn't overflow into your space, try this little experiment. Put your heels together, then turn your feet outward so that they make a straight line. If you are an average sized person, your toes are now outside of Southwest airline's allotment of personal space.

There is a lesson to be learned from this. Parents, if your kids aren't slender, don't let them fly Southwest. The humiliation that the airline is willing to put them through is unbelievable.

Hats off to winter!

2009-12-24T09:33:00.005-05:00

Shoveling out from this past snowfall, I took a trip down memory lane. Fortunately, I didn't have to shovel that, too.

Whenever my grandfather would come up to Alaska to visit us in the winter, he would always get on my case about going outside without a hat on. "75% of body heat escapes through the top of your head," he would say. "You'll catch pneumonia."

This was the only time he would not seem notice my thick mass of long hair.

I sported quite the mullet in those days. My nose was my hairstyle landmark; if my hair reached the tip of my nose it was time for a haircut. I would have them cut it back up to the top of my nose and then use that as a guide how short(?) to trim the rest - except for the back, of course. My hair was so thick that they had to go back over again with the thinning scissors. At the end of the cut, I left enough hair on the floor that I could walk out the door without stepping on a single tile.

Grandpa would always notice my hair when we were indoors or when it was warm outside. Especially when I had the long hair in the back pulled into a tail. Boy, howdy, did he ever notice it then.

When you think about it, a hat is really just a pile of hair clippings that's been reassembled in a new way. What Grandpa never realized while we were standing out in the Alaska cold is that I was already wearing a hat.

Apart from the obvious age thing, my grandfather and I had some notable differences. He exercised for an hour every morning, I considered eating potato chips a hobby; he was always up doing something while I was always sitting around doing nothing. My hair color was brown, his was freckled with some age spots, except for a few gray patches where the hair actually protruded out from the skin.

Grandpa had good reason to wear hats; he had almost no body fat and very little hair. I, on the other hand, had plenty of thermal protection all over my body. Blubber has great insulation properties, which is one of the reasons you'll never see a walrus in a parka. On top of that, I had a mop-top mullet that was rated to -23 degrees.

Grandpa never seemed to get that for us bigger folk, letting body heat escape is a good thing. Some of us break a sweat from eating. Frigid air comes as quite a relief - especially when you don't have to find a restaurant with a walk-in freezer to get it.

I did finally cut my hair short before moving to the East Coast. Not coincidentally, nowadays I do keep hats around and use hoods as well. Grandpa would be proud.

Sort of.

See, while my past-times involve much less caloric intake, I am still a big guy. As such, I still do not adhere to Grandpa's standards for body-heat retention. I can only imagine what he'd say about me outside during a blizzard shoveling snow in shorts.

It's partly the Alaskan in me, but more so all the cheeseburgers and pizza in me.

Goo, goo, goo joob.

Liquor Store Snowman

2009-12-20T21:14:00.003-05:00

Looks like the kids kept busy while mom and dad went grocery shopping ...

Someone save Baby Jesus!

2009-12-20T20:50:00.002-05:00

With great power comes great washability

2009-10-27T03:43:00.002-04:00

Hi ... my name is Kevin ... and I ... am ... a power-washer renter.

There's something about a power washer. There's something about hooking your regular garden hose up to a wheeled contraption, pulling the crank on that noisy little motor, aiming the nozzle at something dirty, and blasting the grime away with a 1,500 PSI stream of water.

Washing is not normally an exciting activity. Soap, scrub, rinse, repeat. Nothing thrilling in that. Washing, generally speaking, is a chore.

But power washing ... that is a different story. The words are in that order for a purpose. The washing comes second; the power comes first.

When you pull that trigger you feel the force of the water pushing back at you. Loose objects get tossed aside like Brussels sprouts on a five-year-old's dinner plate. Power wash a dirty surface you feel like you're spray painting the clean on it. The before-after picture is right in front of you and the differences are stark.

There are six types of jobs that get done when you get a power washer, and they come in a natural progression. It starts with the job for which you got the power washer.

We rented a power washer yesterday to clean up the siding on the north side of our house. Dampness plus nature minus sunshine equals yuck, and it was showing. We knew it was starting to look bad, but it wasn't until that jet of water flushed away all the much that we realized how bad it was. Yet a lot of problems can be resolved at 1,500 PSI and we quickly cleaned up the siding.

After you've finished your original chore, you realize that you're not ready to give up the power. Fortunately, you've inevitably hit something else with the spray which left a bright streak of clean on that something. This is the second type of power washer job - the collateral benefit, if you will. In our case, we had some streaks on the driveway that had to be cleaned up. Again, though, that ended too soon.

The third type of power-washing job is the one you weren't planning on doing, but you decide to do anyways because a) you've got the washer and b) you're not ready to put it away just yet. We cleaned our deck, our sidewalks, the already clean sides of the house ... everything in need of cleaning.

When nothing else needs to be cleaned, you encounter the fourth type of power-washing job ... the creative application. By this point you've already seen what the power washer does to loose debris - leaves, twigs, and the like - and it has been ruminating in your brain for a little while. Now you actively look for nuisances to blast away. Those irritating squirrels? Gone. Weeding is much more amusing at 1,500 PSI. And what lawn is complete without your autograph etched into it, right?

At this point, you discover the fifth use of the power washer ... re-washing the stuff you washed previously but then muddied up again by trying something stupid like weeding with a power washer. And it is during this series of tasks that the thrill of the power wash begins to subside. Now that you're cleaning up what you have to clean up, it starts to become a chore again. This is a good thing, because if you're like most people you rented the washer and it needs to go back. Besides, in your zeal for washing, you've set yourself up for the sixth and final type of job that comes from using a power washer: repairing the stuff you damaged.

Next week, after it has had time to dry, we are repainting our deck. For some reason the paint is missing in little strips.

Meeting History

2009-06-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

We met history this morning.

Last night my kids and I joined my son's Boy Scout pack on an overnight encampment on the battleship USS New Jersey. It was a lot of fun. We got special tours of the ship, got served dinner and breakfast in the mess hall, got to explore areas of the ship normally closed off to the public, took lots ...

... and lots ...

... and lots ....

... of pictures, and got to sleep in the enlisted berthing areas!

OK, that last part wasn't nearly as fun.

My daughter asked why they called them the berthing areas, what with the lack of anybody actually being born there. After trying to squeeze my hefty frame into a less-than-hefty-sized bunk, I have a hypothesis of my own. For a person like me, the berthing area was about as roomy as your standard-issue womb. And when I emerged from the bunk, it did resemble birthing.

Breach.

With my shoulders squeezed tightly between the mattress and the ceiling and my head turned in a position last seen in The Exorcist, I woke up at 0300 with a massive headache and Quasimodo-like posture. I yanked my sleeping bag and pillow off the bunk and set up new quarters on the linoleum floor. I slept like a baby for the rest of the night - albeit a neglected baby - and woke up this morning straight-backed and headache-free.

After our hearty breakfast (my son wound up on KP), we meandered around the ship for a while. One of the volunteers reminded us parents that the brig was open. "Get pictures of your kids in there now," the guide said, "while it's still funny. Ten years from now, if they're in a cell won't be nearly as humorous."

While we were up by the bridge, we got into a discussion with one of the veteran volunteers about the history of the ship. Being that she was designed for battleship-to-battleship contact - the heavyweight bouts of the naval warfare world - and she saw combat service in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East over her many decades of service, I asked the obvious question. Did the New Jersey take any direct hits? The volunteer confirmed that yes, she had taken a hit from a 5" gun on shore. The volunteer also brought up a tale of a non-combat casualty in which a sailor was killed when he and a turret wound up occupying the same space.

After about 15 hours aboard, we packed up our gear and finally left the ship. We made a quick stop at the gift shop for the obligatory tchotchkes (a Yiddish word for trinkets that the Blogger spell-check wants to replace with "crotchless"), then headed towards the car.

An old guy and his two middle-age sons were walking towards the ship. Looking at our gear, the old guy asked if we slept aboard the ship. I told him we did. "Do they still have the metal bunks" he asked.

It turns out this guy served on the New Jersey in the fifties in Korea. With the tour information fresh in mind I asked "wasn't the ship hit in Korea?"

"Yes," he replied. "I was in the turret when it happened."

The turrets are protected by nine inches of armor on the sides. The five-inch shell did not penetrate. "It mainly scratched the paint," he said. My daughter then brought up the story of the guy who was killed by the turret. The old man was silent for a moment, then said "that was Bob. He was a friend of mine."

(The man did say Bob's last name, but unfortunately I don't remember it.)

It was one thing to walk around this storied battleship, but it was quite another to meet a someone who experienced some of the most memorable moments first-hand. And to think if I had done my normal routine of hurrying the kids past the gift-shop we would have missed that opportunity. It was something special.

My daughter made the moment. I thanked the old man for sharing his experiences with us. Then my daughter added, "thank you for your service."

As he was heading off to re-visit the ship on which he lived and served over fifty-five years ago, you could see in his eye that he appreciated that thank-you.

SPOILER ALERT ... or not

2009-05-06T04:49:00.004-04:00

I ha an amusing email exchange with author and poet A F Harrold on a book he is authing, The Curious Education of Epitome Quirkstandard.

Mr. Harrold released an early version online as an audiobook at Podiobooks.com, which I have been enjoying tremendously. Every so often I'll send him an email to compliment him on an episode. This was taken from our latest volley.

He wrote:

When you finish it - which is getting near - I'll warn you in the latest (final?) draft the ending is different in one detail - I'll see if you can guess what it is when you get there...

To which I replied:

Oh, this isn't going to be one of those cliche endings where aliens show up and use their photon plasma recombobulator ray guns to reanimate Elvis Presley in a futile attempt to take over the world, only to find out that they wound up in a book that not only doesn't take place before Elvis died, he wasn't even born yet, and since their plan is thwarted they leave Earth, but not before using their advance technologies to turn Simone into a cyborg and Winston Churchill - who, they are happy to find out after quickly re-reading the book up to this point, is actually alive in this era - sober, which, unfortunately, makes him realize that he doesn't like politics and instead becomes a dancer, which then means he is not there to save England a few decades later, which then means the Nazis take over and make everybody wear silly hats, which, in the a moment of complete irony, leads to the downfall of the Third Reich when the dancing Churchill throws his hat into the audience after a show in London attended by Hitler, who has to duck to avoid getting hit and winds up choking to death on his chips, and in the ensuing chaos a now very elderly Epitome finally discovers how to dress himself, is it?
I hope not. I hate those endings.

To which he replied:

Um, not quite.
Hitler chokes to death on his popcorn.

On Faith, Science, and Self-Propelled Meat Sacks

2009-02-26T05:19:00.002-05:00

This was my recent contribution to a discussion on science and faith.

Those who champion the notion that "pure science" is the source of all knowledge lump religion into the realm of the supernatural. The supernatural, they argue, is by definition outside the realm of what science can even attempt to explain, science being limited to the "natural" universe as it is.

This desire to explain all natural phenomena in terms of natural causes and effects is religion-neutral (that is, neutral to religion as a concept). To say science has no capacity to either confirm or deny the characteristics, capacity, or even existence of supernatural phenomena is understandable and also religion-neutral. To state that there is no physical evidence to support a particular claim of supernatural interaction with the natural world – or to state that there is evidence to dispute such a particular claim – is religion-neutral and within the defined realm of scientific study. We know, for example, that the Earth is not resting atop giant elephants that are standing on giant turtles.

But the science true believers overlook an incredibly important logical fallacy. They make a leap of faith that essentially states that since some claims of supernatural interaction with the physical world can be disproved, all such claims must be false. Apollo is not carrying the sun across the sky in his chariot, therefore Catholicism is invalid.

Faith is the holding as true something that can neither be proved nor disproved. To claim that anything outside the realm of "science" can not exist is nothing more than a statement of faith. Atheism is a religion of its own.

Personally, I think there is a dual nature to man. There is a physical existence, but there is also something that is not quite physical. For convenience, we shall call that a soul. I believe there is interaction between the soul and the physical body, but the soul is something separate. I won’t go into my own faith beyond that; I won’t try to explain how that interaction occurs or what greater meaning this may imply. I just included that tidbit to posit the notion that perhaps there is something within us that can indicate the existence of something “supernatural”. The way I see it, my body is my body, but my soul is “me”.

Then again, maybe I am wrong. The phenomenon that is my consciousness may simply be a byproduct of the electrical fields generated in the central processing unit of a self-propelled meat sack. I don’t think we’ll really know until we know … or we don’t – depending on which side is correct. My point is that even self-identity is a matter of faith.

Incidentally, I do hope my view on duality is correct. I’d hate to think that all this time I’ve been a figment of my own imagination.

Next task: rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

2009-02-12T14:29:00.003-05:00

I saw a guy walking by the side of the road today picking up trash with one of those pointy sticks.

Normally, this would be a useful task. People litter. Litter has aesthetic as well as environmental consequences. Ergo, someone has to pick up the litter. Even I can figure that out.

But there's a slight problem with trying to do this task today; namely it is windier than the collective backsides of an entire mining crew at a chili-eating contest.

So here this guy is, dutifully picking up trash from the grass alongside the road, while loose plant matter, paper products, small poodles sent outside for wee-wee time at the same moment that Mother Nature planned whoosh-whoosh time, and sorts of other stuff are blowing about all around him.

What is the point of this? Not only is the ground he's cleaning being uncleaned right behind him, but the stuff he's picking up now be gone by tomorrow if he just leaves it on the ground.

And now for something completely different ...

Jim Cramer (of Mad Money fame) just made perhaps his single most unique market observation. While being interviewed on CNBC about the merits of various retailers, he said of one one: "People go to Kohl's to buy their fat pants."

The woman interviewing him almost didn't recover. You could see at least four things running through her mind:

I can't believe he said that,
I wan't to laugh but I shouldn't,
I really can't believe he just said that, and
wait a minute ... I shop at Kohl's!

As she was regaining her composure, she mentioned, "I'm glad I'm wearing waterproof mascara."

Websites on which you don't want to appear

2009-02-07T23:24:00.003-05:00

I am watching "Talkshow With Spike Feresten" because, well, the remote is really far away, and right after the bit where they gave a 99-year-old woman a set of tramp stamps (aka the "license plate" tattoos in the center of the back just above the waistline), Spike discussed an issue plaguing bad-haired, bad-skinned, oft-bespectacled aging male has-been or wanna-be celebrities everywhere.

You see, gone are the days of any-pub-is-good-pub. Nowadays the Internet opens up "pub" opportunities that can be unflattering to the point of painfulness. Outer-tier celebrities such as former Saturday Night Live star Dana Carvey, Spike Feresten, the loud half of Penn and Teller Penn Gilette, sodomite satirist Oscar Wilde, seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke, Senator-elect-ish Al Franken, and alleged best friend of and political mastermind behind President Obama William Ayers have all been the subjects of this very type of Internet attack.

Yes, they have all been featured on MenWhoLookLikeOldLesbians.com, a website dedicated to exposing men who look like old lesbians.

Interestingly enough, three guys on the site (Spike, Dana, and Penn) were all on the show this night. So they did what any group of guys facing the public scorn of looking like aging homosexual women would do ... they sang a song about it.

Let's face it; nothing restores one's masculinity more than breaking into a musical number.

Outtakes from the Guff'ner's interview

2008-11-24T12:29:00.004-05:00

You may have already seen the Sarah Palin Turkey Shoot - the Q&A session that was held at the turkey farm where the Guff'ner pardoned a turkey in standard White House fashion. Long story short, after the ceremony, the farm workers resumed their normal activities while the Guff'ner continued to answer questions for the press. As a result, Sarah winds up on YouTube casually talking about politics while a worker procedes to slaughter and drain birds behind her.

Intellectual heavyweights such as Slate's Bill Smee criticized the Guff'ner for this. It would be nice and easy to dismiss him as an idiot, but he produced this wonderful video that is too good to not share. So I'll show the vid, then point out his idiocy.

Outtakes from the Guff'ner's Turkey Shoot interview

OK, now that we've had our fun, let's get down to reality.

The Guff'ner is granting an interview. She is facing the camera. It is quite unlikely that she picked that spot when the, ahem, machinery in the background was actually in use. She does not have the standard-issue international-celebrity entourage that some politicians carry around with them, so there is no over-excited under-employed film major hanging around framing spots. The press starts asking questions, she answers.

If you look verrrrry carefully, you will notice that the Guff'ner is facing the camera. At no time does she turn her head towards the worker behind her. The camera, on the other hand, is facing the Guff'ner and the worker.

Of all the people involved, those that know that a bespectacled and besweatered worker is sticking turkeys into a chipper-shredded are a) the worker, b) the camera operator, and c) the interviewer. The turkey-mauler is just doing his job; he does not appear to be involved in media relations. So when you get down to it, the only people that are sufficiently qualified to determine that the Guff'ner is in an awkward situation and aware of the same are the people conducting the interview.

Usually camera operators look into the camera to see what they are filming. It helps to ensure that some of the minor details -- like whether the camera is pointing at the subject, is upright, is in focus, and is actually recording -- are not missed. In fact, camera operators have been known to alert their subjects when there is a problem with the shot. In this case, it's obvious no such warning was issued.

You could try to posit that the camera operator wasn't paying attention to the actions behind the Guff'ner, but there is one small problem ...the camera operator has moved the camera so that the Guff'ner is not the center of the image. She is standing to the left of the focal point. The camera was moved for the purpose of getting the turkey-shredder into the shot.

This was not the act of a rogue ex-vice presidential candidate, this was the act of a rogue cameraperson.

Mr. Smee, if you happen to come across my blog while Googling yourself late at night, please note that there is a significant difference between being caught doing something stupid and being set-up so it appears that you are doing something stupid. While the Guff'ner has had her stupid moments, this is clearly not on her.

Oh, and the fact that you didn't realize this was a set-up doesn't speak highly to your qualifications.

The Funky Fresh Senior Choir

2008-11-15T08:11:00.001-05:00

Putting your multiple personalities to good use

2008-11-15T07:55:00.001-05:00

Politricks

2008-11-04T05:17:00.004-05:00

I finally figured it out.

I finally discovered, after all this time, the fundamental difference between the two major-party campaigns ... and it only took two years!

Each candidate has come out and stated what he would do with taxes, health care policy, foreign policy, and so on. But both candidates have also come out with cheap shots and bold-faced lies about their opponents. Both have also lied about themselves.

In short, this "most historic election of all time" has been pretty much politics as usual.

But there is a huge difference between the candidates that only becomes evident when you realize what all of this campaigning has really been about. Each man is asking every one of us to go into a little curtained-off makeshift closet and pull his lever.

This is nothing new ... men young and old have been asking for this throughout history. And men have often come up with grandiose plans to get people to pull their levers, often talking a big game or being less-than-truthful in the process.

(Yes, I know I took this in an inappropriate direction, but bear with me.)

Let's be honest, when the campaigning is over and the realities of Washington set in, whichever one of these clowns gets elected today is going to wind up screwing you. If you take a moment to embrace the nature of this particular metaphor - immature as it may be - you realize something profound. By voting for either one, you are doing something for them that helps them far more than it will help you. And when it's all over, you won't feel respected the way you thought you might.

The big difference between these campaigns is Obama has been able to say just the right things (or the wrong things in just the right way ... wink, wink, nudge, nudge) to make the average voter feel excited about getting a chance to run behind a curtain and pull his lever. At the same time, McCain has taken a far less sexy approach that has reminded too many voters of why their mothers told them not to talk to strangers. At this point in the campaign, to the average voter he seems smarmier, more desperate. Almost creepy.

After all this time, all these ads, all these interviews, world tours, SNL appearances, debates ... after all that, it comes down to perception. And so today we go to the polls to decide which come-on line got us best.

Today it's "Yes, I can respect you in the morning" versus "hey, kids, I've got some tax breaks for you in the back of my van."

R-E-S-P-yadda yadda yadda

2008-10-22T13:23:00.003-04:00

Nothing irks adults more than when children give them the respect they deserve.

Palin Representin' da' A-K-49. Woot-woot!

2008-10-20T11:23:00.002-04:00

What do ya' know ... Saturday Night Live is funny again.

Many props to the Guff'ner for this one.

Strange Days

2008-10-15T07:58:00.002-04:00

October 14, 2008, goes down as a unique one for me.

For the first time in my life, my circle of acquaintances had a birth and a death on the exact same day.

I got both pieces of news when I got to work this morning. Festive decorations on a cubicle, heartfelt sorrow in an email. The Alpha and the Omega all at once.

Both families are in my prayers, albeit very different prayers for each.

Critical Thinking

2008-06-20T08:41:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I love critics, although much less so when it is I that is being critiqued. Rabid sharks are seldom as biting as some critics. Consider this line, from Slate Magazine's review of Michael Myers' new movie, The Love Guru:

This tale of a guru who brings joy to all who meet him is the most joy-draining 88 minutes I've ever spent outside a hospital waiting room.

Ouch.

Windfall prophets

2008-06-13T07:35:00.003-04:00

Dave Ramsey, my new favorite financial guru, had an interesting comment on Big Oil yesterday. After spending $75 - the maximum amount the local gas station would authorize on a debit card at the pump - to fill the tank of his "politically incorrect" truck about three-quarters of the way, he went into the gas station's store to buy a drink. His little bottle of water cost him a buck.

It got me to thinking a little bit. If Big Oil should be punished for its windfall profits, I wonder what the calculation is on a bottle of water, 'cuz it's freakin' free. It's water. All they did was put it in a bottle. It's water ... and it's a dollar
For 8 ounces, it's a dollar, which, by the way, is $16 a gallon.
I think Big Water should be punished for windfall profits! Deer Park, you're going down! Costco brand water, you need to be taxed!

He then goes on to point out that a grande latte from Starbucks is $53 a gallon. Perhaps it's time to go after Big Coffee, too.

Be Seated

2008-05-22T05:47:00.002-04:00

I hate when I get accused of being lazy just because I put something off for a few days or several months. You know - like posting.

(True, sometimes it is because I'm lazy, but that doesn't mean I have to like being accused of it.)

Yet sometimes the reason has nothing to do with laziness. For example, I have a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be organized. I also have developed a pretty good framework for how I want to organize it. I just need to put the organizational system into place, then all the organizing will be easy. My problem - and thus the delay - is finishing the system. You see, I'm a perfectionist; I'm just not very good at it. But here the problem is crazy, not lazy.

Then there are other reasons. The driver's seat of my car, for instance, broke. Apparently there is a weld in the frame of the seatback that snapped at some point. When this first happened, the seat leaned to right a little bit but still held up OK. After a while, something snapped again and suddenly I could no longer incrementally adjust the reclining angle of the seat. Also, if I leaned too hard, the seat would make a Pop! and suddenly it would recline a lot. When this happened, I would have to get out of the car, pull the lever that allows you to recline the seat, and give the seat back a big shove forward.

Lately, however, the seat turned terminal. The seat back had all the structural integrity of wet cardboard and it had to be replaced. This led to the conversation that I had been avoiding. I took Hubert (I drive a mid-90's Buick ... it's an old man's car, it needs an old man's name!) to the local dealership and asked for an estimate.

I know what you're thinking at this point. First, I don't know why, oh why, you are still reading this. Second, you are getting ready to point the lazy finger at me for not getting an estimate sooner.

But you see, I already had an estimate; I just needed one from the dealer. And as I had estimated, the dealer's estimate was indeed higher than my estimate of the dealer's estimate. See, I hadn't been putting this off out of laziness, I had been putting this off because I'm cheap.

Fortunately for me, the service manager on duty that day was also cheap. He suggested I check with salvage yards to see if I could track down a new, er, replacement seat that way.

(One good thing about driving an old man's car is there are always plenty of parts available from salvage yards. Many old men drive either too slow or too fast, which means there are a lot of cars out there that are OK except for the tremendous front-end or rear-end damage. As they used to say about chicken nuggets, parts is parts.)

Sure enough, I found a seat.

All it took was a couple hours of work, a trip to the local auto parts store to find the special ratchet attachment for the one freaking star-shaped bolt, and some colorful metaphors and voila! I had replacement seat in my car for a good $1,000 less than it would have been to have the dealer do it.

And to prove laziness was not the issue, the next day I uninstalled and reinstalled the seat again.

(That aforementioned one freaking star-shaped bolt is used to attach the seat belt to the frame of the car. The seat belt receptacle on the replacement seat was incompatible with the seat belt on the car. I didn't realize this until Saturday night when we drove to the store. As I was driving, my seat belt, which I had clicked into the receptacle, started retracting. It clicked, it just didn't latch.)

I'm actually going to have to uninstall and reinstall the seat one more time. The upholstery on the seats don't match, so there is a slight deviation between the fabric on the various seats.

(By slight deviation, I mean the back and passenger seats are maroon, the driver's seat is beige.)

That's a repair for a different day, however. Perhaps even a different month.

Imagine That

2008-05-21T22:12:00.002-04:00

My son leads a secret double life. Typical third-grade boy by day, once school is out (and if there’s nothing good on TV) he sheds his cover and becomes Super Terrific Imaginary Action Hero Boy.

The life of a super terrific imaginary action hero boy can be an arduous one, fraught with danger, destruction, and, of course, lots of explosions. One day he might have to save the world from imaginary mutant dinosaurs, the next he may have to rally the good, ahem, metamorphing robots to repel an attack from the bad ones. The following day he may be an imaginary mutant dinosaur out to destroy the world. And of course there are the standard battles to wage that only involve humans ... who happen to be armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and laser guns.

Whatever the nature of the task facing a super terrific imaginary action hero boy, there are always two common elements: automatic weapon fire and mass destruction. The automatic weapon fire is essential because of the need for cool sound effects. That telltale tshtshtshtshtsht sound of an imaginary machine gun can be heard no matter what a boy is playing. "OK, Billy, you be the Pope and I'll be Buddha. Tshtshtshtshtsht!"

Incidentally, not every boy grows out of the sound-effects stage. Ms N gives me guff every time I pick up one of our cats. It's not a conscious act, but every time I hoist them off the ground I make a "Tshew" sound.

As for mass destruction, well, every third-grade boy worth his fruit snacks is a walking mass of destruction. Whether he's causing it or trying to prevent it, a super terrific imaginary action hero boy faces destruction of Biblical proportions every day.

It's a thankless imaginary job, but with great imaginary power comes great imaginary responsibility.

As I was getting ready to work on a household project, I heard my son downstairs. He was engaged in an epic battle that stretched from the living room to the dining room. There was even a sneak attack against the enemy’s flank in the hallway. Before long, the imaginary battle worked its way up the stairs and right to the edge of the room I was in.

"So how's the battle going?" I asked.

"Good," he replied, before unloading another imaginary clip into his surging imaginary foes.

"Are you winning?"

"No," he answered. He switched to a more laser-sounding weapon.

"Oh," I replied. Sensing a fatherly advice type moment, I figured I'd dispense some fatherly advice. "Well, keep fighting the good fight and I'm sure you'll prevail."

"Yeah," he answered, firing a few more rounds. "That's the way it usually works out."

Research and Dev-Hell-opment

2008-02-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

"Annoying as Hell" seems like an understatement, what with the nasty reputation Satan has built up over the centuries.

Annoying? Hell is not supposed to be a nuisance; it's supposed to be agonizing! It's supposed to be, well, Hell.

But when you think about it, over time (and what is eternity if not lots and lots of time?) some annoyances become unbearably tortuous.

With the ever-growing numbers of people that seem to be on the eternal damnation fast-track nowadays, there are good reasons to believe that Hades Inc would have a vested interest in finding punishments that are more cost effective and environmentally friendly.

Besides, many of the more insidious tortures are labor intensive and Beelzebub is facing labor issues. Unlike the Screen Actors Guild, the Subterranean Brotherhood of Minions and Trolls Local 666 is not under Satan's direct control. They reportedly have connections with the Teamsters, and we all know that can't be good news for management.

Alternative methods are employed according to the extent of ones pre-mortem misdeeds. Murderers and lawyers get the Pit of Eternal Fire, while people who were more "naughty" than "evil" get less extreme punishments, like the Fly of Eternal Ear Buzzing or the Unending Unreachable Itch.

The research division of Hades Inc tends to be secretive, but every once and a while rumors slip out. Here are some of the recent projects "allegedly" in development.

The Perpetual Hold
(“Your call is important to us. Due to high caller volume, your call will be answered in approximately ten … thousand years”)

The Smoke Alarm
(Doesn’t sound bad, you say? Remember, where there’s eternal fire, there’s bound to be eternal smoke)

The Realm of Loud Cell Phone Talkers

The Infinite Download

The Endless Staff Meeting

The Never-Ending “Head On” Commercial
(Apply directly to your forehead)

The Self-Losing Car Keys

The Uncooling Coffee

The Mobius Memo

And of course the dreaded Middle Seat in Coach.

Half Glassed

2008-02-25T10:33:00.006-05:00

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst"; that's my motto.

(Well, one of them, at least. "Buy low, sell high, collect early, and pay late" is another personal favorite. "I plan to live forever ... or die trying" is another, and it has the added benefit of being one to which I can claim ownership!)

But in practice, the words by which I live are more appropriately stated as: "Hope for the best, prepare for whatever requires the least preparation."

I've heard a tale told of a small farming town on the prairie that was suffering from horrible droughts. The townsfolk decided that with the help of the local pastor they would gather one day and pray their hardest for help from above; perhaps the Lord would answer their pleas with some much-needed rainfall.

On the prescribed day, the people gathered at the town square. Every single person showed up, but when the mass prayer was set to begin, the pastor looked disapprovingly at the crowd. "You people have no faith," he scolded, much to the astonishment of those there gathered. "Not one of you brought an umbrella."

It dawned on me that by observing the way in which someone prepares themselves, you might be able to discern that person's likely outlook on life. Preparation, after all, is a product of the expectation - or at least acknowledgment of the likelihood - of possible future events. Preparation is active risk management.

When the fire alarm goes off in many office buildings, the response of the employees is often less enthusiastic as it would be, say, in an elementary school. Teachers and school administrators have good reason to make sure that kids file out of the building in a somewhat orderly fashion, and kids usually would prefer being outside, anyways. Plus, those that evacuate to the front of the school get to see the fire truck.

Office workers, on the other hand, are less enthused about the fire truck, and often less excited about going outside. As adults, office workers are expected to handle their own evacuation. There's no lining up in single-file lines. Besides, years of experience have taught most office workers that there are far more sounding of the fire alarms than there are actual fires.

Where there's smoke, there's probably a frozen waffle jammed into a break-room toaster.

As a result, office workers are frequently non-plussed about the whole alarm-thing, and often take a moment or five to prepare themselves and their work area before actually attempting to leave the building.

A fire alarm, therefore, presents the possibility for a sociological experiment. Theoretically, the extent to which an office worker prepares him- or herself for a building evacuation could correlate to that worker's general perspective on life. An optimist and a pessimist would presumably have a different outlook on the alarm, and thus would respond differently.

One may feel that the alarm is just another in a string of false alarms. If so, this person would gather very little - perhaps their purse, keys, or cell phone. It seems reasonable to assume that the person who evacuates the office empty handed is expecting to return to the office in short time and to find his work waiting for him just like he left it.

Some people, however, leave the office during the alarm looking as if they were leaving for the day. This type of person is anticipating that his work may not be as he left it; that this alarm may be real and that their office may be at risk of being engulfed in the blaze. (Bull manure is flammable, after all)

This person, laden with shoulder bags, laptops, coats, boots, and possibly even family photos and coffee mugs, is ready to not only evacuate the building, but to leave the area altogether if that is required.

Next time your building's alarm goes off, think about how you respond, and how your coworkers respond. Who's expecting to come back and who's thinking the building might burn to the ground? Makes for interesting musing.

My own experience is that people do respond differently. The problem, though, is now one of definition. Take the guy who evacuates with all of his personal effects and car keys in hand and compare him to the guy who is just waiting to head back up and return to his work ...

Which one's the optimist?

Is your day complete yet?

2008-02-24T23:54:00.001-05:00

They say you should learn something new every day. Since it will probably be Monday by the time you read this, and since nobody learns anything new on Mondays on their own, here's a something that came from (or at least through) the, ahem, great center of learning that is Pennsylvania State University.

(Unofficial motto: "You can't spell 'Penn State' without B-I-N-G-E")

Surprisingly, this PSU contribution to mankind's collective intelligence does not involve the consumption of alcohol. (At least not directly. I'm sure a lot of alcohol was involved indirectly!)

I'd present it without further ado, but I recently received this cool You-Tube video that I found really cool. So here is the further ado:

And now back to our story.

If you're a fan of baseball, you may think of an "upper decker" as a home run ball hit so hard that it lands in the upper tiers of seats. Well, the guys (and I am quite sure this was figured out by guys) at Penn State determined that upper deckers can involve a pastime other than our national one.

You see, there comes a time when a guy may feel a need - a really pressing need at that - to torment some other person in an unpleasant manner. It may be an act of vengeance, or it may be an act of social acceptance (sometimes it's hard to tell whether you get treated worse by guys who are friends or those who are foes). Either way, a prank is an important ritual in the life of a collegiate male.

But to be effective, a prank has to be memorable.

Of course, one way to make something memorable is to make it disgusting. And one seemingly endless source of disgusting material is the human digestive system, specifically in its final stages. In terms of disgustingness, number two is number one on most lists.

Odds are, you've used (or even owned) a toilet that is filled with blue water. That color comes from a cleaning solution that is placed in the tank. On each flush, the bowl is emptied and replenished with tinted tank water. This is typically a cleansing process.

The guys at Penn State came up with a new way to use a toilet in a prank, and it involved no cellophane whatsoever.

See, cleaning solution is not the only thing that can color the toilet water. In fact, virtually anything water soluble in the tank will wind up in the bowl on the next flush. (If you really want to confuse someone, sneak into their bathroom with a packet of Kool-Ade. You don't need college football to have an orange bowl.)

Without getting too crass, we'll explain the upper decker as such: "the deposit, usually as a prank, into a toilet tank of that which would normally be deposited into the bowl."

A poo bomb.

And now you know something you didn't know before. Your day is complete.

There's always a catch

2008-02-23T21:02:00.000-05:00

It wasn't my favorite, but it will do.

The greatest play in Super Bowl history now joins the ranks of the Immaculate Reception, the Catch, the Holy Roller, the Music City Miracle, the Miracle at the Meadowlands, the Hail Mary, Ghost to the Post, Wide Right, and several others (See: NFL Lore). The play now has a name:

Catch 42.

Of the other suggestions that received mention, my personal favorite was "The Boston Strangler". But I can see how that one could draw some criticism, what with the trivialization of mass murder and all.

I found another one to be incredibly funny, but it would never have worked as a play name. More likely, we'll see this on You-Tube soon. Imagine if you will three replays of that final catch - one from each angle - timed to match the audio from everybody's least favorite commercial. (You know the one where the woman just repeats the product name and slogan three times in a row.)

Head On:
Apply directly to the forehead.

My entry, "The Maracle" failed to earn any mention, which is about as much mention as it deserved. I'm like that guy in Not Another Teen Movie who's lifelong ambition was to inspire group applause by being "The Guy" who starts clapping slowly in those first moments after somebody has borne their soul to someone else in a public setting when the bystanders are too stunned by what has just transpired that they don't know how to react. Three or four times during the movie he starts it up - clap ... clap ... clap - only to be told that it was not the time. Finally, when the time does come, he gets all excited, readies his hands, and then gets upstaged by some other guy who starts the slow clapping.

The point of that rambling analogy was to say that I'm a pretty creative guy until there comes a time when creativity is needed. Oh well, I guess there's worse things than not getting the clap.

So I missed getting to name the play ... at least my list of titles for the Patriots season got read on NYGiantscast, which means I get some street cred out of this!

One-derful

2008-02-21T13:20:00.003-05:00

As a numbers guy, I notice when certain patterns emerge in seemingly random numbers.

For example, I found it quite memorable when my purchase at a convenience store, after sales tax, wound up being exactly $10.00. I also found it amusing when, after my winnings were applied, I wound up with 666 credits on a slot machine in Atlantic City.

I used to happen to glance at clocks at 11:56 (both am and pm) a statistically improbable number of times. Any '80s Giants fan recognizes those numbers ... Phil Simms and LT.

Needless to say, I found it notable that the last time I glanced at my watch, it was 1:11.

But there's a difference between notable and blogworthy, and three ones on a watch are not blogworthy. Unless, of course, you consider the last time I looked at my watch, which was 120 minutes earlier ... 11:11.

Lunatic Eclipse

2008-02-21T11:30:00.003-05:00

This morning we were watching the early, early news - you know, the news they show before sane people wake up. The anchor, when covering last night's lunar eclipse, gave a somewhat unexpected analysis.

"An eclipse occurs when a giant dragon in space swallows the moon," he said, "or whenever the moon passes through the shadow of Earth, whichever you choose to believe."

Fit to be tied

2008-02-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

OK, so this is not the final tally, and this doesn't count mailed ballots, disputed ballots, hanging chads, or any of the other things that alter the vote total, but it's fun none-the-less. The initial results from the Democratic Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious Tuesday primary vote in Syracuse, NY was:

Barack Obama	6,001
Hillary Clinton	6,001

Yep. A tie.

Close, but no Super Bowl ring

2008-02-05T05:27:00.000-05:00

Possible titles
for the story of the
2007 Patriots:

Eighteen Wins and One Giant Loss
(Seen on T-Shirt)

Eighteen and D'oh!
(NFL.com)

Path to Perfection
- The Patriot's Journey to the 2007 AFC Championship

Eighteen and Uh-oh

Eighteen and Oops

Eighteen and Oh-F@&#!

Perfuct

One-defeated

Eighteen and Uh-Oh

2008-02-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

The Giants won Super Bowl 42 XVII to XIV! In the process, they knocked off the golden boys of football, the previously undefeated New England Patriots. The much-maligned Eli Manning became Super Bowl MVP, the all-but-anointed Tom Brady became very well acquainted with the turf.

Shortly after the win in Green Bay, a friend of mine sent me an email saying he was seriously considering not attending our Super Bowl party. With my passion for the G-Men, he reasoned, regardless of who won the game, I would be insufferable. I am happy to report that I was, indeed, sufferable.

Well, I did get wrapped up in the game a little bit ...

Like in the fourth quarter, when the lead changed three times. My foot was twitching throughout, turning my sofa into the vibra-couch.

In the Giants drive following their first touchdown, Manning broke out of the pocket on third down and, while scrambling, tossed the ball over a defender to Plaxico Burress. The throw was off and Plax couldn't bring it in.

"Oh, deary me," I said.

My buddy, an Eagles' fan, tried to assure me. "What are you so concerned about?" he asked. "They've got the lead. All they have to do is keep up what they're doing."

"You don't know those Patriots," I said, "and you obviously don't know the Giants."

Sure enough, after the G-Men punted, the Brady Bunch proceeded to march all the way down the field and score, putting the Pats up 14-10.

But then, with just over two and a half minutes left, Eli and the Giants' offense began their drive into history.

SEE ITAn integral part of that drive was a play that will go down in Giants and Super Bowl lore. A furious Patriot pass rush came crashing through the Giant offensive line. The pocket collapsed around Eli, engulfing him. Yet somehow he managed to break free from the grip of a would-be sacker and he scrambled to the right. Looking downfield, he found David Tyree, a special teamer who fills in on certain passing plays. He threw a high pass Tyree's way. A Patriot defender leaped for the ball as well, and the two players each fought for the pass.

In what can only be described as indescribable, Tyree trapped the ball against his helmet with one hand long enough to get his other hand up there. Then, as they fell to the ground, he tightened his grip on the ball, maintaining possession and securing a key first down.

"Jolly good show," I said.

Saturday, Ms N and I decided to do our part to stimulate the economy; we bought a 42" LCD HDTV. Watching the Super Bowl on a screen like that is just shy of heavenly. Of course, it made for an interesting predicament towards the end of the game. I surprised everyone in the room on the final play of that Giant drive when I yelled "Touchdown!" as Manning took the snap from Shawn O'Hara. Sure enough, Eli lofted a beautiful 13 yard pass over Hobbs and into the sure hands of Plaxico.

"How did you know that?" I was asked.

"I heard the kids going 'Wooo!'" I replied.

Comcasts' HD signal is about 6 seconds behind the regular feed. The kids were in the other room watching on a regular TV; they saw the end of the play as we saw the beginning of it. I "banished" them into the living room with the rest of us for the remainder of the game.

The Giants went up 17-14, but they still left the Boys of Beantown 35 seconds and 3 timeouts, which is exactly the type of scenario that wannabe legends dream of. The defense still needed to hold one more time. In a game that is played six seconds at a time, 35 seconds is a long time for a storybook team playing out a storybook season.

Fortunately, the Giants defenders don't spend much time reading storybooks.

On that final drive, which featured three wonderfully defensed passes, unharolded Giant Jay Alford made a play on second down that seemed to be a tribute to all the teams that tried and failed to bring down the Patriots during the season. He broke through the middle of the offensive line and hammered into Tom Brady, lifting the hapless quarterback off his feet and pummeling him into the turf. It was the fifth sack for the Giants and the 14th time that Brady was knocked down during the game.

"That must smart," I said.

So now the Giants are Super Bowl Champions, the '72 Dolphins are still the only undefeated team in history, and the Patriots are now the "other guys".

Even worse (from their perspective - better for the rest of us), they become the answer to all sorts of trivia questions with negative connotations. And being that Giants fans tend to be Yankee fans while Patriots fans tend to be Red Sox fans, there is in some sense a feeling that the G-Men helped avenge those whose hearts were crushed in the 2004 ALCS, when Boston came back from a 3-game deficit to win the best-of-seven series 4-3.

In the grand scheme of things, losing after winning the first three games is not nearly as painful as losing after winning the first eighteen. The Yankees now have the second-biggest choke in recent sports history.

The Patriots are not the first team to go plus-17. The '72 Dolphins were the first to do that. They were not the first team to go 18-1. The '85 Bears did that. The difference, of course, is the Bears' loss came in the regular season (to Miami).

The Bears won their Super Bowl ... against the Patriots.

"Life with disgrace is dreadful."
- Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson

"Ha-HA!"
Nelson (from the Simpsons)

Tastier than kissing everyone in the room ...

2008-02-01T16:11:00.001-05:00

... Just not nearly as fun.

Remember George Costanza's infamous double-dip debacle? Well that led to some honest-to-goodness scientific study on the health ramifications of double-dipping.

Thanks to Clemson University Professor Paul L. Dawson, the guy who debunked the mythological "five-second rule", we now know that double-dipping does indeed transfer microbial bacterium from mouth to dip.

So this Super Sunday, make sure you practice safe dipping habits and hope that your fellow partygoers do not suffer from Costanzitis.

Techonomics

2008-01-31T16:10:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the guys at Technorama for finding this gem ...

Freudian, perhaps?

2008-01-31T06:21:00.000-05:00

DISCLAIMER: While this post primarily picks on a single candidate in the current presidential campaign, I am not making any statements in favor of or against any candidate. This is commentary about the public actions of a public figure, not campaign promotion.

Given enough time, I will do my best to pick on all the candidates to the fullest extent possible.

Senator Hillary Clinton unleashed her Super-Dooper-Mega-Galactic-Mondo-Prima-Ultra-Wonder Tuesday ads upon the defenseless electorate recently and, in doing so, made a stunning admission.

The ad, seen here (at least until the campaign pulls the ad from You-Tube), is the standard run-of-the-mill political bit. About 22 seconds in (for those Hillary haters who can't bear to watch the whole thing, just drag the slider about three quarters of the way across), Hillary describes the various roles she has filled in the American political process.

In her words, she has been "a public servant, an activist, and now, a senator".

Did you cringe?

For those who didn't (or for those aforementioned haters who were too busy cringing about Hillary in general and missed the subtlety), Hillary has just announced that she is no longer a public servant; she is now a senator.

To be fair, Hillary is not the only politician to get confused about the role of government – and, by extension, members of the government – in a democracy. It's a misconception that has plagued politicians for as long as there have been democracies. Lately, however, campaign managers have been savvy enough to a) keep their subjects sufficiently well heeled so as to reduce the risk that the candidate might blurt out their real opinions before the votes are cast, and b) take whatever steps necessary to bury, deflect, diffuse, or distract attention from such gaffes whenever they occur.

(At least until they get into office. At that point, all bets are off. Previous office holders were kind enough to leave behind a process that makes it tremendously hard to lose your office, no matter how incompetent you may prove to be.)

The Clinton campaign put this statement in the closing of an advertisement designed for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Tuesday, the make-or-break day in the presidential primaries. An ad! That they paid for!

The United States of America is a republic. We are a representative democracy. Take special note of that word: "representative".

To borrow from a certain animated ogre, our government is like an onion; it has many layers (and often brings us to tears).

It is comprised of elected officials, appointed officials, and, of course, a whole bunch of government employees. This is just as true at the federal level as it is at the state and local level. It is easy for the average person to consider many government employees as "public servants". Trash collectors, firemen, and police officers, for example, serve the public very visibly. Soldiers serve the public. The Department of Motor Vehicles employees serve the ... well, they are supposed to serve the public.

(And, of course, the IRS serves the public, albeit on a platter.)

It should not be lost on anyone, though, that the "officials" – both appointed and elected – are also public servants. They are representatives of The People, chosen by The People (or the by the people chosen by The People) to manage the government, which itself exists to serve - not to rule - The People.

Unfortunately, the current administration disagrees, as does the party leadership on both sides of the aisle. The Republican and Democratic overlords have demonstrated through their actions in the White House and Congress (and in many governors' mansions, mayor's offices, and state and local legislatures nationwide) that while they certainly serve some people, they don't serve The People. But most of those same politicians at least pay enough lip service to public service during the campaigns to convince the voters that they are, at minimum, the lesser of the two evils on the ballot.

Representatives and senators do have a leadership role within the government, but since the government exists to serve The People, the Capitol Hillbillies' role in America is to flip the switches, turn the knobs, and pull the levers on the largest public service machine in the country. As the CEO of a multi-trillion dollar organization, the President has power. However, as a democratically elected leader (s)he does not own that power. The power comes with the office and the office is owned by The People.

The role of the President is not Public Leader, it is Head Servant. (And the previous president delegated that role to an intern!)

Regrettably, it seems that not only did Senator Clinton's statement make it out of her campaign headquarters unnoticed; it seemingly failed to attract scrutiny from the media and, at the time of this writing, hasn't seemed to cause much of a stir amongst the people. It may be that the public isn't paying much attention or is already suffering from campaign fatigue. Or it may be that people just don't know any better.

One could easily argue that the statement itself is innocuous. It sounds like it was part of a speech, and on the stump politicians often stumble through words. Petty bickering over grammatical technicalities from live public speaking events is futile, for there are too many opportunities for inadvertent slips of the tongue. Those gaffes are legitimate fodder for mockery, not serious debate.

But again, this was an ad … that they paid for.

After careful consideration, after paying for the production process, after getting their choice of words, footage, backdrops, message, etc., these are the words they chose to share with the voters.

I was a public servant, now I am a senator.

Also of interest:

The campaign also released their Spanish language ad Neustra Amiga, which embraces the stereotypical notion that if you are going to advertise to Spanish-speaking viewers, you must deliver your message in the form of a telenovela promo.

Spoiler Alert: Blue Wins

2008-01-29T08:55:00.000-05:00

The Civil War, presented in a manner suitable to our current ADD generation.

Air Farce One

2008-01-28T21:25:00.000-05:00

My son has taken to flying.

The big Christmas gift of the year was the Estes remote control Air Force One. It has a three-and-a-half foot wingspan and supposedly can fly over 1000 feet. I say "supposedly" because until this past weekend, we didn't realize the tremendous advantage that throwing the plane up would make.

(Yeah, I know ... it seems obvious in retrospect. But to be fair, the launch system involves an elastic cord and a spike that anchors into the ground. An upward throw didn't seem right at first.)

So this time out, we threw up. (As would anyone who was riding in that plane.)

The plane is made out of Styrofoam, so it is somewhat protected in the event of a crash. That is fortunate, because we crashed that plane over and over again. And it wasn't only cartwheel-type crashes in the grass, Alex managed to hit three different goal soccer goal posts, a chain link fence, and he almost had a perfect landing on the bleachers (save for the collision into the metal support that knocked off two engines and the tail).

Good flight, not-so-good landing

If these trial runs are any indication, my son will not be piloting the real Air Force One anytime soon. Landing after painful, high impact landing, he managed to knock off the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempura, Secretary of State, and so on throughout the line of succession.

Were it not for the fact that the batteries finally ran out, we were one flight away from inaugurating Raul, the White House gardener, as the next ruler of the free world.

And wouldn't that have made that whole fence-across-America thing look ridiculous!

Somebody's special day

2008-01-22T05:14:00.000-05:00

Today is somebody's special day ...

Yep, today is a special day for 49ers fans everywhere!

Today marks the 19th anniversary of Super Bowl XXIII, the classic game in which Joe Montana led the San Francisco 49ers 92 yards in the waning minutes before throwing a pass directly through the hearts and the defense of the Cincinnati Bengals. The touchdown-scoring throw ended up in the hands of receiver John Taylor and put the 49ers up 20-16 with just 34 seconds left in the game. The Bengals failed to put together a last-ditch miracle drive of their own, thus falling short of their mission to avenge their previous defeat to those same 49ers just IV years earlier in Super Bowl XIX.

Oh, and it's also Alaska Jen's birthday.

Congratulations '9ers fans, and happy birthday, Alaska Jen.

Shouts of the regular kind

2008-01-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

As I previously mentioned in the post you are most likely to read after this one, I am watching the Giants-Packers playoff game. It is now between the third and fourth quarters, and the Giants have a 3 point lead.

As a huge, huge (you should see my waistline) Giants fan, I am in the midst of an emotional roller coaster right now. This will either be the best or most painful day I've had in a while.

Either way, I suspect that by the end of the game I will have a whole load of wooden nickels in my underbritches.

UPDATE: 2:48 remaining, the Giants just punted to Green Bay, and the score is tied.
Also, I found a wooden quarter.

UPDATE II: 0:00 remaining, the Giants just missed a field goal, the game is in overtime.
I have a new wooden coin collection.

UPDATE III: SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!

Giants 23, Packers 20 (OT)

Shout-Outs

2008-01-20T20:04:00.000-05:00

So, while I'm watching my beloved New York Giants take on the Packers, the -2 degree weather, and the officiating crew, I figured I'd take this moment to shamelessly promote ...

ME!

Yes, I know this belongs squarely within the realm of meaningless accomplishments, but for the first time ever I have been mentioned in a podcast!

No, I am not one of people hitting someone with sticks (or one of those getting hit by the sticks); I gave Short Cummings Audio a really good review on iTunes and he gave me an on-cast thanks. This simple act by a podcaster demonstrates how it doesn't take much to make the world a better place. Be nice to others, be gracious, be respectful ... it's not hard at all and it makes such a difference in these rough and tumble times.

I tell ya, people should thank me more often!

Cellph Destruct

2008-01-19T23:55:00.000-05:00

I have a truly good, positive, heartwarming post in the works about my day today, which itself was very good and positive and heartwarming. But there was an event that occurred in the midst of all the good, positive, heartwarming stuff that was in no way good, positive, or heartwarming ... but I can't help sharing it with you anyways.

CONTENT ADVISORY
This post is rated "I" for crass, sophomoric, and off-color subject matter. It is intended for immature audiences only.

Now, I normally wouldn't write about this type of event, but this is a special circumstance. I got a chance to make a total stranger truly, truly regret using his cell phone in an environment in which no cell phone should ever be used.

It all started with a buffet table.

Actually, it was something on the buffet table. That something wound up on my plate and, as often happens with things that wind up on my plate, it soon found itself in my stomach.

Unfortunately, whatever it was, it didn't feel like staying there.

Like most buffet tables, this one was stationed at a public event. Coincidentally, I found myself in need of a public restroom. I proceeded with great haste to the only stall suitable for such use, closed the door, and braced for the worst.

I usually try to maintain a reasonable degree of self-consciousness about public restrooms. I don't start idle chit-chat with the guy in the next stall, I don't whistle, sing, hum, or any other noisy time-passers, and I certainly try to avoid producing any gratuitous audible evidence of the nature of my business.

This time I didn't have that option.

So when I heard the guy walk into the bathroom, I felt a moderate degree of chagrin for subjecting him to conditions specifically outlined in the Geneva Conventions. That is, until I realized he was talking on his cell phone!

At that point, I felt it was my dooty (get it?) to teach this man a lesson in cell phone etiquette. And fortunately I was uniquely prepared to present this instruction.

I don't know why, but for some reason public restrooms seem specifically designed for acoustic amplification. That said, between the tiles and the porcelain, my gastronomical discomfort resulted in decibel levels comparable to those found NASA launch pads or teenagers' car stereos.

Yes, I was a sub-woofer.

As I was safely positioned behind the solid partitions, he could not see me smiling. I could hear in his voice that he was regretting his choice of venues for this particular phone call. I'm quite certain the party on the other line got wind (so to speak) of where he was. I think deaf people could have heard me.

But the simple joy I felt from being able to teach someone such an important life lesson turned to outright satisfaction when I heard him bring his call to an end. His final four words indicated that he probably chose the wrong person to inadvertently subject to my malharmonious melody.

"I love you, honey."

And being the nice guy I am, I helped him end his call on a high note!

He's the Manning!

2008-01-14T08:07:00.000-05:00

Archie's boys shocked the football world Sunday.

The oft-heralded elder son Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts fell to the visiting San Diego Chargers, thus canceling the much anticipated rematch between the Colts and the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game next week. In Texas about three hours later, the oft-maligned younger son Eli and his New York Giants upended the Dallas Cowboys 21-17.

Yes, that means that the Giants are going to the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 2000, when they shut out the Minnesota Vikings 41-0. As NFL Network's Rich Eisen noted, to almost everyone's surprise, Eli is "the last Manning standing."

Next Sunday the G-Men take on men with the G's; they head off to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field to face Brett Favre for a long, long overdue chance and avenging the NFL Title game losses to the Green Bay Packers in 1944, 1961, and 1962!

(Those last two were the most painful, as Big Blue first got shut out 37-0 in cheese country, then almost got shut out again the following year at Yankee Stadium. Their only score in the 16-7 loss came from a Packer punt which they blocked and recovered in the end zone.)

It has now been 69 years since the Giants beat the Packers in the playoffs. But before the Spirit of '38 fever grips the Big Blue faithful, there a few things left to savor from yesterday. For example, T. "Terrell Owens" O. cried in the post-game interviews! (One Cowboys fan I know showed me the gift he got today from his anti-Cowboys co-workers -- a tissue box decorated with T.O. pictures.)

And did you see that look on Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' face when R.W. McQuarters picked off Tony Romo's pass in the end zone with nine seconds remaining to squash the Cowboys' final hopes? He looked like he was in the middle of a lemon and Tabasco enema. Eagles fans have actually been nice to me today! (The enemy of my enemy ...)

We'll see what next week brings. Farve is having a storybook season. Until then, I'm just livin' the dream!

Theo-illogical

2008-01-13T02:24:00.000-05:00

I'm all about impressing my pastor.

There's a group of guys in my church who meet one morning each month with the pastor for breakfast and Bible study. Having been lured with the promise of free food, I accepted their invitation to join them this week. We enjoyed bacon, eggs, and the Baptism of Jesus.

One of the many asides in our discussion was about the presence, or lack thereof, of Joseph in the latter parts of the Gospel. He's obviously a big part of the story in the beginning of the New Testament, but after the manger scene and the arrival of the wise guys, you never hear about him again, save for a cameo appearance at the Temple when the preteen J.C. began his rabbiing.

Biblical scholars believe that the lack of mention of Joseph beyond this point indicates that he died while Jesus was a teenager. If that was indeed the case, as first-born son, J.C. would have the responsibility to care for the other children in the home until they were old enough to care for themselves, which may explain why he held off on the whole Messiah thing until he was 30.

That there were other children in the house led to our aside from the aside. You see, we Protestants are of the belief that after the whole inn thing, Joseph and Mary went on to bear children the old fashioned way. As such, we feel the brothers and sisters mentioned in the Bible where the real brothers and sisters of Jesus.

(Well, half-brothers and half-sisters, as it were.)

Pastor mentioned that Catholics hold to the premise that the Blessed Virgin Mary remained both Blessed and a virgin throughout her days. Those brothers and sisters, say the Catholics, were actually cousins who lived with Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe.

I figured this was the time to add my thoughts into the great theological debate; to join the ranks of the storied biblical scholars like ... well, like whoever those storied biblical scholars might be.

"This is twelve years later, the cousins were living in the home, and Mary was still a virgin?" I asked.

Pastor nodded.

"Well maybe that's why we don't hear any more about Joseph," I said.

We'll see if I am invited to next month's Bible study ...

It’s Podcastic

2008-01-07T23:56:00.001-05:00

When it comes to hand-me-downs, I have little shame.

(Yeah, yeah … I have notable shame deficiencies in other areas, too; but those are fodder for other postings.)

I drive an inherited car. I compute on hand-me-down computers. I read hand-me-down books. I wear some hand-me-down clothes. (I tell hand-me-down jokes ...)

Yet every handed-down item is, by definition, comprised of one hundred percent post-consumer recycled content. The hand-me-down market turns one man's refuse into another man's treasure. The discarded items of those who stay on the cutting edge wind up not in the dumpster, but instead in the hands of us less discriminatory folks who can continue to extract value today from yesterday's goods.

As such, in these more environmentally conscious days, I can hold my head high and proudly state that my proclivity towards embracing the down-handed material good makes me the embodiment of positive stewardship of the earth's precious resources. It is quite satisfying to be part of the solution.

(Not that I am an environmentalist by any means; far from it. I am about as green as a stop sign. No, my satisfaction is drawn more from the relief that I no longer have to admit to being too broke and/or too cheap to buy the stuff myself.)

So when Ms N upgraded her iPod recently (she got the spiffy new one with the tiny screen and the irritating commercial), I became the very happy recipient of a hand-me-down iPod.

It fails to bother me in the least that both my fiancé and my daughter have much nicer and newer iPods than I, nor does it bug me that engraved into the back of my iPod are the words, "This is mine. – DevineMsN."

While I would like to have the newer model, I much prefer what little cash I have staying in my wallet for the time being. And I sincerely doubt I will ever be accused of stealing from Bette Nidler.

So at first, I limited my iPod activity to listening to the songs Ms N left behind. You know, the hand-me-downs. While I’m not quite the Prince fan she is, I happened to enjoy the other songs not found in my collection, like Apache from the Sugar Hill Gang and select songs from Big E. Smalls.

(Ain’t that right, Boo? True!)

Soon I (by which I mean Ms N) started loading on songs from my CD collection. Shortly afterwards, I (by which I mean me) realized that The Economist, my favorite magazine, had an audio version, which of course, could be played on the iPod.

(Yes, The Economist.)

(Would you believe I only get it for the pictorials?)

So I tried out the audio version ... and liked it! While I found the quaint British spelling quite amusing in the printed version, having it read aloud in that accent is absolutely smashing!

(And the fact that Robin Bew, Editorial Director and Chief Economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, tends to sound a bit like Monty Python’s Terry Jones makes it that much better. I just love getting global economic forecasts from Mr. Creosote!)

Then I started looking around for other audio. Boy howdy, there is no shortage of this crap out there on the internets! And it's all too easy to subscribe, too. Before long, I found myself subscribing to 75 separate podcast feeds.

Yes, I am a Podophile.

If I were to listen to all the downloaded content I currently have on my computer, it would take four days – six if I wanted to sleep at all.

So with all this, I have some recommendations. For political discussion, there’s Left, Right & Center, from Santa Monica NPR affiliate KCRW. There is also the Washington Post's P3: Post Politics Podcast.

Paul Douglas Boyer's Mad Money Machine is a good investing show.

For business news, I stick with The Economist audio edition and The Wall Street Journal.

The Harvard Business Review's HBR IdeaCast (We’re ideating!) has some very interesting business discussion.

And of course, no Libertarian's day is complete without the Cato Daily Podcast.

In the mean time, I can't figure out which is sillier: The Official White House Weekly Radio Address or The Official Parody of the White House’s Weekly Radio Address.

(Perhaps Discurso Radial del Presidente ... You can't figure out what El Presidente is saying here, either, but at least there's a valid reason!)

(Then again, there’s the podcast for the President's dogs.)

(Yes, really.)

Of course, if you are not as excited by global economics, investing, and politics as I am, you may be more interested in Short Cummings Audio, a great collection of humorous essays written and read by Kevin Cummings. He is one of the funniest humorists I have seen in quite some time. (Imagine Dave Barry and Tom Bodett's love child.)

Bowl of Cheese, by Jeff Cutler, was another good find.

And what podcast library would be complete without the great works of comic genius John Cleese? (Much to my chagrin, thanks to this podcast I learned that for the past 20 years I have been pronouncing his name wrong. Turns out it rhymes with wheeze, not fleece.)

If you want more than this, don’t ask me ... Ask A Ninja!

(Just don’t go to Aks a Ninja … stupid fake sites!)

Ms N was taken aback by the speed at which I latched on to podcasting, but really it is just what I was looking for. For starters, I crave content. Like good ol' Number Five from the movie Short Circuit, I need input.

Unfortunately, carrying around all the magazines, newspapers, and such I would like to have gets to be a pain. Printing out pages from sites is not only wasteful, but creates quite the mess. The iPod, meanwhile, replenishes itself every time I plug it into my PC and fits nicely into my pocket, earphones and all.

That last feature provides one of the greatest benefits. As I head into the men's room for my morning constitutional, I've found that the iPod is as inconspicuous as the Wall Street Journal isn't!

'V' for Win

2008-01-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

This afternoon in Tampa ~~Bay~~, the New York Giants notched their first playoff victory since shutting out the Minnesota Vikings 41-0 in the NFC Championship Game!

(That would, of course, be the 2001 NFC Championship Game, which was shortly followed by Super Bowl XXXV, in which the Giants fell a mere four touchdowns short of beating the Baltimore Ravens.)

(That laughing you hear in the background is Ms N, who happens to be a fan of the Baltimore Ravens.)

Today’s final score: Giants 24, Buccaneers 14. In the immortal words of Daffy Duck: "Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!!"

Football is all about strategy, and the Giants employed an ingenious one, indeed. They upended the Buccaneers by reversing their regular game plan. Unlike most games, the G-Men began the game playing with ineptitude - ceding a 7 point lead to the pewter pirates - before letting everything inexplicably fall together. Three touchdowns and a field goal later, Big Blue hushed the hometown crowd. A late TD brought the swashbucklers within 10, but avast, the scurvy bilge rats found themselves cast o'erboard into the dark depths o' Davy Jones' locker.

(Special thanks to the folks at talklikeapirate.com for providing the vocab help.)

Now the Giants are goin' down to Big D, and I do mean Dallas. (All the country music fans in my audience will get that one.) The re-rematch is set!

This is where some of the jubilation turns to trepidation. The Cowpokes beat the visiting Giants in the season-opener, and then beat the Giants again almost three months later in the Jersey Meadowlands. That doesn't bode well for the boys in blue. But I have faith, hope, and, most importantly, an abundance of denial. So as I rest my head on whatever pillow Ms N decides not to hoard tonight, I have a happy thought.

It doesn't matter what happens in the first two games, so long as you win the third.

B-Day Invasion

2007-11-15T06:16:00.000-05:00

Just like they practiced it!

2007-10-28T15:06:00.000-04:00

This is just too nutty for words. Here's a throwback to football's rugby days ...

Silly Signage

2007-10-12T10:21:00.000-04:00

From the side of a bottle of Zeigler's Apple Cider:

Blended to Perfection

... and then two lines later:

Shake Well

I guess you can't expect perfection to be perfect anymore.

There are times ...

2007-08-30T12:42:00.000-04:00

There are times when you feel bitter because you're not "getting what you deserve." Those are usually the times you should feel thankful for it.

Today I am most thankful.

Breaking the silence

2007-08-21T06:32:00.000-04:00

OK, so I had every intent of finishing some of the more dignified posts on which I am ~~mulling~~, er, working. But then I got this:

The camel article.

Last week in a nutshell

2007-07-29T19:48:00.000-04:00

Well fans, I am back from vacation.

(Physically, that is. Mentally is a different story altogether.)

I will write about the trip in more detail over the next few days. Suffice it to say, we had a great time, did lots of great things, spent too much money, and even managed to get our luggage back.

Current Conditions

2007-07-18T13:01:00.000-04:00

Wind
Pressure
Humidity
Dew Point

Nada
Dropping
Dripping
More like "don't point"

Crappy

83°F
Feels Like
SHIT

Future vacation destinations

2007-07-10T22:17:00.000-04:00

Ms N and I have a short list of vacations we'd like to take in the reasonably near future. We're going to Alaska in a few weeks (which for me is a trip home), we'd like to get down to Puerto Rico to visit her homeland, we'd like to get over to Europe at least twice (once to Spain at her request, once to Germany and Denmark for me).

But after a bit of surfin' the web, I've stumbled across a new destination to add to the list ...

Waco, Texas.

Waco is not on my list because of the two infamous centers of cult activity nearby (the Branch Davidians being just to the northeast and Crawford being a bit further to the west). Nor is it on my list because of Baylor University, either, even though after 151 years they have finally allowed dancing on campus.

(Do you know why Baptists don't allow couples to have sex while standing up? It may lead to dancing.)

Nope. It's because of this museum:

Sorry, Walker fans. It's not the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. Why would I travel half way across the country to see that?

I want to see the Dr Pepper Museum. I would like to be a pepper, too.

Oh, those 23 flavors of carbonated out-of-the-ordinary goodness. I love me some Dr Pepper!

I even love me some knock-off brands, like Dr. W and Mr. Pibb.

Ms N, of course, thinks I am insane. She is decidedly not a pepper.

Dr Pepper makes up half of the duo of soft drinks that she won't touch on cultural grounds. Having grown up in the mean streets of Brooklyn, she insists that Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew are the beverages "only white people drink."

Naturally, I take exception to that statement. Granted, Dr Pepper was much more prevalent in the Redneck Riviera than up here. And although I've never seen it myself, I'm sure somewhere out there is a non-Caucasian Dr Pepper drinker. Come to think of it, I once saw an African-American enjoying a can so much that he immediately started dancing with joy.

Oh wait, that was in a commercial.

I'm not complaining. Her refusal to imbibe simply means more bebida de blanca for me. And if she never gets to enjoy the wonders of the post-Pepper belch, well, that's her loss.

Now all I have to do is convince her that Waco is a place we should visit, which may be a tough sell. After all, the lure of free Dr Pepper is enticing to only one of us.

What a wonderful day outside ...

2007-07-09T23:59:00.000-04:00

... to be inside.

The first heat wave of the summer is here, and I think I speak for almost everyone in the Delaware Valley when I say:

UUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!

While the mice are away, the cats will play

2007-07-08T20:50:00.000-04:00

The kids are off on their annual summer vacation with Grandma and Grandpa. That means that for the next four weeks or so I am free from my parenting responsibilities. (Now I know what life is like for their mother!) (Oops ... did I type that out loud?) So now Ms N and I have the whole place to ourselves with no concern about the babies' momma dropping them off early.

Wo-hoo!

So Ms N and I have taken this opportunity to do what we never really could do with such freedom ...

Sleep.

This, of course, is aided by the fact that the two of us are exhibiting flu-like symptoms. I think it's my cousin's fault. He came down from NYC to spend the Fourth with us. We had a barbecue, went to see Transformers (an excellent movie!), watched some other movies like Stripes, and had Mr. and Mrs. CWV over as well. All was good.

But my cousin had made several comments to the effect of "I'd better keep my distance. I've been sick lately."

Apparently, my cousin left something behind and we found it. So we've been congested, sore throated, and miserable. (Normally we're miserable without the congestion and sore throats.) And with the ailment has come lethargy.

Much more than my normal lethargy.

I think I have slept more already this weekend than I have in any whole week in the past six months. I am taking medication (viva las drugas!) that is supposed to be non-drowsy, but I haven't been able to stay awake long enough to feel if I'm drowsy or not.

So now that the hour is getting late, I have a bit of a problem. I need to get up early, but I have been sleeping all day. I may not be able to get to sleep tonight, meaning I'll be tired all day tomorrow.

Fortunately, they make a night-time version, too. I just took some. Let's see how long it takes to get to sleeeeeeeeeee

State of Denial

2007-07-03T19:58:00.000-04:00

I feel so rejected. My car failed its biannual inspection.

I have not had the best of luck with these things. I've probably been through 12 New Jersey inspections and I think I only passed on the first try three times. And I have never failed because of emissions - the whole reason why inspections started in the first place.

It's always stupid crap, like that third brake light up in the back window. Those damned things must be designed to go out just before inspection time. Thanks to the state of New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, I now know how to replace the friggin' third brake lights on Windstars, Chevy Luminae, and Chevy Celebrities.

Wagons and sedans.

I miss the old Alaska inspection. Back in the day, Alaska didn't actually have an inspection, it was Anchorage that did. And that inspection was a breeze. The car could have no doors and be on fire, but so long as the flame coming off the engine block was burning clean, you passed.

In Jersey, I fail for everything. Brake lights. Alginment. Enlarged prostate.

So once I pulled into the inspection station with a car that I knew would fail for everything. This car was so crappy that I was able to pay for with a single personal check. The inspector hit the horn and nothing happened. No noise, no squeak, nothing.

A functioning horn is not only mandatory to pass inspection, it is also an essential part of the New Jersey driving experience (especially if you hold your cell phone in your finger-flipping hand).

The second inspector (New Jersey vehicle inspection is a two-person job) didn't even realize that my car was on its way to his station because he was relying on the noise from the horn to wake him up. And yet that car passed.

So this time I failed because of insufficient tire tread. Oh well. At least my engine meets pollution standards.

And my third brake light works.

Chancletas de Jesus

2007-07-02T20:54:00.000-04:00

The following story is true.
Names have been changed to protect the (allegedly) innocent.

Everybody has their own personal pet peeves - those often commonplace things, events, or situations that for some reason grate on a person's nerves like a microplane separating the zest off a lemon.

(Wow ... I've got to stop letting Ms N use the remote. Way too much Food Network!)

I was reminded recently of an old high school buddy of mine - let's just call him "Jim" - who had two of the peeviest pet peeves I have ever seen.

Even though Jim was a male teenager in high school, he was actually a reasonably smart guy. "Raul," he'd tell me, "it really does no good to change your own name in this story. I mean, my identity will be safe with the name change, but people already know who you are!"

Jim could be smart that way.

But those peeves ...

For normal people, pet peeves cause unreasonable and irrational reactions. For Jim it was far more. They weren't just the fingernails on his chalkboard, they were his Kryptonite.

They weren't Jim's pet peeves, he was the peeves' pet Jim.

(Special thanks to the late Johnny Cochran for inspiring that one!)

In retrospect, Jim's one unreasonable, irrational peeve was at least reasonable and rational at its source. When Jim was a kid he was riding the bus to school. A tractor-trailer driving next to the bus ran over something sharp, puncturing the tire and causing it (the tire) to explode. It was right next to the young Mr. Jim, and it scar(r)ed him for life.

Ever since then, he has had a "thing" about big-tired vehicles. The kind of thing that would cause him to change lanes, accelerate, decelerate, or even change roads rather than drive next to a semi.

Jim's other unreasonable, irrational peeve had nary a reasonable nor rational explanation.

Jim hated Jesus sandals.

Anytime Jim saw anybody who wasn't Jesus (or at least an apostle) wearing sandals, he got irked.

It wasn't that Jim thought that sandals were so special that only a messiah was worthy to wear them; that a mere mortal having the audacity to don a pair holy flip-flops constituted blasphemy of the highest order. It was more that he couldn't stand seeing anyone wearing sandals, but Jesus - with the whole "son of God" and "dying on the cross and then overcoming death just for us" thing - gets a pass.

Jim, being an Army brat, lived wherever his dad was stationed. As a result, he spent some of his younger years in the Middle East. Jesus sandals were everywhere there, and most of the people wearing them were by no means Jesuses.

Moving to Alaska, a place where you would more expect to find Jesus snowshoes, Jim was still unable to escape the dreaded footwear. This was the early ninties. Once clear of the snowy and slushy months, people would put on their Berkenstocks (and white socks!).

And Jim would stew.

Boy would he stew. Were a family to walk by with Mom, Dad, and the kids all wearing Jesus sandals, Jim would pop out a dumpling.

"One of these years," Jim would, ahem, allegedly tell us, "you're going to turn on the news and see that a Jesus sandal factory has been blown up, and you'll know it was me!"

I have no idea where Jim is now. It has been many years since last we spoke. I still have yet to see "Explosion Destroys Jesus Sandal Factory" scrolling across CNN, which I take to be a sign that he has found something better to do, like date.

I am curious to see what's become of him.

Then again, this past weekend I bought myself (by which I mean "Ms N bought me") my first ever pair of Jesus sandals (or as I've been calling them, chancletas de Jesus).

After wearing them around a bit, I think I am hooked. To be honest, I really wish I had gotten these things a long time ago. Of course, having just come to this revalation, this might not be the best time to suddenly run into Jim.

If you see him, tell him Raul moved away ...

Find a Penny

2007-06-28T06:22:00.000-04:00

I dropped a penny this morning.

This would typically not be noteworthy, were it not for the fact that:

a) I was in the shower

b) dressed accordingly (ergo sans pockets), and

c) I am not in the habit of carrying loose change with me when I bathe.

Apparently I forgot to clear everything off the bed before going to sleep last night. I rolled onto it and it stuck to my back. It fell off when I ran my hand across it while washing.

At least that's what I've been able to piece together having had time to wake up and think about it.

Normally I am groggy in the mornings. It takes the rush of water (sometimes very cold water) to de-grog. Today I moved my schedule up by an hour to get into work early, so I was extra groggy.

Trying to figure out the source of a sudden clank at a quarter-to-five and in such and advance state of grog is not the easiest thing to do.

That there is a penny-sized sore spot on my back has helped confirm where the darned thing was. For several groggy moments, I was beginning to question whether my kids may have been right all along.

You see, they seem to think I have money coming out my wazoo.

Chillin' in the O.C.

2007-06-26T23:26:00.000-04:00

Ms N had to attend a another conference for work. She spent most of April schlepping around backwoods Pennsylvania presenting to one small-town government after another all by her lonesomes. So when this latest presentation came up, I decided that I would be the wonderful fiance that I claim to be and take a few days off from work so I could go keep her company.

Of course, since I was not a registered attendee at the conference, I was not supposed to be in the convention center. So while Ms N got to have fun meeting local government representatives from towns and cities throughout the state of Maryland, I had to spend the days trying to find something to do here:

Ocean City, Maryland

(The Redneck Riviera)

Naturally, whenever you visit a new town, you always want to take in the sights and meet the local people.

Unfortunately, I never saw these bikini babes ...

But I did see some biker chicks!

I also got to swim in the ocean for the first time in a year, which is something I just love to do.

I am a real dork when it comes to ocean swimming, as Ms N will attest.

(Actually, Ms N will attest to me being a dork when it comes to lots of things. Ocean swimming, computer games, blogging, Sudoku, football, Killer Sudoku, boobs, accounting, comedies, Weird Al ... I could go on, or you could just ask her.)

I love the feeling of bobbing about amongst the waves, fighting or following the current as it drifts to and fro, ~~peeing freely,~~ going from knee-deep to chin-deep to knee-deep water without so much as lifting a foot from the sand; all while relaxing to the melodic symphony of crashing waves and calling sea birds.

Things to do ...

Besides the beach (not to mention beside the beach!), Ocean City has a lively 3 mile long boardwalk which ends at the amusement park.

Having enjoyed our meals, we decided to forgo the upchuck-inducing thrill rides. We were going to forgo rides altogether, but after a bit of prodding I managed to sucker Ms N into taking a ride on the Ferris wheel.

The walk down the boardwalk was made all the more enjoyable by the distractions along the way, such as this reminder from home. The walk back was made all the more enjoyable by the fact that we did it sitting down. Even at $2.75, those tram cars are worth every penny.

One of the first things you see in Ocean City is the wild mini golf courses. Mini golf seems to be the official sport. Philadelphia Ave is riddled with courses of various themes, from pre-historic to dragon to Amazonian adventure.

And just to show that alarmist warning signs you see everywhere are nothing new, note the sign found at this prehistoric site.

Lava rocks may be sharp!

But before you blow all of your money trying to sink your balls, stop by the Kite Loft. I never thought a kite store could have so much interesting stuff in it. Too bad they wouldn't let me kite a check ...

Good Lord ...

This was one of several Christian-themed sand sculptures all done by the same artist.

I took this picture while driving past the Lutheran church. I didn't see what was on the marquee until I got back to the hotel.

I guess they don't take the "I left my checkbook at home" excuse when passin' the plate.

About those rednecks ...

To be fair, the town's neck has changed its hue in recent years. The Ocean Gallery pictured above is a throwback to Ocean City's more rednecky times. Most of the town had some degree of sophistication (Lava rock warning signs notwithstanding). (In fact, I really only heard two or three families speaking yokel.)

I had to seek out stores that catered to those with necks of red.

I didn't have to search hard, mind you, but I did have to search nonetheless.

Note that even at the cigar store, the smoking section is outside!

Personally, I stop drinking about the time my beverages sprout legs and start dancin'.

Apparently Anthony thinks otherwise ...

Parting Shots ...

Ah, a place for us accountants to whine and dine ...

Joggers X-ing next half mile?

This cab was vintage! The shifter was on the steering column and the driver smoked while shuttling passengers around.

Something fishy

2007-06-23T23:21:00.000-04:00

I grew up in Alaska, a state synonymous with the great outdoors.

Alaska: the Last Frontier.

Alaska: the Great Land.

Alaska: the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Alaska: the place where Man sits comfortably atop the food chain ... until he steps outside.

Alaska: the place so friggin' cold that before you can finish writing your name in the snow, your outside plumbing fixtures have become inside fixtures.

So naturally, over here in Jersey: the Land of the Midnight Carjacking, everyone assumes that I am a die-hard outdoorsman. "Oh," they say, "you're from Alaska? You must love to fish. You must love to hunt. You must love to hike. You must love camping. You must love nature."

Yeah, right.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I dislike nature. In fact, I'm quite fond of nature. Especially the tasty bits. (Have you ever marinated bear meat in teriyaki sauce, then thrown it on a grill? Mmmm-mmmm!) I just think nature is something best appreciated from indoors.

(It has been my experience that the most vocal advocates of the "Mother Nature is fragile and personkind needs to tend to her ever so gently" philosophy live in big cities or the suburbs sprawling around them. "We must protect Mother Nature," they say on their way to pilates with mochaccino froth on their lips. Having lived next door to Mother Nature for most of my life, I can assure you that she can fend for herself. Far from being a delicate flower, she is a first class bitch and she can kill you in ways you can't even imagine. But I digress ...)

My son loves fishing. Unfortunately, despite my father's and grandfather's best efforts to teach me, I know slightly more than squat about that particular pastime, other than to make sure that you remember which cooler is for the fish and which is for the beer.

Luckily for us, we happened across a really nice family at the park the other day. The father was taking his kids out to fish. The son clearly enjoyed catching fish. The daughter clearly enjoyed watching the ducklings. As luck would have it, there was a spare kid-sized pole sitting unused on the ground.

A spare pink pole.

It could have had pansies and streamers on it for all Alex cared. He was offered a chance to fish and he took it.

Now mind you, fishing at Laurel Acres Park is not really fishing. Being that there's no beer allowed, you wind up spending your time actually trying to catch fish. And the fish you get are not the big fighters you see on TV (see - I'm savvy enough about nature to know you can find shows about it). The fish pictured here (left, on the hook) was the biggest catch of the day.

The pond at the park has a bunch of little fish in it that nibble at everything. Everything! When you show up at the edge of the water with a fishing pole, they gather in the shallows, face you, and patiently wait their chance to get a bite of bait.

Alex caught seven during the hour and a half he was at it. All got thrown back; just some got thrown farther than others. But he had a great time.

As luck would continue to have it, one time when he was visiting his mom she got him a fishing pole. Luck had it even more because she was due to bring his sister back from their day together shortly after we got home. He called her up, and lo and behold she happened to have that pole in the trunk of her car.

(The ex has a lot of stuff in the trunk of her car. Fishing poles, laundry, important papers, unimportant papers, probably the Holy Grail. The scary part is that she hadn't used that pole since back when she drove her previous car. When she got the new car, she actually moved the crap from the old trunk into the new one. Yep, there's lots of junk in her trunk!)

So today we went back to the park with a pole of our own.

And bait.

Unfortunately, it's easier to catch fish with worms than with Airheads. It's not that the fish don't like the Airheads ... actually, those little buggers loved the sweet sugary goodness of Airheads.

Once that candy hit the water, the fish went wild. They pushed, they shoved, they rammed each other out of the way. Finfights broke out; it was crazy.

The problem was that Airheads can be nibbled much easier than worms. The fish could dart up, grab a bit, and dart away without ever getting the hook in their mouths. I suspect that they were even dartier their second time around, what with the sugar rush and all.

Needless to say, we lost a lot of bait. And then we hit another snag, so to speak. While I was rebaiting the hook (I am a master baiter, you know), a gust of wind blew the wrapper out of my pocket and into the water.

Now I may not be a tree-hugging, eco-crazy environmentalist nutjob, but I am also not a litterer-er. I was intent on getting that wrapper back ashore and into a trash can where it belonged.

So first I asked the fish to get it. They were jonesin' for more candy; I figured we could work out a deal. But fish hopped up on sugar are not all that cooperative.

Then we hit on a better idea. I had Alex cast the line out so it passed over the wrapper, then reel it in hoping to snag the thing. It started to come back a bit, but then we lost it. To make things worse, the wind started blowing the wrapper out past where Alex could cast. My daughter's friend, who was with us even though I haven't written about her as of yet, tried to cast it out farther. Again, she got the line out past the wrapper, but again it didn't catch. I knew it was up to me to save the day.

Of course, I haven't actually cast a line in many years. I gave it a try, though. I brought my wrist back, held the release button, flung my arm water-ward ...

"You have to let go of the button," Alex said, as the bobber and hook spun circles around the end of the pole.

So I tried again, this time knowing that I had to release in order for the line to make it out to the wrapper. Again I sized up my target, wound up, flung my wrist, and released my thumb.

I watched as the hook and bobber made a perfect arc as they flew through the air toward the wrapper.

And I watched the pole making it's less than perfect arc as it flew through the air behind them.

Apparently, I released with more than my thumb. And now there was a candy wrapper and a pole in the lake. Fortunately, Katrina, the friend, was willing to wander into the water to get the pole.

The line on the reel never really cast well after it's submersion excursion. By the end of the day, we had only caught one fish, albeit a good one. I'm certain that we left a whole bunch of lethargic fish behind. After coming down off their Airhead-induced high, they're probably still swimming listlessly about.

Oh, and before you think I spoiled Mother Nature's beauty by leaving behind the candy wrapper, I was able to retrieve it from the water.

You see, the pond at Laurel Acres Park is not that big. The wind blew the wrapper out of our reach where we were standing, but its path downwind intersected with the shoreline about 100 yards away. When I saw the sun reflecting off the washed up wrapper, I moseyed on over and picked it up.

Strobe Light-ning Bugs

2007-06-22T18:36:00.000-04:00

'Twas the damndest thing ...

As the twilight dwindled, my son and I were observing the crepuscular ritual of the photuris lucicrescens, flaunting their abdominal bioluminescence so as to draw the attention of prospective mates (in other words, the fireflies wanted to get laid so they made their butts glow), when I noticed something I have never seen before.

You see, up until recently - by which I mean two days ago - all the fireflies I've seen have pretty much followed the same basic routine: they get airborne, fly to someplace with good sightlines, and then they set their asses aglow for as long as possible. Like an emergency flare burning strong and steady, their booty beacons brazenly blaze brightly for several seconds at a time. This is a good way for a fly guy in the mood for l'amore to let the honeys know that he's ready for a little sump'n sump'n (and that he can keep the ol' fire burning for quite some time, if you know what I mean).

Of course, it's also a good way to let the birds know where to find an evening snack. It's nature's equivalent to the big fluorescent Taco Bell sign.

Late Nite Fly Thru open 'til midnight.

Last night, however, was different. It was much more like the convenience store signs where the fluorescent bulbs never work so well. Instead of the steady burn, the shiny hineys were flickering on and off in rapid succession. And it wasn't just one or two ... it was all of them. Wednesday night they were glowing, Thursday night they were blinking. It was like they were all signaling left turns or something.

We stayed outside for a bit longer than planned watching the little greenish strobe lights fly about. It's not that often that you encounter such a change. It's a wondrous thing, and a bit perplexing, too. Is it club night in firefly land? Did they switch to the red-eye prevention setting?

Or did they somehow figure out that school ended on Wednesday and now bedtimes for the neighborhood kids have reverted to the more lenient summer schedules? After all, as my son pointed out, when the lightning bugs are blinking they are much harder to catch.

Spiders, Politicians, and Other Vermin

2007-06-12T22:09:00.000-04:00

Special thanks to my dad for finding this great idea for political reform ...

And extra special thanks to my big brother for unearthing this wonderful documentary on spiders ...

Here are some chickens playing tennis ...

And some mischevious Guinea Pigs ...

And finally, a rat gettin' his scratch on ...

Prang! Go out and play!

2007-06-12T09:19:00.000-04:00

What a job title!

Peter Cornall, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, must get great reactions when he hands over his business card. One look at his title and you have to wonder, is this the work of a stuffy, isolated, alarmist nerdy guy or cool, suave, favorite camp counselor guy?

Perhaps he's a favorite stuffy, cool, suave, alarmist, isolated, nerdy, camp counselor.

Whatever the case, Mr. Cornall is RoSPA's "Head of Leisure Safety." And as such, Mr. Cornall has a message for all of us parents. Namely:

Throw the kids out of the house!

He doesn't mean abandon them, of course. He just means send them outside, and fret less about doing so.

The RoSPA notes that the modern parent is overprotective. For example, 43% of the parents they surveyed said kids should not be allowed to play outside unsupervised until they are 14.

Fourteen?

If anything, fourteen is when the supervision should resume! I mean, it's cute when a toddler says, "Happy Burfday, Gramma," but if the candles on the cake have the numbers 5 and 3 and they are not in that order, it's a problem.

While it sounds counter-intuitive, the RoSPA rightly points out that kids need to get hurt more, and can only do so if parents stop being such ninnies. Kids need scrapes and bruises - and occasionally a cast - to learn for themselves what they can and can not do and, more importantly, why.

Overprotective parents, myself included, teach their kids to fear injury, when what kids ought to be learning is how to smartly avoid injury. And by constantly stopping the kids from feeling any pain, parents fail to teach them how to live with the pain they will inevitably feel in their lives.

Besides, as the RoSPA points out, sheltered kids are not necessarily remaining free from injury. Carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis in the trigger finger aren't exactly the best things for a kid to face.

I must say that since I moved out of my apartment, which was located next to the intersection of a freeway and major arterial route, behind a gas station and across the street from a row of motels that turned into housing for some less than upstanding members of the community, I have been much more generous with giving the kids outside time. It certainly helps that my daughter is more than happy to walk or bike to her friends' houses.

I'd like to think that the years being cooped up will give the kids an appreciation for the freedoms they are getting now. I'd like to think that they've at least gained an understanding of some of the hazards that exist, which is helping them make better decisions when they are looking for stuff to do now. I'd like to think that they'll look back on this time in their lives and say, "Wow, although he was rightly concerned about our safety and well-being, he was a cool, suave, favorite camp-counselor kind of dad."

I'd like to think all of that, but then I listen to my daughter nad realize what kind of stuffy, isolated, alarmist nerd I've been all this time.

More fun from the In-Bin

2007-06-12T07:55:00.000-04:00

OK, so some of you have seen this before, but I just got such a kick out of it I wanted it saved for ~~posterior~~, er, posterity. Many thanks to the original author, wherever you are.

This simple test illustrates the extent to which people today have become too dependant upon their computers.

To determine your gender, look down.

(It said look down, not scroll down, dummy!)

One of those pound-me-into-ash prisons ...

2007-06-09T01:43:00.000-04:00

I just got done watching Office Space, one of my all time favorite movies, on E!, one of my all time least favorite networks.

I have this movie on DVD -- the "Special Edition With Flair!" even -- but for some reason (such as accidentally letting Ms N near the remote again) I am watching the edited-for-content, riddled-with-commercial-breaks, safe-for-TV flairless edition.

I never figured out why it is that people do this. You could have a full movie, complete with extras, deleted scenes, subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Swahili, and Klingon, the original colorful metaphors as originally spoken by the original actors, and every last body part in its full unblurred splendor sitting on your shelf untouched for the past seven months, but flip through channels and find the TV version with the best lines dubbed over and nary a nipple in sight and that you watch. And while you complain about the stuff that's edited out, as you get up during the many commercial breaks to either get a drink or get rid of one you won't simply grab the DVD so you can watch the real thing.

Actually, there is a side benefit to watching a movie that's been edited for TV. For while the scenes that answer the age-old question "Why does my DVD remote have a slow-motion button?" are cut completely (and any remaining naughty bits deemed too essential to be cut obscured by that dang blur box), the voice-over substitutions for the original potty-mouth scripts can be quite comical.

Nothing quite beats the voice-over of Kurt Russell when Backdraft was first aired on network TV. Amidst a tense argument between Russell and some other guy, Kurt, teeth a-glistenin' and hair a-wavin', shouts, "Well, Forget-it You!"

Forget-it you? Forget-it you? Who the forget-it did they get to write the voice-overs? And what the forget-it was he thinking?

If all they wanted to do was clean up the language, they could have Kurt say "Forget you!" Granted, it's not nearly as forceful as the original, but it is actually something somebody might actually say in such a moment. Such a dub might even go unnoticed by the viewing public, what with their attention diverted by those a-glistenin' chompers and all.

"Forget-it you," on the the other hand, sobers everyone out of their a-glistenin' stupor and forces them to consciously think about what must have been said in order to warrant such an odd comment.

Office Space is chock-full of great lines. Unfortunately, most of the best were voiced over.

I missed one of my favorite lines, where the character Michael Bolton calls his Grammy-winning namesake a "no-talent ass-clown", but luckily Bolton was not finished.

This particular gem:

If we get caught laundering money, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no. We're going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison!

did not escape the censor's attention. Safe-for-TV Michael Bolton fears being sent to one of those "pound us into ash" prisons.

The commercial breaks also gave me a chance to go Googley, which is how I came to find bullshitjob.com, a site where you can listen to many clips from the movie in all their original glory. Not only do they have their tribute to Office Space but they also have their own Bullshit Job Title Generator.

One can but wonder what kind of exciting work a Dynamic Optimization Orchestrator gets to do for a big company. Oh, the excitement! It's almost enough to give you the O-face.

Forget-it yeah!

Upsides to Allergies

2007-06-04T11:09:00.000-04:00

The latest storm surge of pollen has crashed against my immune system's protective seawalls. Unfortunately, some overzealous and somewhat misguided first-responder Immunoglobulin E antibodies have triggered an excessive activation of leukocytes, causing a breach in my levees of nasal mucosa, releasing a flood of phlegm from my Lake Ponchartrain of goblet cells.

Not only am I suffering from a swollen, teary eye and continual runny nose, but from this poorly developed rhetorical trope as well.

I have at least come to the realization that there can be upsides to allergies.

For example, if you are ever feeling insufficiently blessed, sneeze at work.

(This works best if you are in a high-walled cube farm. Having your own office means few co-workers will be within earshot, having low or no walls means more co-workers will be able to see you when it happens, which, of course, means you are less likely to hear the desired "Bless you" and more likely to hear "Eeewwwww".)

The other upside is only theoretical at the moment. However, based on my recent tissue consumption and apparent nasal discharge rate, I think it's safe to say that by day's end I just may drop a few pounds.

We are mostly water, right? Does that not mean that losing water is essential to losing weight? I may have stumbled across the next miracle in weight loss!

Be sure to look for my upcoming book, Snot: The All-Natural Secret to a Thinner You in a bookstore near you.

Abitu Haiku

2007-05-09T21:36:00.000-04:00

A bit too chilly?
That became a bit too hot
a bit too quickly.

Sleeping on it

2007-05-04T08:47:00.000-04:00

Supposedly you're supposed to do some of your most creative thinking while sleeping. While that may be true, it certainly was not reflected by my draft of the post I was planning for today. Apparently, in the midst of my typing I drifted off to "creative thinking," for when I went to review what I had written thus far I saw this on my screen:

The weather lately has been incredible. Save for a storm front that blew through the area Tuesday night, it has been mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

(I'm paraphrasing, of course, for space purposes.)

The weird thing (is if there is ever only one weird thing in my life) is I was certain I had typed more of the legible stuff than that. This means that I had been dreaming that I was sitting at my computer typing.

Sitting? Typing? What kind of effed-up dream is that?!?

It was not that long ago that my dreams consisted of, well, the stuff that dreams are made of. And while it may be somewhat of a letdown waking up and realizing that I am not really visiting a tropical resort at the same time as the convention of billionaire nymphomaniac bikini models, once that disappointment fades there are still residual memories to relish.

Even a bad dream is good in its own way. Ever wake up startled, only to be suddenly quite relieved that a) you're still alive, 2) all of your toes are still attached, and c) you don't really drive a Pinto?

I've woken up startled, relaxed, afraid, relieved, inspired, ecstatic, angry, perplexed, determined, awed, aggravated, content, liberated, confined, motivated, de-motivated, excited, energetic, (ahem) relieved, devoted, dejected, enthused, laughing, crying, arguing, hungry, horny, hopeful, pessimistic, optimistic, antagonistic, proud, happy, confused, uncertain, certain, convinced, impressed, depressed, pressured, and serene. I've woken up unsure of the time, unsure of the day, unsure of the year, and unsure that I can make it to a restroom in time. Sometimes I've woken up filled with a deep sense of wow-I-sure-hope-nobody-ever-finds-out-that-I-thought-that!

Good or bad, those varied reactions to my nocturnal musings have had their effect on me. If nothing else, they've helped me feel more alive.

But just how alive am I supposed to feel when my dreams have withered to the point that the all I can come up with is me ... sitting at a computer ... typing?

Do tell me what wondrous climax awaits me in this oh-so-titilating fantasy world I created.

Perhaps, had I not woken up so early, there would have been something more substantial. I might have set myself upon some grand (albeit dorky) quest. If my writing was any clue, I might have been on my way to see those M&M guys. Perhaps it was to involve something tasty, like an bottomless bag of Cheezy Poofs.

Maybe I'm being too cynical about this whole thing. For all I know, by waking up, I may have missed out on my chance at enlightenment. I can see it all now ...

There I am, typing away at a Cheez-encrusted keyboard. The clicking and crunching sounds fuse together to form an angelic harmony. Then suddenly, as I reach into the bag, I realize that I hold in my hand the final Poof. My voracious snacking has led me to the ultimate triumph! I have reached the end of the endless supply of Cheezy-Poofs!

I place the final bite-size artificially-orange powdery morsel into my mouth and savor the Cheezy goodness.

And with that, I reach infinity. Transcendence is mine.

Before me appears a light unlike any light I have ever seen. It beckons me closer. I walk towards the heavenly glow and realize that it's the gateway to Nirvana. I pause long enough to take in the enormity of it all, then head through the existential portal.

It is only then that I realize that the infinite supply of Cheezy Poofs gave me an infinitely fat ass, which naturally gets itself wedged into the crappy little gateway.

I'm left at the edge of the universe, staring at Heaven and mooning everything else. There I wait, twiddling my tremendously pudgy thumbs and pondering what kind of idiot would make a gateway that small knowing that you have to eat a whole effing lot of food to get to it, until my alarm finally goes off and calls me back to reality.

Oh well. In retrospect, I guess it's better that I woke up when I did.

Memorable Moments

2007-05-02T23:02:00.000-04:00

My son has come to my room a couple times in recent weeks complaining that he "couldn't sleep." Being the obvious problem-solver that I am, I pointed out the obvious - that somehow his TV and light managed to turn back after I last visited the room - and suggested that were I to remove the cables from the back of the TV (thereby making the Static Channel the only option) it might help induce a slumberous state.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, the true problem is not the problem that is brought up initially. And while I have been taking courses on Active Listening wherein I am learning how to better seek out the underlying concern behind outward behaviors, 10:30pm is not the time at which I would like to employ these measures.

Last night, my son approached me differently.

"Dad," he said.

"Yes?" I replied calmly (it was before bedtime - after bedtime the response is "WHAT?!?").

"When can I come and sleep in your room again?" he asked.

In my last apartment, my son shared a room with his sister. When she got older (and when the X x-ited), I moved him into my room, as it was of sufficient size to hold two beds and still have substantial floor space. Until we moved into the house, he had always shared a room with someone else. Getting his own room was bittersweet; he has his own room, but it's just him in there at night.

"You've got your own room now," I said. "You need to sleep in there."

"But you've let me sleep in here before," he countered.

I did? I thought to myself. When?

"I did?" I asked. "When?"

As you see, I am a complex individual.

"That one night when you let me sleep at your feet," he answered.

Oh, yeah, I thought (this time to myself).

Before you get the impression that I treat my kid like the family dog, it's important to specify three things. First, we don't have a dog. Second, the boy likes table scraps. And third, he was remembering the night when he woke me up close to midnight and I was too tired to shoo him back to his room, so I capitulated and told him to get his comforter and pillow he could sleep on top of my bed.

What struck me was how he spoke of that memory so fondly. It was a Big Deal to him that he got to sleep in my room. For him, that was a Special Event, so special that it warrants Capital Letters when writing about it.

It dawned on me then how much effort I expend trying to artificially inflate the importance of one set of things and in doing so overlook another set of much simpler things that wind up having more value in the long run. I try (and often fail) to do a few things that are spectacular, yet I would probably get greater results if I invested the same amount of energy to do more things that are simply good.

"I really liked that," he said.

Wow. Something that cost me neither time nor money (it didn't even cost me much sleep!) turned into a positive memory that he's been holding onto and will continue to do so.

"Well, until the morning when you farted in my face."

Dudey's Dooties

2007-04-26T21:49:00.000-04:00

Ms N came back from a three-night business trip today, so naturally I was up early this morning cleaning all of the parts of the house I had failed to clean during the previous three nights.

The kids were at my babies' momma's apartment overnight, so I had no worries of having to break from any tasks to go wake my son up for the third time or anything like that. Today was "schlep your kids to work" day, so I did have to pick up my daughter on my way to the train (which we missed by 2 minutes anyways), but other than that the morning was mine.

I had my schedule planned out perfectly: Get up at 5:15, go feed the cats, pull the sheets off the bed, get the extra bedding stuff out of my son's room (he got new sheets on Sunday, the old ones were still in a pile on his floor), take all the aformentioned linens downstairs, put the sheets and pillowcases in the wash, scoop up the cat crap from the litter boxes, go back to the kitchen and get the dishes, take the trash outside (it did, after all, have a bag of cat crap in it), put the sheets in the dryer, straighten up the coffee table, clean up the rest of the stuff in my son's room, take a shower, fold the two loads of laundry that I did on Tuesday, put my portion away, put my son's portion in his room, put Ms N's portion in a nice stack, brush my teeth, gather my stuff for work, get the sheets out of the dryer, make the bed, and head out by 7:25.

You know, a typical morning.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite work as I planned. I didn't have time to bring the sheets back up and make the bed, and I left at 7:32, hence the missed train.

Oh, and one more thing ...

Ms N came back home and Leo, the primary cat, was acting a bit strange. Dude, the emergency backup cat, didn't so much as come to the living room to see her. She mistook the attention Leo was paying to her as some sort of "I missed you" gesture. (Ridiculous, I know ... cats don't miss anybody unless they are not being fed. I doubt the cats even notice that we're gone.) When she got upstairs, however, Leo ran straight to my son's door and started meowing.

That's when it dawned on her ... Dude wasn't being lazy or indifferent; he didn't come to see her because he was stuck behind a closed door.

Apparently, while I was in straightening up the room, Dude wandered in. He just failed to wander out before I left.

I got home soon after Ms N and she told me about Dude's traumatic ordeal. He seemed to be recovering well. Then again, Dude always seems to be doing well. If you translate his meows, he says, "Dude".

As I walked into my son's room, I quickly realized that Dude had, ahem, done his dooty while trapped therein. You can't blame him - when nature calls you can't send it to voicemail. The problem is he's a cat, and cats have some sort of turd-topping instinct. When dogs mess on the floor, it's always easy to find (especially if you have bare feet); they let their chips lay where they fall. Cats, though, are modest.

It took a few minutes of searching, but I finally found them ... neatly tucked underneath my son's stuffed turtle. Now matter how hard I try, I can't stop picturing the cat pushing that turtle across the floor just to have something under which he could hide his dooties.

Comb 'em if you got 'em

2007-04-26T18:11:00.000-04:00

Last night I had the most uplifting experience a middle-age guy like myself can get (and still talk about publicly, that is).

There comes a point in every boy's life where he looks at older men and realizes "Oh, crap. Someday I may become just as bald as they are!"

Like the platypus, androgenetic alopecia (or male-pattern baldness for those of you who didn't seek out that article on Wikipedia) is proof that God has quite the sense of humor.

The problem is you have no way of knowing if the joke's on you.

It's very unnerving, really. You can spend decades hiding that inner fear. One day life is all fine and dandy, and then you see an uncle you haven't seen in a few years and suddenly you're in front of the bathroom mirror tracing your hairline with your finger to see if it's moved since the last time you checked.

My father, himself part of God's punchline, describes the part in his hair as "very wide." Growing up with him was like watching a stadium roof retract very, very, very slowly. Before I was even out of high school my brother's hair was like Mary-Kate Olsen. (And I do not mean long and blonde - that's Mary-Kate's hair. I mean his hair was no longer thin, it was emaciated.) He finally gave up combing and took up shaving.

Needless to say, it was not the most comfortable environment in which to remain vain.

So last night I got a haircut. After trimming the sides and taking down the length, without so much as asking the stylist grabbed that other set of shears - you know, the ones that cut some hairs out while leaving others in place.

It seems there was a problem with the hair atop my head. And while past performance is no guarantee of future results, it was promising, nonetheless.

My hair was too thick.

Mr. E's medical tip of the day

2007-04-24T08:05:00.000-04:00

Replace your Zoloft with Cialis.

Enraged? Become enraptured, instead. Stop giving the finger when you have much better things to give. Turn your F You's into F Me's. Cialis works up to 36 hours, so you don't have to plan, you don't have to rush, you don't have to worry about time. The next time a relaxing moment turns into the wrong moment, you can be ready. While Cialis does nothing to stop the anxiety, Great Smokies does it make it more enjoyable!

Cialis is not for everyone. Do not take Cialis if you are single and unattractive. Before replacing your Zoloft, consult your physician to determine if you are healthy enough to be angry. Anger lasting for more than four hours is the sign of a serious condition which requires immediate treatment, meaning you'd better hope to God that you didn't say anything stupid to your significant other during your fit of frustration, as she is the one who administers said treatment. Piss her off and she'll tell you to go treat yourself, you F-ing A-hole.

Above and beyond the call of Daddy

2007-03-21T20:26:00.000-04:00

Were you to ask me years ago, as I was first venturing out into the world as a young adult, from whom I learned the importance of love, decency, and kindness, I would reply without hesitation that my mother was the predominant teacher of that lesson. Out of the two, it was my mother who was more empathetic. She was also more patient, more involved with my daily activities, easier to talk to ... I could go on, but suffice it to say that for someone as emotionally demanding as I was, she was the parent with whom I could most easily relate. More often than not, if I wanted to talk about something or show off something that I had done, I would go right to Mom.

It never occurred to me then that I was shortchanging my dad (and my mom and myself, for that matter) by favoring my mom as I did. Then again, it never would have occurred to me to ponder if I was shortchanging anyone. I was a kid -- it was supposed to be all about me!

I guess I had the psycho part down pat, just not the analyzing.

Things have changed since then. I've gotten older, wiser, fatter ... and kids.

The process of raising a child helps the parent grow, too. If you're smart and/or lucky, somewhere around the time you start turning into your parents, you will start to learn all sorts of things about them.

As I've watched my kids grow -- as they've had their various encounters with the world -- I've often thought back to when I had similar experiences. And the more I think back, the more I appreciate the role my dad played.

For all those times that I went to Mom first, I cannot think of a single time where Dad showed the slightest bit of disappointment. While I'm sure that at least some of the time he was glad I was pestering someone other than him, I know now that a large part of it had to do with the type of father he is. It was the epitome of selflessness: whether I gave him credit for making my life better was unimportant so long as my life was, indeed, better.

Nothing put this lesson into focus for me more than my grandfather's death. Grandpa Ace was the center of my world. He was big and strong and fun. He could put my brother and I each on a shoulder and carry us around. He was kind and giving. He whittled wood down to make hulls so we could build boats. He knew everything about everything and made the world's best milkshakes. I thought my dad must have been so lucky having grown up with Grandpa Ace around all the time.

I came to find out that Grandpa Ace had learned a few things himself over the years, and that he was a much different grandfather than father. I found out that my dad had gone to great lengths to make sure he did not become the father he had. There was enough tension between the two of them that nobody would have faulted my dad if he moved far away and kept my brother and me away from his folks.

Dad did the former, but most certainly not the latter. My brother and I spent most of our summers with my grandparents and it was great. They came up to Alaska to visit us several times, too. And Dad, despite (or perhaps because of) his own difficulties, was seemingly at his happiest when we talked about how great my grandfather was. Fortunately for all concerned, my dad has turned into a great grandfather, too. My kids now go to Alaska for their summers, and I think they, too, will remember these trips among the highlights of their early years.

Inasmuch as he was a fun-oriented guy, Dad did an amazing job of keeping his priorities in order. Naturally, I didn't get it, so sometimes I felt his priorities were inverted. He would work late, work early, and sleep a lot in between. He still does, come to think of it. Yet the amazing thing about Dad is how while it seemed like he was always busy, he also managed to eke out a heck of a lot of time for us.

And boy did he know how to use that free time! He could really let his hair down (which is only appropriate, being that his hair has since let him down).

One of my favorite things about my dad is how much of a kid he is. While Mom made sure we had good clothes, Dad made sure we had good toys. He made sure we had more than that -- plenty to eat, a roof over our heads, yadda, yadda, yadda -- but the toys were what really stuck out for a ten year-old me. Shopping with Dad could be a rewarding adventure.

Dad is also quite the joker. Mom made sure we understood knew reverence, Dad made sure we knew irreverence. Between the two of them, my brother and I developed a wonderful blend of propriety and cynicism. Granted, I'm sure Mom had somewhat of a talk with Dad the day I told a certain joke to the pastor at brunch one Sunday. Tact, it seems, takes longer to master.

As the years have gone by, I've realized some important things. Some of the greatest lessons in life are not learned right away. Some gifts are so great that you can't appreciate them fully when you first get them (sometimes you don't even realize you've gotten them at all). Sometimes the greatest acts are those that go unnoticed. And sometimes the guy you’ve always thought of as a big irreverent prankster is an exemplar of love, respect, and fatherhood at its heart.

Today is Dad's 60th birthday. Dad, thank you for your amazing patience, love, selflessness, and, of course, irreverence. Thank you for providing an example of what I should strive to be as a father and a man. Thank you for giving so much (and for those certain times when you did not give).

Thank you for everything, Dad.
Happy Birthday!

The blogger's conundrum

2007-01-04T08:29:00.000-05:00

Over the past few weeks I learned two new things.

Catawampus is a real word.

The more time you spend doing things worth blogging about, the less time you have to actually blog about them.

I have several things in partial form, waiting for some final touches before they take the grand stage that is this web page, and several other ideas that I would like to get in, but my time has been so restricted lately that I have not been able to do any of it. I could finish these tidbits and post them as I get to them, but posting Thanksgiving stories dated January seems a bit odd.

Not that being odd has ever stopped me before ...

I could also backfill, but then none of you would know which postings you've seen and which you haven't, and I know how you all just can't stand to miss any of my postings.

Luckily, I have come up with a wonderful idea.

I am going to backfill the blog (pinning stories to their appropriate time), but link to the stories on this post here. This should stay up long enough for you all (both?) to see what's there, and your browser should tell you which links you've already followed so, using your amazing powers of deduction, you should be able to see what you have yet to read.

Go, me!

So here is what to expect in the coming days (... weeks, months, or however long it takes me to finish this stuff!):

Thanksgiving traff*ck

Gettin' Red-Nekkid

Los(t) Gigantes

Pain in the glass (1/5/07)

Not bad for one week

Packing outside the box

TV, or not TV?

I was racially profiled ... by Wal-Mart

Oh, sh*t (The plumbing story)

Home Sweet Home Depot

Viking Hooch (and other Christmas memories)

At least I'm good for something

Channeling my inner Bob Vila

Like rabbits, I tell you!

It could be worse ... it could be happening to me

New Year's Resolution: Blog Regularly

Cockroach goes best with a white wine

Enjoy!

Pain in the glass

2006-12-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

Posted January 5, 2007

Some jackhole broke into my car.

I wasn't the only one. My neighbor's car was parked in the same row as mine. His also got broken into. In both cases it was the same thing - that little triangular window on the back driver's side door was busted. The perp (look at me with the cop-talk) could reach in and unlock the back door, then enter the car and rummage for stuff. The back door of my neighbor's car was left ajar; mine was still closed. Of course, my car alarm goes off as soon as the latch is pressed, his was disengaged.

No other car in our part of the lot was touched.

Then again, no other car in our part of the lot had stuff on the seats. My neighbor had some CDs and other stuff. I had a gift bag for our office gift exchange.

For those of you who have never lived near the drug trade, most car break-ins are not done by people who want the car. Heck, most of the time the bastards don't even take the more valuable items in the car, like the radio or the dashboard Mary. People breaking into cars are looking for cash or something that can be turned into cash quickly so they can buy their next fix. A radio has to be disassembled and then sold; that takes time. Gathering ten bucks from two or three different cars only takes a few minutes.

When I lived in Philly my car got broken into. The only thing I lost was my $80 sunglasses, but the greeting cards I left in the glove compartment had been torn open. That SOB wasn't looking for a Hallmark moment. Remember, people put money in greeting cards.

My apartment complex occasionally gets the unsavory sort wandering through. Across the nearby main road are several motels, which see less and less business from travelers and "John and Mrs. Smith" types now that some better hotels were built nearby. The motels now double as low-income housing for people on welfare (and are among the few places in town far enough away from schools for sex-offenders to live). A cop in town told me that there are actually gangs forming over there.

While off the beaten path for drivers, my complex is on the walking route between the motels and the local Wawa (a convenience store chain common in this area). I'm glad I'm moving.

Speaking of which, I move in two days. In two stinkin' days my car will no longer be parked in this lot overnight. Six years with no problems, then this happens 48 measly hours before I leave.

Grrr. Argh.

I took my car to the local Chevy dealer and hitched a ride into work with Ms N. I figured it would be about $200 or so to get a new window.

I thought wrong.

I'm assuming that the jackhole chose that little windows thinking he was doing us a favor. It made things no easier for him - the smaller surface area meant it takes more force to break through, then he had to clear enough away to reach the door lock inside. Had he gone through the main window, he would have had plenty of clear space for his arm. Yeah, I broke your window, but I only broke the tiny window!

Guess what, fothermucker, that window happens to be the most expensive piece of glass on the entire freakin' car!

You see, the bigger windows on the door roll up and down, which means they are not permanently affixed to the vehicle. If one of those breaks, you pop the inside cover off the door, clean out the glass, stick in a new window, and reattach the liner. No big deal.

Those small windows, on the other hand, are permanently attached. To swap one out, you have to take out pieces and reattach other pieces, then put on the weather-stripping and whatnot. Hello new window, good-bye $730.

Growl. Snarl.

Oh, and the gift bag most likely led to the break-in? Every year we have a secret Santa gift exchange. Last year I forgot to bring my present in, meaning the admin whose name I drew didn't get her gift until a day after everyone else. For the past two weeks my co-workers have been ribbing me about it. In order to make sure I didn't forget the gift this year, I put the bag in the car as soon as I finished wrapping the gifts.

My previous job had a $20 limit on the gift exchange, but not my current one. We have two unique rules to ours.

1) You give your lucky recipient five separate gifts, each of which has to be useful to or representative of that person.

2) You can only buy the gifts at a dollar store.

In One Hundred Hours ...

2006-12-11T10:00:00.000-05:00

... we'll be first-time homeowners!

Wo-hoo!

Oh, and it seems that your well-wishes may have had an effect, too. I'll find out for certain later.

Wish me luck, folks ...

2006-11-30T23:56:00.000-05:00

I need it.

And for those who have taken the time to complain about my lack of posting, what can I say? Other than custody squabbles, buying a house, Thanksgiving traffic, realtors, lawyers, home inspectors, a department-wide reallignment at work, moving, a kid's birthday, Ms N's and my second anniversary, quirky car issues, and the bitterly painful collapse of my beloved Gigantes, there really hasn't been much to write about.

Thanks for checking in, anyways.

Oh, and don't forget to wish me luck!

Rollin' wit da homies

2006-11-25T17:38:00.000-05:00

I found my theme song ...

Jersey Magic

2006-11-21T00:47:00.000-05:00

I couldn't figure it out.

I'd been watching Monday Night Football and going N-V-T-S nuts.

In a nutshell, the Giants had been sucking like so many $10 whores. Were it not for Jacksonville's bad opening drive and a quirky fumble in the red zone, the score would likely have been 20-0 at the half. There had been no Giants running game – Brandon Jacobs couldn't even pull off third and short. The team's very first first down was immediately followed by an interception. Eli Manning had been throwing the ball all over the field. And over all the receivers.

Psst! Eli! You’re supposed to throw it to the receivers!

Psst! Receivers! When Eli throws it to you, catch it!

Psst! Plaxico! If you are ever near a defender who has just intercepted the ball, you are supposed to tackle that guy, not push him gingerly towards the end zone!

Nuts, I tell you.

So halftime came and went and los Gigantes were soon down 13-3 in the 3rd quarter. Eli had just thrown the ball away to avoid a nearly dreadful sack when it hit me.

I wasn't wearing my lucky jersey!

I have three Giants jerseys – one Shockey and two #73s (one home blue, the other away white) with my own last name on the back.

Why my own name, you ask. Well, I'm never going to be cut, traded, or lost to free agency, of course. Besides, if they ever need me on the field I'll be ready to go.

I have found through extensive trial and error that the away jersey must be worn on game day if the Giants are to have a chance of winning. I can't explain it; it's some magical connection that I have with the team even though they are sometimes thousands of miles away.

Well, here we were in the third quarter and I was just in a T-shirt. (And shorts. I don't watch football naked – at least not when the kids are home.)

A T-shirt! Oh, how I was letting my team down.

I quickly got the jersey, threw it on, then sat down in front of the TV and tried to send cosmic signals to Florida to let the guys know I was in uniform.

Lo and behold, on the very next play, Eli dropped back to pass, spun to elude the Jaguar pursuit, brought his arm up to throw ...

[insert pregnant pause here]

... and then he dropped the ball on the ground, whereupon it was promptly picked up by a defender and run into the end zone for a Jacksonville touchdown.

At that moment I gave birth.

(Quite a surprise, what with my XY chromosomes and lack of uterus and all. It's a boy.)

Half the Jaguars were doing line dances, circus acts, and the Macarena in the end zone. While I was prepping the jersey for use as a swaddling cloth, I noticed that the rest of the defense was not celebrating at all.

There was a flag on the play. Face-mask, defense.

The touchdown was nullified, the Cirque du Soleil artists were lowered back down from the goalposts, and the Giants got the ball back plus a few yards and a first down.

Manning and Co. finally got things working and pieced together an amazing drive of their own, culminating in a touchdown. An apparent 20-3 suddenly turned into 13-10! The jersey worked! We were back in the game!

Note to self: leave the celebratory spike to the guys on the field who know for certain that what is in their hands is indeed a football. Oh well, I didn't want a third kid anyways.

It’s upon this type of success that I think the team needs to better capitalize. I'm more than happy to bring this jersey to the sidelines where the mojo will undoubtedly be so much more potent; I'm just waiting for the team to send down the limo. I'd even settle for the luxury box. We're talking about a playoff run, guys.

OK, so the excitement was short lived. The Giants quickly restored their severe barometric pressure deficit vis-à-vis the Jaguars. They gave up 13 more points and a couple turnovers while failing to score again before the game mercifully ended. The Giants slipped to 6-4, three games behind the Bears and tied with the suddenly resurgent and always detestable Dallas Cowboys.

How disappointing.

I can only imagine what would have been different if I had put the jersey on earlier.

Happy Birthday, Ms N

2006-11-15T09:53:00.000-05:00

For this,
your [redacted] trip
around the ol' sun,
here's hoping:

your
birthday
wishes
come
true

your
dreams
are
fulfilled

... and there's never a shortage of shoes

What have you blogged for me lately?

2006-11-14T08:15:00.000-05:00

Ooo-oo-ooo-yeah!

Some people are never satisfied.

I've been blogging for about as long as Brittany Spears and K-Fed have been married. During that time, I have had some extended spells where I have failed to post. A week here, a month there ... you get the picture.

Postless in New Jersey.

Lo and behold, after going merely the length of Brittany Spears’ first marriage without a post, Alaska Jen tells me that I am letting her down. "You haven’t posted in a long time," she ~~whined~~, er, said Thursday night, granting me no credit for hanging on into the wee hours of election night to complete my Est-iest awards. "I’m getting bored."

"Don’t worry," I assured her. "There will be something posted tomorrow."

Sucker.

OK, so now it has been a week. But I think my material today will make up for the lapse. Quality over quantity, you know.

Wikitainment

2006-11-14T08:12:00.000-05:00

While mindlessly trolling through Wikipedia, I stumbled upon a spiffy idea for a web challenge.

We’ve all heard of six degrees of separation – the notion that any two people can be connected through six other people. I, for one, have some entertaining contacts just two or three degrees away. For example, my former insurance agent’s son has three Super Bowl rings, my grandfather knew the pilot of the Enola Gay, I’ve had one-on-one conversations with a member of the Reagan administration and with Nixon’s Secretary of the Interior, and my mom works with Mary Kay Latourneau’s ex-husband.

Presidents to pedophiles … oh, yeah.

So here’s the challenge. Start with a topic on Wikipedia – say Hillary Clinton. Then pick another topic – say Castration. Now see how many (well, few) clicks it takes using only linked Wikipedia articles to connect the two.

(Hillary-to-Castration takes five clicks: Prostate Cancer, Androgens, Vas deferens, Vasectomy, Castration.)

The challenge, then, is to find two topics which seem to have no bearing on each other and find the shortest route between them. Bonus points are awarded based on degree of obscurity.

Please pass this idea on and send back your challenge ideas.

It’s like butt-ah

2006-11-14T08:08:00.000-05:00

My daughter's Girl Scout troupe had a bake sale at our church Sunday. Our church has two services, so we had two rounds of sales. In between, the girls diligently readied the tables for the second rush of customers and we parents hung out just out of earshot sharing off-color anecdotes.

One of the dads had a great one about the one that didn’t get away. It was a true inspirational tale for all of us who had those moments where, three hours removed from a conversation, we suddenly come up with what we should have said.

My wife had to make several batches of cookies, so I went to the store to get ingredients. This really snooty woman was standing right in front of the butter looking through ingredients of the gourmet yogurts.
"Excuse me," I said, "can I please get to the butter?" She moved about six inches – still in the way but I could reach what I needed.
I took out five boxes of butter and was about to walk away when I realized it was salted. I needed unsalted.
"I’m sorry," I said to her, "I grabbed the wrong kind. Can I get in here again?"
She leered at me as I switched the boxes. "It’s not going to make a difference," she huffed. "Salted or not, the cholesterol is still going to kill you."
"Oh, I'm not going to eat this," I replied. "We use this as lubricant for anal sex."

On a related topic, I am adding another new word to the vernacular. Those militant snotty elitist know-it-alls who insist that you comply with their view on diet, the environment, fashion, etc:

Snotzis

Out of the Ordainary

2006-11-14T08:04:00.000-05:00

My brother doesn't surprise me much.

It's not that he’s mundane, he's not. He is the polar opposite of mundane. He is, shall we say, very much his own person.

In some ways I envy him. He is blissfully unburdened by the expectations of others. He is comfortable enough with himself that he is able to act as he chooses. When he felt like having a unique style, he didn’t go down to Hot Topic to pick up the current version of uniqueness that everybody else has, he shaved three-quarters of his head and braided the remaining hair. He personifies the notion that those who matter don't mind and those who mind don’t matter.

I got a call from him Saturday night. He wanted to know if I'd heard the new Weird Al CD and if I'd heard the original R. Kelly song "Trapped in a Closet" and, oh, by the way, he just got ordained.

Screech!

OK, he surprised me with that one.

So my brother – the octopus head – is now clergy. He's now part of the Church of Spiritual Humanism.

Some would say he’s not really clergy because he got his ordination on-line. But I doubt my brother is bothered by their scoffing.

Faith is like that, you know. Besides, Tyler Durden says we should let that which does not truly matter completely slide.

Later in the call, after the conversation had shifted to a few different topics, he mentioned that he was going through his collection of adult-oriented videos.

"Oh," I said. "Is this part of your ministry?"

That explains it!

2006-11-13T14:41:00.000-05:00

I just noticed ... it's Monday the 13th!

Just another manic Monday

2006-11-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

The Bangles didn't mention this in their song.

I'm having one of those "had to disassemble and remove the lock on my front door so I could leave the house" kind of days.

Our admin said I was the first person to call out late for such a reason.

I almost didn’t encounter this problem at all. I was about to drop my son off with the people who watch him until the bus comes.

"Oh, no," he said with a somewhat panicked tone as he was getting out of the car.

Oh crap, I thought silently.

You see, a panicked tone from my son means there is not really a problem, he just thinks there is and is overreacting accordingly. It’s the somewhat panicked tones that tell me something is definitely amiss.

"I grabbed the wrong bookbag."

Yup. Problem.

He got back in the car and we rushed back home. I opened the door, got the right bag, tried to leave, and the key was stuck.

Nothing out of the ordinary, I thought. Humid day ... cheap-o apartment lock ... the Fates farting in my general direction because they find it amusing ...

This lock has done this before. Many times. I already have a key extraction routine down pat that requires just the right amount of wiggling, wriggling, twisting, swearing, and, of course, a mallet.

Note to readers: Never, ever, ever twist a key with too much force or hit the key handle from the side with blunt object. The key will snap in the lock, and you will be hosed.

By the time I repeated step 14 for the 23rd time, it occurred to me that this one was definitely out of the ordinary.

Out came the screwdriver, off came the lock. I had to twist the deadbolt mechanism so I could actually close the door. Fortunately, about the time my then-toddler son showed a propensity for walking out the front door, I installed a chain lock up near the top. I locked the chain, left the house, and then left a colorful message on the apartment complex's emergency maintenance line that I sure hope sounded amusing when they heard it.

I did take a moment to reflect on perhaps the only nice thing about apartment living ... someone else is paying to fix this.

I had some weekend-related posts ready to go, but they'll have to wait for tonight.

Politics as unusual

2006-11-07T20:10:00.000-05:00

Since you all just can't get enough of election coverage, I'm proud to present

Mr. E's Election Night
Est-iest Awards

Smarmiest Democrat ad goes to John Eaves

Narrators Congressmen John Lewis, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, and Former UN Ambassador Andy Young
"On November 7 we face the most dangerous situation we've ever had. You think fighting off dogs and water hoses in the 60's was bad and there we sit idly and let the right wing Republicans take over the Fulton County Commission."
"The efforts of Martin and Corretta King, Josea Williams, Maynard Jackson, and many others will be lost and that's why we must stand up and we must turn out the vote for the Democrats on election day."
"And especially for John Eaves for Fulton County Commission Chairman."
"Unless you want them to turn back the clock on equal rights, human rights, and economic opportunity for all of us, vote for John eaves as Fulton County Chairman."
"Your very life may depend on it."
Announcer: This message paid for by the Committee to Elect John Eaves

Your very life may depend on John Eaves becomming a County Chairman? This is a gang that needs their hyperbole licenses revoked!

Smarmiest Republican ad goes to Vernon Robinson

Announcer: "You needed that job and you were the best qualified - but they gave it to an illegal alien so they could pay him under the table. It's happening all over America because of politicians like your Congressman, Brad Miller.
"Millions of Americans have lost their jobs to people who aren't even supposed to be here. Instead of securing the borders, Brad Miller voted to give these illegal aliens driver's licenses, Social Security benefits, and many other government freebies. He even actually voted to allow convicted child molesters to immigrate to America.
"These illegal aliens pay no taxes but take our jobs and our government handouts, then spit in our face and burn our flag.
"Well, Vernon Robinson has had enough. Vernon Robinson is an Air Force Academy graduate who proudly served in uniform under the American flag, a flag Brad Miller voted to let illegal aliens burn and trample."
Vern: "I'm Vern Robinson and I approve this message. If you send me to Congress, I'll secure the borders, stop the handouts, and protect your jobs."
Announcer: "Paid for by Robinson for Congress."

I'm sorry ... what House Resolution was it that allowed illegal aliens to burn the flag?

Second-Dumbest Statement by a Non-Candidate goes to Senator John Kerry for saying that if you don't use your brain, "you get stuck in Iraq."

Dumbest Statement by a Non-Candidate goes to Senator John Kerry for saying that he was sorry that we, the people, misunderstood what he said. No, John, we understood what you said; you said it wrong. "I'm sorry that you're so stupid" is not an apology.

Best Campaign Slogan goes to - D'oh, I missed the name - for "Why the hell not?" Please, please, please tell me this candidate's name if you know it.

Baseleast Argument goes to the Republican National Committee for "Lois Murphey doesn't support our values ... she even criticized a bill that included body armor for our troops." She criticized a bill that "included body armor for our troops"? How dare she? You can never criticize a bill that includes body armor for our troops. Everybody knows that including body armor for our troops makes a bill uncriticizable ... even if said bill reinstates the draft and slavery, hikes taxes, repeals woman's sufferage and the Dewey Decimal System, and requires all women to wear nothing but floral-print burkas!

Jumping the gunniest - runner up goes to the Philadelphia Inquirer online edition for calling the election in favor of incumbent Governor Ed Rendell while the polls were still open and "0% reporting".

Jumping the gunniest goes to Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) for saying the Democrats "had taken Ohio" seventeen minutes before pricincts were legally allowed to report results.

Oddest Call: NJ Senate race. At 8:45 pm, with a tally of 51% for Kean, Jr to 48% for Menendez, called in favor of Menendez because of what Wolff Blitzer called "hard numbers from exit polls." You know, because those worked so well predicting the Bush defeats in 2000 and 2004.

Odderest Call: Democrat Ben Cardin was forecast as winner of the Maryland Senate seat based upon his 44% of the votes. His opponent, Republican Michael Steele, only managed to muster 55% of the then-counted vote.

Confusedest Blogger goes to me at this very moment. I have now seen at least 5 cases where the networks have called races in favor of the canidate who was trailing in the vote count. If FOX News was calling these types of races in favor of trailing Rs I wouldn't be so confused, but even they are saying trailing Dems will be taking seats.

Ego-shatteringest Results go to Democrat hopeful Tim Mahoney. Dude. If you can't garner significantly more votes than a disgraced gay stalker of underage boys (Mark Foley), you really need a new campaign manager.

Right-Oniest Candidate Pairing goes to the Virginia 5th District for giving us the Goode-Weed race.

Successfullest Republican Strategery goes to the RNC for getting Democrat-ish Senator Lieberman elected in Connecticut. Perhaps the biggest win of the night for the G.O.P.

Unusualiest Race (for yours truly, at least) goes to the Texas 14th House District. Republican incumbent Ron Paul is facing off against Democrat Shane Sklar. I got sued once. Plaintiff's counsel? Sklar & Paul. Different Sklar, different Paul, but still ...

Hilariest Results Tracker goes to Comedy Central's Colbert Report for the Catastroph-o-meter, used to measure Democratic victories. The red side had Jesus, the blue side had Osama bin Laden

It doesn't matter who you vote for ...

2006-11-07T06:37:00.000-05:00

... the government's still going to get elected.

Re-Elect

Nobody!

So ya say it's your birthday ...

2006-11-06T06:36:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday to me,
Tho' I'm old as a tree
I'm still younger than my coworkers,
Tee-hee-hee-hee-hee!

Better late than never

2006-11-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

So, it's a little late for Halloween. This was just too funny to not share ...

(This picture found on Belle of the Brawl)

Hallowinners

2006-11-01T13:57:00.000-05:00

Between the Halloween parties over the weekend and the parade on Main Street last night, I saw lots and lots of costumes. Unlike some previous years, there were actually a lot of really good ones this time around.

Considering that there are so many things people shoot for with their costume selection - funniest, scariest, goriest, sultriest, ugliest, etc., - it is really hard to say what the best costume was. But since I insist on having an opinion about everything, I'll try.

And so, without further ado, I present:

Mr. E's Halloween
"Est"-iest Awards

Scariest: Glowing-eyed Grim Reaper
A guy at the party had a grim reaper outfit with a black cloth that covered the face. Underneath, he had glasses with red lights on them that glowed through the fabric.

Cutest: The Pooh-bear Family
The dad was dressed like Tigger, the mom like Winnie T. Pooh, the stroller was made to look like a honey-pot and the kids were bees.

Funniest: Boy in Outhouse
A kid in the parade decorated a large appliance box to look like an outhouse with an open door. He was standing inside the box with his body poking up through the, ahem, portal. He had fake legs attached to the front of his shirt, making it appear as if he was a much shorter guy sitting upon the throne.

Bunniest: Ty, the 6'5" Playboy Bunny
Ty is a tall dude, making his Playboy bunny outfit all the more amusing. He was the first bunny ever to require 4-page centerfold. The kicker: his girlfriend was dressed as Heff.

Grossest: Dr. Mike Hunt, Gynecologist
From afar, the good doctor looked like any other horror movie maniacal surgeon. He had the facemask, his formerly white scrubs were a bloody mess ... Upon reading his nametag, however, you suddenly get that moment of "ahhh", followed by many moments of "ewww".

Inadvertently Kinkiest: Ride'em Cowgirl
My fraternity friend Bill got the nickname "Bull" back in college. He showed up at the party on Friday wearing bull horns and a tail. His wife, a reltively straight-laced woman who to this day is shocked by something that comes out of my mouth at every single social gathering we've both attended (not to mention what comes out of Mrs. CWV's mouth!), was dressed up as a cowgirl. I seem to recall a segment on HBO's Real Sex about rodeo role play ...

Bloodiest: Dr. Mike Hunt, Gynecologist

Original-iest: One-Night Stand
One guy at the party decorated a box to look like a nightstand, complete with condoms coming out of the drawer. That his head was protruding through the top was no problem, thanks to his lampshade hat.

Watch It, She's Not Eighteeniest: Too Many to Count
The prosti-tots were out in abundance yesterday. (Some even with their parents!) I know you find frilly French maids, naughty nurses, seductive secretaries, liberated librarians, voluptuous vixens, and, of course, dominating dominatricies at college Halloween parties (I need to attend more of those), but those women are of age! Listen, girls - just because you're too old to be giggly doesn't make you old enough to be jiggly. (On the bright side, these girls won't have to worry about spending money on new outfits for work. Once they turn 18, all they have to do is find a pole and start dancing.)

Inappropriate-iest: Dr. Mike Hunt, Gynecologist
This kid's in high school, by the way

Chubbliest: Super-Sized Super Hero
Superman with a beer gut hanging over his belt and out from under his shirt. Quite funny.

Same Clothes as Every Other Day-iest: All those goth kids

Cheapest: Male Chauvinist Pig
That was me. T-shirt with witty saying, jeans, and a $2.95 pig mask from Wal-Mart. If I thought about it more, the shirt would have been of either the Beer (Schlitz, of course), NASCAR, or "No Fat Chicks" genre.

Favorite-iest: a tie between Nerd and Alien
What can I say? This judge is biased towards his kids.

And while these are not necessarily costume (or even Halloween) related, here are a few more Estiest awards ...

Funniest Blog Comment goes to Mist1, who responded to Ranger Tom's Intellectual Dildo Awards post with this gem: "If I could find an intellectual dildo, I would give up dating."

Snappiest Email goes to my cousin's husband, Mike, for this reply to my brother's email describing this video as the coolest he's seen in years: "OK, someone needs their hyperbole license revoked."

Rumsfeldiest Coach award goes to Andy Reid of the Philadelphia Eagles (who seems to share the same shoulder-angel as our president) for "staying the course" throughout Sunday's embarrassing loss even though that meant throwing pass after pass after ugly, futile pass despite wind gusts over 30mph.

Hperboliest Post goes to me for this post. Unfortunately, I wasn't expecting to win, so I didn't prepare a speech. I'll just thank the academy and sit down.

And finally ...

Wateriest Eyes goes to you (but only if you've actually read this whole thing in one sitting).

Boo-yah!

2006-10-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween!

Feeling the blues

2006-10-30T23:06:00.000-05:00

Saturday night, Ms N and I were at a Halloween party with Mrs. CWV and Mr. Mrs-CWV. Our wonderful hosts had a fire pit in their backyard and we had all the fixins for Smores; add the 80's mix CD and the brisk wind blowing through the trees and we were all set.

My daughter makes a mean marshmallow flambé, by the way.

So as the conversating continued, Mrs. CVW suddenly turned to me and said, "By the way, Mr E," (because we are on a first initial basis) "as soon as Halloween is over you have got to change the colors on your blog."

"Yeah," said Ms N. "Aren't they horrible?"

¿Que?

It was just 9 posts ago that I sought out feedback about the color scheme, and after scrutinizing all of the responses, I found the word "horrible" exactly, let's see ... carry the one and we get zero times. "Retina-burning" did appear once, but that was from someone who has her brightness on her monitor set to 100%. Even George Bush seems bright on her screen.

Don't get me wrong, here. I'm a big boy and can handle criticism (I certainly got enough practice from my ex - she was like that sadistic old Chinese guy in that Bud Lite commercial, just paler and without the Fu Manchu mustache. Again!).

If the colors suck, they suck. It doesn't bother me; I can change them.

What bothers me is not that Mrs. CWV, who I consider a very good friend, and Ms N, the woman who (for some reason) seems to want to become Mrs N-E, thought the colors sucked, but that neither thought it necessary to share that tidbit of information with me for over two weeks. That post was from Torsdag, Oktober 12*, for goodness sake.

I don't like things to be sugar-coated (metaphorically, that is ... when it comes to actual food, sugar-coat away! Caramel salad, anyone?). This time, tell me what you really think.**

* For those who are wondering, my dates are all in Swedish***

** About the new colors, that is. I'm not sure if I want some other things mentioned in this particular forum.

*** For those wondering why I have the dates in Swedish, what can I say? I'm an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a who-gives-a-rat's-ass.

Speaking his mind

2006-10-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the good folks at Comics.com, for the minor inconvenience of a bit more Spam I get a Dilbert cartoon emailed to me daily. I always look forward to this email. It's a morning pick-me-up that is caffiene-free and requires no prescription (or trip to a back alley) to get.

Being the astute person I am, it only took me getting these emails every day for almost a year to realize that each one has a link to Scott Adams' blog.

Oh, yeah, I'm on top of things.

Naturally, given the recurring theme of the cartoon, I was expecting to find amusing discussions of workplace Beaurocratic Situations (BS). I was not expecting a crash course in Spasmodic Dysphonia, and most certainly not expecting to read about [Warning Alaska Jen: Do not read the rest of this sentence until you've had your morning coffee] neck injections.

Yuck.

In a nutshell, Spasmodic Dysphonia is a brain disorder that renders a person unable to speak normally (my coworker wants to know how his mother-in-law's could contract this). Speech is a complicated process that involves many parts of the brain; the disorder may only effect some of those parts. As a result, some types of verbal communication (i.e. singing) may still be possible. There is no known cure.

Scott Adams has been suffering from Spasmodic Dysphonia for a year and a half. He can still talk to a large audience, but he hasn't been able to talk to people one-on-one or on the phone.

Until this past Monday, that is.

Read Scott's October 24 post. Obviously, you don't need to read all of the 1,237 comments (as of this posting) that follow, but Scott's story is definitely worth the read.

Congratulations, Mr. Adams, and best of luck with your continued recovery!

Heard it on TV

2006-10-26T00:28:00.000-04:00

"By throwing a party like those rich girls on MTV, I've suddenly become just like them"

"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself, Satan."

Satan and evil minion
South Park

Snot a good way at all

2006-10-25T16:06:00.000-04:00

Over a long enough time frame, Ed Norton tells us in Fight Club, the survival rate for everyone is zero.

Last night I fell asleep on the couch watching the World Series. I woke up about two hours later wondering if I would make it to see morning.

Having had a few hours now to piece together the events of the evening, I’ve come to the conclusion that I probably inhaled post-nasal drip. My head was tilted backwards, so drainage would be towards the throat. The heavy fluid in my airway would lead to the convulsive coughing fit that a) woke me up and b) severely increased the pressure in my left frontal sinus cavity, thereby causing the massive headache.

Keep in mind, this is after having time to recover, sleep on it, and apply some rational thought.

At the time, all I knew is I was suddenly awake, unable to breathe, choking, coughing uncontrollably, and pretty much convinced that my brain was about to explode, if it hadn’t already.

I had to cough to breathe, but every cough transformed the pain in my head from excruciating to torturous beyond belief. Medieval dungeons had rackloads of people who felt less pain than I did last night. The searing pain behind my eye was so bad I could barely stay upright, which was not easy anyways, being that I still wasn’t really awake.

Between gasps for air and my attempts to stay balanced, my thoughts darted amongst the possible outcomes that could cause me to assume room temperature by the time my kids woke up. Suffocation? Aneurism? Loss of consciousness leading to head wound?

Wonderful , I thought. Death by Mucus.

Periodically we find ourselves reminded of our mortality. I’ve been involved in near-misses (or, as George Carlin pointed out, near-hits) on the highway, I’ve been screened for cancer and checked for cholesterol. I once had a near-death experience on the playground at my elementary school after finding out the hard way why you are not supposed to run across the top of the equipment. (Yes, I have seen The Light.)

You never really know when or by what means you will be evicted from your meat suit. I suspect that like me, you readers have at least considered some of the possibilities. And while we may not have a mortality wish list, some final moments are more favorable than others.

I think most people list "passing peacefully while sleeping" as their preference (publicly, at least ... privately they choose "following mind-numbing rapture", even though that one could have a lasting traumatic effect on their partner(s)).

Pressing the perpetual snooze alarm does have its blissful appeal. Unfortunately, I figure I’m more likely to meet my maker by accident (car, skiing, don’t-worry-it’s-not-poisonous ... something like that). I could live with fatal heart attack.

Well, figuratively.

Other than leaving a lingering sinus headache, last night assured me of one thing. Of all the ways that I would prefer to go, drowning in my own snot is not one of them.

Too bad I drafted Foley

2006-10-24T16:37:00.000-04:00

Fantasy sports may have met it's match ...

(Reuters write up)

Construya una pared para nosotros, por favor

2006-10-18T23:48:00.000-04:00

This land is my land,
That land is your land ...

I'm not a big proponent of fencing off the southern border. Looking north from Tijuana last summer brought back sad memories of West Berlin in 1986. I know the fundamental difference between the Iron Curtain, which was meant to keep people in, and the Adobe Curtain, which is meant to keep people out; I just can't get over the fact that we draw inspiration from the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

The Great Wall of America is not the anti-terrorism elixer certain Capitol Hill occupants like to think it is, and cracking down on the employers who give illegal immigrants the illegal jobs for which they illegally immgrate here would do a heck of a lot to stem the flow. Besides, as Carlos Mencia pointed out, who are we going to get to build it?

Something about the fence seems downright unAmerican. Taken to its logical conclusion, the ideology behind the fence turns us into the land of the free, the home of the brave; from border fence to border fence and sea barricade to shining sea barricade. The current batch of so-called "Reagan Republicans" are tarnishing Reagan's (and Mondale's) (and Kennedy's) (and Winthorp's) (oh yeah, and Jesus's) shining city upon the hill. Remember the farewell address?

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

Then again, somewhere out there is this guy ...

This picture found on Tonatos21

A Jim by any other name

2006-10-17T13:11:00.000-04:00

Alaska Jen finds it was funny that I remember football games that were on TV the day after each of my kids was born, but I cannot remember some trivial meaningless tidbits like, say, the name of my roommate during my second term of college.

With my son, that I would remember the football game is not much of a surprise. He was born the Saturday before a Super Bowl and the hospital extended visiting hours the next night so I could watch the big game with my first-born son. (This is where the audience is shown a placard that says "Awwww") That's a memory that will pretty much stick. My daughter, on the other hand, was born around Thanksgiving - right in the middle of the season. I'll admit that retaining memories of a midseason game between two teams I don't care for seems a bit much, but keep in mind that it was my first time doing something with my first-born child, so I feel no shame in keeping that memory, thank you very much. It's not like I remember the play-by-play (except for one play, that is).

Granted, a bigger problem is I tend to forget a lot of other things. The day after I turned 22, that little spot in my mind that is supposed to retain my current age stopped working for seven years. Somewhere during 29 it started working again and continued to do so throughout 30, then it shut off once again. Ask me on any given day (other than my birthday, of course) how old I am and I'll ask you what year it is. Fortunately I'm good at math, because I have to use it every time I fill out a state form.

I also tend to forget things on my mental to-do list. I forget to call people back. And when I do remember to write down things I need to remember, I forget to look back at the paper until sometime after the time I was supposed to have things done. I forget what's in my pockets until I leave a room. I'm reminded because I habitually check for my phone, wallet, and keys. I call it pocket Memento.

Meanwhile, I can tell you which teams played in every Super Bowl from XX to XL, who won, and, with the exception of two years, who I watched the game with. I watched Dallas clobber Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVII, for example, with What's-His-Face, my college roommate.

I am blessed with football recall. Alaska Jen and I have been friends since high school. The only reason why I remember her birthday is because it was on Super Bowl Sunday our freshman year. (I skipped her party so I could watch the game at another friend's party - his birthday was the same day.) While the date constantly slips my mind, I at least know where I can go to look it up. Of course, I never think to look it up before the date (the Super Bowl has moved back two weeks since then), so I'm always, shall we say, fashionably late with the "Happy Birthday" call.

I did call her on her birthday once - her 30th birthday, at that. A big one. But I lost all credit for making the call when I said mid-conversation "oh, it's your birthday?"

Yes, my mind is like a steel trap. A rusty steel trap.

Ms N naturally finds all this absolutely charming, just like my amazing ability to plan things at the last minute. In fact, sometimes she just can't seem to find words to properly express her feelings about how special I am. Sometimes she resorts to Spanish words that sound really nice, although it's probably for the better that I keep forgetting to look them up.

And now I've forgotten what I was writing about. It was something about football ...

Oh, yeah, names.

My first roommate was a guy named Ananda. That's a name that I doubt I'll forget. His mother was a child of the sixties and so was he, he just had the misfortune of growing up in the eighties. My third and final dorm roommate was a guy named Dave. He's the guy who, during an otherwise quiet evening of homework, broke the silence by singing "much carnage, much slaughter." Dave and his friend Curt showed up one evening with a wheelchair that they claimed they "found outside". Drexel's in West Philly ... it's possible, but I'm still suspicious. Our fraternity name for Dave was the two Greek letters Pi and Rho smushed together. "Pyro" was an interesting individual indeed, who, last I checked, became a successful computer engineer in California.

Between Ananda and Dave happened to be a roommate who I didn't hang out with much and had a very generic name. Between the Mikes and Matts and Jims and such that I've known over the years, his name has pretty much blended into my mental abyss. Of the things I've had on my mind, his name is not one of them. What can I say? I've had a busy decade.

So I was back on Drexel's campus enjoying my lunch once again when I overheard another conversation. A guy at a neighboring table was talking to a woman about people they knew. She was of Indian descent, but, based on her accent, appears to have learned English here in the states. He was talking about someone whose name he couldn't remember.

"It's one of those quick names," he said, "Like Matt or Paul or something."

Ah-ha! I thought. That's exactly what I told Alaska Jen when she was making fun of me, I just used different names. Basic generic names are ubiquitous. I remember what kind of guy my roommate was, what he looked like, what his girlfriend looked like (and, of course, how odd they looked next to each other, he being tall and lanky and she being neither). I remember things he did, music he listened to, jokes he told. But his name was one of those "quick" names.

The woman was amused by the guy's comment. Her name was a traditional Indian name. She has always stuck out.

"That's what I love about your white names," she said. "They're short; they're snappy. They all blend into the sea of white faces. It seems so much easier ... there's all the Michaels over there, and the Tims are there ..."

And then I remembered that this is exactly the reason why Alaska Jen is "Alaska Jen". Between Jenn-X (my ex-wife) Nurse Jen (who lived in the building next to mine), Intern Jen, Dakota Jen, Jersey Jen, and perhaps a few I've forgotten, I've had to come up with some way to differentiate amongst the multitude of Jens (not that I could ever confuse my ex with any of the others).

"Jen" could almost be a pronoun for "white girls born in the years following the release of Love Story", "Alaska Jen" identifies her as a unique individual.

Generic names, like generic people, are interchangeable. Find me something that a Mike could do that a Matt couldn't do just as well. Can't find a Tim? Get a Tom. (I get the feeling someone in Florida is Googling like crazy right now trying to make sure there are no "Ranger Tims" out there.)

For the record, Alaska Jen, my roommate's name was Joe.

Now what was his last name?

If it involves exploding sheep, it can't be bad

2006-10-14T12:45:00.000-04:00

So for the first time in the past several visits [queue ominous music], I actually (gasp!) lost money in Atlantic City.

Growl.

And my favorite game, Gettin' Lucky, was being used by one old fogey after another all night long.

Snarl.

Each time I looked over, a different Geri-curled biddy would be sitting at the machine, scowling her wrinkly face at my favorite computer-animated leprechaun as she donated a share of her Social Security check to the “Keep The Don a Billionaire” fund.

It’s not right, I thought to myself as I stared at them with contempt,they don’t love him like I love him!

The leprechaun, I mean; not the Don.

(The leprechaun’s hair, by the way, looks much more natural. But I digress …)

I know better than to get in line behind these ladi … er, women. Some come and go, but the one for which you wait is the one who is planning to sit in front of that machine until either her wallet or her heart fails her. Medicine's getting better nowadays, and since kids and grandkids ain't what they used to be, these women don't seem to care about their leaving anything for their heirs. They're there to spend every penny they can while they can. Asking them when they’ll be done is the quickest way to get a handbag to the crotch. How much crap do they keep in those things?!?

They can just kiss me clovers, I mumbled under my breath as I headed off to find another machine.

But the night wasn't without it's high points. I had a pretty good run on LobsterFest, a lobster-themed slot machine with some fun catch-phrases of its own. When you get to the bonus round, a guy on a boat directs you to pick traps, which are filled with a predetermined amount of lobsters of various point-values. Each lobster is big or small, depending on its point value, and for every point you get you original wager back. As he’s pulling them from the traps, he makes comments in his thick New England accent, such as “ah, this one’s a keepah!” My favorite was, “I’m going to introduce you to some buttah.”

He says nothing when he pulls out the largest lobster (250 points). It growls at him menacingly and he hurriedly tosses it into the hold.

I also did well (by which I mean I took a long time to go through my pre-determined amount of losable money) on a railroad-themed slot at the Wild West. It was one of three machines from which I could have recouped all of my losses for the evening if only I had stopped at my high point. Ms N gave me sound advice on the way home. After a notably good spin, hit the “Cash Out” button.

Behold the power of will.

Unfortunately, the game I found the most amusing was not the game at which I fared the best. I forget the name, but the general theme was unlucky sheep with explosives and it definitely brought back fond memories of Saturday mornings when I’d lie on the floor with my cereal bowl in front of me watching Wile E. Coyote’s vain-yet-unceasing attempts to capture Bugs or the Road Runner or any of Sam’s sheep. Each time you hit three or more in a row, the cartoon sheep would light a match in a roomful of dynamite or try in vain to outrun a bomb or get turned into instant mutton some other way. In a tribute to Stanly Kubrick’s best film, one sheep even rides a bomb Slim Pickens style, waving his hat in the air as he drops from the plane. My chuckles just kept getting heartier as more sheep got blown to bits in new ways.

Ah, yeah. Anytime you can combine gambling with animal cruelty, that’s just good, clean fun!