the ones i have read are in bold.

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
How do your reading habits stack up?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (2x)
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (2x)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (tried 2x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - saw the movie. heh.
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (2x)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (2x) this is part of the chronicles of narnia.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (2x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - saw the movie. heh.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - (2x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - saw the movie. heh.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (3x or more)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - saw the movie. heh.
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - saw the movie. heh.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

i have read 30/100. i have read some >1 time, so perhaps i should stop reading them over again and simply read some others. but, some of them i have never heard of, so how great can they be?? some of them i think i may have read -- prayer of owen meaney, a town like alice -- but i'm not sure, so what kind of impression did they make if i did read them? not sure who picked this list, but i would add as brilliant books -

101 the pillars of time - ken follett
102 a tree grows in brooklyn - betty smith
103 glass castle - jeanette walls
104 andrew henry's meadow - doris burn
105 we were tired of living in a house - liesel moak skorpen
106 epamanondus

haynesworth safety panties

before i forget -- i wanted to mention that today is beavis' birthday. yipee ki yay! beavis has nothing to do with haynesworth safety panties. see, i typed a couple things into the blog here that i wanted to remember to tell you about, and saved it, but i didn't type a subject, so blogger made up the subject from some of the words & called the post "haynesworth safety panties". so that is not my fault. not one single bit.

haynesworths safety panties. there is nothing to say about that b/c it is actually two topics - haynesworth & safety panties. first we shall discuss safety panties. in my locker at work, i keep an extra shirt, shorts, socks - everything needed for running, in case i forget to bring something with me. one thing in my locker is the safety panties, in case i forget the clean panties for after working out. so, the other day, i did forget, and so i went to get the safety panties, and i bet you are thinking i am going to say they weren't there. no - that is not the punchline. they were there, but i had forgotten they were hideous. so, it was not like safety panties. it was more like punishment panties. except that sounds like some s & m toy, and that is not what was going on at all.

i am going to stop that discussion now, for everyone's safety.

haynesworth - who is a tackle, not a safety - has signed a $100 million deal with the washington redskins, and i say - best of luck to the both of them. haynesworth had a super great spectacular year last year, but in case the redskins didn't notice, i will just point out that was one good year after many mediocre, troublesome years. haynesworth is lazy, has a tendency to beg off the field, and gets hurt. there were special incentives built into last year's deal w/ the titans that encouraged him to stay on the field, take more snaps. perhaps the redskins have placed these types of incentives in his new deal, but i doubt it b/c i bet haynesworth didn't like them and probably got his agent to get them left out. and, here's another aspect - washington dc is not a nice little town like nashville is. washington is mean, hard, nasty, full of temptation. and, the fans are not forgiving and don't care that haynesworth went to utk. going to utk is only important in tennesee. so, bottom line, i say he will be kicking folks in the head again by as early as next november.

proof that there are people out there who are worse at talking on the phone that i am.

i placed a call to vandriver --

vandriver: hullow??

ace: hey, vandriver!

vandriver: {silence}

ace: okay, well, i wanted to let you know i am going to take my own car this morning.

vandriver: {unintelligible mumbling}figure{unintelligible mumbling}

ace: okay, so i will see you monday!

vandriver: {hangs up}


i am thinking that thing he said in there is either that is what i figured -- meaning he figured i called b/c i was taking my own car -- or that figures -- meaning it figures that i would drive myself on a rainy day. in the first case, he is being a hopeless ass b/c if he figured that is why i called, why answer? just let me leave you a vm. in the second case, he is being a hopeless ass b/c if it figures that i would drive myself when it rains, well then it also figures that there is something wrong w/ the way he is dropping me off and leaving me to walk thru the rain. in conclusion and taking into consideration the convo-ending hang-up, he is a hopeless ass.

if it weren't for canoes, we'd all have to rollerskate.

my contribution to the world of social networking will be the next big thing in social networking -- drumroll -- antisocial networking. tah-dah!

i do not have all the kinks worked out yet, but it will involve logging on to a site where you have been alloted an allocation of friends and you will unfriend them all. every day you will receive a new batch of friends to unfriend. there will also be groups that you will unjoin and bands for you to unfan. every time you log on, you will have to unfriend & unjoin & unfan everything that has accumulated since your last logon b/c you will be allocated an allocation of these connections every single day. the site will also involve a sort of second-life-esque shopping mall where you can virtually go in your virtual doc martens & virtual black duster coat and virtually observe & stalk other people. there will of course be a merchandise component which will include items for sale such as the aforementioned virtual doc martens which you can purchase with paypal bucks and also handy items such as downloadable plans for b-o-m-b-s. [do not want to type in the actual word b-o-m-b b/c that might set off the proverbial red flags in the googlesphere.]

like i said, i don't have all the kinks worked out yet, but mark my words - the next big thing will be antisocial networking. you read it here first, folks.

not all jelly bellys are created equal.

did you ever do that thing where you feel, like, compelled to put on a particular outfit or color? like - today i shall wear the brown pants. and, you argue with yourself, telling yourself how you don't even like the brown pants. you refuse to wear them. no. no. no. but, of course, in the end you win out over you, and you put on the brown pants. and, you get to work and like 50 people are wearing brown pants, brown shirts, brown dresses, skirts, coulottes, beanies, whatevs. you look like a company of little brown brownies. and, you are glad you listened to you & wore the brown b/c it is quite obviously wear-brown day. you ever do that?

yeah, ne meither.

hello. yeah - it's been a while. not much - how 'bout you?

i'm not sure why i called. i guess i really just wanted to talk to you. i was thinking, maybe later on, we could get together for a while. it's been such a long time, and i really do miss your smile.

uh-huh. uh-huh.

today, i ate graham crackers. this has become not so much a treat as an expectation. will have to elevate the diet to another level somehow to reach treat level again. what comes after graham cracker? hrm.

today, i ran 4 miles in 37:14. today, i completed my income taxes & those of mini-me. today, i accomplished probably 13bazillion things at work. today was one of those good, productive, all around fabulous kind of days that makes you wonder what is up in the universe & when is the freakin' other shoe gonna drop & konk ya on the nogginator.

current reading = hood by stephen lordlylawfordshire. clearly, i have forgotten the man's surname. however, the book is intriguing. it is billed as christian fiction, in that it was purchased at an exclusively christian bookstore, and so far, i would say it is relatively run of the mill - good, but not great - midieval fiction. the "christian" elements aren't jumping out at me. i mean, there are priests and nuns and the good friar tuck, but those type of church people are always present in midieval stories. this one is actually a bit bloodier than others i have read. not that christians aren't bloody. i mean, take jesus, for instance - the primo example of bloody christian. that is, if you would call him a christian, which i am not sure you would since that would mean he was a follower of himself. although i am sure he believed what he espoused, i am not sure he was so much a follower as a leader.

in conclusion - it's a good book. not "the" good book, mind you, but "a" good one.

i am going to generate a little b-l-t action now. bacon to the lettuce to the tomato. you want one?

a couple of pictures for your perusal

i hope these fit pix in the space alloted herein. if not, well, then... wank it.

firstly, the new crystal lite online ad, in which a splash of the ol' c-l looks like a bloody kidney and by bloody i do not mean bluddy, i mean bloody, as in that bluddy kidney is covered in blood!


secondly, we have proof from the weather channel online that tiger woods is indeed a force of nature.


in conclusion, today i ran 11.5 miles in 1:46:00. yipee ki yay!

fryday

speaking of fryers, the local county school system is removing fryers from all cafeterias. no more fried fries or fried chicken nugwads. all will now be baked. good news is that things won't be swimming in oil, but bad news is that this is not the panacea folks are seeking. the fries and nugwads and other "baked" items are generally previously fried then flash frozen then placed in large industrial sized bags & boxes and shipped to institutions. check out the nutri info on a bag of frozdee nugwads and compare it to that of a bag of frozdee pre-grilled chicken and compare that further to a bag of frozdee raw chixee breasties. you will see a decline in calories & fat and a rise in protein as you move through these selections. in conclusion, eat more beets.

books 2009

currently:
hood
stephen lawhead

complete:
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

it takes a village, people.

all children aged 5-18 must be put in the care of the government for 8 hours each day, 5 days each week, 9 months each year. during this time, children will be housed & fed by the government, instructed in curriculum developed by the government, and led through physical training developed by the government. the physical, moral, spiritual, and mental development of each individual child will be conglomerated into the approved program of instruction for all children. all decisions concerning the development of each child will be made by the govt, and the child will be nurtured according to the govt's standards & timetable.


does this offend you? well, what the hell do you think is going on in america's public schools?

and, people who would be angered by the thought of the govt taking their children - demanding them in this way - are voluntarily handing their children over to the govt and not even realizing it. the individual is being sacrificed for the whole. the complete training of the child is being given over to the institution.

and, no one is blinking an eye.

whickity whack don't talk back

the power cord is totally frogged on the toshiba, and as you know, there is a new one coming on a slow boat from china, but MAN IS THAT BOAT SLOW. in the meantime, we are using the dell, and yes, i realize that there are poor lost children in china who have no computers, but i think they are holding my power cable hostage out of spite. wankers. and, speaking of slow, mercy mercy me, this computer is slow & also a bit WHACK. it can only do one thing at a time, and by one thing, i mean, like notepad. you can type in notepad. that is it. okay, you can check your email, but by check your email, i mean, see if you have any, b/c jeebus knows you cannot read any of the aforementioned emails b/c that might take up some memory. this computer has like 2 grains of memory. that's right, i said grains, b/c this computer is so old, they didn't even have megs when they made it. they had grains. and, when they were handing out the freakin' grains, this computer was obviously hiding behind the door. they said "grains" and it thought they said "rains" and it was afraid to get wet, so it hid behind the door. FAH SHIZZLE. and, the mouse. oooo-eeee, lawdy chile, don't get me started on the mouse. it is a sweet little wireless number, and isn't it great to have a wireless mouse b/c the wires don't get tangled, but OH YEAH THIS ONE IS WHACK. and, by whack, i mean fucked up. ha! you are familiar with the computer mouse? the basic, plain vanilla mouse? one moving part - right? the ball. the mouse ball. the concept is that this one moving part moves around, sending signals to the computer, thereby moving the cursive around the screen. yes, it's cursor, but my old man says cursive, and god love him, he tries, doesn't he? so, you have here your plain vanilla mouse with one moving part, but this godforsaken mouse ball doesn't move. that's right - the ONE MOVING PART IS STATIONARY. well, not totally, but that was funnier than saying "sort of stuck sometimes" which does not begin to portray the frustration of using the little bugger. but, see, here's the bottom line - it is a working computer, and so i am thankful for it, but the thankfulness kind of ironically adds to the frustration b/c as frustrated as i get, i don't feel like i can actually yell at it or take an axe to it b/c it's all we have right now, and it is loaded up with every piece of music we ever purchased. in conclusion, do not wash your reds w/ whites, do not cross against the lights, do not run with pointy things, do not jump off flying swings.

of baboons & banjos

watching cbs sunday morning this morning, and there was a story about charles darwin b/c it's his 200th birthday just like it's lincoln's 200th birthday. charles was born the day after ol' abe. odd, really. i would not have put them in the same era, but then it's like - duh, of course they are.

so, in this story, a biologist was saying how natural selection is just the way things are. like, if you want to pretend there is intelligent design, more power to ya, but you're wrong. her whole attitude was that the world is populated with ignorant dolts who cannot see the truth.

well, now... i am familiar with the ignorant dolt theory, as i am a great expositor of it myself. but, i think it's a bit disingenuous of her to act as if we should all be on her page. c'mon, lady, you are a trained expert in your field. we are a bunch of ignorant dolts. if your truth is so self-evident, perhaps instead of denigrating us, you can explain it to us. if it is so obvious & simple, surely we can understand.

i get so tired of scientists belittling faith & then expecting us to take their word for things. surprise - that is faith.

who is the dolt now? eh? eh?

in other news, steve martin has come out with an entire album of bluegrass banjo music, so that is what currently tops my wish list.

if i eat from a mess kit, does this mean i do not have to clean up after myself?

so many parents these days are not only willing but eager to turn their children over to the schools. this is partially out of necessity b/c the parents work, and it is partially out of convenience... b/c the parents work. some parents don't want to be parents. i mean, they want to have kids, but not raise kids. not like this is anything new. back in the day of kings & queens & all that - they didn't raise their own kids. they had wet nurses & nannies & the whole nine yards. but, now the parents are turning their kids over to institutions. it's one thing to turn your kids over to people you've hired. i mean, not that hiring someone to raise your kids is a good thing, but at least someone is paying attn to the individual kid. turning the kid over to an institution is not the same thing.

okay, i have more to say, but the freakin' power cord on this pc is whacked out.

hello? hello? anyone out there?

my dept at work is made up of - bossman, officelady, coworker, marketing guy, new one, sandy, and me. officelady has worked at the company longest, followed by me & bossman, then marketing guy, coworker, sandy, and new one. sandy & new one actually came from the same previous employer. talking to marketing guy today, he & i realized that sandy & new one are idea stealers. subltly, but definitely. they will say they thought of something that i or marketing guy thought of. but, it's not the kind of thing where you can call them out on it. it is much too subtle. we are wondering if this is a strategy from their previous employer, or if they are both just too eejity to discern what they hear from what they think up. we shall be keeping an eye on these two.

what else would you like to know? had a productive morning. mailed a pkg to mini-me, a ballingtimes card to beavis, and a couple b-day cards to other folks. had a lovely running adventure today in the beautiful weather. ate an entire packet of cimmanon graham crisps. was productive at work. found some great bargains at steinmart.

i was "late" again to the vanpool this afternoon. got there at 4:23pm, and they were already there. they are always nice about it & all, but i am sure they are kind of ticked. this is the backup driver, not the jerky driver. him - i would not care so much, but the backup... she is all nice & accommodating, so i hate to make her wait. but, how am i supposed to know they would get there that early? huh? huh? how would i know?

vegetarian of convenience

my dept were at my bossman's house yesterday & today, for the off-site retreat.

both days, bossman provided lunch. yesterday, it was lasagna, with beef. as he was serving it onto plates, i said - oh, don't serve any for me. his response - i thought we might have a vegetarian in the group. this is a man i have worked with for 15 years. the fact that i do not eat beef has come up every single time we have ever shared a meal. i kid you not. could he seriously forget that i do not eat beef? okay, maybe. sure. the world does not, in fact, revolve around me. i do not expect him to make something special for me, but it was odd that he acted like he did not even know at all. i had salad & another bagel from the breakfast snack tray. i was fine.

[side note -- i am not a vegetarian. i eat meat but not beef. to most people meat=beef. it is easier to allow folks to think i am a vegetarian than to explain that it is beef i do not eat. i always order vegetarian dishes when with the group.]

today, he served the lunch before the rest of us entered the dining room. we came in, and on each place was a bowl of beef soup. i did not eat it - i just took some salad. i did not even touch my spoon or the soup. no one said anything about my meal, including bossman. again, i will say that i do not expect him to fix me something separate, but... couldn't he have said - yesterday - i am making beef soup tomorrow, so if you would like to have something different, please bring it. or, maybe he could have NOT served it into a bowl & placed it in front of me like that -- which was weird & totally made me feel like he was pressuring me to eat it or something. there is no way he forgot in one day that i am "vegetarian". he could have said, today, we are having beef soup, would you like a cheese sandwich? you are welcome to help yourself to some bread & cheese. or, he could have said, we are having beef soup, so i did not serve you any. please help yourself to some salad, and if you want some soup, it's on the stove.

was i rude not to eat the soup? i don't think so. especially after saying yesterday that i am a vegetarian. why would he not have an option for me, or tell me to bring something on my own?

i discussed this with elvis. he called me a vegetarian of convenience. cute.

power cord dischord

spent all day at the off-site. at one point, bossman was singing gospel songs. at another point, officelady regaled with a tale of a fire in her backyard. perhaps you had to be there.

lunch was beef lasagna. i do not eat beef. bossman should know this by now. i texted my old man and said - when is he going to learn i don't eat beef?? and my old man texted back - when are you going to learn it's not all about you? ka-zing! points to the old man.

the power cord on this computer is fading fast. the new one is on a slow boat from china. speaking of slow boats, the price of stamps is going up again, in may, to 44¢. i am going to buy some more forever stamps. or, maybe i will just pay 44¢ for stamps. you know what is stupid? when people type 44¢ as $.44¢. you do not need the dollars and the cents.

it is easy to be a genius when you work with eejits.

-- coworker - hey, ace... you know how the other day when we needed to know the info about the thing? well, i have another thing, and i need to know the info. what should i do?
-- ace - how 'bout you do again what i suggested you do the other day?
-- coworker - oh, ace - you are a genius! thank you!

really. happened.

watching obama's first press conf, and i must say he looks about 15 yrs older than he did 2 mos ago. oh, wait. he just said "ginned up" - as in, i came in here all ginned up. what? eh? c'mon, big guy. use your words. if bush had said something red-neck equivalent to ginned-up, we'd have never heard the end of it. ::sigh:: okay, okay. i'll stop.

tomorrow we've got an off-site retreat. planning to go into the city, get in a run, shower etc., then head to the off-site. i think this is an excellent plan. just hope it pans out as beautifully as it would appear that it can. really need to get up right this min & check the laundry, but the power cord on this machine is in bad shape and requires sitting still. therefore, i sit.

still reading scarpetta by patricia cornwell. it's good - no doubt - but just going slow for whatever reason. probably too much time spent on ebay purchasing xylophones.

brought you 25252, 25552, 25752, 25952, and 26000 from the rental odometer, and this from the old journal --

if i had a friend, she would understand me. she would laugh at my jokes. she would get me. if i had a friend, she would trap the mice for me. if i had a friend, she would sing to me, and she would touch my hair, and my headache would go away.

if i had a friend, i would know it.

---

could i sit by you? would you mind if i just lean my head on your shoulder? it's okay if you don't love me, but could i just pretend? i will be quiet, and i will catch my tears before they fall on you. because - when you sing, then my heart can sleep.

---

if i try to explain myself, it will take a long time, but you still won't understand so maybe you could just skip asking and pretend to know already.

---

if i ask you to sing to me, will you? do you know that your singing is an echo in my soul? do you know that you are an echo in my memory made real again through singing that nearly breaks my heart? real enough almost to touch, but then, when i touch it - it is too sharp, so it would cut me if i held it. that's why i don't hold it.

let it go. let it go.

---

are you some kind of magic indian princess? will you breathe your spirit into this place? can you bring the laughter back to the woods? if you can, then do you want to? would you do that for us, even though we are strangers?

---

ace!

brought you this --

the book mobile is not the same thing as a mobile fone. plus, you say the word differently.

people have the oddest concepts of privacy. this woman here in the coffee shop was talking - loudly - on her mobile about someone's hospice care. i just sat watching her, and she'd look at me like - what are you looking at? and, i would look at her like, hey - you are convoing in the beanery. sha! if you want to have a private convo, go to a private place. like, your home. sha. she is some sort of soccer mom who had a late lunch at 2pm so is having a protein bar for supper, and she is getting her kids dinner here at the beanery, and hunter is having quesadillas, and lily is having a b-l-t. lily is so tired, don't ya know, she will be going to bed as soon as she gets home. lily is sitting here, busily eating her b-l-t, actually chewing a bite, and mom says to her - finish up so we can go home. lily gave her the 5-year-old's version of "wtf" look. like, hey - mom - i have an actual bite in my actual mouth. mom is now getting up, taking lily's plate, and lily is still stuffing food in her mouth and trying not to let it get away. this is ridiculous. mom is all - lily was so hungry, look how fast she ate. right. um... mom? you pulled the food away. she was eating fast because the food was leaving her vicinity. people are weird.

next door to the mom is this guy all set up w/ his pc and his legal pad, and he is clearly Working with a capital W. he is a Busy Important Man. he kept shooting soccer mom these hush-hush looks. like, did he expect to be able to actually work in the beanery? was his expectation that it would be nice & peaceful here, and he could really knock out that to-do list? really? again, i feel compelled to point out - this is a public place. people come here to socialize, eat, use their computers, whatevs, but it is not a private office, and it is not a private fone booth, and if you people cannot discern what is a private space & what is a public space, i will just quickly enlighten you that this is public. do? you? get? it?

working it out

have we talked about the philosophy of working out? i cannot remember. so, i will give it to you.

to me, a workout is like... well, like a meal. you may skip one meal, but would not skip 2 in a row, or you'd be very hungry & feel ill. if you skipped a meal, you'd want to eat as soon as possible. you'd be insulted if your boss asked you to give up a meal for the sake of a work meeting. people don't give you a hard time about having a meal, and they don't question that you would need one.

my boss has planned a 2-day off site retreat, and it doesn't look like there will be a chance for working out either day. i put forth to him this philosophy, and he said that i should bring running clothes & go run for 30 minutes during the lunch hour. well - ::sigh:: - that is generous of him, really, but 30 mins? by the time i get my clothes changed, i would have, like, 10 mins to run before i needed to be back to change my clothes back. i do not think that is going to work. but, i hate to not take him up on the offer. maybe i will, on the first day, and then if it doesn't really work, i will not try it again the next day.

thoughts?

wack this, wack that

speakerphones are wack. they are all about the speaker, and not about the hearer. they are selfish. talking on a speaker phone is like talking on a walkie-talkie - only one person can talk at a time. and, it's just so freakin' hard to hear the other person. wack. wackity-wack-wack. you know what would be cool - if you could have multiple devices on one mobile number. i am sure it's more diff to txt on an iphone than on a reg phone. would be nice to have both, but not have to have 2 numbers.

at walmart tonight, saw a guy purchasing one of those boards for displaying a science project. boy - glad that phase of life is over! late night homework purchases are wack.

if you were purchasing a nice ink pen, and it cost $15, and the guy selling it to you told you that you could walk 4 blocks and purchase the exact same ink pen for $7, would you make the walk? if you were purchasing a suit, and it cost $200, and the guy selling it to you told you that you could walk 4 blocks and purchase the exact same suit for $193, would you make that walk? $7 is $7, but most folks would be more willing to walk 4 blocks to get something for 1/2 price than to get just a small amount discount. wack? not wack?

here is what i would really like to have right now - some of those hard-shell marshmallow pastel-coloured easter eggs. there is no other candy made like them all year long. no hard-shell marshmallow christmas trees, or pumpkins, or 4th of july flags, or any of that. just easter eggs. fascinating.

went to the bookstore tonight to find a gift for my old man's mom - the coal miner's daughter, loretta lynn - and ended up with some books for me. d'oh! what's really wack about that is that i purchased books, and i work... in a coal mine!! haha!! get it??

gotta go reset my alarm clock. somehow, i got the clock part set backwards for am/pm. this alarm clock is like... uh... old. like, almost 30. so, it does some odd things, and you have to be gentle with it. like, when you go to set the alarm for a different time, sometimes the clock will reset along with alarm, and so you have to reset the clock after resetting the alarm. sort of wack, but we shall speak kindly of it b/c it has been there thru the years. the first morning that i used it, the song that was playing was dan fogelberg's "longer", and my thought was - welcome to the world of modern music. i thought the alarm clock radio was going to be my ticket to coolness - that if i knew some music, i could fit in with the rest of the kids. haha! yeah. i was kinda wack.

whistle pig day

groundhog day. groundhog's day. groundhogs' day. yeah, whatever. today is that day when we are supposed to find out if we will have more winter, and the authority, the one i respect, punxsutawney phil, tells us we will have more winter. i say - yay for that b/c i want some snow!!

did you watch the superbowl? can you believe they let it end on a call, instead of on a play? yeah, me neither.

what about those superbowl ads, eh? there were the 2 talking baby ads - both solid, if not spectacular. there was that mr & mrs potato head ad. that one was real good - very original - but i don't remember what it was for. d'oh! not perfect then. let's see... looking it up... it was bridgestone. interesting. another good one - the monster.com ad where the guy works under a moose butt. funny! original! the box of flowers ad by teleflora was a laugh out loud one. denny's had some good "serious breakfast" spots, and they are giving away free breakfast on tuesday - tomorrow. too bad we don't have a denny's around here. yeah.

oh, there were some ads that were solidly above average. but, the best - the hands-down all-time best superbowl ad this year - jack got his freaky pingpong ball head smackeroodled by a bus. smack jack!

happy new month!

did you see the superbowl? did you see the last play? stupid. could have called it a fumble or an incomplete pass. they called it a fumble & gave the ball to the steelers. if they'd called it an incomplete pass, the ball would have stayed with the cards, they could have thrown one more pass to the end zone.

watching the f-b-r open - a golf tournament. it's played at t-p-c scottsdale, in scottsdale arizona. in the desert. this guy who developed it trucked in all this dirt & created an elaborate irrigation system with streams & ponds & shizzle. so, it's like some sod on a moonscape. sounds bad, but it's actually quite good. very cool contrast between the desert sand and the grass/sod. the 16th hole on this course has virtually a stadium built around it. it is like nothing you've ever seen. these grandstands surround the entire hole -- tee to fairway to green. it's a short par 3, and there are occassionally holes in one on it, so that's the attraction. people fill the stands and cheer and heckle the golfers. they are mostly quiet when the guys are hitting the ball. they are all cheering for holes in one. it's so totally different than other golf hole.



the guys on the golf channel just said there are 12 million games of golf played in scottsdale every year. that's a lot of golf.