really not much to say today

i hate when someone sits in my seat. call it particular if you want, but if you sit in my seat, you will feel my wrath upside your head. yes, i see you understand now - so get up! and, hey while you're up - can you check those clothes in the dryer? see if they're dry? thanks.

on the cutting wedge

so what about that mom who called 911 saying that she & her daughter had been kidnapped & stuffed in a car trunk, and it turned out she'd stolen the driver's license of a friend and absconded to disney world? what about that?

whenever i think about simplifying my wardrobe, i continually focus on this one piece - a particular skirt. it's like the skirt of mental blockatude. it's like i don't have a billion other pieces of useless clothing. it's like if i could part with that skirt, it would free up a plethora of closet space and simultaneously update my wardrobe to cutting edge coolness. but then, the truth is that i am so cool that if i were to push myself to a cuttinger edge, i'd probably disappear in a blaze of cooliosity.

i downloaded some cool software today - microsoft photo story. with it, you can create a simple slide show from a set of photos and you can choose music to play with the slides. to use the music - you have to have it on your hard drive, and you have to have the permissions set to allow you to share it, and it has to be microsoft format, not itunes. but, it's easy - you just choose the photos and the software walks you through putting them in order, and then you choose the music, and then the software puts it all together into a slide show. easy peasy lemon squeezy! and free! and apparently around since like 2005. yeah, that's me - right there on the cutting edge. heh.

friday night

donita paul & her dragon master sucked me in. little kale allerion has intrigued me more than i realized, so i got the remaining 2 books in the series from the liberry yesterday. dragonspell is the first one, and the others are like dragonthis & dragonthat. in other words, i don't remember the dragonwords.

tonight's the last night for jay leno on the tonight show, and his guest is conan o'brien, who will take over as host on the tonight show. blech. that is not a guest, that is a set-up. last night, billy crystal was on. mr crystal was mr leno's first guest 17 years ago, so he should have been the guest tonight. but, noooo. it's got to be conan. at least one thing is good - i won't have to worry about staying up late to watch the tonight show b/c conan's not worth staying up for.

this evening my old man & i went to a party for a soccer team that he coached. i went to like 2 games, so it's not like i really know any of the kids, much less the parents. needless to say, it was more excitement than i could bear. here's what happens at these things where i don't know folks - i hang around the snack table eating artichoke dip & tostitos like artichokes are going to save my life, and by the time i get the hang of the crowd & find someone to talk to, it's time to go. whatever!

okay, so there was just this commershal on teevee for «green heating & cooling» and the owner of the company is named mr redd. hah!hah!hah! get it? green? redd? ?? ??

hah.

books 2009

currently:
dragon... dragon... dragonsomething
[donita k paul]

complete:
dragonspell
[donita k paul]
the spiderwick chronicles, vol. 1-5
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]
devil bones
[kathy reichs]
irish tweed
[andrew greeley]
the paradise war
[stephen lawhead]
hood
[stephen lawhead]
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

goodnight!

commutative power

the cd hisses & pops -
a digital imitation of scars in the vinyl
from which the cd was created.
songs of my youth should be scarred.

heh.

the roof is open.
the windows are down.
on this side a train of empty boxcars
carries its cargo of graffiti
on down the line.
on that side a jogger on the greenway
puts feet to asphalt in striking syncopation
to the music.

los angelenos - all come from somewhere...
i mute the inimitable mr joel
in sight of the one-lane pass under the tracks.
slow. honk-honk. pull through.
i simultaneously turn up the music and the pace.
hypocritically sucumbing to the lure of the
curves & dips in this neighborhood of strangers,
i surpass a speed which would inspire me to shake my fist
at strangers travelling through my neighborhood.

ssswwoommm! ssswwoommm!

ssswwoommm....

and - there's the highway.
the traffic signal.
the home road.
the mailbox. the driveway. the garage.

the day's commute is done.
roll up the windows and go inside.

what i ated and drankted today.

16 oz glass water
1 cimmanon-raisin bagel w/ smart balance
1 cup coffee w/ dairy milk
24 oz nalgene water
1 root beer dum-dum
1 cup coffee w/ soy milk
15 saltines
2 pks jason's graham crackers
1 cup coffee w/ soy milk
1 banana
1 baked potato w/ sour cream
12 oz coke zero cherry
6 strawberries
1/4 cup blueberries
1 yoplait peach light yogurt
1 pkg 2 fig newtons
1 cup coffee w/ soy milk
1 can tuna mixed w/ mayo & relish
15 saltines
1 litre lemon propel
3 ginger snaps

today was a holiday but tomorrow is not.

went to see angels & demons, and it was a good movie, but not like da vinci code. d-v-c introduced some novel & somewhat scandalous ideas. a&d tries to, but d-v-c set a certain standard with numerous puzzles & various intrigues. dan brown wrote a&d before d-v-c and the movie clearly reveals the lesser complexity of plot, theme, and character. yeah, it's good. it's just not great.

did a short triathlon this morning, and here's something about swimming races: people wear swim headcaps. you don't have to, so i didn't, b/c i never wear one in practice, so it's a pain for me to wear one in a race. but, many people do wear them - both men & women. but here's something about men who wear swim headcaps: some of them need complete body caps. now, i understand & appreciate that it's masculine to grow body hair, but jeezumpete, there is point where it's just hypocritical to put a cap on your head and believe it's going to decrease your drag.

by the by, i finished the tri in an hour - which was my goal - so yay me!

gitmo 'er done

so i guess you've heard - obama said he'd close the detention center at guantanamo bay but he did not say what he'd do with all the residents thereof. now all our representatives are fighting to keep these dangerous prisoners out of our states. everyone's saying «i don't want dangerous prisoners in my backyard.»

okay, firstly, no one is going to put a d-p in your backyard unless you live in a prison compound. but, i know what you mean - you don't want these d-ps nearby. that's a reasonable-sounding desire, but the problem with the concept is that you already have d-ps nearby. «omg!» - you say - «no way!» um... who do you think occupies the city jail or the county pen or the federal prison? let's just say not all prisoners are martha stewarts. «well!» - you say - «they are not near me!» right. okay - here's a quiz: where's the nearest jail, peniteniary, or prison? you don't know, do you? the authorities do attempt to sort of keep this on the down-low. these are not bed&breakfasts, after all.

so - everyone's squawking about not wanting d-ps in their backyards, and it's all well & good, but if not in existing prisons [i.e., your backyard] - then where? «build a new, highly secure facility» - you say. really? you want to spend millions to build a new, highly secure facility to replace a perfectly good, existing, highly secure facility? there is no circumstance in which this qualifies as a good use of govt [i.e., you & me] money. no circumstance justifies spending vast sums replacing something that works with something that might or might not work.

the bottom line with gitmo is the name is tainted b/c some or all the prisoners were tortured. as far as i know, torture is no longer being used at gitmo. so - the worst is over. we americans are no longer committing human rights violations at guantanamo bay. right? right. so -- there is no longer a reason to shut down operations at gitmo. keep the facility. keep the detainees there.

we get so used to hearing «guantanamo bay» as if it were a disconnected bit of land somewhere. do you know where it is? it's in cuba - on a u-s military base in cuba. interesting all these strained relations with cuba, yet we have an active, secure base there, and we use it to house d-ps. makes you think maybe world relations are a wee bit more complex than the surface coverage you & i get from the media, doesn't it?

toilet fishing, or smarter than the average pad

so i was cleaning the bathrooms today and we're all out of those scrubbie things you scrub the toilets with. you know - the ones that you use with the handle where the handle is like a grabbie jaw thing and you sort of grabbie jaw the scrubbie thing with it? fresh brush max. so - we were all out of scrubbie things, so i decided to use the nonscratch scotch brite cleaning pads. so i jawed the scotch brite and all was going well until the scotch brite defected. «eh? hey, little buddy - you have got a job to do - get back here!» so i was chasing the scotch brite around the toilet in a bizarre go-fish of toilet cleaning. you can't really corner something in a bowl... there are no corners. finally trapped the thing against the side and -doh!- the grabbie jaws were all pointed the wrong way, so i could not jaw it. now, of course, i could have just reached in the toilet & nabbed li'l scrubbie with my bare hands, but at this point it was a contest of wills, and i would not let that thing get the best of me. determinedly, i continued and yes - i did finally outwit the little bugger. thus proving i am smarter than a nonscratch scotch brite cleaning pad.

homede pot of crap

went to the homede pot tonight to get parts for the wack water heater and while we were there i found a new toy. whoppwhopp! 10 flat pencils with a special flat pencil pencil-sharpener all in a plastic container. the! coolest! pencils! ever!

oh, did i mention we were getting parts for the water heater. um-hum... still not working. cold! showers! my old man called & got the water heater company to send us the parts for free b/c the wack parts broke after we replaced them once already. so, he got the parts & this afternoon i read the instructions & held the light while he put the parts together. well, this one part didn't work. wack! we went to homede pot to get another, and of course, they didn't have the correct part. so, we bought a file to file down the wack part & try again. why did we select a file? well, it was no thanks to anyone at homede pot.

this was the worst customer service experience ever for homede pot & us. first we couldn't even find any helpers in their little orange aprons. we went to the service desk, and the «nice» young lady there paused her whatever long enough to grace us with her phone-calling expertise by which she located a helper to meet us in aisle 8. we proceeded to aisle 8 where our orange-aproned helper was helping another customer with a water heater question. mr orange-apron thought this was the customer for whom he was called to aisle 8. ::sigh:: but fine - help him, then help us. we got our turn & my old man was explaining to mr orange-apron what we needed, and i have never seen an orange-aproner less interested in a home maintenance issue. he looked like he was visualizing his annoyed place. his «suggestion» was that we contact the water heater company and have them send us more parts. uh? mr orange-apron's solution was that we don't purchase anything at his store or even actually repair our home in any way this evening - a repair that would quite obviously increase our comfort manyfold. what - do other people have 2 water heaters?

so, mr helpful's primo solution was that we contact the company for more parts. did he not realize it is after 5pm on a friday? did he not realize we are headed into a 3-day weekend?? we are to wait for our parts until like next wednesday??? get!serious! what did he do after making this suggestion? he walked away. .walked. .away.

never has an orange-aproned one been less helpful.

anyhootles, here's a shot of my new toy!

7 of 10

sweat-soaked then sun-dried
hair clings to my face
like seaweed to the dock at low tide.
reaching to pluck plastered tendrils
my fingers come away salty.
sweat, dust, sunlight -
my stinging eyes would tear
if my body had salt & water to spare.
that blister that formed at mile 3
and exploded at mile 5
has been replaced by its brother
in the exact location.
my tongue, useless as a salted garden slug,
cannot erase the pencil thin line of dust
that marks my teeth at the point
where my lips stick to the arid enamel.
it is mile 7 of 10, and i will not "finish"
because i will finish STRONG.
i am a runner.

pica wack tweet

so the document i'm working on at the working place has 2 columns and the lines are supposed to line up across the columns, but if there's a heading, that will throw things off because there's some partial inches of space above & below the headings. but - while i was out jogging around on my lunchtime, i realized the solution. set up the document in picas & points, then divide the heading space so that it matches the leading. get it? the document's 9 on 10, so the space above the heading gets 7pts and below gets 3pts. solves the whole inches don't convert to points problem if you change the base from inches to points. double durr durr.

so the water heater broke and my old man went to get the part. it's the same part that broke last time - whenever that was. he went all over town & didn't find the part because it's been recalled. probably b/c it's wack and it breaks. you know what's fun? cold shower. woowoowoo! we will save money on water b/c we are taking like 2 min showers.

so have you heard about twitter? twitter is the next big thing on the web. everyone is tweeting. everyone! are you on twitter? well, if you are not, then you are totally out of it. you are living with your head in the sand. everyone - and i mean everyone - is on twitter. here are the figures:

8% of 18-34
7% of 35-44
4% of 45-54
1% of 55+

see? everyone's doing it - just like the media would have you believe.

ping ping luelue

machu pichu ping ping luelue. esta vidalinda - supra orbitonical zuble ramama. emma, pathfon zeytus in romtonah. zipsu in petanica frohmam stoli frohman. obolitsu bolosolonica - fey omna froh. poppop frohtilis smoka zomolika in poppop frohtilla ohmshon frolika. esma tormalinda fremzoley, frankola esma tormalinda. frenthola samoucolner froppley in solt frahzhee - tweelon. epso volutey micmac zhon. in prehchomo - ping ping luelue.

the great quizno baja dragon quest

welcome back! where have you been?

currently reading dragonspell by donita paul, and it's okay, and i'll finish it b/c i started it, but it's not supergreat. the scenes are intriguiging but not completely set. the characters are multidimensional but not fully developed. the plot is standard dragon fantasy coming of age fare - young slave girl in obscure rural town has burgeoning power to discover dragon eggs in their nests, power to raise & train dragons, and power to read minds, and she's therefore called into service of the paladin in the far & beautiful shining city of towers & spires - but she's confused about her new powers and the other magical beings she meets whose job it is to guide her thru this new magical world. no doubt she will learn to master her powers & become a valuable member of the magical world. dragon eggs. magical cloaks. mind readers. unusual creatures with unusual names. lore & mythology & glowing stones & houses underground. it's all there. so, you see, it's sort of good solid dragon fare. just nothing [yet] particularly out of the ordinary.

i got this new iphone app that tells calories & fat grams in restaurant foods. i was amazed to learn the baja chicken sub at quizno's has 890 calories & 43 grams of fat. good golly miss molly! a big mac has 540 calories and 29 grams of fat. how can a grilled chix sammich have more fat & calories than a big mac? what are they putting on that sammich?? only the giant huge overloaded bk broiler quad and hardee's thick burger and the like have more calories & fat than the freakin baja chix. what is in that sammich? probably dragon eggs.

luxembourg

let's talk about luxembourg. i heard the other day & looked it up & found confirmation -- they have the highest per capita gross domestic product which is pretty impressive if you consider places like saudi arabia or kuwait w/ their oil riches. luxembourg was formerly big into steel, but is now into other industries and also into the financial sector, and also this - skype & ebay are based there. huh - who knew?

luxembourg's population is 500,000 people. size is 999 sq miles. let's just boost that up a nidge and say it's 1000 sq miles b/c that's easier to calculate. 500,000/1000 = 500 people per sq mile. what? that seems a wee bit jam packed. can that be right?

here's an interesting tidbit - luxembourg is 175th in size of all the 194 independent countries of the world. firstly, what are the smaller countries, and secondly, isn't that interesting that there are 194 independent countries in the world, and finally, there are like 20 smaller than luxembourg. huh. luxembourg is ruled by a grand duke and they also have a parliament, so i am not sure how those two fit together exactly, but it would appear that it's sort of like the u-s-a govt except the role of president is being played by the grand duke.

maryjane chat

searched this town for bit-o-honeys and didn't find a single one. okay, i didn't exactly comb the entire town, but i did look in several locations. also, very disappointed to say that dollar tree is completely out of maryjanes and doesn't look like they will be getting any more anytime soon. you know how it is at the dollar tree - they get what they get and when it's gone it's gone. ::sigh:: nobody else even has maryjanes except the cracker barrel and they charge too much for a pkg too small. i could order them online. do you think that's going too far?

necco makes maryjanes. and, they make necco wafers [double durr durr] and they make cream drops. we used to get cream drops in our stockings at xmash. i thought they were only available during xmash, but i spotted them at walgreens tonight while looking for maryjanes. would have even settled for bit-o-honey at that point, but no-o-o-o.

look at this giant tub of maryjanes i could get for like $15. whopp!whopp! maybe i will. maybe i will not. will. not. willnot. willwill. notnot. willwillnotnot. will. not. maybe.

twilight

long spring twilight
just enough light
to finish the game of hide & seek
before there is no longer
time to be home
before dark

long spring twilight
car windows open
cool breeze bringing smells
of grass fresh cut
and onions
of turned earth

long spring twilight
golden glowing windows
lamps behind glass
people eating a meal
or playing cards
people living

long spring twilight
drive in the country
my morning jacket on the radio
beat of drums like a train
chum chum chum
beat of our hearts

from the window i see
a porch lit only by a
bare
yellow
bulb
and it is all so unspeakably beautiful
the twilight
the cool smells
the warm people
the music
the us

this is my love

fun size! fun size!

someone brought these «fun size» sweettarts to work and let me tell you - they ARE fun size! they have just the right amount of pieces in each package. just the right amount for having like 4 pkgs at a time, but hey, that is just the right amount for something, isn't it? so, you can see what size the pkg is here in this pic where it is sitting by my supercool ipod that is filled with supercool music. super.cool.

here's another picture that reveals this one pkg had one supremely crushed piece. what's up with that? i am telling you - all the other pieces were totally intact. completely, absolutely, totally intact - whilst one piece was crushed to dust. how is that even possible?

crazy ladies late nite snacking! what are we gonna do? let's go & buy some eggs & then boil 'em! yeah - that's a hilarious commercial. have you seen it? sonic commercial. look for it. high.larry.oos.

in other news, crappy green team won this evening. 2-0 on the indoor season. whopp!whopp! outdoor... i have sort of lost track. we have been rained out a couple weeks and then there was a tournament going on so we couldn't use the fields and we had a bye and of course easter took up one week. i don't even remember the last time we played. let's see... we are... 2-0-1. the season started 9 weeks ago, and we've played 3 games. rain much? sheesh. looks like we're going to have to start playing «double-headers», which should not be confused with «three-legged» which could mean something naughty or it could mean we are playing tied together in pairs which actually would be pretty funny if you think about it. i said «if you think about it»... think!about!it! do it!! haha! haha! see, it's funny, isn't it? yes, it is.

come here watson, i need you.

so i was fixing to tell coworker about one of my pet peeves, and i started in «this is one of my pet peeves...» and he was all like «you have a lot of those, ace.» and i was all like «hey, some people have pet kitties, i have pet peeves.» and he was all like «haha» and then i was like «well, my primary pet peeve is when people point out i have a lot of pet peeves, and when people do that i am compelled to poke their eyes out.» and so now i have to do his work because he's in braille class most of the day.

so the particular peeve i was going to discuss was that i fairly much cannot stand when people use the subject line of the email as the email. officelady is a consistent abuser of this and consistently she's with the «when you get a moment, i need your help with something.» which is another peeveosity b/c i am seriously with thinking you should just explain what it is in the email or else just come over and knock on the freakin door and ask the freakin question b/c she's basically asking me to get up & come over there when she's too lazyashed to get up & come over here. cripes!

and, i just got back from the grocery store and realized i must have had a vision of an armageddon of poo b/c i bought yet another 6-pack of papierre dey toidee and when i went to place it in the cabinet, i saw that i already have like 14 rolls dey papierre dey toidee and seeing as how there are only 2 of us here, that should last us like several months or at least until the armageddon of poo.

speaking of poo, it's time to cook supper. perhaps you say «ew» to hear me say «supper» and «poo» together, but you know that we are not going to eat poo, but what we eat will turn to poo. at least, that is the hope, is it not? i mean, no one talks about it much, but we are all hoping the food will turn to poo. admit it!

gotta go.

bookchatter

finished up the spiderwick chronicles, and i'd give them like a 5 out of 10. of course, they are kids books, but still... harry potter's a kids book, and it rates up around 10. just b/c they are kids books, they don't have to be inconsistent or incomplete.

for instance, there is a mention once or twice that a red shirt will protect one from faeries - like, "of course he was safe b/c of his red shirt" - something like that. but, the red-shirt theory was not previously espoused or explained. it's like a given that you would know this, which you could interpret as sort of cool that the author thinks you'd know this, or you could interpret as negligent editing. the supporting material was cut, but the use of the reference remained. this sort of thing happened a few times and is generally disconcerting.

being sure all material is explained should be held as highly important in a book for kids b/c they aren't going to have the capacity to make the connections. it's unfair b/c they're reading to learn. not that you're going to learn facts of math, geography, history, or the like from a book about faeries, but you're going to learn vocabulary, grammar, storytelling, plot structure, character development -- all that without realizing you're studying those things. you just pick it up because you're reading, and when it's done poorly, you don't learn much.

one excellent thing about spiderwick is that it's 5 volumes. the story doesn't drag out unnecessarily like the lemony snickets - which not only drag out but after volume 5 or so, the entire story disintegrates into a commentary on the publishing industry with all this insider snideness. not amusing, not plot related, and what about the freakin sugar bowl? that is a major plot device that is simply dropped & never resolved. the first few lemony snicket books would be somewhere around a 5 - the last few would be a 1.

the harry potter books are an excellent example of attention to detail in setting, plot, and character. they are recognized as sort of modern masterpieces, so it only stands to reason that they'd be well done. i'm just confirming they are, in fact, well done -- b/c my confirmation is really the ultimate stamp of approval.

books 2009

currently:
dragonspell
[donita k paul]

complete:
the spiderwick chronicles, vol. 1-5
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]
devil bones
[kathy reichs]
irish tweed
[andrew greeley]
the paradise war
[stephen lawhead]
hood
[stephen lawhead]
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

we went to the movies!

we went to see star trek - not to be confused with star wars. dubble durr durr.

very good movie. lots of action & humor. all the familiar faces from star trek are introduced through the course of the show. james t kirk. bones. spock. ohura. sulu. that russian kid whose name i don't know. and, scottie shows up a wee bit late, but also sort of just in time. james t gets a little sack time with a girl with green skin and is generally rebellious & mocking of authority while simultaneously gaining his captainship in the shortest possible time. spock declares things illogical and logical for us. bones is dammit'ing here & there. ohura's being all sexy in her short skirt. [again, we are faced with the reality that in the future, women will be scantily clad.] sulu's charmingly inexperienced but willing to learn. that russian kid whose name i can't remember is brilliant & enthusiastic about blowing things up. scottie's an absolute riot & truly would have been nice to have seen a little more of him.

there is an evil villian with a tragic past. there are monsters both mechanical and organic. there are black holes. there are enormous space vehicles and foreign planets and ray guns and transporters. there's kissing, but not too much. there's violence, but very little blood. it's all very... well... trekkie.

here's the movie poster, on which the head of the kid who plays james t kirk looks like a balloon animal wearing a ferret, in a fun house mirror.

the tpc sawgrass is in florida.

watching a little of the players championship off the golf channel tivo. the players are all aglissen with sweat. here's the famous 17th «island hole».

the theme music from the players championship is the same music as the theme from the movie the man from snowy river which is one of the all time great movies. if you haven't seen it, you should. if you have seen it, you should watch it again.

so, we're sitting here watching golf, and i hear that song, and i know right away what it is, but i googled it to get some confirmation. i learned the music is composed by bruce rowland and also learned that the movie is based on a poem.

the place i found this info is on ebay - where there is apparently a growing sort of wikipedia type thing going on. sort of odd. also odd - the star of the man from snowy river, tom burlinson, is a judge on australia's got talent which for those of you out of the loop is like american idol only better b/c you might see something besides some goofball kid belting out a john denver song on cowboy theme night. here's tom from snowy river days. he's currently not only a judge on the talent-o-rama - he's also a singer and does some sort of frank sinatra schpeil. i'd include a current picture, but he's old now, and what fun is that? didn't we all look better 20 years ago? well, unless you're like 19, in which case 20 years ago you might have looked sort of fetusy adn that's not really a good look for most folks.

books 2009

currently:
the spiderwick chronicles vol. 2
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]

complete:
the spiderwick chronicles vol. 1
[tony diterlizzi & holly black]
devil bones
[kathy reichs]
irish tweed
[andrew greeley]
the paradise war
[stephen lawhead]
hood
[stephen lawhead]
scarpetta
[patricia cornwell]

civics

continuing the civics lesson - these folks are not in the cabinet. would have thought maybe the chief of staff was, but i would have been wrong.
- chief of staff - rahm emmanuel
- chair of the council of economic advisors - christina romer
- admin of the environmental protection agency - lisa jackson
- director of managment & budget - peter orzag
- us trade representative - ronald kirk
- ambassador to the united nations - susan rice
so concludes this civics lesson, but civics class is never over - civics class is for life.

the vice president is joe biden.

this concludes the listing of the cabinet of the united states which is not to be confused with the cabinet of liquor.

tonight's supper menu: baked cajun salmon, long grain rice, steamed broccoli, and salad w/ spinach & strawberries. yum! now you know what i would really like? some of that maple sugar candy. double yum! too bad i don't have any. boo.

according to some news reports, law & order is on the chopping block & may be cancelled next year. unbefreakinlievable! l&o is an institution. and, it's still as good as ever. maybe the criminal intent flavor could go, but the regular vanilla one and the s-u-v one - those can stay, damblit!

the other day at the best buy, i found in the $4.99 movie bin - lost in translation, about a boy, and runaway jury. bill murray, hugh grant, and john cusack. good stuff. started watching about a boy today, and right at the beginning, the kid says something about being a big movie star like haley joel osment and then the kid's mom in the movie is the same lady that was h-j-o's mom in sixth sense. weird, huh?

went swimming again tonight. thought i was doing 1.5 miles but realized later i'd miscounted - it was only 20 laps - 1.25 miles. opps. heh. there are 2 indoor public pools in this town - north & south. been going to north, but thought i'd try south today b/c north is sort of crowded with miniature swimmer teamers. i knew south wasn't as nice as north, but i'd forgotten it's shallow, small, & warm. and, sort of oddly dark & shadowy. and, crowded with kiddie swim lessons & free swimmers. too much going on in too small a space. had to share one lane with 2 other people. next time, i am headed back to the north. that's where the serious swimmers are, and if you know anything about me, you know i am a serious swimmer.

the secretary of state is hilary clinton.

today's cinco de mayo, which in mexico is a small holiday but which the mexicans have brilliantly parlayed into a growing phenomenon of celebration in the good ol' u-s-of-a. they have us smunching nachos & gluzzling margaritas while they're merrily skipping to the western union office to wire the pesos home to mexico. whoopwhoop! go mexico!

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- convos from work -
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coworker: ace?
ace: yes?
coworker: do you have a dictionary?
ace: no. i use online dictionaries.
coworker: hmm... i need to see, like, a list of words that start with c.
ace: {typing} like this?
coworker: {coming around to see computer screen} yeah! how did you do that?
ace: googled "words that start with c".
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officelady: ace?
ace: yes?
officelady: for this contributor "jane doe smith", should i use "doe" or "smith" as the last name?
ace: well... "doe" appears to be a middle name, so use "smith" as a last name.
officelady: thanks!
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- are these people yanking my chain? -
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indoor soccer started a new season this evening, and green team racked up a win. go green team! we are undeefreekinfeeted! whoopwhoop!

the secretary of the treasury is timothy geithner.

obama wants to close the loopholes in the tax plan. perhaps he should start with simply getting his cabinet members to pay their taxes. heh.

-- fun facts about flu --
from the cdc's website - «Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.» compare those numbers to the swine flu ¡PaNdEmIc! - 279 cases. eh? what? that's right: 279 total cases of the swine flu in the good ol' u-s-of-a. there are 306,354,917 residents in the united states. 15,317,745 is 5%. at least 15,317,745 people get the flu every year. 15 MILLION people. compare that to 279 and you will find that 15,317,745 is greater than 279. thusly, i hereby declare the media has blown this swine flu thing out of proportion. check back next week to see if the numbers have changed.
-- ulf tuoba stcaf nuf --

forget the swine flu - here's something real to worry about -- from time magazine's website - «The prospect of turmoil in Pakistan sends shivers up the spines of those U.S. officials charged with keeping tabs on foreign nuclear weapons. Pakistan is thought to possess about 100 — the U.S. isn't sure of the total, and may not know where all of them are. Still, if Pakistan collapses, the U.S. military is primed to enter the country and secure as many of those weapons as it can, according to U.S. officials.» um... don't know how many? maybe 100? primed to secure as many as it can? how about primed to secure all?? or, how about pakistan shouldn't be having these things at all. a volatile environment like that, with the taliban knocking on the door, itching to get at those nukes to blow up india and whoever else they can?

i'm telling you the flu thing being blown out of proportion by the media to distract us from the real blowing up going on in pakistan.

the secretary of defense is robert gates.

speedy & i did get to do our event today except we elected not to hassle with bringing a bicycle, so it was run-canoe-run which is similar to but not to be confused with run-forest-run. a good time was had by all. saw 2 other soccer players at the super-tri, and we were glad that the soccer for today was cancelled since we were all playing hookey from playing soccer to go play in canoes.

did you hear about the kentucky derby yesterday? the winning horse was like a 50-1 shot. good on ya!

swine flu news: today's reports include the fact that the flu has now passed from person to pig. what? what?? i thought it was going from pigs to people, and that was the whole point of calling it swine flu. now it's going from people to pigs? this is ridiculous. also ridiculous - the media's insistence that this is some sort of global pandemic. it's the freakin' flu - that's it. more people have flu every "flu season", i.e. winter, than have this swine flu now. what real news stories is the media trying to distract us from? swine flu is not a pandemic. the only place it's caused real trouble is mexico, and in case you haven't looked into mexico lately, it's like a 3rd world country. everyone's all worried about nations in africa when right next door mexico is slipping further into sheer cess. all they needed to stop this swine flu outbreak was a little tamiflu and maybe a couple other drugs which are readily available a few hundred miles away in the u-s-of-a. is it any wonder people are constantly crossing the border?

the attorney general is eric holder. no - he's not called «secretary of law».

100% chance of rain.

that's the forecast for tomorrow. one.hundred.percent.

speedy & i are supposed to participate in this event tomorrow -- bicycle-canoe-run. ::sigh:: can't really canoe in the lightning & rain. not sure how it's going to play out, and my old man thinks we're silly to go, but hey - i want my race shirt. plus, there will be cake. and, we were puzzling over how to get the bicycle up there, so we'll just use the weather as an excuse not to take the bicycle. see? perfect. maybe we can play challenge & i will be able to use my ear-wiggling talents.

in case you didn't hear, mexico has the flu. if you don't mind a little headache, fever, upper respiratory congestion, and perhaps a wee bit of vomiting - tickets to mexico are easy to come by right now. vacation cheap - vacation mexico!

fun fact --[[ federal regulators have closed 32 banks so far in 2009. in 2008, 25 were closed. in 2007, only 3. ]]-- tcaf nuf

doing my part to stimulate the economy today, i purchased 2 shirts, 1 pr shorts, 3 dvds, and a pair of those sleeve bands to hold my sleeves up while running. if you don't know about the sleeve straps, you clearly never had a child who played soccer in the 90s. yeah, i don't know why we didn't just get sleeveless shirts. probably b/c these little beauties are so cutiepatootie - especially when combined with the big hair bow in coordinating color to the jersey.

heh. look at this little cutie in bow & skirt! sock-her!!

the secretary of the interior is kenneth salazar.

welcome to «tools in the road».

you can find some interesting stuff on the street, if you're looking. the other day i was crossing the road while out running, and there in the road was a 2x4. so i picked it up and carried it to the other side of the road so that the people out driving around wouldn't run over it and maybe have a flat tire or a wreck. wasn't that nice of me? but, it was too big to be a souvenier, so i left it by the sidewalk.

then, a few days after that, i was out running and down by the curb on the shoulder of the road, i saw this mini spanner. isn't it cute? i don't know the intended original purpose of such a small spanner, but fate has given it the purpose of living in the sentra & keeping me company. it's a nice life for a spanner. better than living on the streets and definitely better than getting all jammed into tight spaces and having bolts jammed into your head and getting spun around & around & around locking down the bolts. that would just be icky. so, the spanner rides around in the sentra. woopwoop!!

then, like 2 days ago, while crossing the road to get to the vanpool stop [yes, that is why i cross the road], i found this smallish crowbar. it looks like a really big screwdriver, but it's curved at the end on purpose. it's not like it got bent by being in the road. it was made that way. so, i would have to say it's a crowbar. i put it in my bag, and i carried it around in my bag a couple days and forgot it was in there until i was wondering why my bag was so heavy, and i was like «it ain't heavy, it's my bag», so i looked in to see what was going on, and there was the silly crowbar. so, i took it out & showed it to my old man, and i was all like «i got you a present from out of the street.» and he was all like «wash your hands.». so i left it on the hearth, and there it is still.

and that concludes this epi of «tools in the road».

meeting notes

heard at mtgs this week --

- drill down with the execs
- tweak the formulas
- paradigm
- core competency
- stamp of approval
- champion
- decision path
- articulate the pricing philosophy
- originate the documents
- sense of urgency

and, no doubt in tribute to our native american friends --
- branding powwow
- boundaries between the tribes