what i did today.

so there's this local half marathon that corresponds exactly to my shiney new training plan. okay, not exactly "exactly" cause the plan calls for 15 that day and a halfie is like not 15, but still & all, i think you can see right there it's obviously fated that i run this halfie, so today i registered for it.

through the blinds

the lecture is monotonous, so i escape
to my space - 2'x2" and bounded by aluminum....

a lone squirrel with acorn-filled cheeks
takes his winter provisions,
four at a time, up a long climb,
to somewhere above my 2".
down again and gone awhile....

raindrops careen recklessly on the pane.
colliding, stopping, darting to the side
like miniature speeders and stopsign-unheeders
let loose on 2'x2" of blacktop....

as the bell rings, i turn and see
someone else escaping through the blinds.
a kindred spirit?
no - a classmate sulking over being caught
in the rain
without her umbrella.

19 dec 1984

bonus post!

lying awake last night, i realized another thing i wanted to say about plans and unplans: keep the balance, grasshopper. too much planning makes jack a dull boy. too much unplanning makes jack worthless.

relying too much on plans closes your eyes to the spontaneous beauty of everyday life - the serendipity of existence. if you're not willing to step off the path, you'll never see what else is in the woods. also, if you stick to the plan and still do not achieve the desired result, that can be crushing. and, if you are trying diligently to stick to the plan, but life keeps knocking you off the path, that's frustrating. so, planning has its issues, but while the alternative - being carefree and planless - is idyllic in theory, it is ridiculous in reality. without a plan you will be hard pressed to learn & achieve, and unless you're peter pan or like, an elm tree, you need to learn & achieve. learning & achieving is what people do. without learning & achieving, you'll be witless & shallow.

so, now i have a plan for running. i hope that plan will help me learn some things about running so that i can internalize the planningness and rely less on paper the next time. i hope that plan will help me achieve running a marathon "successfully" (success as yet is not clearly defined) while staying healthy. i hope that the plan will not preclude the fun but instead, enhance the fun.

stay tuned for the unfolding of this riveting saga.

let what may change, change; yet hold that which remains.

earlier today i told sweet baby james that i am planophobic, but after having given it some more thought, i realize that's not precisely accurate - i am not afraid of plans. i am not averse to plans. it's more a nihilism, if i am using the term correctly. why make a plan if the plan is going to be frogged up - why bother? some of you will see an ironicalness here that i make a living of making plans, but i will tell you i hold fast to the notion that all plans turn to poop. HOWEVER. it's not the plan that matters - what matters is the execution. any planner who believes the plan takes precedence over execution is an idiot and any planner who doesn't plan on changing the plan as the execution progresses is an idiot.

ace. what's the point?

i registered for a marathon, a running event, scheduled for approx 4 months from now.

my usual modus operandi when approaching a marathon is to simply run. and, run more. and, run some more. run a lot and run every day and run as much as possible all the time and then run some more. simply running a lot is not a plan and having executed this unplan in the past, i can tell you it results generally in my being completely worn out and sometimes injured but just fiercely hanging on to the confidence that by god i must be ready because i ran so much. how could i not be prepared? all that running has got to result in being prepared. right?

so anyway, this time i thought why not throw caution to the wind and get all crazylike and take up a plan. crazy! so i scooted on over to the website of the famous mr hal higdon and downloaded the beginner plan. NOVICE I. i am not a novice runner and not precisely a novice marathoner, having run 7 in my life (plus like 3 halfs and myriad other road races), but i am a novice planner. this is a whole new way for me to approach my running, so why not start at the bottom?

i looked it over and it looks like fun. you run some, you rest some, you do a little cross training. looking at an actual plan that has lower mileage at the END than i thought i'd be doing next week is truly a comfort. suddenly, i am released from the requirement of running every day, released from running as much as i possibly can, released from adding more every week, pushing it to the limit every day.

that's right - a mere piece of paper is standing in the gap between me & self-destruction. some of you are nodding sagely right now but some of you are shaking your heads in wonderment - "what's your damage, ace? you can't stop running unless hal tells you it's okay? jeez, ace, just sit the fock down, why don'tcha?" either you understand already, so i don't need to explain, or you'll never understand, so i don't need to explain. (see also: addictive personality, narcissism)

this is an actual plan that actual people use to prepare for actual marathons so there must be a level on which it works. running until i can't walk isn't working so bout as well give hal's plan a try. i have nothing to lose but my 5-hour marathon PR.

and, yeah, best laid plans and all that. blah blah blah.

bring it on!

a.m. reeve

my dreams are interrupted by a song
enjoyed at other times but now despised.
i haven't been asleep for all that long;
just who proclaimed that now i should arise?
it all comes back to me: before my dreams
i promised laura i would take this shift.
she said, "it's not as bad as it would seem;
you'll be alone, if you get my drift."
i know she meant that i could take a nap,
and getting paid for sleeping sounded great.
but that chair's as comfy as a spinal tap,
so interrupted dreams will have to wait.
i grudgingly get up, get dressed, and go -
[insert last line that goes here with the flow]

19 december 1984

i never got a last line. the best i came up with "why i listened to laura i'll never know!" was deemed "too easy" by the professor, and of course, completely out of rhythm. i get the out of rhythm part, but it's not really the kind of poem that begs for a twist.

is it?

well, maybe $278 won't buy the whole wish list, but it'll get a netbook, by golly!

like i said yesterday, the boss is out of the office this week, so today me & a couple coworkers gathered around office lady's desk and discussed the coworker who left last week for a new job. we all offered myriad opinions on her working style and method of departure, and i am sure it was all very ethical and above board, especially when you consider that my one subordinate was standing there listening to everything i had to contribute to the convo. go ace!

remember how the house down the street is for rent again? well, if not, look it up. or, look it down. it's down the page here, a bit. find it for yourself. the point is that i axted the sheriff what was up and a deputy replied, "On 7/14 there was a little family squabble that did not result in anyones arrest." looks like bad grammar's not a crime. still - note that no one was arrested and yet they all left town. fascinating. also, please note that the date was 7/14 and let me know if you think this indicates that they are french expats.

i read in the newspaper today that a red dye which is widely used in foodstuffs is created from crushed shells of a particular bug, and now suddenly people are all up in arms about it and the possible implications of dirty bug bits being in the food, but i would like to go on record as saying i prefer the all natural yet potentially slightly mussed up crushed bugs over completely artificial chemical colorings, but that over either bugs or chemicals, i prefer leaving the color of food the fock alone.

oh, and one more thing: BP and our esteemed congressfolk are all colluding to make it appear that they are "doing something" about the gulf oil spill by singling out tony hayward for a dissing and then sending him off to siberia for what is in reality a superswap with mr bob dudley - a guy who was embroiled in a gulfesque situation in siberia. rather convenient how their mutual chastisement worked out, isn't it now?

counted my saved up birthday money & it's $278 - looking good for filling the wishlist! or, you know, replacing whatever breaks next around here.....

so i took my shoes out of my locker, and set them on the floor, and this is how they were. i didn't move any part of them even a little bit. they, of their own accord, threw their little shoelace arms over their little shoey faces and saluted me.

i was going to share another picture with you but unfortunately i decided to snap the shot with the 10x-photo-tools app and the 10x-photo-tools app does this wacked out thing where after you shoot a pic it stops and ax you do you want to keep it. the real iphone camera keeps the pics you shoot by default - take a pic, close the app. with 10x-photo-tools, if you take a pic and close the app, you lose the pic because you didn't tell it if you wanted to keep the pic. freaking wacked out.

the pic was of a label on an item at the grocery. they had labeled this slab of meat in the deli: jerk turkey. this is just so wrong. i mean, maybe that turkey was hard to get along with but it was probably completely misunderstood. now it's dead and cannot defend itself - why do you have to call it a jerk? sheesh. not nice.

speaking of nice, had a nice skype today with beavis. the boss is away and my next door cubby mate is away so it's the perfect time to skype with a 2 yr old which is about as loud as a yard party since you're all the time yelling at the kid to get his attention. beavis showed me one of those plastic ice cream cups shaped like a baseball hat and said it used to have baseball nut in it and then he put it on his fat melon head and his head is so fat and melony that the cup-hat just sat up there. well, okay maybe it's not so funny to read, but it was funny to see. then he showed me this big soft stuffed baseball thing that uncle armyman gave him, and he read the letters on the side -- M-E-T-S -- and since uncle armyman lives in T-E-X-A-S i am sure he's a big M-E-T-S fan. right. so then beavis goes "M - E - T - S. ball!" because he's brilliant and can read.

T-H-E E-N-D.

who's $5 bill is that? hmm.... i am taking it.

so i took the car up to the shop yesterday so's they could give it a bath and instead of waiting on it, i was planning to run home and get a ride back up there later. there are two choices for running home from the car shop - a 1 mile and a 5 mile. i started off going around the block to see how i felt and i felt okay so i turned left for the 5 miler and had the best run i have had in weeks. i blame the new nike lunar flys. i wore them again today and had another great run. both days it was 95+º out, so i was pleasantly surprised how good it felt. those shoes are amazing. i am a bit concerned that tomorrow's run in the asics will be a big let down and i'm also concerned that maybe these lightweight lunar flys will not last as long as other running shoes. yeah, things are good right now, but nothing lasts forever and blindly enjoying the good times just invites bad karma. you've got to pay a little homage to the bad times every day or they'll sneak up on you the next time they're in town.


last night we went and saw salt with angelina jolie, and as david edelstein said this morning on cbs sunday morning, it's one big chase. it's got a couple twists, little surprises, and a ton of action. the plot's kind of wack and the characters are like little cardboard cutout puppets, but the dialog's not too bad and the action is so good it's like a whole other character. there's violence and some blood, but it's not a bloodbath. i understand if people were actually involved in this sort of activity, they'd be not only dead, but covered in blood -- but it's a movie dogdarnit, and i appreciate the dearth of gore. and, yeah, speaking of dead, evelyn salt has that jack-bauer-esque ability to sustain multiple injuries and still do things like walk on windowsills 75 ft above the ground while wearing inappropriate footwear, out-sprint CIA agents in who are in cars while lugging a bulging backpack, and make impossible leaps between moving vehicles. oh, and of course she does that thing where she dyes her hair from blonde to black and then by that one change, noone recognizes her. this is definitely a big screen must-see because it has no subtlety and would be laughably kitschy on the small screen. but on the big screen, it's exciting and fun entertainment.

o how i despise the hope that is borne in me of a good day for it only begs destruction from tomorrow.

i had a really good run today for the first time in a long time. i wanted to tell you all about it but first there was lunch and then there was shopping, birthday party, supper, and now a movie, so you'll just have to make do with nothing for now.

enjoy!

it's not easy being green tea.

greetings from starbux. here's my wishlist:
1. netbook computer
2. complete set of septimus heap books
3. new bag

the netbook's really a necessity. we have a laptop which is what i am using right now but my image of cooliosity is tarnished by this ginormous machine. i bout as well be holding a wax tablet and stylus. no, wait. that would be way cooler than this.

i am drinking a green drink with a green straw. it's wicked. (get?? it??) it's a nonfat green tea latte, an appropriately pretensious drink. green tea tastes vaguely of freshly mown lawn. i like green tea. i am not sure if or how these last 2 facts are related.

septimus heap boxed set. now, let me be perfectly honest here. when mini-me gave me the entire harry potter series, i was impressed at the lavishness of her gift and (sorry to say) somewhat (selfishly) disappointed because i wanted the septimus heap books instead. well, okay. let's just revisit how ace throws a fit about gifts and how that turns out in the end.

go read the assignment.

go do it.

I SAID GO READ THE ASSIGNMENT.

jeez.

did you read it?

really?

i don't believe you.

go read it NOW.

thank you.

okay ace is a wacked out gift getter. the gift of harry potter turns out to be just as - if not more so - gooderly than the gift of the other story (which you would know what that gift was if you had read the story).

i am not sure that all came out right.

oh, well.

at any rate, i also want a new bag because the tote i was using broke. it's a broke tote. if you make a security pool of them, it's a broke tote moat. if you elect the security pool, broke tote moat vote. if a guy breaked it, bloke broke tote moat vote.

the handle just gave out. looking at it after it came apart, i'm amazed it stayed together as long as it did because it wasn't sewn or stapled or riveted. it was glued. glued? yes, glued like a 3rd grade macaroni-on-corrugate art project. i was recently looking at it, axting myself, "ace, are you tired of this bag?" and answering myself, "undecided. need more data." well, sorry there ace, you ain't getting no more data. game over. the closer starring the inimitable kyra sedgewick has started a new season, and on the show she carries a tote like a pro, so i really need a new one soon.

i was going to link you to a story about my current tote because i thought i blogged about it when it was new, but i couldn't find that story, but i found this one and it is pretty funny so i linked it up. you're welcome.

humpty dumpty sat on a wall. then he fell off. he was stupid.

from the newsbulletin at work:

Social Media Club Meets on Aug. 5
Our next Social Media Club meeting will be August 5th at 9:00 am in the Lower Level Auditorium. The session is called: "Facebook vs. Twitter: What’s the Difference?"

ppfahahaha!! what's the difference!! ppfahahaha!! social media meeting!! bahhh!! hahahahahaha!!! hahahah! hahah. ha. ha. whew. if you can't see all the levels of ridicularity here for yourself, then i am sorry to say you're stupid.

tiger woods screwed around on his wife with myriad professional and amateur prostitutes, and yet the crowds love him. lebron james got a better contract in a different city, and he's reviled as a traitor. now, that's stupid.

who the hell stays up to 23:00 when they have to get up and go to work?! yeah, stupid people, that's who. GAH!!

why did the fonts have a crazy party?

they were sans sheriff!

i emailed the sheriff's office about the house down the street and a deputy replied and said with either the exact date or the address, he could provide me more information. so, i replied with the address. i'll provide you a status report on this as developments occur.

panera was crowded with wimmens tonight. with all the cackling, it sounded like a henhouse. there were two or three apparently unrelated small-to-medium sized groups of gals. one particular group of youngish wimmens looked to be an athletic squad of some unknown varietal. they were by chance seating themselves directly behind us, so i turned around and tapped one young lady on the shoulder, thinking i'd ask her what group they were, what sport they played, where they were from. i tapped. she turned. i said, "are y'all together?" she said, "yes." um... "are y'all together?" -- really?! another brilliant live human convo brought to you by ace....

panera has this offer where if you purchase a dinner meal and a drink, you can get a bakery treat for 99¢. in other words, after 11AM, you can assist panera by giving them 99¢ to haul away their stale foodstuffs. i mean, c'mon - all this stuff is made in the morning, right? it's not like they're baking cimmanom rolls all day. you get a bakery treat for 99¢ and panera gets rid of something they'd otherwise destroy at a loss. we got a cimmanom roll.



we brought home the roll and made some more coffee to have with. so, there i was in the kitchen with 2 cuppas, the divided roll on 2 plates, 2 forks, 2 nakkins wondering how to transport it all. how? how?? a tray! i loaded all these things onto a tray and carried them out to the den for consumption. something about loading all the stuff up on a tray says aristrocracy. "sir, your cuppa and roll." the unassuming, shallow, flat multi-item carrier with handles somehow turns a cuppa and roll into high tea.

i woke up tuesday morning staring at the ceiling hoping for deliverance from the distances in you.

the scheduling was a bit wack. double elimination and we had one loss, so we came into tonight facing 4 games for the championship. won the first game 7-3. won the second game 4-2. won the third game 5-2. then we had to play the same team again because we'd given them their first loss. ah, the beauty of double elim. we lost like 946-3. or, like 8-3 but it felt like 946. we took a slammin'. we were out of gas, plain & simple, and the other team had adrenaline for the finals. whatevs. we beat them that third game after having already played 2 tough games. they couldn't beat us until we were completely worn out. so there.

monday, monday... can't trust that day.

an internet newsybloggy article offering 21 suggestions for ways retirees can earn extra money listed "Errands. Retirees who are handy around the house will never be without extra cash. Other easy errands you could provide include grocery shopping, rides to the airport, and picking up dry cleaning."

huh.

well, clearly, a possible money-making endeavor for retirees is not copyediting since retirees who know that being handy around the house means they can help with CHORES, not ERRANDS, would not be able to make any money at all because vocabulary is a losed art.

grammar, grammar, grammar. that pesky set of rules we all learned in jr high school. well, most of us learned. okay, okay - SOME of us learned maybe half of the rules. at any rate - grammar. we cannot communicate without it.

the irony of grammar is that folks who know the least about it rely on it the most. people who don't know how to correctly place a comma rely on the correct placement of commas to be able to follow a newspaper story. those who confuse, misuse, and abuse there & there or you're & your would be hard pressed to determine the meaning of a sentence where they're incorrectly set forth.

not all grammar rules are sensible. for prigzample, according to the chicago manual of style, there's a rule that states that punctuation following an italicized word should take on the characteristics of the word and be italicized. this is just simply wack. the punctuation is not part of the word. punctuation serves as a divider between words, between sentences, phrases, thoughts. punctuation should not be sullied by the whimsicle format of lesser entities such as the mere surrounding letters.

there is another CMS rule that states that periods, commas, and all should be placed inside adjacent close-quotes. the simple fact that "" happen to be in the area is absolutely no reason to allow them to suck in all the surrounding punctuation like a giant vacuum. correctly punctuated according to the authorities: To get to the next page, just press the little button marked "Enter." correctly punctuated according to ace: To get to the next page, just press the little button marked "Enter". if you cannot see how this makes more sense, you are a loon.

an interesting tid-bit: the brits practice both these rules in the opposite (i.e., ace-approved) direction.

oh, and for those of you who take issue with my discussion of grammar in my blog where i capitalize at my whim and spell at my invention... go ahead and submit a comment here because i really, really, really care what you "think".

heh.

in darkness she is all i see. come and rest your bones with me. driving slow on sunday morning.

thoroughly enjoying the harry potter books - moreso if possible than the first time 'round. usually when you know the ending it spoils the story but the rich detail, compelling characters, and fascinating plots make these stories ones you can read over & over again. side effect of books set at school - i invariably want to go back to school while reading them, or at least to get my hands on some school supplies. in this case, i want parchment, quill, ink, a wand, spell books, and an owl.
-----
earlier this week in that driveway down the street there were three sheriff patrol cars with their blue lights pulsating, a truck with a small unmarked trailer attached, and folks walking in & out the front door, some carrying armloads of stuff. the house with the white siding and bright red door is for rent again, and i wonder what happened to those kids who spent the long summer evenings throwing frisbee on the sloping lawn. my old man says maybe they were cooking meth, but they looked more like pot heads to me. but then, i am not sure they haul you away like that for dealing a bit of the mary jane.
-----
russians are drowning by the thousands this summer because the heat is excessive, air conditioning is rare, swimming holes are plentiful, and they all drink too much vodka. yes, in the vast majority of the drownings, alcohol is a factor. this pathetic situation begs a good punchline to make it more palatable.
-----
schleck's in the lead at the tour de france and a kid called oosthuizen is leading the british open. oosthuizen's nickname is "shrek" which sounds like "schleck". the most likely explanation for this is that they are brothers, separated at birth and raised by separate adoptive families, never meeting.
-----
inception topped the box office this weekend. i heard two wildly divergent (or is that widely divergent?) reviews on npr this past week. kenneth turan loved it; david edelstein, not so much. i like edelstein's reviews because he supports his claims. if he likes something he explains why with examples; same if he doesn't like it. he provides analysis, not simple opinion, so you can listen and figure out if you'd feel the same way about the same examples. they're not simple subjective face-value type reviews - they're solid and thoughtful.
-----
me & my old man are heading to the bikecycle store grand opening. wanna come with?

but if i asked her, i wonder if she would come dancing, on a saturday.

in the summer of 2007 i decided to do more running, and i broke my lungs. summer '08 i was out of the game with misdiagnosed broken lung syndrome and in '09 it was correctly diagnosed broken ankle syndrome. here we are in the summer of '10 and i am supposably healthy and ready to hit it, but all i have learned since '07 is that my simply deciding that i want to run more is insufficient to make it happen.

so i thought instead of simply deciding that i would take a measured approach so i stepped it up week to week and things were going pretty well until the joy evaporated like a full-moon boggart at the flick of lupin's wand. i really don't know what happened but the heat and the boredom of running the same routes became too much. i tried shaking things up. i tried running other routes. i tried running inside. hell, i even tried running with other people, and i hate other people.

i was still getting miles in, but it was becoming taskwork. i thought a couple weeks of swimming and hiking at brigadoon would sort things out and get me back on track, but no, all that happened when i got back and hit the road was the same struggles with complete boredom and lethargy.

my latest theory is that the problem's the arrow, not the hunter, so i got myself some new arrows. first i got 2 new pairs of shoes - one asics cumulus and one nike lunarfly. i have worn newbalance for years, and it's time to try something different. and, i got some of those compression capris that all the girls look so cute in so that i can wear them and look like a jiggly dork. and, i got some more coconut water and something called FRS that's supposed to provide "healthy energy fueled by quercetin (a powerful antioxidant)" both lance armstrong and the guy at the vitamin shoppe endorse FRS, so i am sure it's the bee's knees.

i know you'll all be eagerly sitting by the blogosphere waiting to discover how this all turns out.

where'd it all go wrong, my friday night enfant?

so we went to cracker barrel for some biscuits and eggs, and we parked our two separate vehicles and walked in and got seated by the window. so far so good.

then, one-star chad came to take our order.

in case you are not familiar with the cracker barrel apron-starring system, i will explain it. even if you are familiar with it, i am still splaining it, so sit down & shut up. okay. when you first start work waiting tables at the barrel, you get an apron with "rising star" and a shooting star symbol embroidered on it. after you've worked there a while, you get an apron with your name and one gold star embroidered on it. the longer you work there, the more stars you get, but they are not completely wacked out so they stop at like 5 or something. i mean, you never see an apron with 82 stars on it.

so, chad had one star which indicated that he is not a complete newbie. chad should have caught on by now.

we began with the drinks - water and coffee. simple. chad accomplished bringing us water and coffee. good chad. chad did not bring the cute little bowl containing wee plastic containers containing chemical coffee-color changer (not to be confused with chemical-coffee color changer). i said - oh, we forgot to ask for cream. chad said - no, i just forgot to pick it up, i'll get it, i'll be right back.

chad got the chemical coffee-color changer and headed back to our table but stopped along the way at another table. no problem. i mean, chad's going to have other customers, right? lah, lah... waiting... what's chad doing now? he's still talking to those cute girls at that other table. now he's leaning over the table... is he getting their phone numbers? my old man almost got up to go get the crème, but chad managed to tear himself away and stroll on down to our table. he goes - they have the new iphone, are you getting the new iphone, it's rad.

okay, stop right there. firstly, chad, darling... nobody says "rad" anymore. i don't even say "rad" anymore. secondly, if you're delayed while servicing a customer [heh], then the proper comment is "sorry for the delay" - hell, you can even say, "sorry for the rad delay" if that is what floats your lingo-impaired boat - but unless you are julie the cruise director, it is not your job to facilitate communication between the tables. your job is waiting on customers, not making customers wait on you.

so far, not so great, but chad has plenty of time to redeem himself, right?

we placed our food order including specific extras - ketchup and strawberry jelly. this is not our first barrelodeo. we know what we want. chad diligently scribbled away at his pad. crispy bacon. steak fries. got it. got it.

next comes that lull when we're waiting for the food. often, the waitstaff will come by and offer you another cuppa joe while you're waiting, but not chad. he's a bit busy socializing. we emptied our coffee cups into our bellies while we discussed headlines and gossip over our old school iphones.

soon, my old man spots chad heading our way with food, so he gives the heads up - "food". we share one brain, so we really don't even need to talk. food. but then, my old man goes, "not us." ah, the mistaken tray syndrome - you think your food's coming, but it's not yours. wait... then, wait... huh. it IS our food. chad just stopped along the way, with our food, to chat with the folks at another table.

finally, here comes ol' chatty chaddy with our food, and we're looking forward to tucking into the ketchupy eggs and jam-covered biscuits, all warshed down with the nice hot coffee in our refilled coffee cups. but chad did some sort of time twister thing and had left our food on the table without actually spending any time standing there. i swear i have never witnessed anyone leave food more quickly. but wait, where's the ketchup? the jam? the refilled coffee? apparently still in the kitchen. maybe chad's gone back for those things? no, chad has gone to talk to folks at yet another table.

so we wait for him to bring the stuff. and we wait. and... wait. wait. finally, chad comes back to check on us. NOW -- imagine you are a waiter and you come back to a table where you dropped off some food several minutes ago, and when you walk up the food is mostly untouched and the coffee cups are empty. what do you do? i suggest that you observe and analyze. observe the untouched food and empty coffee cups. analyze these inputs before you speak so that you can make an intelligent comment such as, "can i get you some more coffee?" and not a generic remark such as, "how are things going over here?"

chad is all like - "how are things going over here?"

my old man goes - "well... not worth a damn, really."

chad is all like - "well, that's your own fault."

huh?

we quickly remedied our fault by heading out the door, stopping only to inform the manager of chad's unstellar performance.

location: saint andrews

watching the british open and OMG have you seen john daley?! he's like half the size he used to be. he's gone from a hard drinking, hard living, overweight, party-boy, smoker to a slightly stooped, pudgy old man. word on the street is he still smokes but his drink of choice is now diet coke. he looks like the he should be sitting in a plastic adirondack yelling at the neighbor kids - "gerroff my lawn, yoo whippersnappers!"

take it to the bridge throw it overboard see if it can swim back into the shore no one's in the house everyone is out all the lights are on & the blin

ds are down.

from the chi-town manual of style monthly q&a:

Q. Hi there! For a sign for bachelorette parties, would the phrase “Bachelorette Out of Control” be more appropriate than “Bachelorette’s Out of Control”? The question is one of contraction, because I don’t see how “Bachelorette’s Out of Control” can be correct without “The” prefacing it. Thank you!
A. Out-of-control bachelorettes who require appropriate signage aren’t very convincing, but the first version is better.

ppfahahah!! answer lady, i love you!

Q. Can I use the first person?
A. Evidently.

bah-hah-haaaa!!

from a last comic standing comic - i could forgive my boyfriend for cheating except the girl he was cheating with is a bad speller. how can you cheat on me with someone who thinks there's an "a" in "tomorrow"?

ha ha HAHAHA!! ha ha HAHAHA!! ha ha HAHAHA!! ha ha HAHAHA!! HA. HA. HAAAA.

there's really nothing funnier than funny stuff that's funny simply because the people who are making it funny don't get that it's funny.

HA.

i went to the doctor. i went to the mountains. i looked to the children. i drank from the fountains.

looks like in a couple days i'll be coaching a wee bit of football. {that's soccer for those of you who don't speak internationalsportalese.} my old man coaches down to the senior high school, and i'll be stepping in for the coach my old man coaches with b/c he {other coach} has to be someplace else doing something else with someone else. this is a summer league 7v7 where they play 3 games of 24 mins 2 nights per week. got it? good.

so here's the thing about coaching one night: you can't teach a hell of a lot in one night. you've got to have a focus, work on something in specificular. no worries - i do have a plan. it's a two-pronged plan, brilliantly designed so that if they don't remember the one thing maybe they'll remember the other resulting in their maybe doing one of the two things half of the time.

focus 1 - offensive communication. when your teammate gains possession, tell her if she has time or has a man on while you simultaneously move to create an open passing lane and then tell her where you are. the biggest mistake football players make is to call for the ball by calling the possessing player's name. "ace! ace! aceaceaceaceace!!" or they do something wacked out like clap or whistle or yipyap or make some other noise. what the hell good is that? you are either in front of, beside, or behind the player with the ball so say "up!" or "square!" or "outside!" or "back!" - tell the player with the ball what the options are for her. easy peasy.

focus 2 - defensive pressure. when the opposing team has the ball, pressure it. if you are a forward and just lost the ball to the defense, pressure it. if you are a halfback and the opponent is passing the ball thru the midfield, pressure it. if you are a fullback and the opponent is coming at you with the ball, pressure it. you can always pressure the ball no matter where you are on the field. some players are more naturally oriented to defense and some are not. if you're not a natural defender, don't clutter up your pretty little head with complicated techniques of jockeying or pushing a player to her weak side. keep it simple - just pressure the ball. don't get all crazy-physical and foul someone - just pressure the ball. don't worry about winning the ball back - just pressure the ball. all that means is make every attempt to keep yourself between the player and your goal, even if you are 50 yards away from your goal, and stay close enough to the player with the ball so that she has difficulty seeing her teammates or making a good pass. just pressure. if you're a skilled defender, you can do more, but if you are not a skilled defender, it's no problem - a little pressure goes a long way.

these two are tied together by encouraging your teammates to pressure the ball, which morphs into the offensive communication. wah-lah! it's like magicks.

i need to work on the verbiage a bit, tighten things up, stop babbling, but that's the basic game plan. what do you think? {haha, i don't care what you think.}

(no snake owners)

today my coworker gave her 2 wks notice. a bit odd to be on the side of it. i've given 2 wks notice myself, and received it, and been alongside of it before this time, and i'd have to say that alongside of it is the oddest. it's like - hey, wait for me! i mean, you wonder what's so great about where she's going or so terrible about where she's leaving, and maybe you want to leave, too, goshdarnit! also, it's a bit of an embarrassment between the boss and the coworker. it's like witnessing a fight or something, but it's not a fight so much as a simple parting of the ways, but still, it's like witnessing someone else's thang that ain't so much my thang as a thang i am witness to, get it? so the boss is all kerfluffled now, wondering what each of the rest of us are doing on our lunch hours, wondering if we're out also gathering offers we cannot refuse to move 2000 miles in 2 weeks from a house we just purchased a month ago. or, you know, something like that.

heard this morning that the USPS is wanting to stop saturday delivery and that cutting it out would save $3bill per year. $3bill? stop! stop now! why is this even a question at all?! speaking of govt waste, today a census taker stopped by the house and i was all like - hey, we gave at the office - except we didn't give at the office, we gave at the house. anyways! the point is this long haired hippyboi came by to take roll and axt "is this ____?" where ____ is a street number, but not ours. we were like, no. he was like, um.... so we filled him in on the fact that ____ is across the street and that there's one person that lives there and that person has lived there since before 1 april. when i say "we" filled him in i mean of course that "i" did b/c my old man had wandered off to watch teevee and giggle at his having left me at the door with hippyboi. *SIGH*

in conclusion, i am fairly certain if you're giving it away in the news bulletin at work, you can't tell someone how to use it.
Free to good home (no snake owners) three female Guinea pigs. Must go together. Cage and accessories included. Contact jonathan w.

good service deserves a tip.

i thought 2 harry potters would hold me over but i ended up needing to get a book from the liberry, too.

books 2010

currently:
harry potter & the order of the phoenix
[jk rowling]

complete:
the ravenmaster's secret
[elvira woodruff]
harry potter & the goblet of fire
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the prisoner of azkaban
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the chamber of secrets
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the sorcerer's stone
[jk rowling]
the local news
[miriam gershow]
the magicians
[lev grossman]
benjamin pratt & the keepers of the school: we the children
[andrew clements]
water for elephants
[sara gruen]
the last child
[john hart]
the youngest templar: the keeper of the grail
[michael p. spradlin]
the last song
[nicholas sparks]
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]