something back in the spring

well isn't that the way it always goes. right when i am getting some visitors here, getting some comments, gaining traction on the slippery slopes of the minds of my fellowman, i'm leaving.

oh, stop crying, you ninny. i'm coming back in two weeks. while i am away, perhaps you will notice i have been blogging for a million billion years. i was blogging on the cave walls. why'n't you just go on and make yourself to home, look around. right there on the right there, there are the links to the past. go read something from a year or two ago. you might be surprised how much you enjoy it. i mean, c'mon, it's not like i'm blogging current events. my brand of blather ages well.

as for tonight, well we were sitting there eating, and i said, "she said that movie 'bad teacher' is not funny, but that 'bridesmaids' is, and i told her i couldn't remember the last movie we saw, but that it was something back in the spring." and he said, "something back in the spring," he did, "that would make a good name for a movie."

"something back in the spring". huh. that could be a nice little romance story, sort of melancholy, lost love, bittersweet memories. or, a horror movie about a monster in the well.

THERE'S SOMETHING BACK IN THE SPRING, PA!

WELL, SHOOT IT, MA!

found while seeking harmonica tabs for brigadoon. if i am not mistaken, this is the one elvis tried to put to music? maybe? it's dated 4/18, no year.

alas, anon eternity will crash into infinity, and they'll create obscurity by fusion of the smaller parts, and then the sun into the sea will climb with much efficiency and put the lights out finally before the smallest ash departs.

as we our mortal lives do sow, we ever always feel the tow of mankind's deepest rooted woe and feel we surely will be beat. yet, pay heed those who cannot know from whence we come and where we go: time is our only worthy foe, for time does not admit defeat.

lo, for us the heavens mourn; for our hearts and minds well-worn; for our spirits so forlorn that back is facing where front should. and yet, do wise words earn our scorn, and we ourselves with pride adorn, and in the end we all are torn by what we did and what we would.

i have met tim corbin in real life, and in person he is just as great a guy as he seems like on teevee. very geniune, solid, good guy. a gentleman.

we used to watch a lot of baseball, a lot of braves games. then they went on strike in like '94? '95? and we never really got back into it. we're watching a bit of the ncaa college world series this week because the 'dores are in the mix and besides the freaking aluminum bats, it's different from when when we used to watch professionals in the early 90s. back in the day, there was no tivo. if you wanted a recording, it involved an elaborate setup with a video taping machine and the resulting tape would not tolerate a bunch of running it up and back. no skipping commercials. no remote controlled jumps through time.


hey, battah-battah-battah! hey, battah-battah-battah! swing!

watching anything on tivo changes the experience but it's especially true with baseball because baseball is a strategic sport with a lot of downtime for the average spectator. if you're a really involved observer, i'm sure there's a lot to see all the time, but to the rest of us, it's a sport of burst and pause. there are gaps between pitches and bigger gaps between batters, gaps when you change pitchers and huge gaps at mid-innings and between innings. when you go to the ballpark, you could bring a book. it's like dial-up internet access and you're waiting for your email to download while in the background there are a couple goofballs yabbering about stats. tivo changes all that, collapses the pauses into a blur of throwhitruncatch that belies the nature of the sport.

hey, battah-battah-battah! hey, battah-battah-battah! swing!


it's peaceful. it's old school. it's calm. it's boring? eh, maybe. but most of the time the burst and pause builds into a rhythm that rocks like a chair on a front porch, lazy saturday afternoon, watching the cars go by. pluswise, my old man was a baseball player, glory days and all that, and i could listen to him explain the infield fly rule all night long.

red light. green light. red light. green light. red light. green light. red light. green light. red light. green light. red light. green light. red li

last night we went to jason's (i know, right?!) for to get a bite of supper, and we were sitting there eating, as we are wont to do, when a pair of men sat down in the next booth. they began talking and frankly, i could have tried not to overhear, but it was much easier to just listen, so i did. i can't replay the conversation for you, but the basic gist was that the younger guy (he looked to be in high school) was receiving advice from his elder (who looked to be maybe in his mid-twenties) concerning the younger guy's coming out to his parents.

yes, THAT sort of "coming out".

the older guy was describing his personal experience with the exact situation the younger guy was in, and my very first reaction to the whole thing was how unconditionally super it was that this younger guy had this older guy to talk to. most everyone faces times when they could do with a bit of advice, and alternately, a wide variety of advice is generally not that difficult to come by. the problem with the wide variety of advice is that most of it is crap. solid, first-hand, experience-based advice -- that's some good stuff right there. and, let's just be honest for a moment, the situation this young guy was in is not all that common. not unheard of, certainly, but not common, so good advice might prove difficult to find.

i was encouraged. here was this angsty teen facing an unusual situation and he was discussing it with precisely the sort of person who could wisely advise him - someone who'd been there, done that. it was all butterflies and light.

so that was where i was yesterday. today, i was still thinking about those two guys. why did they so captivate me? i pondered this. i let the thoughts drift around in my head like clouds in the sky and i looked at the thoughts and tried to determine the shape they were taking. what i came up with is -- we draw lines and herd people into corrals,and we claim acceptance of the herd in the next corral, but true acceptance doesn't involve corrals at all. simultaneously, i wonder what life is like in the other corrals.

that's all i've come up with. i really don't know how all this fits together.

when the air screams

so we're sitting here watching the vandy-florida college world series baseball game, and the tornado alarms go off. not here - there, in omaha. (omaha! i know, right?) the alarms go off and people start leaving the stands and the players are looking around and the umps are looking around and the umps are like - play ball! - so they continue for a couple more at-bats, but the alarm keeps going waaaoooohhhhh waaaaaoooohhhh waaaaoooooohhhhh. finally here comes the official who is dressed in khakis and a red polo shirt, so clearly he's not an 'ump' per se, but he's got a walkie-talkie in his hand and he just struts right on out there and that's it, everyone leaves the field.

waaaaoooooohhhhh waaaaoooooohhhhh waaaaoooooohhhhh

i thought tornado sirens were automatic, but turns out, not so much. most communities that have the sirens have a network of sensors around the area. the sensors measure barometric pressure, humidity, and static charge in the air, and report these back to central stations where people analyze the results and decide when the environment is right for generation of tornadoes. when the people decide, they turn on the sirens.

right off there, i spot a flaw. people. relying on people to turn on the sirens is a weak link. why can't they be completely automated? weather prediction is still more art than science, i suppose.

these same sirens can be used as air raid sirens, which there is not so much a call for these days. let's hope it stays that way, eh? yes, let's. the sirens can also be used to sound an alarm for tsunami, flood, fire, curfew, other community situations. in haxtun, colorado the siren goes off at 07:00, 12:00, 13:00, and 18:00 everyday except sunday, to signal the time.

mechanical sirens produce sound by using a rotor to drive a fan or fans to push air through specially designed holes. same way clarinets, kazoos, leaking balloons, and voice boxes work -- air forced at a high rate, pressed through holes too small for the air volume. when you squeeze air like that, it screams.

most sirens produce a unique sound - distinct from emergency vehicles - by combining two simultaneous tones, with pitches usually in a 5:6 frequency ratio (an untempered minor third). yes, i throw around terms like "untempered minor third" all the time and if you read my blog more often you would no doubt know that. sheesh.

when at first i learned to speak, i used all my words to fight.

my family of origin was your typical jacked up hot mess of addiction, secrets, and passive-aggressive manipulation. love was an insult and affection, a bribe. we amused ourselves by throwing the chips from our shoulders at the hearts on each other's sleeves. we were too smart by half and too clever by half, and none of us got enough exercise. we gamely hung in there as best we could but the whole thing eventually sprung apart in the mid-80s like an overstuffed sofa pounded by the relentlessly jumping feet of crazed kangaroo.

that's not to say that i don't appreciate all i learned from the man who headed up the debacle. truth is, he taught me a lot of really valuable lessons.

ump diddle diddle dee -- ump diddle diddle doo -- ump diddle diddle dee -- doodle doodle doodle doo

today i spent all day doing one project. it was a surprise revisit to a project completed earlier in the week which required attention today due to a bit of a problem with the downstream implementation. so i did a re-do. it took all day, but to be done was satisfying. ahhh! done! done AND it's friday! ahhh! so i was feeling allright and fixing to leave the office when i received an email informing me the problem was a bit more widespread than expected. did you know XYZ is all ZYX, ace? didja? DiDjA? didjadidjadidja? uh... anyway, points to me - for, that which i accomplished on the western front should satisfy the eastern flank also. i am not required to worry about this late-breaking ZYXism. however, the real issue here is, why do people send emails at 16:30 on a friday afternoon to raise a red flag? could this red flag have not been raised around, say, 13:45? perhaps even 14:24? at any rate, i am confident you comprehend the annoyance here and that you are on my side in this. i'll put you down for $20. thanks muchly.

when there is crime to fight, landsman tears around sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket.

my harry potter book collexion [not to be confused with my hp dvd collexion] were lost but now are found. they were in a bin under a couple cigar boxes and a framed picture of beavis, a bin which was packed up way way way back in the fall when the housepainters were here. i had planned to read hp again but because i couldn't find them right away -- can't be without a reading-book!!!! -- i pulled off the stack: the yiddish policemen's union by michael chabon. i haven't read any of his stuff before, but i had heard good things about this book. i found this copy, which lived a former life as a liberry book, in the used bookstore near graceland the last time i was there visiting elvis+family. it's a detective story set in a community of jewish ww2 refugees in alaska, so right off the bat there it sounded good - detectives stories are a favourite genre and alaska is a favourite setting.

i'm just a little ways into it and it's pretty good so far. the only complaint i have is that it's a tad heavy on the yiddish, but jeez ace, what were you expecting, siamese? some of the words i can pick up on context, but i might need a dictionary before it's all said and done.


the characters are jews who were moved to the safety of alaska after the revelations of the holocaust and the collapse of the fledgling jewish state in 1948. as we all know, there IS a jewish state of israel to this day, and as we all may not know, the jewish settlement in sitka was a proposal which did not... (see the light of day? come to fruition? develop? grow? prosper?) take root. the US secretary of the interior in 1948 was a man named harold ickes, and mr ickes proposed a jewish settlement in sitka, but president franklin roosevelt didn't support the plan without some fairly strict conditions, and without the president's support, the plan didn't succeed. for more info, you can google slattery report or jewish sitka.

i suspected but did not know for sure that this was an alternate history novel. i mean, duh, i knew it was fiction, but i didn't realize the setting was based on completely skewed history. it's cool to have had this trigger into learning something, but it's disconcerting to think i would have just merrily gone along thinking there were dozens of thousands of displaced jews in alaska the past 65 years. (c'mon, ace, you idiot!)

after i complete this exploration into an alternate history, i will revisit the completely fictional (or is it?) hogwarts and its environs. after those 7 tomes, i will likely take a stab at the fountainhead, but that seems more a book for studious autumn, not playful summer weeks.

books 2011

currently:
the yiddish policemen's union
[michael chabon]

complete:
american gods
[neil gaiman]
land of a hundred wonders
[lesley kagen]
swim to me
[betsy carter]
princess academy
[shannon hale]
the angels game
[carlos ruiz zafon]
they almost always come home
[christina ruchti]
lifeguard training manual
[red cross]
the broker
[john grisham]
queste
[angie sage]
the things we do for love
[kristin hannah]
physik
[angie sage]

fit is just one letter away from fat.

so i was going to review the checkbook and see why it's all wackityfrackity and i was like, yeah... i'll be here doing this, waa waa waa. my old man was all, it will still be wackityfrackity tomorrow, leave it, c'mon, i'll drop you at the bux whilst i venture to the gymnasium. okay!

it's the perfect day for buxing - rainy, cool. it's like autumn all over again, and in case you haven't read the, like, 4 years's worth of posts on here, i will let you in on a li'l secret - i heart autumn. with a vengence.

there's this guy sitting in the corner here having a subway and a coke, which of course you can do at the bux because they don't give a wackityfrack if you bring in outside food. at the beanery, there is a sign on the door and more little signs posted on the wall at each table: NO OUTSIDE FOOD. whatevs, mean bean. the draconian coffee shop.

this guy here? in the corner? with the sammich? he looks like adam levine, who (in case you are not aware) is the lead singer of maroon5 and also is on the show "the voice" which we have been watching a bit and which has given me a whole new appreciation for blake shelton, christina aguilara, ceelo green, and adam levine. they are more funny and more talented and more hard working than i gave any of them credit for.

what? not interested? well, why in the wackityfrack are you still reading the, hmmm?

i heard an interesting story on NPR today about fairness in education and whether true equity is achieved by running all the kids through the college prep track. this is american high school today - all college prep. some kids aren't cut out for college, but the guy on NPR said if we were to go back to having vocational schools, we'd see a lot of the minorities and poor kids at those schools and while that might be perceived as inequitable, how fair is it that by putting all kids on the college track, we are robbing some of those kids of the skills and training they need to get a real job in the real world?

gnaw on that, why don'cha.

if you don't open the damn box, the cat'll be dead for certain.

we all agree the sky is blue and the grass is green and the sun is yellow and the moon is white, the dirt is brown, the blood is red, the flower is orange, the beady eyes of the bird are black, and the colours of the rainbow are the colours of the rainbow. we all agree that anything the same colour as grass is green and anything the colour of sky is blue and so on and so forth, and we all agree. we believe in the colours.

but green is only a name and blue and yellow and chartruese and magenta and heliotrope and indigo, all are names. my favourites are periwinkle and pine and silver and just hearing the names is enough to colour a picture in my mind of a periwinkle northern sky reflected in a silver lake surrounded by pine forests. there's a silver canoe and periwinkle rocky shore, and even the fire burns in periwinkle and pine, not in yellow or gold or anything warm at all. these are my favourites: periwinkle and pine and silver.

but even my favourites are flat words here on the page. and even if i pointed to my favourite colours and said, there! there, see? and there! even if i pointed, how do i know what you see?

we all agree that GRASS is GREEN, but what if i stole your eyes and looked through them and what you call GREEN is my PINK. would it make a difference? what if my green is your pink, my blue is your orange, my brown is your yellow, my red is your lavender. are we misunderstood? or, is understanding only at the level of the words and so if we all agree that GRASS is GREEN, we are in fact, understood. is there a GREEN that is beyond the word?

i pull a crayon from the box and i say, this is my least favourite: the cornflower blue. i have always hated cornflower blue. i steal your eyes and see what you see, and i see myself saying i hate cornflower blue, and lo! through your eyes, what i see is myself pointing to my beloved piney pine green.

what is a colour? what is a name?

american gods

just finished american gods by neil gaiman. that's a good book. thanks, mini-me! i recommend this book. it's a bit racy in a few parts but neither the sex nor the violence are gratuitous - they are truly integral to the story. it's a bit of a fairy tale. (or is it?) the only thing that bothered me is that the references run rampant, and i am sure i was missing them right and left. mini-me said let it go, but i am not built that way.

at the end of the book, mr gaiman thanks a couple folks for helping him rid the manuscript of stray and unintentional anglicisms. well, guess what, he didn't get rid of all of them. these were recurrences i noticed:

"anglicism" = "americanism"
"meant to" = "supposed to"
"packet of burger king fries" = "burger king fries"
"packet of cigarettes" = "pack of cigarettes"
"about" = "around"
"cleaning his teeth" = "brushing his teeth"

also, anyone who knows anything about america knows we worship health & fitness, and one more thing, if you don't like a purple car, just freaking repaint it, but hey, that's just little stuff. and, i am probably missing some significance of the purple car. anyway, anyone who can make rock city a serious dramatic focal point, well, that's some good writing right that there. conclusion: two thumbs up.



so, what's up next? i am thinking harry potter again. i always think i will regret reading hp again, and then i never do. why do i think i will regret it? i think i will be bored reading something i've already read. why don't i regret it? because those stories are rich, complex, with well-developed settings, and while the books aren't character studies per se, the characters are not flat. so? what's the problem? i have a whole stack of books waiting on me, for one thing. feels like a waste of good reading time to go back and reread. but then, i will never not only not read a fraction of all the books created, i will never read a fraction of the books i want to read. so, basically, who the fck cares?

books 2011

currently:
?? maybe harry potter, 1-7

complete:
american gods
[neil gaiman]
land of a hundred wonders
[lesley kagen]
swim to me
[betsy carter]
princess academy
[shannon hale]
the angels game
[carlos ruiz zafon]
they almost always come home
[christina ruchti]
lifeguard training manual
[red cross]
the broker
[john grisham]
queste
[angie sage]
the things we do for love
[kristin hannah]
physik
[angie sage]

hey, this only took me 20 mins to write. that's pretty good. wonder how many mistakes i made....

the other day i came right out and asked you a question. did anyone answer? no. here is the post, in case you forgot. why are you not answering?

in addition to people not answering me, i hate when the checkbook won't balance. well, to clarify: i hate when the checkbook is out of balance in the bank's favor. when it's out of balance in my favor, i just ignore it. i mean, i don't add that amount to my account, i just use my balance, which is smaller than the bank's balance. i figure that's pretty safe, that i won't overrrun. eventually it evens out. what gets to me is when i think i have more money than the bank thinks i have. this is pretty much impossible to ignore, completely occupies my mind, colors my world and the color is "sad".

i balance the checkbook nearly every week, and it's been balancing right along for several months until yesterday when i came up with a ton more money than the bank thinks i have. i researched the issue for way too long, tracked and matched and recalculated, didn't find a problem. i was thrown off for the rest of the day.

i woke up this morning thinking about it and talking about it. and, talking about it. and, apparently, talking about it. my old man was like, go to the bank, see if they can help.

huh. help.

so the bank opened at noon and i scurried right on down there and brought the 15-page printout of my excel spreadsheet checkbook register. the young banklady printed out the transactions from this weekend and said, well, you need to account for these. i said, i did - here. then, she printed out last week's transactions and resolved them against the register. check. check. check. she concluded by saying she would need to fax the records in to the home office and talk to her manager tomorrow and she'd give me a call, what's your number? i gave her my email address, because i hate phones.

i just feel so much better knowing the bank is on the case. my world is colored happy again. yes, there are bigger things to worry about than money, but i had a twisted childhood.

going home with bonnie jean

i really don't know how it is possible that my brigadoon equipment, that i pack away so carefully each year, gets spread all the fck over the entire basement storage area. but, it does. last year i could not find my sleeping bag so i purchased another. this year i found two. after a prolonged search i also recovered the cot sheets, blanket, mosquito netting, bungee cords, lap desk, brigadoon hoodie, rodeo togs, river togs, rainbow keds, and a completely wacked out bamboo ground cover which i believe at one time was the property of mini-me and after this season will become the permanent property of brigadoon.

i really want to pack light. really. rea. lly. but it just never seems to happen. firstly, it's a sleepaway camp. you have to bring your bedding and towels. that stuff takes up a lot of space. then, there are the shoes. working in the kitchen, we're required to wear closed-toed shoes and because being locked up in shoes all day makes my feet très unhappy, i need at least three pair to rotate. pluswise, must bring the hikers in case i get a chance to saddle up ol' bessie and go out on the trails. pluspluswise, seeing as how i've got my lifeguarding cert this year, i might get called upon to go along on river hikes, so must have river shoes. pluspluspluswise, OMG shower shoes. see? SHOES.

i would like to have 1 bin of linens, 1 bin of clothes, and 1 bin of other shizzle. three bins, plus the plastic drawers. (plastic compartments, not plastic pants.) plus, the big pillow. plus, the sleeping bag. plus, peshal. not going without ol' pesh and his poor slung-up arms.

i will also be bringing harry potter, which means i really must finish american gods - a very good book of which my inability to complete in a timely manner should not be taken as an indictment.

two sets

we started the class together:
two mamas and
two daddies amd
two brothers and
two sisters.
one of each per each to make a set.
mamadaddybrothersister.
like that. a set.

we started the class together, two sets.
we talked.
we learned the rules together, two sets.
we shared.
we absorbed the history together, two sets.
we grew.
we passed the tests together, two sets.
we laughed.

then one day it was our day,
a day for two sets,
to stand in front and pledge allegiance
to the others
and to ourselves.
and our pledge merged us into the others,
so we were no longer two sets
sidebyside,
instead we became like sugar
stirred into hot tea.
we dissolved.

cornucopia. what a mellifluous word.

leonard stern, one of the creators of mad libs and "get smart", died today. you will note that mr stern was a creator of funny things; therefore, his name is ironic. also, the stern is the back part of a canoe, the canoeass, if you will.

in honor of mr stern's passing, we shall play mad libs. the way you play mad libs is to provide a list of words by form, and then use those words to fill in a story. on account of grammer not being haved of import to much people nowadays, seemingly the youngfolk can't not hardly tell they're abverts from there nouts. however. you are not of the madding hoard, are ye now? no, ye are not. away we go!

you will need:
verb
indoor room
food
television show
gerund
adjective
boy's name
number
teacher
adjective
number
singular noun
animal
past tense verb
body part
adverb
exclamation
famous person

Last night, as I ___[verb]___ in the ___[room]___ eating ___[food]___ and watching ___[television show]___, the telephone rang. When I picked it up, I heard a ___[gerund]___ sound. It was my ___[adjective]___ friend ___[boy's name]___. He told me that he couldn't solve the ___[number]___ problems that ___[teacher]___ had assigned for homework.

I'm pretty ___[adjective]___ in math, so it took me only ___[number]___ minutes to figure out the answers. "These problems are easy!" I told him. "Use your ___[singular noun]___."

"It's broken!" he said. "I think my ___[animal]___ ___[past tense verb]___ over it."

"Then you'll just have to use your ___[body part]___!" I suggested ___[adverb]___.

"___[exclamation]___! You're a big help! The next time I need advice, I'll call ___[famous person]___," he shouted.

I don't know why ___[boy's name]___ was so mad. Did he want me to give him the answers?

-------------------------

there, wasn't that fun!

another wednesday

i have been sitting here for an hour, running a maintenance check on another computer, watching 'friends' and leno reruns, and staring at this screen wondering what you might want to hear about from me. i got nothing. so, you tell me - what do you want to hear from me?

now i am watching harry potter, so it's like brit-day around here.

law & order UK - who knew? i was flipping around the channels today and found this programme on the BBC america channel. it's in most ways exactly like the law & order shows in america - two detectives do their thing, their tough boss tells them to suck it up and work harder, they finally collect enough evidence, then the lawyers step in for the prosecution. so, it's the same in the pattern, but of course the details are completely different. the accents. the vocabulary. the relationships. the prejudices. the wardrobe. apparently in britain the barristers wear wigs and robes, looking for all the world like 18th century courtiers. why do they do that?

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The police who investigate crime, and the Crown Prosecutors who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

the thing that makes law & order work for so long, and also CSI, is that the episodes focus on the stories and not the characters. you really don't have to watch from week to week. you can watch in any order, usually. i mean, sometimes there'll be a two-parter, but usually you will get independent little stories. and, you can watch them years later, and they're still good. in fact, you can watch the UK version and it's good, too. well, except for the silly little wigs.

if the sun would go down just a wee tiny bit more, i would be able to see my screen more betterly.

when i read this in my email, i thought it said, "follow red book on dog face" which is intriguing. because it's probably too small for you to see, you'll just have to take my word for it - that's not actually what it says.

speaking of intriguing, last night we watched "the tourist" with angelina jolie and johnny depp. if there are two more beautiful people, well just point them out to me. huh? huh? that's what i THOUGHT. the problem with them is that they are icebergs. well, mr depp is more of a hermit crab, but ms jolie is definitely an iceberg. "the tourist" is intended to be an action romance with a touch of comedy and a mysterious twist. i'd put it more in line with "sherlock holmes" than, say, "die hard". mr depp can deliver, but he cannot carry ms jolie's part, too, and she's just not carrying her admittedly insubstantial weight. ms jolie is certainly nice looking, and she can summon up the tears, but her delivery is generally quite flat and her timing is poor. mr depp's timing is great, and his eyes are amazingly expressive (although he could do with a touch less eye liner) but his delivery is hit or miss. he's better with the comedy lines than the dramatic ones, and that's why his performance cannot carry hers. he has solo comedy bits, or perhaps he delivers certain lines comically, but playing it straight... well, i don't know. have you seen the movie? the more i consider it, the more i think he should have been allowed to let loose just a bit more with his comic ability because he's not so much comic-haha as comic-irony, and that's really what was called for here.

okay - bottom line: good movie, worth the pay per view fee, could have been better, but still fun.

our promise: your drink will be perfect, every time. if not, let us know and we'll make it right. (if not what? if that is not your promise? grammEr?)

i was going to sit outside, but it's quite warm and stifling, pluswise the best chairs are wide open, so let's just sit in those, k? there just aren't that many people that want coffee in the summertime and i totally don't get that. okay, what are you having, a strawberry creme frappuccino? there isn't even coffee in that!

look, at that girl walking in. young! and, with a baby in her arms, and lord does that child look for all the world like a frog. body all fat and flat there with it's poor baby arms and legs just splayed out all froglike. that girl's baby is a frog. maybe it is a prince, really, but right now it is a frog.

they never have bold here in the evenings. i guess they do in the city, but not here. they will do a pour over, but that's always a bit wonky, don't you think? oh, i forgot, you don't drink coffee. haha. so it's pike again and frankly, pike sucks, but did you see how the barista put my tall pike in a grande cup to leave plenty of room for the skim? yeah, maybe i can make it palatable.

those guys brought a chess set which is in equal parts cool and wankerish. so far they are doing performance ordering, and isn't it annoying. loud announcing of What Is Being Ordered and How Much It Costs and - omg - british accents. okay, as you know, i really don't have a problem with the brits but the fact that these guys are alternating brit and redneck, well, jeez. there's really nothing worse than a redneck chess player.

the clock is really ticking here. i only have a few mins and while it's nice to spend a few mins with you, jeez, the pressure is enormous. i wasn't going to stop by at all and i would have to say yes, i am wondering now if stopping was the right decision. yes, i know, wasting time talking about how little time we have. ironic!

shh! did you see that guy? i think he might be a serial killer! no, really. who in their right mind would wear those clothes. those shorts are doing something to the looks of his butt. he isn't a hunchback, he's a hunchbutt. ha! shh! he's looking over here - don't make eye contact!

ah, jeez - look at the time! i am supposed to get from here to there by 8, and it's like 10 till. i really need to go. sorry! i'll plan better next time. good to see you!

sink chat

this was on the shelf in the restroom at my work. screws, small metal plate, and those plastic caps you screw onto dangerous loose wire ends to tame them into safety. why was this stuff sitting on the restroom shelf? why? why? whyyyyyy?? was someone repairing the lighting? that would make sense. however. how often do things make sense? so. what else could it have been, eh? could have been... someone was in there changing clothes for yoga class, and in her bag was a handy electrical repair kit, which she carries around in case of a lighting emergency, and she removed the kit to get to her veebs which she was going to wear to yoga class, and she forgot to put the kit back in her bag, and now - oh, no! - she's somewhere in the dark becuase she didn't have the kit with her when the lights went out!

in other restroom news, here is a completely automatic restroom. sometimes you will see a restroom with pump soap and auto sinks or manual sinks and auto paper towels or whatever for a sort of mutant hybrid handwarshing experience. ugh. completely unsatisfying are the mutant hybrid handwarshings.



the end.

trailers for sale

my new eyeglasses arrived today, so i picked them up after work. i guess they look okay, but eyeglasses aren't specifically for "looks" - they are for "sees". these new ones are so far just okay, but not great, in the sees department. my Rx is the same, so it's not like i am going to notice a big diff with that, but the glasses are bigger than my old ones, so the shape of the lens is different and they sit differently on my face. i am actually seeing clearer, but simultaneously getting a headache. so, it's a bit that's-good-that's-bad, if you see what i mean.


after picking up the eyeglasses, i headed over to walmart because i had some free time on my hands because my old man's at the visitation for that cousin that got bit by a tick a couple days ago, remember? yeah, unhappy ending. why didn't i go to the visitation? because i am a cold hearted btch? perhaps. but see, here's the thing - i am not part of my old man's past. i am part of his present. these people are his past and they'll be all "back in the day!" and i'll be all, "yeah, i was in nusery school?" i would not want to make my old man go through explaining every story to me and have to bring me up to speed and include me in it all when he really just needs to share space with these particular people at this particular time. i bet you are surprised to learn i was actually thinking of him. and, yes, i quizzed him extensively on his wants and needs in the matter. i could write a book. so, bite me.

at walmart, i found several things to buy, and one thing so far i have discovered i will be taking back. i would tell you all about it but you were thinking poorly of me just earlier, so forget it.

i heard this today on NPR, but when i looked it up, the story was from 2008. what's up with that?

according to NPR, folks in the military are supposed to get a 20% discount on the local price of tobacco products, but they sometimes get up to 50%. that's subsidized with our tax dollars which is just super because then we also get to pay for their medical care. 40% of these folks who smoke started smoking after they joined up. most say they smoke to relieve stress, but the irony of tobacky is the only stress that it relieves is the stress it inspires. that's addiction.

what? where was i? oh, right addiction. sorry, lost my train of thought because i had to get up and ransack the house for a burt's bees. what? my lips are dry! sheesh.

did you know that a pack of smokes cost $12 in brooklyn? in other scary brooklyn news, junior revealed the other night that he'd really like to name his hypothetical future daughter "brooke lynn". i laughed, but he wasn't joking. ah, dear great creator of the earth and all its realms, help the poor unconceived child. brooke lynn. phew.

back to the tobacky in the military issue. NPR went on to remind us that smoking lessens one's stamina, which is of course an excellent physical trait for a soldier. smoking also slows healing, which again is great if you're in combat. and, by great, i mean not great. smoking lessens strength and endurance. super! and, here's one that i didn't know - smoking reduces one's manual dexterity. who knew? not i.

i have, per the title, since i heard it this morning, learned that this story appears to have originally aired on NPR in 2008. WELL THAT'S JUST GREAT, NPR. jeez! how'm i supposed to trust you when you're diggin' up old sht posting it like new? c'mon!!