Halfway There

At the end of the day, we'll have gotten through the first half of 2009. Tempus fugit.

Four Word Movie Review - Transformers 2

Glad I stayed home.

Oxy Clean

It's amazing how much airtime celebrity deaths get.

Family Visit

Family is coming to visit. Pics later.

Foto Phriday - Mystery in the City Edition

We went to an art show in downtown Capital City a couple of weeks ago. As we were wandering around downtown, we came across these items sitting on the sidewalk. They are a bottle of vodka and a makeup case with most of the makeup spilled out.

Son and GPop hypothesized that a drunken drag queen hobo was wandering around. I added that this hobo wandered the country solving crimes for people who couldn't otherwise afford private investigators. If only we could get an agent, we could pitch this for the fall lineup.

My Dinner With ?

If I could have dinner with anyone who lived in the past 100 years, I think my non-family list would start with Mark Twain, although I'll have to change the timeframe starting next year.

What about your dinner? Who would be at the table for you?

If we opened it up to 1000 years, who would be joining you?

Angry Language Guy - Do Not Try This at Home

Yesterday, on my way home, I heard this metaphor on the radio in a discussion of Iranian politics.  This metaphor is not just tortured; we have waterboarded it 187 times, stuck bamboo shoots under its nails, and have forced it to watch Adam Sandler's oeuvre with each movie cut short by ten minutes so there's no chance of plot resolution.

"Sacred red lines have been crossed, which will be difficult to put back in the bottle."

Two Remarks

1. I was feeling like I needed some physical activity yesterday after a long day of meetings, so I ended up push-mowing for about two miles.  One of the stretches was a straight shot that I counted 148 paces times 14 passes, which accounts for more than one of those miles.
   
2. I am very bad about predicting which posts will generate the most comments.
   

Juxtapositions Are FUN!

The other night, as we were watching something on teevee, we saw a commercial for Seasonique, a new medication that aims to reduce the number of a woman's periods to four a year instead of twelve or thirteen a year. Why is it that those commercials always seem like they're four minutes long instead of thirty seconds?

The next commercial was for Taco Bell. They were advertising their new Volcano Taco.

What a disturbing segue.

Happy Falker Satherhood

Be sure to wish the dads in your life a Happy Falker Satherhood.

Happy Fun Pride Day

This weekend is the Capital City Pride Celebration, where QLBTG(etc.) people come together for hundreds or thousands of reasons and throw a giant party in Capital City. Many of the reasons revolve around demonstrating for civil rights. We will be out of town, so we won't be attending any of the festivities.

I've always described the Pride Celebration as twenty thousand people who are all trying to avoid one other person.

Happy Pride Weekend!

Foto Phriday

This is a picture of a part of our back yard we rototilled up last night. This part of the lawn wasn't doing too well, so we tilled some topsoil in, and we'll be putting down grass seed and straw tonight weather permitting. The blue thing behind the tilled area is a garbage can I put there to show the scale.

Music Selection

If you're looking for angsty, yet still grown up, try The Cash Brothers.

Why All the Short Posts Lately

Work has been...

Well...

Let's just say that we went through a reorganization. I no longer have to worry about managing people. I am an Individual Contributor now. This will take some getting used to. Much of my energy lately has been devoted to worrying about whether I would continue to be employed, and that question has been answered, so here we are.

Back to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

Any Suggestions?

Just saw a license plate that read SHTBNR. I can't think of a non-naughty interpretation. My mind keeps wanting to put an R between the H and the T.

Scootin' Right Along

I was shopping at a local big-box (not Wal-de-Mart) store for some dinner ingredients (tuna casserole, if you must know) last night, and I noticed that there were A LOT of people in courtesy scooters shopping for groceries.

Demotion

I had a dream the other night that I had been demoted back to my mall job from 16 years ago. It was a bit distressing to be the 38-year-old guy trying to fit in with the 22-year-olds in the dream, but hey. I wonder if this will replace my recurring dream of realizing that I have a final exam in a class I've never attended or the dream where a little-used clause from my college years allowed the college to recall me into service as a resident advisor.

Beyond the Milky Way

Many of us were over at Mandy's. She made dessert.

Mandy: I don't think this is helping our Waist Away at Work effort.

GDad: I don't think anything I've done in the past two weeks is helping our Waist Away at Work effort.

Mandy: Yeah. The members of the team want me to be more inspirational. I'm only the nominal leader. This is kind of a thing for self-starters. I suppose I could send out an e-mail every Friday. I guess it could say... [pause]

GDad: Every calorie you eat makes Baby Jesus cry?

[general laughter]

Heather: [snorts, chokes, and runs to bathroom with hands over face]

Eggbert: Great. You made her snort brownie out of her nose.

Son: Yeah, and I have to LIVE with him.

Unintentional Black Humor

Son's Older Brother just texted me. For reference, we'll say his girlfriend is named Tausha. Also, for those of you for whom texting is an arcane art reserved for the technorati, "gpa" means "grandpa" in this context.

taushas gpa passed last night and they asked me to be a pawbearer at his funeral

I had to compose myself for a moment before I replied.

Foto Phriday - Pore Speling

This was from a teevee advertisement for some event happening on SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY at the Whatever Arena.

Even Another One

Walking in from outside
Through a port three feet wide,
That's a doorway!

By Any Other Name

This is a very pretty purple and yellow flowered weed growing near Rusty's sidewalk.

Pedal Powered

Here's a video of a guy who appears at pretty much every open air festival in Capital City. He rides a specially decked out bicycle that has an electronic keyboard on the handlebars and a speaker and battery pack on the back. He plays the piano, taps a tambourine with his foot, and smiles a giant grin at passers-by. I don't know why I'm so amused by this.

Four Word Movie Review - Up

Option 1:
Pixar does it again.

Option 2:
Six minutes in: tears.

Option 3:
Computer generated emotional rollercoaster.

Option 4:
See it in 3D.

Not Usually on the Menu

I went out after work with some coworkers for a happy hour at a place that specialized in margaritas. Most of the other people at the table had margaritas. The margarita menu was much larger than the usual "regular" and "strawberry" varieties.

GDad: Wow. Look at all the colors. [pointing] What flavor is that one?

Coworker: It's something you wouldn't usually expect in a margarita.

GDad: Beef?

Coworker: [blink]

Comes Great Responsibility

The Oprah has been dethroned as Most Powerful Celebrity by Angelina Jolie. Ms. Jolie can now kill you with her thoughts. The Oprah is reduced to killing with purple lightning from her fingertips.

Foto Phriday - Lycan? No! Lichen!

There are three different colors of lichen growing on the big oak tree in my back yard. Here's a close-up.

Seriously, Don't Call Us. We'll Call You.

I have been on the Do Not Call list since literally day one. Last night, I got a call from some scammer vacation place. It's funny to me that when you go on the offensive with them, they go nuclear. I left this post on callferret.com...

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Just got a call from 407-933-2678. It was some spiel for a Florida vacation. I pressed 1 to get a rep. I asked the rep how his company can robocall a number on the Do Not Call list. The rep got very abusive and threatening. He told me to hang up. I told him to hang up first. The rep started pressing buttons on his phone. What he didn't realize is that compared to the crappy movie I was watching at the time (Alone in the Dark with Christian Slater), this call was actually quite entertaining.

Old Timey Wimey Ball

Here's a picture of a reenactor of old time canal keepers. Notice the electric speaker.

Out of Shape

I've been a bit of a slug for a while, and I recently decided that I need to look thinner in photographs. I've never actually watched Friends, but I've heard this exchange before...

Monica: (when watching the prom video) "The camera adds ten pounds!"
Chandler: "..So how many cameras were actually on you?"

I suppose there are also health issues, blah blah blah.

Anyway, if you combine our back yard and the neighbors' to the south, you get a pretty sizable chunk of land. When I got home last night, I walked a bit more than a mile around the back. I was able to feed the one horse that was close enough to visit, and I got a little bit of heavy breathing going.

If you start at the green dot, follow the yellow line (brick road?) three times around, then continue to the red dot, you'll have walked a mile. You'll also be about as far away from my house as you can and still be on the neighbor's property. You might as well finish the lap.

Mr. Lastname Goes to Washington

Son's eighth grade class trip is this week. They went to Washington, D.C. He called last night. It sounded like a lot of hubbub.

Yet Another One

M of M&M gave me the idea for this one...

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With a pig latin beat,
She sells "it" in the street.
That's an ore-whay!