Another Worst Phrase

"The other side does it, too."

That doesn't excuse you, buddy.

Foto Phriday - Doors Reused

This is a door from the shed GPop and Rusty rebuilt.  I just gave it to coworker Kathy so she could use the weathered wood on an outdoor project.

Prodigal Son

More peripatetic than prodigal, I suppose.

He returns from sunny Florida today.  Hooray!

Nibbled by Ducks

And upon returning to work, there is a pile of things for me to do that probably wouldn't have arisen had I been here, instead of with friends for their family process.  No trouble.  I'm a big boy.  And someday, Nanonerd will be, too.

Final!

Friends Baldo and Geekina McNerdy just finalized the adoption of their son, whose name we discussed.  I'll go with Nanonerd.  As he gets older, it will change to Micronerd, Centinerd, Decinerd, then just Nerd.  Although I may stop at Decinerd just to clarify generations.

The judge who presided over the hearing to finalize the adoption was obviously having a ball.  He had that wedding preacher vibe - "We're creating a family... lots of love... blah blah blah... forever."  I wish there were typographical symbols to indicate "humorous paraphrase" rather than "direct quote."

One of the judge's rules was that children, even those who are six months old, must wear shoes.  Some time back, my mom gave me a bag of stuff of mine she had lying around her house - pictures, programs from performing arts things, and some other miscellanea.  One of the items was a pair of baby shoes.

I asked Geekina if she would permit Nanonerd to wear those shoes, because I would be honored to be a part of this in a subtle way.  She said that it would be fine, so Nanonerd was able to wear my shoes that are over 40 years old.  The judge was suitably impressed, and I'm glad I didn't have those shoes bronzed.  Or plastinated.

Lousy Smarch Weather

I love this state, where we can get 40-degree variations in temperature from one day to the next.

Worst Phrase in the World

"Agree to disagree."

Song of the South

Son just left on the bus with his marching band for a trip to sunny Florida, where they will be marching in the evening parade at Disney World.

Foto Phriday - It's a Gas

Saw this when I pulled up to the pump.  I assume it was a big truck using diesel fuel.

Foto Thursday - Wrist

On Saturday, I packed up some toiletries to take with me on an overnight visit to my dad's.  The toothbrush case slipped out of my hands, and as I tried to catch it, it caught the skin of my wrist and made a cut.  I swear that I wasn't trying to do myself in.

This reminds me of my second-favorite Dorothy Parker poem, "Résumé."

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live. 

Click to embiggen.

Mr. Evil J. Peanut, part deux

And his sentiments...

Happy Equinox

The spring equinox (northern hemisphere for you folks down south) is here.  Huzzah!

Mr. Evil J. Peanut

My new artwork (part 1)...

Foto Sunday

The piano for our Corporate Choir has this sticker.  The serial number shown does not appear to be a valid one for Baldwin pianos, according to sites I found on Teh Intarwebz.  Maybe it's some kind of collector's item.

Foto Saturday

Sticker I saw on a walk in Capital City.

Actual Friday

I have been under the mistaken impression that yesterday turned from Thursday to Friday around lunch time, and I couldn't shake the feeling.  That made getting up this morning rather difficult.

Foto Phriday

The ball from yesterday.

Trap, Again

Yesterday, I approached the elevator bank in our building.  As I walked up, an elevator was closing.  Just before the doors shut, an orange rubber ball rolled out into the lobby.  I muttered, "It's a trap!" then I picked it up and put it on, but not in, a trash can.

I got into the next elevator with a stern looking woman.  A guy approached and got on the elevator before the doors closed.  He looked at me and inquired, "What was that ball for?"

I replied, "It came out of the previous elevator.  I think it was a trap, like the time I found the gold-wrapped candy bar."  He laughed, but looked slightly concerned at my sanity.  I love messing with the norms, and one of the tools in that particular toolbox of madness is mentioning Noodle Incidents to people with no contextual background.

Happy Pi Day

Pi....

Cosine, secant,
Tangent, sine!
Three point one four one five nine!
Gooooooooooo PI!

Scamtastic

I've been getting so many calls from "Rachel of Card Services" or the people who are giving me a cruise in exchange for answering a quick survey that I've become pretty suspicious of all phone calls.  Someone called today with exciting news about a [garbled] benefit my employer offers, so please call this number.  I was a bit irate and wanted to find these people to turn them into the FCC.

I called it and got "Jessica."  The greeting was something like, "Thank you for calling, this is Jessica.  How may I help you?"  Actually, it was more like, "Thankyouforcallingthisisjessicahowmayihelpyou?"  I affected a slight redneck accent and played a bit dumb.

I described the phone call and said my answering machine cut out for a second when I was listening to it, so I didn't know why my employer wanted to call them.  I was prepared for her to start asking for personal details about me for identity theft purposes.  For the purposes of this call, I was going to be the pseudonymous John Thompson, and I would have two jobs, so when she asked what my employer was, I would be able to return her question with a question - "Which one?"

Then she said, "I'll pull up your information - you have Big Insurance Company with your employer, and this is a health coaching program paid in full by your employer."

Ah.  "Well, Jessica, I have to admit, I thought this was a scam of some sort.  I am actually GDad Lastname, and I already have other information on the health coaching issue.  Thanks for the explanation.  Have a great day!"

Monday Monday

The local big-box-not-Wal-de-Mart store is a 24/7 place.  On Monday mornings, I stop by to pick up a batch of bagels for the week's breakfast at work.  There is a guy who mans the self-checkout lanes whose nametag reads John C.  I believe the C stands for Cloudcuckoolander.

Last week's John C. rambling was about lotteries and odds of winning and such.  This week's thought excursion was a treatise on why he wanted to have a milkshake made with eggs, which are the only source of protein which the body can completely absorb, and this sort of milkshake will help him bulk up, because he needs to get more muscular, but I, the customer, look like I could just bulk up by walking past a weight bench, and boy is it nice that the weather has turned warm, but the rain forecast is a bit dreary, even though we had a great day yesterday, what with the sun and warmth, and hey where are you... have a great day!

Four Word Movie Review - John Carter

Martians are Southern Californians.

You Could Really Be a Beau Brummel, Baby

We went out to see John Carter this afternoon.  Son got some movie passes for completing a driver safety online course suggested by my insurance company for teen drivers, and they expire in a few months, so we decided to use them on a family movie.  Each pass was good for "up to $12" per ticket, one pass per ticket.  At this theater, for a 3D movie, the tickets were $11.50.  Crikey.

Son has recently discovered that dressing up has some benefits - namely, people tend to take you a bit more seriously.  Book by its cover and all.  So even though we were simply going out to a movie and a late lunch, no dates or romance, Son decided to go full black suit, vest, and tie.  He looked quite dashing.

That being said, Son did take a 30-minute shower, depleted the hot water, and kept deferring a response to "take out the trash" until he had finished his multistage primping.  GPop was ready to burst a blood vessel about the trash, but to his credit, he didn't yell.

Similarities

Corn Nuts
Ingredients: corn, corn oil, salt.

Fritos
Ingredients: corn, corn oil, salt.


Mmmmm... salty corn

=====
UPDATE: the Corn Nuts web site indicates that they now use partially hydrogenated soybean and/or canola oil.  Boooooo....

Laggard

It took a LONG time to wake up the boy this morning.  He's been struggling with a cold, and I don't think he slept well last night.  I finally resorted to (gently) manhandling him (just shy of 200 lbs) into the bathroom and into the shower.  He finally achieved sentience enough to finish the process of prepping for a shower and frobbing the controls to make water come out.

To his credit, even though his throat hurt and he had very little voice, he didn't try to avoid school.

Post Super Tuesday

People in quite a few states will now have a brief respite from political robocalls.  Huzzah!

Also, in the great state of Ohio, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry totaled about 14,000 votes between them, despite having dropped out of the race quite some time ago.

Dream Log - Tuesday

I dreamed that the Star Trek parody video was turned into a musical stage production.  The opening number was very similar to the opening of The Muppet Show, where the actors marched across the stage singing something very much like the Muppets theme.  When they got to the line, "It's time to dress up right," the character playing the Klingon screamed the line, which stopped the number cold, then made the actors scuttle off stage, looking alarmed.

Proof of my Film Career

Here is a blurry photo of the cast and crew of the recent Star Trek parody I helped create.

Happy Birthday

We went to a birthday party to celebrate the proximal birthdays of Mr. Mandy and Eggbert Terwilliger.  Mandy and Mr. Mandy's daughter RoBet is firmly in rugrat stage, and Baldo and Geekina McNerdy's son is a fine little crib critter. 

We played Munchkin and Dominion in groups, and the funniest thing of the evening that I observed was when one of the Munchkin cards required me to Rock-Paper-Scissors with Geekina, neither of us could agree on whether it's 1-2-DISPLAY or 1-2-3-DISPLAY.  We went back and forth several times until Mandy nearly fell off her chair with laughter.

A good time was had by all.

Lucas Magic

GPop and I went to see Star Wars Ep 1 in THREE DIMENSIONS today.  I know that there are a lot of people who swear that there was no episode 1, but I find the movie to be entertaining and mostly consistent with the rest of the saga, midichlorians aside.

The observation that really floored me, though, was the 3D-ness of the film looked like it had been baked in from the beginning.  I was fearing one of those 3D effects you see in the Magic Eye creations where it looks like several flat layers in a box.  Instead, it looked like it had been natively filmed that way.  Wow.  Next we'll see some old Shirley Temple movie colorized and expanded into three dimensions.

Foto Phriday - More Gum

Another gum spot.  I submit that this one looks like a pig.

Word Verification Name

A word verification thingy I saw the other day looks like a cool name - Engie Ningete.