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Get up, get up, get out of here... (Take a Book For Charity, 2)
2009-04-16 15:46:00
McHale Shaw is recovering from surgery. His Mom, Angie, reported he and his brother Mateo and doing well. She also shared, on the Caring Bridge Website, this story from the day before surgery:One last thing we forgot to tell you - Tuesday, the day before McHale's surgery...I took the boys to the boys for a walk and to the nearby playground. I was alone, so since they can't walk -I put them both in the swings. Mateo looked at me and asked to go on the slide....hmmm....impossible with just me. There were a bunch of toddlers there so he asked time after time to go and play and to go on the slide...then McHale started asking to go play. As much work as this playground project is, it was a huge reminder why this playground is so important not only for Mateo and McHale but for every child.The more I read about Mateo and McHale Shaw, and their parents, the more I become grateful for all the good luck I've had, and the more I want to help them out. Which is why today I did another in...
More About: Charity , Book

He may also drive a Vauxhall. That's a classy-sounding kind of car, isn't
2009-04-16 15:33:00
I had to spend some time with a friend recently, a guy who doesn't know me very well but who is nice enough. We got to talking about cars, and car troubles, and I was casting about for something... anything... to say about that.My goal in life, I should mention, is to have something to say on every topic that comes up in conversation, whether that be quantum mechanics, the race for mayor in Albuquerque, or, in this case, car repairs. And not just any old thing, either, something intelligent to say.I fell short in this case. I was trying extremely hard to come up with something to say as he was talking about how he fixes up his cars and does his own repairs, and what I came up with is this:That Reese Witherspoon sure bakes a mean brownie, huh?So, um... fail. But he kept on talking and telling me how I could fix my own car if I wanted to, how it was easier than it looks and it saves money and everything, and he finishes up with: "So whatta you drive, a BMW? That's no problem. ...
More About: Drive , Vauxhall

Starting Tonight, I Put The Hurt On The Boy And Middle -- Metaphorically Sp
2009-04-15 22:02:00
With the ending of my library crusade, I need something else to occupy my time, and work clearly is not going to cut it.That's why tonight, The Septathlon begins: a some-holds-barred athletic competition between me, The Boy, and Middle .The Septathlon has its roots in the ongoing rivalry The Boy and I engage in, a rivalry that typically manifests itself in t-shirt bets, but every now and then busts out into actual physical competition. Most recently, we've been debating who is the more athletic of the two of us, and he claimed that he was, by far. So we began discussing having some sort of event to sort this out for once and for all, and finally settled on a competition where each of us would choose three events and fight it out.Then Middle wanted in, too, so we let her in, and decided that Middle and I would each choose two events, and The Boy could choose three, with The Boy going first. We settled on tonight to begin the event.So tonight, at about 8:30, we will do Septathlon...
More About: Hurt , Tonight

Plan E is advertise on Craig's List for a new garage door.
2009-04-15 21:49:00
Plan A for fixing our garage door opener was get the Brother In Law to do it. Then I found out that the Brother In Law hurt his arm fixing his own garage door opener, so it seemed in poor taste to ask him to fix it... at least until he heals.Plan B was fix it myself, which, because I'm not sure what's wrong with it and because unplugging it and plugging it back in didn't seem to have any effect, morphed almost immediately into Plan C, which is park outside the garage.All this because the right-side garage door, my garage door, stopped working. I've looked it, and I even called the manufacturer to look at it, and we're all stumped. "Call someone else," they suggested. (Thanks a lot, warranty guy!) And "Call someone else" was Plan A... so you can see where that left me.I'm left, as a result, high and dry -- and I wish it were otherwise. I wish, for example, that I lived in Texas, because as I was googling around trying to find someone to call to fix my garage door opener, I...
More About: Garage , List , Plan , Door , Advertise

Ninety Four: Part Twelve: Wherein I Run After The Vice President, And Beco
2009-04-15 04:18:00
Everyone has one year in their life that has a greater impact on them than any other year. Mine was 1994. Once a week, I'll recap that year. This is part twelve; click here for the table of contents. I've been looking back at this little project and the thing that jumps out at me is how little can remember about Washington, D.C., and how unsure I am of the memories that I do have.I wish that I'd kept the red notebook, the notebook that I kept my journal in, the one that I wrote in pretty much every single day from January through about October of 1994. I can remember, perfectly, the day I threw it out. I was going through some boxes of stuff that Sweetie and I had put into the garage of the apartment we first rented when we got married. The apartment was pretty small, and most of the space we had was occupied by hand-me-down furniture and the three older kids, plus the hamsters that I'd bought them for Christmas one year. So a bunch of stuff was kept in the garage that we...
More About: President , Part , Vice President , Vice , Twelve

Just don't enter so much that you make ME lose. Be cool about this, will
2009-04-15 03:52:00
We went last year to Florida, and we'll probably go again this year -- after all, we all loved Florida, and it gives me a chance to visit my brother Matt, and staying in Florida presents pretty much the best of all possible vacation worlds, in that there's tons of stuff to do, and tons of that stuff is also free.When you vacation with kids, you learn quickly that you've got to plan out every moment of every day, and you learn even more quickly that there's never enough money. Which means throwing in as much free stuff to do as possible.That's why when we go this year, we'll stay in Kissimmee: It's got all the criteria we look for: Close to Matt (But not too close, so we don't bug him) and a lot of free, cool stuff to do.Like fishing. That picture at the start of this post is from the Kissimmee area, and I took one look at it and thought "I've got to try that." It looks peaceful, it looks fun... it looks free. A rod and a line and a lake and you've got entertainment ...
More About: Cool , Make , Enter

I'll invoke the "My Aunt's Dog Theorem" and declare myself correct (What's
2009-04-14 21:43:00
I used to, before iPods and the Internet came around, get most of my new music from the radio, and I used to collect a lot of my new music by having a cassette tape in my stereo, ready to tape. I'd sit by the stereo, reading or doing homework, and when a song came on that I thought I wanted to tape, I'd hit the button and record it.Which I'm pretty sure was legal, and also I'm pretty sure it's way past the statute of limitations on. But that's how I got today's song, which is "Pepper" by The Butthole Surfers. That was back when radio stations existed that would occasionally play a song by a group named The Butthole Surfers, mostly on Sunday mornings when all right-thinking people were in church, not listening to the radio, so complaints to the FCC were less likely.What I Thought It Was About: A lot of teen angst and screaming guitars and a slow, ponderous beat: I assumed it was a depressing version of Dawson's Creek, set to song. Preppies would have Dawson's Creek to ...

"Sue them into dust" is a legal term. In Latin, it would be "Quid Voce Su
2009-04-14 21:33:00
There's all these commercials on TV right now for a variety of car warranty and car insurance programs and the like, and each time I see them I think to myself That's the next wave of clients coming into my office -- people upset because they bought a car warranty from someone on TV, then had a problem with their car and couldn't get the warranty to cover it.I know that's what tends to happen, because it happened to me. When I bought "Zippy," my old Ford Festiva, I got suckered into one of those extended warranty plans that covered "everything" I was told, and I paid a lot of money for it. Not long after that, Zippy developed engine trouble and I took it to the mechanic."It's the serpentine belt," he told me. To which I said, "What's that?""It's the belt that drives all your engine parts," he said.Which made me happy, because I had an extended warranty that covered not only "everything" but things in the "drive train." So I called the dealership and asked to have the warr...
More About: Legal , Latin , Term

This is a serious artistic endeavor here. (Says You)
2009-04-14 15:28:00
Time for another installment of the things you said about the things I said:Everybody likes to get feedback on what they do, don't you agree? That's why I love it when people comment, and that's why I try to post the comments to reply to them or otherwise acknowledge them.Sometimes, though, I worry that it's not so much what I'm saying as it is the pictures that accompany the posts. Take the comment "Anonymous" left after I posted Jensen Ackles as "Sweetie's Hunk of The Week, 8:":Noooo!thats a manip ...you need real pictures http://i41.tinypic.com/1z4vpfc.jpg ;) You can see that Anonymous was moved by my thoughtful and wry commentary, can't you? Don't get me wrong, though: I love the fact that people read, and I would in no way cynically try to increase my readership by sprinkling picture of hunky guys around a post for no reason.I also realized, in going back to find that post, that I've horribly misnumbered the "Sweetie's Hunks of the Week," so that there's a coupl...
More About: Endeavor , Artistic

I will be Magnamimous ... Magnanminous... A Good Guy In Victory (I Fought T
2009-04-13 21:41:00
I have been fighting the library over their claim that I did not return two DVDs, and I intend to win. Part 1 of this is here; Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here. This email arrived at 12:42 P.M. today: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priori...
More About: Victory , Good

We might even tell the older kids where our new house is located. Maybe...
2009-04-13 21:35:00
More and more, Sweetie and I are thinking about the next house we'll live in. As the older kids move on and out (Oldest is on her own, and Middle is going to college in the fall, with The Boy to follow next year) we're thinking we don't need such a big house, and we might upgrade in new-ness and downgrade in size.And so we spend a lot of time driving around and looking at houses, but each one has a flaw in it, and the flaw is that, for each of the houses we see out there for sale, it's somebody else's house. They're for the most part perfectly fine, even great, houses, but they're not our dream home, they're somebody else's dream home.And I'd like my own dream home. (And Sweetie's, of course.)Then I got to reading these Schumacher Homes Reviews and thought "Maybe they're the place to go with for a builder." One of the reviews said this:You see, my family rules. We are a force to be reckoned with. And, we sure as heck couldn?t be caught in a home that made us lesser t...
More About: House , Kids , New House

It's WYSVOTTNF Week! (First Thoughts)
2009-04-13 15:40:00
I have decided to invent a week of my own. This week, specifically. Although that's not the right way to say it. I didn't invent the week of April 13-20. That week, I've learned, was invented by Samuel Morey, who, also invented the steam-powered toaster -- an invention which has been wrongly attributed to Ferdinand Verbiest, if "being mentioned on a World of Warcraft message board" = "attribution."Samuel Morey I assume sat back one day with his steam-powered toast and thought we need a week between April 12 and April 21, and so he invented one. Ah, genius.I have now gone Samuel one better, by deciding that this week is going to be, from now on, Wear Your Sweater Vests One Last Time 'til Next Fall Week , which we can abbreviate to the easily-said W.Y.S.V.O.T.T.N.F. Week. So all this week, I'll be wearing my sweater vests one last time until next fall, and you do that, too.
More About: Thoughts

Books In Space? It's Take A Book For Charity (1)
2009-04-12 13:59:00
Someone once said "All charity begins at home." Or maybe someone SHOULD have said that. Or maybe I just said that. Hang on... Imagine a person getting up and walking somewhere to check on something, like people used to do before Google... Apparently, the person that said that was "American Muslims," saying it to Obama, judging by Google results. Anyway, with that in mind, I'm turning to my long-standing desire to help out Mateo and McHale Shaw, and coupling that with my longstanding desire to write, and I am starting my "Take A Book For Charity " program, in which I will offer a copy of my book "Eclipse" to various people or groups and ask that they do something spectacular or interesting with it, then return it to me for auctioning off, with the proceeds of the book auction going to help out Mateo and McHale Shaw, the two little boys who defied the odds doctors gave them at birth and who serve as inspirations to us all. Here's the first try, the email I sent NASA this morn...
More About: Books , Space

Wishing All This Week At Windows (Sunday's Poem 12)
2009-04-12 13:44:00
Do You Want Affidavits?by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)There's a hole in the bottom of the sea.Do you want affidavits?There's a man in the moon with money for you.Do you want affidavits?There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you.There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you.There are--anything else?Speak now--for now we stand amid the great wishing windows--and the law says we are free to be wishing all this week at the windows.Shall I raise my right hand and swear to you in the monotone of a notary public? this is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."__________________________________ __________________________An "affidavit" is a sworn statement. This is the first, and only, poetic use of the word "affidavits" I've ever seen.True fact: Over 1/2 of the lawyers I talk to use the word "affi-david." As though you're swearing out a Dave.
More About: Windows , Week , Poem , Wishing

You'll love the sound effects in this post.
2009-04-12 13:30:00
The one downside I have to doing my many home-fix-it projects is that I have no flashlight. I've never had a flashlight, mostly because I think of flashlights as being a tool ordinarily needed only by burglars and by guys in protective suits searching the woods for ET.That's what I think, at least, until I've got the shower disassembled or I'm under the sink and I can't see a danged thing, and I've got no flashlight and I'm reduced to having the kids stand in strategic locations holding mirrors so that I can angle some of the daylight in, and I always think "Why not just get a flashlight?"Thus, I am excited to have found the miniature streamlight fashlights over on Optics Planet. While Optics Planet has about 600 bazillions of these flashlights (the toughest, most cost-effective kind around, I bet) including kinds for law enforcement and fire and rescue and hunters, the mini-keychain flashlight is perfect for me. I can put it into the toolbox (right next to the Emergency B...
More About: Love , Post , Sound , Effects

Quote of the Day, 22:
2009-04-12 01:07:00
"That's how you know you did a really good job: You have pieces left over."-- Me.That's what I explained to The Boy after I successfully, and on the first try fixed the downstairs shower this afternoon. It had devolved into an unholy mess down there: it never fully shut off and the water temperature was uncontrollable, resulting in this morning's near-shower, in which I tried in vain to wash up in a scorchingly-hot trickle that ran down the side of the shower.So this afternoon, hopped up on a giant peanut-butter-chocolate Easter egg, I turned off the water, de-installed the old shower handle and shower head, drove out to the hardware store and picked up new fancy shower parts -- you know, the kind of shower parts that would be used by English royalty if English royalty got their shower parts at Home Depot -- and got them installed, all in less than 2 1/2 hours. (Two hours, 24 minutes, to be exact. But traffic was bad.)And the shower worked and I didn't, as it turned out, nee...
More About: Quote Of The Day , Quote

The popcorn vacuuming will count as billable hours.
2009-04-12 00:56:00
Well, there's pretty much no way I'm ever going to get anything done at work again.I wonder how productive the world was BEFORE the Internet? It's hard enough to pretend to work when there's all these great blogs and music to download and webcomics and things to keep up with. But now that I can Watch movies online, it's all over for my career. (Such as it was...)There's a new site called "MyMovees.com" that lets you Watch movies and TV shows online, for free. TV shows like "House," which I always want to watch at home, but I get too distracted by the Babies and by my books and my guitar and the yardwork and all, and so I never watch it at home.Or shows like "Californication," which I can't watch at home, because we don't get HBO at home. Now, though, I don't have to watch them at home. I can watch them online, which means I can watch them at work. And it's not like it's totally unproductive. I do need to watch the shows, and some of the movies and shows you can wa...
More About: Popcorn , Count , Hours

Sweetie's Hunk of the Week, 9:
2009-04-11 13:25:00
The Hunk of The Week : Rick Springfield. (No, that's not a typo.)You/Sweetie Know Him As: Sweetie, at least, knows him as the singer of 80% of the five new songs she downloaded this week, 4 songs that include "I Get Excited," but don't, for some reason, include "Jessie's Girl." You may also know him as "That guy who sang that song who turns out to still be alive."I know him as: The guy who sings "Jessie's Girl." About that song: I swear, for a long time, I thought the lyrics went: You know I wish that I was Jessie's Girl. I never understood that song. But he did at least include the line But the point is probably moot. That line is 97% more intelligent than anything else ever in a rock & roll song.Thing That Makes You Go Hmmm About Him: On Rick's official website, if you can get past the fact that he's got an album of lullabies coming out, there's a timeline that includes this entry: 1959 Rick becomes interested in history. Plays "gladiator" in backyard in Eng...

If you're looking for work, I've got some.
2009-04-11 13:15:00
Doesn't the best advice sound basic and common sense once you hear it, making you think oh, sure, I knew that, but you didn't know that -- that's why it's good advice. It's something you overlooked and then heard and thought well, that makes sense.Advice like the idea I found today: Before you hire someone to do home repairs, make sure they've got a listing in your local yellow pages.That's awesome advice, because if the person you're hiring is not listed in the yellow pages, odds are they're not a very good business. They may be a fly-by-night operation, they may be scam artists, whatever the reason, no listing = red flag. And do you want red flags surrounding someone who is working on your house? You do not.I got that advice from Anderson Comfort Systems, LLC, the place that's listed on this Omaha HVAC website I stumbled across while looking for some people to do a little work on OUR house. Anderson Comfort Systems has all kinds of good little tidbits on that site, ...
More About: Work

Mixtape: "Is It Appropriate To Wish Someone A Happy Easter Given How We Got
2009-04-10 22:20:00
What better way to end the week on Good Friday than with a religious-themed mixtape. Remember when I asked the question Does God Have A Sense of Humor? My answer to that is I sure hope so, because otherwise I'm going to have to hear about some of the songs on this Mixtape on Judgment Day, and I'm pretty sure I'll already be taking up an inordinate amount of time that day, not the least because way way back when, my sister and I invented "High Fives For Jesus," which were more or less what they sounded like: whenever we wanted to thank God for doing something, or just emphasize how cool Jesus was, we'd do a high five for Jesus...Which was, I think, not as bad as this:But "High Fives For Jesus" were more or less plagiarizing this song in advance...... even though I didn't know about that song until Sweetie got me the Cheesecake Truck song on a CD for a Christmas present. By then, I had plenty of other Jesus songs in my library, like this one:Which I heard is being made into a...
More About: Easter , Happy

They even have wingtips. Whatever those are.
2009-04-10 22:14:00
I've got this theory:You can tell a lot about a person just by the name of the type of footwear they have on. Run into someone wearing a "flip-flop," and you'll expect them to be kind of wishy-washy and meek. Someone wearing a clog is likely to be dense and stubborn. And someone wearing a "Croc?" I'll leave that to your imagination.If my theory is widely accepted, (and why WOULDN'T it be?) then everyone's going to want to start shopping for Wolverine Boots, don't you think? That name... it's so tough and inspiring. A Wolverine-wearing person could easily beat up someone walking around in "Chuck Taylors." And that's even before you see or know anything about the boots. Then, if you go check out the Wolverine Boots for reals at MetBoots, you find out that they're even tougher-looking than they sounded: all leather and thick soles and strong strings and clips and clasps and pulls and stuff. The kind of boots worn by real men: Lumberjacks, carpenters, guys who work outsi...

That's Some Rule, That Rule VII E: (I Fought The Library, 4)
2009-04-10 15:39:00
I am fighting the library over their claim that I did not return two DVDs, and I intend to win. Part 1 of this is here; Part 2 is here.Part 3 is here.Lots of people may not realize it but in my day job I am a practicing lawyer. (Those "lots of people" include my boss and my co-workers, who frequently greet me with "What is it you do, again?")(When they're not greeting me by saying "You've got Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch stuck to your tie.")And just as they taught me in law school, lawyering is an honorable profession devoted to trying to find loopholes in rules so that I, personally, can benefit by someone else's oversight. Which is just what I did yesterday, when I went to the Middleton Public Library website and looked up their circulation policies.All public institutions have policies and rules and whatnot, because otherwise, how would the people that run them fill up their day? How much time do you figure, exactly, it takes to run a library, day in and day out? Order a f...
More About: The Library , Rule

Paper Clip Sculptures & High Fashion. Yep, It's Friday Morning.
2009-04-10 15:21:00
So there's a recession going on, or a depression, or, I guess, a "re-pression." (Ugh. Stop it, Anna Quindlen. We do not need that.)Whatever we call what's going on, the availability of men wholesale clothing means that that I have the ability to still be stylish and dressed well even in hard economic times.And, truthfully, the recession is not to blame for me not being stylish. (My predilection for shirts that say Gaius Baltar for President is what bears the blame. ) The recession couldn't be an excuse, not when Price Fashion .com -- the wholesaler for the Internet -- exists.With Price Fashion.com, I can get clothing at up to 75% below wholesale; that's like getting it free... or maybe getting paid to shop (I'm not so good at math.) They've got women's clothing, kids' clothing, and, of course, men's clothing, including shirts in bulk -- I can get 12 new dress shirts, all in one fell swoop, for $126 -- that's like...lemme get my calculator. What? I don't have a calcu...
More About: Clip , Morning , Friday , Paper

The Rum Punch Review: "Chronicles Of The Lensman, Vol. 1" (Part 1)
2009-04-09 15:28:00
Confused about what a Rum Punch Review is? Find out here.Man, old-fashioned science fiction stories are talky.Maybe it's because they didn't have all that much science back in the really olden days (before 2002) that characters in sci-fi books spent so much time talking and not doing things. As a guy raised on modern science fiction -- wisecracking smugglers, laser pistols, and muddled endings to otherwise good television shows -- I'm not used to all that talking, although reading every Robert Heinlein novel he ever wrote prepared me for it, a bit.I had actually heard of the Lens and the Lensmen and, vaguely, E.E. Smith (the guy who wrote the Lensmen stories) before they were re-brought to my attention by a Best of Everything reader. I first heard of the Lens in the book The Number of The Beast by Robert Heinlein, another very-talky (but very good) sci-fi book that follows the adventures of four people -- two married couples -- as they cruise through the multiverse on the run ...
More About: Chronicles , Part

There's certainly no false advertising here. (FIrst Thoughts)
2009-04-09 13:41:00
I took Mr F and Mr Bunches grocery shopping last night to give Sweetie a night away from us all, and was sorely tempted to buy the product shown here, which I found in the "Weird Foods" aisle across from Ramen Noodles.What are the black things in there, do you think?Also, although it's very small, in the lower right corner is a disclaimer that the "pictrures" are "for reference only." So that you'll know how to set up your own Bubble & Pearl Drink" Party? Or to show the myriad of ways you can drink Bubble & Pearl Drink?
More About: Advertising , Thoughts , False Advertising

My Enemies List, 8
2009-04-08 15:46:00
1. People who honk their horn.2. Pepperoni pizza.3. The 2008 Detroit Lions.4. The guy who programmed my cell phone camera, etc. etc....5. The guy whose house I'm stalking. 6. Water's natural tendency to expand when it freezes.7. Anyone who ever turns left (except me.) 8. People who are just a little too serious about online "friendships."Way way back when, I joined "MySpace." Not because I particularly enjoy reading OMGLOL 10,000 times a day, and not because I enjoy rubbing cyberelbows with drunken fratboys and pedophiles, but to help promote my then-beginning efforts at writing. Then I joined a site called "Gather," and most recently, I joined "Facebook." And I've found, at each of those three stops, that there is a certain kind of person who joins social networks... but doesn't want to be too social.What I do, on these networks, is this: I locate actual, real-world friends (I have, at last count, more than 2) and people interested in writing and reading, and then I try to "fri...
More About: Enemies , List

As An Award-Winning Poet, I Stand For Everything That's The Opposite of Lib
2009-04-06 23:35:00
I am fighting the library over their claim that I did not return two DVDs, and I intend to win. Part 1 of this is here; Part 2 is here.First of all, I have to point out to "Anonymous" that (a) I didn't actually commit library fraud, and (b) thanks for remembering that I got an honorable mention in the States Viar Poet ry Award , as well as winning it. I still put that award on my resume, so it's nice to have it noticed.I only thought about committing library fraud, but then decided against it and was going to commit library truth, or whatever the opposite of library fraud is, only Sweetie didn't have a pen in her car, so it's really her fault. Anyway, having not returned the DVDs on Saturday (opting instead to enjoy a pleasant time at the playground), I went into the office on Sunday, where I got two shocks. First, my library account says I owe $26! Twenty-six bucks! For what? Then, shock number two, was this email from The Library Director: Hello,I checked into these two DVDs and...
More About: Opposite , Winning , Stand

It's mostly old issues of "The New Yorker."
2009-04-06 22:44:00
These days, at our house, it's all about the HD-- high definition -- TV. The Boy and Sweetie and probably the Babies!, too, swear by it.Me? I've got bad eyesight and never get to choose the shows we watch. I read a lot.But the kids and Sweetie love HD TV and think that there's really something to it, and that it's going to stick around. Which means that I can maybe score points with the family by taking advantage of the niceness being displayed by Charter these days.Charter is concerned that cable companies are getting a bad rap and to combat that, they're trying to prove that they deserve, well, a better rap. To earn that better rap, Charter is giving away a 22" flat screen HDTV every day in April, in a contest open to any existing customers who upgrade, or to new customers.All you, or I, have to do is go to their website at www.charter.com -- it's among the easiest to use, and lets the customer build a "service bundle" that exactly meets their needs. HD? Internet? Phone? Bun...
More About: Issues , The New Yorker

Quote of the Day, 21
2009-04-06 17:13:00
"What's wrong with the word lozenge?"-- MeYesterday, Sweetie and I stopped to pick some things up at the drugstore, and the clerk that rung us up complained that he was not feeling so well. Then, he coughed up a lung all over one of his hands and our bag, and then picked up the bag to hand it to Sweetie. I was repulsed by that, and told her so on the way out the door, and she agreed that she knew I'd be grossed out by what he'd done. As we got in the car, I said to her "I understand he doesn't want to stay home from work for a cold, but he works in a drugstore. Take a lozenge, for God's sake."Sweetie, then, began laughing at me for saying lozenge instead of cough drop, and calling me "Professor Dictionary." We have a very mature relationship. Here's an interesting point about all of this: The Oxford Rhyming Dictionary says that "lozenge" is a near-rhyme for "orange." Plus, that book organizes words by sound.
More About: Quote Of The Day , Quote

Sometimes, when I start talking, I just ramble until I run out of words.
2009-04-06 17:03:00
I am, right now, the sole breadwinner for a our family. That is, Middle and The Boy both work, but they work at the kind of jobs where the primary benefit is not so much the pay as it is the ability to bring home free bagels for me -- something that happens all-too-rarely, if you ask me.But I take my responsibilities as the income earner in our family seriously. I get up and make it to work on time, mostly, at least two or three days per week, and I spend upwards of 25% of my time at the office not surfing the Internet, all to bring home enough money to make sure that when the coffeemaker breaks down, we can take a jaunty trip out to Wal-Mart and get a new one, and throw in a Hershey's Bar for Mr F and Mr Bunches to split on the way home.I'd hate to think that if something happened to me, Sweetie's ability to replace coffee makers (and toilet seats, and couch cushions) at will, with a bonus candy bar thrown in, would be hampered, and I'd hate to think that she and the kids would...
More About: Words , Start , Ramble , Talking