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Vacation Day Three: "Wal-ligators?"
2008-07-04 11:41:00
You do things on vacation that you would never do sitting at home. That's what vacations are all about, in my mind: getting out and seeing the world and trying new things. I love to do that, even when the world I'm seeing is mostly t-shirt shops and the World's Largest Orange, and the "new things" I'm trying are very very bony alligator ribs.Friday, Day Three of our vacation, promised all sorts of new things. Or at least, a lot of one new thing: Gators. Despite our best efforts, we had not yet seen an actual alligator in Florida -- this despite the fact that I had walked by the lake at the time share several times, and we'd taken the Babies! past the lake at least once, and we'd also driven around a lot and been to Wal-Mart several times. (I expected, at a Super Wal-Mart, that they'd at least have the Wal-Mart version of alligators, like they have the Wal-Mart version of everything else. "Wal-ligators." But no luck.)Florida has a fix for that: Gatorland. Gatorland, according ...
More About: Vacation

I seem to write about this every holiday, so here goes.
2008-07-03 19:52:00
It's the Fourth of July tomorrow, and that means everyone's thoughts turn to... getting that new Blackhawk tactical vest .Okay, that means "everyone's [who is a police officer or law enforcement personnel] thoughts turn to... getting that new Blackhawk tactical vest ."But me, too: I am thinking about it, because the Babies! are getting stronger, all the time, and those raccoons are still out there. So police officers and I are both thinking about Blackhawk tactical vests. And thinking about Blackhawk tactical vests means, naturally, that you're thinking about LA Police Gear. LA Police Gear sells equipment to police, military personnel, security professionals, and even me and you, the 'general public.' It was founded by LA police officers, so they know what equipment is the best.So celebrate Independence Day by treating yourself to some new gear from LA Police Gear -- or get some for the friendly neighborhood cop!
More About: Holiday , Write

Vacation Part Two: Please Don't Feed McGriddles To the Alligators
2008-07-02 11:58:00
My vacation story continues. To read part one, click here. There's something either very disturbing, or very bothersome, about how long a "McGriddle" can stay fresh sitting in a backpack without any special wrapping whatsoever.We got some "McGriddles" at O'Hare International Airport at one of the 150 McDonald's we passed going from the gate where we arrived to the gate where we would leave.When your flight begins in Madison, Wisconsin, you may develop an unrealistic expectation of airports. We made it to the airport in a reasonable amount of time, and unloaded the Babies! and luggage. I then parked in the long-term parking lot, which is cheaper because it's far enough away from the terminal that you can't actually see the terminal. It's so far away that there's wildlife there; as I walked past a tree, something moved and ran away. I hoped it was a cat, but I thought it might be a raccoon-- maybe even one of the ones we'd displaced.Security at the Madison NonInternational Air...
More About: Vacation , Feed , Part

Vacation All I Ever Wanted.
2008-06-30 15:27:00
Here is some interesting math for you: My ratio of hours of sleep to alligators in the past 5 days is about 25-1 -- which is to say, I slept 1 hour for every 25 alligators I saw on vacation.I like those numbers.We took 80% of our kids on vacation over the last week. Oldest is 21 now and has important things to do like see her new boyfriend and wait for her tax rebate check, so she opted not to go. She did call us several times to complain that her tax rebate had not arrived and to complain that she wished she'd come, so it was a lot like having her on vacation anyway; complaining is how Oldest blows off steam.I blow off steam by taking two teenagers, two toddlers, and Sweetie on a cross-country trip to Orlando and Tampa, but by "Orlando" I actually mean "Kissimmee," which I pronounce "kiss-im-me" but which The Boy and Middle tell me (repeatedly) is pronounced "kiss-sim-mee." I meant to take us to Orlando, and we actually did go to Orlando -- we just did not stay in Orlando, because...
More About: Vacation , Wanted

The Sorta Great Wall
2008-06-23 13:06:00
Here's why I'm increasingly down on science: I've heard over and over that most of what we think of as "matter," which laypeople call "stuff," is actually made up of empty space.Well, that's a lot of, as my dad used to say, "bull-lar."I don't know what "bull-lar" was, but my dad said that a lot of things were "bull-lar." He'd say what we did, as kids, was "bull-lar." He'd be yelling at us for something, and say something parental, old-school parental, like "You think you can just take a car and race it along and jump it 100 feet off the road? Well you can't! That's a lot of bull-lar!" (It was not 100 feet, though. It was 110, at least.)Between the frequent use of the phrase "bull-lar" and my dad's habit of holding my younger sister, who was only about two, while he yelled at us, very little 'punishment' actually soaked in because we spent half the time wondering what "bull-lar" was and half the time watching our sister mimic dad as he yelled.I suppose "bull-lar" was one ...
More About: Great , Great Wall , Wall

Increase Your Cool-Osity
2008-06-22 18:56:00
In forty-eight short hours, I will be shredding it up on the waves using my new Liquid Force Wakeboard."Shredding it up" is the right thing to say, right? Is that what I'm supposed to do with a wakeboard? "Shred?" Or is that just for skating? At least I'm cool enough to know that it's skating, not "skateboarding." So, given that I'm at just the right level of cool-osity to know that it's skating, then I'm going to go ahead and just say that the term is "shredding." After all, anyone who's awesome enough to know the word "cool-osity" is awesome enough to know the term for what I'll be doing on a wakeboard in Florida on my vacation.What's got me all worked up are the Liquid Force Wakeboards they've got for sale at Buywake.com. I look at these things, things like the world's only limited edition wakeboard, only 12 will be made, and you can win one there right now, and I think My god, that would be cool. A person would have even more cool-osity if they were using one of th...
More About: Cool

All the world's a stage and one man in his time plays many parts. Most of
2008-06-14 09:23:00
You have to work really really hard to irritate people who are doing yoga, but Sweetie and I and The Babies! did just that the other night. Without even trying, and, in my case, without even noticing.Thursday night was one of my nights to work out this week. I try to work out every third day. That's way down from what I used to do. When I was healthy and young, I worked out every day. It was easier for me to work out every day then because I was healthy and young, and because I really had no other life to speak of. The days when I worked out every day, jogging 5 or 6 or even 16 miles at a crack, were also the days when I was not seeing anyone, when I wasn't working very much, and when the entire furnishings of my apartment consisted of a lamp, a mattress, a couch, a desk, and a tape player/radio. You can only read and/or listen to "Mad Radio 92.1" for so long before you have to go do something, and so I worked out a lot back then, jogging and biking and even rollerblading until I ...
More About: Time , Plays , Parts , Stage

More like This Ship Has Failed!
2008-06-14 09:07:00
Lots of people think that just because you're married, you've got to stop flirting. I disagree. You don't have to ever stop flirting; you just have to limit your flirting to one person -- the person you've successfully duped, I mean convinced, to marry you. I am a Grade-A, Number 1, Olympic Caliber Flirter. I not only have Victory Hair, which in most cases is hair that will attract some attention but which can be defined in my case as "hair that is still hanging in there against all odds and/or medical science", And I have "The Look." If you've ever flirted, you know what The Look is. The Look is that certain facial expression you give to that person you've seen at the bar or the bowling alley or whatever social event you're at, or even work... and with The Look, you reel that guy or girl in and they're hooked.Hooked by The Look.I used The Look on Sweetie when we first met, lo those many years ago, and I can safely say that I have never lost my touch with it. Even though I ...
More About: Ship

Maybe I could enlist in the Police Bees and help restore order.
2008-06-11 08:39:00
Here's what I did so far today: I invented a new kind of cereal. I call it "Breakfast Cereal." It will have little cereal bits shaped like pancakes (and slightly maple flavored) and muffins, and will also have marshmallows shaped like bacon and eggs.I have no idea how to take it from the "I'm driving to work but have a brilliant idea which I will text to myself using my cellphone while I drive so that when I get to work I have an email that says bkfstcrl waiting for me" to the "Here's the finished product that people can buy for too much money at the store and then have their Babies! spill all over the floor so that the vacuum cleaner they bought for $39.99 at Wal-Mart will jam up, as though it didn't jam up a lot already because it's frequently used to vacuum up macaroni and Ramen noodles and pretty much everything else that's on the floor after dinner, including, possibly, one of The Boy's school textbooks" stage, but that's not really my problem, right? It's a problem fo...
More About: The Police , Police , Bees , Restore , Order

I looked through the listings, and not a single one appeared to have raccoo
2008-06-11 08:12:00
I remember how tough it was when we first began looking around for our house. We had no idea what was involved, really; we just began looking for a house with few clues as to how much house we'd need, where we'd want to live, what advantages and disadvantages there were to the various houses we saw, or anything really.We were lucky; we managed to find a house that has served us well so far -- aside from the need for a new roof, a new furnace, new appliances, fixing the porch, tearing out the old shed, some flooding issues on the back steps, a plethora of hickory trees that drop nuts and branches all over, and a family of raccoons that just... won't... leave.Other than that, things went great.Obviously, people like me -- and maybe like you -- need professional help in finding and buying a home. Professional help like the kind you can get only at Toronto-Condominiums.ca. That site has excellent information to help you decide whether to rent or buy, set up a budget, examine condomin...
More About: Listings , Single

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing.
2008-06-07 16:35:00
Most Saturdays, I go into the office in the morning for a while. There's a couple of reasons I do that.It lets me get caught up on work that I didn't quite get to during the week -- which is to say, everything. Each week, I start out with a list of things I hope to accomplish. This past week, I finished the second item on the list. On Friday afternoon. At 4:30. I celebrated that accomplishment by leaving early, which lets you in on part of the reason why I never get very far on my list.Another reason is that it shows my boss that I'm hardworking. He comes in on Saturdays a lot, too, and when he sees me there, working hard, he's impressed (I hope) with my drive and gumption. It's worked so far; I've been there 8 years now. He never thinks to ask me how come I don't get all my work done during the week, or how come I celebrate getting 1/10 of my work done by going home early, and I'm hoping it won't occur to him.A final reason is that it gets me away from garbage cans that ha...
More About: Sound , Sound and Fury , Full , Fury

Making Full Use of My Potential
2008-06-01 20:05:00
There are two things missing from my life right now: lids, and willpower.I learned that I didn't have lids when I went to pack up the leftover spaghetti last night. That's when I learned that we didn't have any normal sized Tupperware, either.Most of our "Tupperware" comes as a result of foods we buy; we buy things in plastic containers and when they're gone, we use those as storage containers; it's like the "Circle of Life" applied to lunchmeat. So we don't actually have "Tupperware" any more than the copies I make are "Xeroxes" or the tissues I don't use are "Kleenex." (I don't use "Kleenex," or any other tissue, because we've made the decision in our house to cut some corners, economically speaking, and one of the corners we cut is to not buy Kleenex or napkins when we have toilet paper and paper towels, and they fill in admirably for the other two.)(We use the toilet paper as tissues, and the paper towels as napkins. That's how that works. I felt I should explain that ...
More About: Full

First it was William Shatner. Now it's Hugh Grant.
2008-06-01 14:31:00
Over on my other blog, The Best of Everything, I wrote one day about how Hugh Grant is The Best Romantic Leading Man. I had a lot of reasons for that, but one I didn't mention was his style.If you ever examine Hugh Grant's wardrobe in or out of movies, it looks classy-but-casual. It's lots of jeans and button up shirts that are carefully untucked. He throws in some slacks or a sportcoat here or there, but when he does, it never looks as though he's actually trying to dress up, even though the effect is just that: he looks a bit fancier without trying to do so.I have the exact opposite thing going on. When I dress down, there's no mistaking it. I'm slumming. When I dress up, it's clear that I tried to dress up and I look and feel uncomfortable in my neat clothes.So I envy Hugh Grant. I wish I could have style like him; I really do.There's a shot for me to do that. The one thing that maybe could give me that style? Dockers. I've got the chance to find out whether they would w...
More About: William Shatner , William

It's Cloverfield -- with raccoons and brownies!
2008-05-29 22:29:00
Our anniversary was a complete success. We saw a great movie-- yes, Indiana Jones and The Temple of The Crystal Skull was great and everyone who says it wasn't is just a dork-- ate a great dinner, and wreaked a little havoc.About that dinner, first: after Sweetie read my preview of our anniversary celebration, she took issue with me. She said "How can you say I'm the less fancy of the two?"I explained that I could say that because it's true. She then said, in a very powerful rebuttal to my argument, that it was not true.We then went out for dinner on our Alternate Anniversary (see, families? We don't just make you celebrate alternate holidays; we do them, too) to a restaurant that serves, really, just sandwiches. I ordered the chicken sandwich, and was pleased to see that it came topped with liver sausage. I also got the fries. Sweetie ordered, in her far-more-fancy-than-me way, a grilled cheese. She got the salad, which in the manner of all salads in all restaurants everywhere,...
More About: Brownies , Cloverfield

I'm pretty much as good as I'm going to get-- but there's still hope for yo
2008-05-29 22:24:00
Are you as beautiful as you want to be? Are you as healthy as you could be? There's only one way to know for sure: take the Beauty For Life Quiz at BeautyForLife.com. BeautyForLife.com uses their quiz to come up with your own personalized beauty plan to maximize your health and appearance; they take into account your age, appearance, beauty regimen, lifestyle, and body image, and turn that into a plan to help you look your best throughout your lifetime. The plan will give you information and advice on everything from lifestyle changes to cosmetic procedures that can maximize your health and appearance.It was developed in consultation with some of the top doctors in the country, and through the website you can even set up personal consultations.So do you think you could be more beautiful? Do you think you could be more healthy? Take the quiz and find out.
More About: Hope , Pretty , Good

It's Cloverfield-- with Raccoons and Brownies!
2008-05-28 15:25:00
Our anniversary was a complete success. We saw a great movie-- yes, Indiana Jones and The Temple of The Crystal Skull was great and everyone who says it wasn't is just a dork-- ate a great dinner, and wreaked a little havoc.About that dinner, first: after Sweetie read my preview of our anniversary celebration, she took issue with me. She said "How can you say I'm the less fancy of the two?"I explained that I could say that because it's true. She then said, in a very powerful rebuttal to my argument, that it was not true.We then went out for dinner on our Alternate Anniversary (see, families? We don't just make you celebrate alternate holidays; we do them, too) to a restaurant that serves, really, just sandwiches. I ordered the chicken sandwich, and was pleased to see that it came topped with liver sausage. I also got the fries. Sweetie ordered, in her far-more-fancy-than-me way, a grilled cheese. She got the salad, which in the manner of all salads in all restaurants everywhere,...
More About: Brownies , Cloverfield

If I could really see into the future, I'd look to see whether anyone ever
2008-05-20 15:49:00
To those people who think I am not romantic, who think that I spend all my time remembering that interview I heard with physicist Michio Kaku on the radio, in which Michio Kaku said that he believes that eventually people will be able to travel forward in time, but that they could not see forward in time -- which then makes me think if we can travel there, why couldn' t we see where we are traveling?That makes no sense, you know. If the future, as such, exists, right now, such that we could travel to it, if the future is like Hawaii in the sense that it's there and beautiful and tantalizing and just out of reach right now but someday, maybe, then why couldn't we see into the future, too? I can see into Hawaii, after all.That's the problem with "scientists." They don't think these things through. They just go on late night talk radio and start babbling about how, sure, we'll be able to go to the future, but no way we could ever see into the future, 'cause that'd be crazy. The...
More About: Future , The Future

I would also be a lot of fun to take on vacation.
2008-05-20 15:38:00
I hope I get to be the boss someday. True, I would have a better shot of being the boss if I spent more time, say, working and less time blogging about how I'd hope to be the boss, but that's beside the point.Being my boss would be great. Not only does he have me as an employee -- I may not be the most productive employee but I am lot of fun to work with -- but he gets to go on great vacations. Great vacations like when he went to the Isle of Wight last year. Most people have only heard of the Isle of Wight, I'd assume, because it's where Paul McCartney was going to rent a cottage when he was 64 -- where his grandchildren, Vera, Chuck, and Dave would visit him - so when I heard my boss was going there, I naturally assumed that he, too, would rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight (if it's not to dear.)But he didn't even have to scrimp and save. Instead, he stayed at the St. Maur, which is pretty much the best Isle of Wight Hotel you can find.From what the boss told me, the Isl...
More About: Vacation

Thinking About Who Can Beat Up Who
2008-05-08 16:23:00
I have started a new site that will complement the 1 billion other blogs I have. That new site is My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad.. Here's it's raison d'etre. (That's French. French, I'm told, is an actual language that people actually speak in countries that nobody actually respects.) Why "My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad" exists:When I was a kid, I read comic books. Invariably, the best of all comic book storylines involved crossovers -- heroes meeting up or villains meeting up and battling it out.I have vivid memories of the comic book, which I had in giant size, in which Spider-Man met, and fought, Superman, only to turn around and fight Lex Luthor and Doc Octopus. I expect, when I get old, my memory of that fight, including [SPOILER ALERT INVOLVING RAY GUNS] the fact that Luther zapped Spiderman with a ray to make him stronger so that he could hold his own against Superman.Those crossovers and battles supreme were extensions of the things we'd say as kids -- My dad can beat up you...
More About: Thinking

The Great Linking Contest!
2008-05-07 20:20:00
Everyone already loves "The Best of Everything," but get ready, because it's become even More Bester this week."The Best of Everything" has moved from its previous domain to a new, custom domain. The new address is:http://http://www.troublewithroy.com/W hat does that mean for you? A chance for a free t-shirt. Here's how to get one: Link on your site to The Best of Everything, using the new address. That new address again? http://www.troublewithroy.com/.Try to be creative with those links -- use a cool picture, funny saying, whatever it is you think would be The Best Link To The Best Of Everything.Then tell me (and the world) about the link you put up-- by commenting here, or by emailing me atthetroublewithroy[at]yahoo.com.If you email me, put in your email subject line "TBOE Link" or something like that.I will -- I guarantee -- link back to your site the moment I find out you've put the link up (so give me your website's address) and if I like your link a lot, I'll award you a f...
More About: Contest , Great , Linking

Da... daaaa.... daaaa.... Da-da... (Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom)(It's "Also Spr
2008-05-07 15:34:00
I know the title may have been hard to follow, but it was one of the two songs I thought would work to mark this day.The only other song I could think of to highlight this momentous occasion which cannot possibly be hyped enough -- an occasion that will stand alone in human history as the one day that all of mankind will never forget, an occasion that one day is destined to be marked by a holiday, no make that a week off, no make that a monthlong celebration... the only other song I could think of that somehow combines a sense of wonder and dread, impending doom and impending fascination, the only other song that somehow seemed to sum up this moment, was "Convoy," by Kris Kristofferson. But would it have been as dramatic if I'd titled this post:"Ah, breaker one-nine, this heres the rubber duck. you gotta copy on me, pig pen, cmon."I think not. Yes, you'd get goosebumps just like I do when I listen to that song, but something would have been missing.The occasion in question prompti...

The only way to improve it would be to get a cool mascot. I suggest "Spark
2008-05-07 15:18:00
SocialSpark is the next big thing in social networking, blogging, and earning money.This year, I began making some money off of my blogs, which were and are always a labor of love, but were and are also intended to help me lose the shackles of my day job and spend my days writing full time. With some help from Izea, I've moved a lot closer to that dream -- and am getting closer to my goal (moving to Hawaii to write full time) all the time.Now, Izea has come up with an even better innovation: SocialSpark. Take it from me -- yes, I'm getting paid for this post, but I'm also a member of SocialSpark and wouldn't mislead you -- SocialSpark is to blogging and social networking what, well, what the Internet was to communication and information. It's that innovative.SocialSpark takes the basic idea of selling ad spots on blogs and websites and advances it leaps and bounds through a couple of innovations. First, it allows you to "queue up" for ads. So unlike other sites, where you have ...
More About: Cool , Improve

I STILL Refuse To Come Back As A Bug Or As A Rabbit, And I'm STILL A Real U
2008-05-05 16:25:00
All morning long I've been listening to 80s music on Youtube. Some of you will be wondering "why is that?" Others of you will be wondering "why do we even pay you anymore?" Those others will mostly be my boss. I keep him from wondering that too often by wearing a tie as frequently as possible. If you wear a tie, you're obviously working hard. Even more so if you loosen the tie just a little and roll up your sleeves, indicating that you are working so hard that your forearms are getting sweaty. Do those things and you can get away with just about anything in the office.The reason for my 80s' fixation today is because I spent part of Friday night chauffeuring Oldest around to celebrate her 21st birthday. 21st.Twenty-one years ago Friday was May 2, 1987. Remember 1987? I don't, really. Not because I was such a partier in those days or anything cool like that, but merely because that was a long time ago. The older I get, and the more I stuff my head with quotes from "Wedding Crasher...
More About: Back , Real

Carpet shopping, raccoons, Mother's Day cards and 400-foot-tall robots-- th
2008-05-01 22:01:00
Everyone has their own skill-set. Or, as I like to think of it, everyone has their own superpowers.Isn't it more fun to think of the things you can do as a "superpower" than it is to describe them as "skills?" Imagine a world in which your resume begins with positions held and companies worked at and then moves on to "superpowers." Better, imagine a world where you actually have superpowers. A world where you could fly, or where you were superstrong, or where you could install your own carpeting or at least feel secure about your ability to rip out your old carpeting before the guys come to install the new carpeting.I don't have superpowers, not even the lame kind involving carpeting. I wish I did, because then I could spend less time thinking to myself things like "I wonder if getting a Mother's Day card at a gas station is a bad thing," and more times thinking to myself things like "how am I going to defeat this 400-foot-tall alien robot?"You know you've had a heck of a week w...
More About: Shopping , Robots , Tall , Cards , Carpet

A Happy Belated Birthday To The Boy!
2008-04-28 16:30:00
I'm just a little bit late on this, but I have to salute The Boy because it was his birthday on Friday; he turned 16. And since I on occasion will make fun of the kids on here, then I also feel compelled to at least one time per year recognize them for being the good kids they are.For The Boy, though, recognizing him on-time was made more difficult by several factors. For one, my Real Job intruded a lot last week, and without the Real Job, there's no "Thinking The Lions" first because my office at my Real Job is where I do most of this and second because if I don't have the Real Job then Sweetie will make me do housework.The Boy's actual birthday was last Friday, and I could have posted something honoring him that day, since I took the day off after my busy week, but I was too busy on Friday blow-drying our carpet and picking up Greek food, both of which are time-consuming but only one of which was The Boy's fault. I know what you're guessing, but, no, The Boy was responsible...
More About: Happy , Birthday

A little bad news
2008-04-20 19:31:00
Hi! Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but real life (you know, that thing that keeps you from getting on the Internet) is taking over this week; I'll be too busy to post anything until Friday or Saturday -- April 25 or 26-- at the earliest.But in the meantime, why not browse around some of the older stuff? You could check out the hilarious stories on Thinking The Lions -- where you can meet the newest member of the family, "Frankencouch."There's always more to read here on The Best of Everything -- I bet I've got over 200 posts, and many of them don't even mention Dennis DeYoung.Or find out what is or is not a sport, as well as why you should know Owen Meany and my plans for one of my twin sons to grow up to be a lady golfer, over on Nonsportsmanlike Conduct.You can see those twin sons, and a lot of other Babies! and Pets! on Babies! Babies! Pets! Pets!; take this week to send in your own photos for that site -- Mark!-- and maybe you'll win the coveted year-end t-sh...
More About: News , Bad News

Frankencouch
2008-04-13 19:53:00
There are big things happening in our house. We've been expecting big things for a long time now -- almost a year. It's been a long set of months, waiting and hoping and wondering what the new addition would look like, and then, finally, yesterday was the day!It didn't even take as long as I thought; I was expecting to spend a couple of hours, maybe the whole day, but it only took a few minutes. It was over before it began, really. Somewhat anticlimactic. But I looked past that because I was excited about the new arrival, which won't actually be in our house for a few days.No, no, no. It's not a new baby. I can barely handle the kids we already have. I'm talking about Frankencouch, the newest piece of furniture we've purchased.You remember the furniture classifications, right? I am pleased as punch to say that I have advanced from the level of people who have to put their own furniture together to the level of people who can march into a furniture store, pick out a couch, and...

What we really need are more songs in the world with a "Yodel Outro."
2008-04-07 15:05:00
Sometimes I worry about the future of the human race. That's because I am optimist who tries to see the best in people.True, I don't particularly like other people and don't want to spend much time around anyone and get astoundingly frustrated when I'm driving along and someone in front of me has the temerity to go the speed limit, when I want to go 4 or 5 over the speed limit. But none of that prevents me from being an optimist and thinking that people are basically decent, albeit they are basically decent people who are usually in my way and slowing me down or otherwise bothering me somehow by making a special trip up to my house to use my computer so they can enter information in for their cruise so that all their activities are preplanned, thereby saving themselves a whole 30 minutes on the cruise, while simultaneously using up my entire Saturday afternoon.All right, that latter example is not all people; it's just my dad. But he's a person. And because he's a person, I w...
More About: Songs , World , The World , Outro

Don't stop believin'... in Birch Syrup and Spongebob Macaroni?
2008-03-29 15:29:00
I may never contribute something great to society, something like a new syrup, but in my own small way, I think I've made the world a better place.One way I've made the world a better place is to be constantly questioning and thereby improving the world around me. Like this week, when I was getting out the syrup for the pancakes on "egg night dinner" and began to wonder why we only have maple syrup. I've never seen anything other than maple syrup. But there's tons and tons of trees out there, trees like oak trees and birch trees and... other trees. I'm not a tree expert. But there are lots of trees.So, I wondered, as I'm doing now, why don't we have "oak syrup" and "birch syrup" and things like that? And that led, as it always does, to two natural thoughts: One, google it, and, two, could I somehow turn this into a backyard industry that would take off and make me rich and I'd move to Hawaii?After careful investigation consisting of googling such phrases as why do we only ha...
More About: Stop , Birch , Spongebob

So how was your Easter?
2008-03-24 12:18:00
There's all these books and articles and "Dear Abby" columns written about the value of communicating with your spouse, but nobody ever says what the actual value of communicating with your spouse is.I have found it out, though: The actual value of communicating with your spouse is $133.That's also, by coincidence, the value of the Easter Brunch Sweetie treated my mom to after I had "reluctantly" agreed to allow my Mom to pay for Easter Brunch.We took Mom and Oldest and The Boy and Mr F and Mr Bunches to a wildly-misguided and wildly-overpriced brunch on Easter Sunday. "Brunch" in this case means "a meal that starts at 1:45 p.m. but still includes French Toast and a kind of spooky Easter Bunny."The Easter Bunny was kind of spooky because he/she moved kind of slowly, as though it had only just woken up, and it didn't speak. I know that bunnies aren't, in general, supposed to speak, but it's weird when a bunny shows you to your table using only exaggerated, slo-mo gestures, movin...