What would happen if.... (8/15 edition)

...the prophet Muhammad made a Mini-Me version of himself, and then this Mini Muhammad gave birth to a college football player? (This is a joke, because Darren McFadden, star player for the University of Arkansas, is the son of a woman named Mini Muhammad.)

Many people know that horrible drivers from Massachusetts are, um, affectionately referred to as Massholes. A friend of mine came up with the term FRID to describe "F***ing Rhode Island Drivers", and then another friend topped that with CRUDs -- "Connecticut's Ridiculously Unskilled Drivers". This is very accurate, I've noticed, after doing some out-of-state driving. The biggest problem with CT drivers is that they don't KNOW THEIR LANE. Too often there are slow cars in the fast lane and fast cars in the slow lane. It shouldn't be that hard to get out of the way when someone's on your tail....I know I do. Of course, part of the problem may be that Connecticut's highways have a lot of left-side exit ramps, which requires slowing vehicles to be on the wrong side of the lane layout. Connecticut often adds a third lane on the right for "slow moving vehicles". It's really for trucks on hills. Not only do they not use the lane, but I've found it a great way to get by not only the trucks, but the people that go left to pass the trucks, but don't really build up enough speed to pass the trucks and therefore cause the passing lane to jam up. And my all time favorite is when I'm minding my own business in the middle lane of three....a car gets on the highway and then for no reason at all moves into the middle lane, when there was nobody for them to pass from the right lane...AND they aren't going as fast as the cars currently IN the middle lane. Like there's some STIGMA to being in the far right lane they can't deal with.

I heard the Eagles' song "Take It to the Limit" the other day on the radio. Two of the lines are:
"You can spend all your time making money.
You can spend all your love making time."
I say, complete the cycle....you can spend all your MONEY making LOVE....at least if you go to the red-light district in the city! :)

I think, technically, that when sugar is added to lemonade, that counts as an artificially-sweetened beverage. I know people will make a point of decrying the use of aspartame or acesulfame potassium in food/drinks as "artificial sweeteners". But here's the thing. Unless the drink is marketed as a sugar-flavored drink, then adding the sugar artificially sweetens it. Naturally sweetened lemonade should mean relying on the sugar in the lemons themselves....of which there's not very much, obviously. How about coffee? Coffee isn't sweet -- however you make it sweeter, it's done by artificially introducing a sweetening ingredient. Again, naturally-sweetened coffee should mean the sugar in the coffee bean itself (good luck).

For the last four summers, I have used MLB.tv's subscriptions to watch baseball games on my computer at work during the day. The past couple of years, they have put up an MLB logo over where the local broadcasters' advertisements would be. I'm sure they don't want some furniture store in Kansas City getting free worldwide advertising just because the game's being streamed over the Internet. The big problem with this is that if you start streaming the game during a commercial, you have NO idea what the sound level is until they game resumes and they resume the broadcast feed. The volume of the feeds vary greatly from game to game, so I alternately have to quickly turn the volume down (oops, sorry!)....or crank the thing up just to hear it at all (which of course, affects the level if I switch to a different game).

We harvested the one carrot from our garden that didn't dry out this spring....it didn't do too hot, either, because our thriving cayenne pepper plants kinda took over the spot. The carrot was green in a couple of spots, and also had a 45-degree bend in it. The part furthest down in the soil was orange and very yummy, but only about one bite's worth. And of course, last night I forgot to REALLY wash off my hands after eating some of a cayenne pepper....and then went to remove a contact lens.

New York City has five boroughs....and yet, it seems like only addresses in Manhattan are written out as "New York, NY 10001"....otherwise I mail stuff a lot to "Bronx, NY 10455" or "Staten Island, NY 10314", etc....I never put "Manhattan, NY" on an envelope. Nor do I put "New York, NY" for address in Queens....seems like I should be able to, as long as the ZIP code is right.

Here's a good topic for a book to arouse ire and anger: Someone should examine the world's major religions, and then perform the following analysis: What's the probability this particular religion is "correct"? Each chapter could dissect some different faith....Chapter one, how correct is Judaism? Chapter two....the Hare Krishnas....Chapter three, the ancient Greek gods -- what are the chances that following THEM is the "way"?

There's a brand of long-distance shipping trucks that just have the big word YELLOW spelled out on the truck...but the truck appears to me to be orange. I should take a picture next time I see one, and put it up for debate. I used to get into arguments over whether a rug at the home-decorating store I worked in was more BLUE versus being more GREEN. Could be the same thing here....I used to debate with my ex-wife whether Winnie the Pooh was yellow or orange, at least the particular stuffed one in our house. Perhaps we see the same color and just interpret it differently -- like, where do YOU draw the line between yellow and orange? Like a line of demarcation on a rainbow to distinguish where yellow ends and orange begins.

And with that....back to the grind....

Was that English?

I hate phone calls at work. In part because I'm stuck with MassMutual's phone system that doesn't have caller ID on it. And I've been blindsided too many times by our clients' employees just calling up randomly because their HR person gave them my number....asking stuff I can't answer.

(The worst part is that I'm NOT a MassMutual employee. My boss is, but I manage his side business for him, and the deal is that I have to work in this stupid insurance agency surrounded by a bunch of Willy Loman types pestering people on the phone to be their financial planners....)

Anyway, another reason I hate the phone is when you get somebody that doesn't speak English well, or natively. Through no fault of their own, I am absolutely ABYSMAL at trying to parse together broken English or English with thick accents when it's spoken to me. If you want to write down your message, I'll figure it out, no problem. But I'm awful when someone stands there and tries to say something with a thick accent.

For instance, one of the back-office people from MassMutual's headquarters is a nice little old lady from Russia. And when she calls me, I panic, because I'll understand about 40% of what she says. So almost all the time, she emails me, and it works great.

Today, a woman called, and I think she says she's trying to fill out the paperwork to get her just-died husband's 401(k) money paid out to her. I had her repeat full sentences. The phone line was crystal clear, but I swear, I had no idea what she said. Maybe it's a learning disability on my end or something.....I certainly tip the scales heavy in some other categories on the good side, this could be something to balance me out?! Because I was tempted to say, "Was that English?" I had no reason to think it was bad grammar....she certainly sounded confident in whatever the chirp-like quality to her voice was explaining to me. So it wasn't like she was fumbling for words -- I had no idea what the words were, that's all.

So how does this manifest itself in me? Maybe a slight trepidation towards phone calls -- although that's mostly the blindsided-by-angry-people-without-warning effect. The real effect is that even though I got straight A's in Spanish classes four years in high school (and a couple of courses in college), I will do anything to avoid actually trying to speak it. I would be too ashamed to sound as incomprehensible and wrongly-accented in their language, as others sound in mine.

I always have thought that I'm going to vacation somewhere that speaks Spanish, and I'm going to bring along a pad of paper to write all my requests in perfect grammar, like some sort of mute. Anything that shows a weakness in my own person, must be avoided!

They used to call me Crazy Joe, now they can call me Bat man.

Down Under David has been inquiring what exactly was being delivered to the house, a birthday present from my brother in Florida.

Turns out I got a baseball bat. Sure enough, it's not something I'd want to get hit in the head with. It's kind of a blackish-green color, so that's cool. I have to take the sticker of Todd Helton off it.

Strange present choice....I don't think it's legal for the softball league I'm in -- bats for that have to be approved by some softball governing body, I believe. The handle's thinner than the softball bats I use, too....So this might be one I save for going to the batting cages with the automatic pitching machines.

For my tenth birthday, my mom bought me a wood bat in Little League, an official Rod Carew model. (You may know Rod Carew from either his 7 American League batting titles, or from the Adam Sandler song, since Carew, and not OJ Simpson, is a Jew -- "he converted".) Anyways, I still have that bat, but it's too small to use as an adult. Of course, as a kid it was too heavy for game use, and then we all started using aluminum bats around that time, anyway. So I still have it and actually had to break it out for a softball game last year when nobody else on the team even brought a wooden bat -- which we're required to use to restrict distances on balls in flight.

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment, he took an ultrasound of my shrinked up thyroid -- I take synthroid pills to overcome that. Anyways, since it's the same gel and stuff that pregnant women have for ultrasounds, I asked him if it were a boy or girl thyroid. After having to explain to him the joke about the sex of my thyroid, he said it was a boy, as he could "see a small penis." Let's leave the "and where was he looking, again?" jokes to ourselves, thank you all.

Hopefully the rain will go away for the weekend, I have to spend my Home Depot card on stones and put in the rest of our front walkway.

Nichole's questions...

Normally I don't get caught up in the "pass it on" type blogging fun some others have. I tried tagging people a few months ago....yeah, how'd that turn out...

Anyways, I signed up for what Dr. Nichole referred to as "Krystyn's questions." Simple enough rules:


* Leave a comment saying anything random. Something totally out of the blue. Whatever.
* I'll then post five questions for you. Customized!
* You post the answers to your questions on your blog.
* Include these rules and offer to ask participants questions.

Ok, birthday boy. Here are your questions:

1. What's your favorite food?
A bacon cheeseburger on a fresh poppy-seed roll. Cooked medium....still pink and very juicy without feeling raw and gross in my mouth. The cheese may be either cheddar or American (which one Canadian friend has taught me, isn't a real cheese, but just a processed cheese).

2. What was the best birthday present you got?
Probably a fifty-dollar gift card to Home Depot from Mom and Dad. It's been a couple of months since we worked on our front walkway. This should get us the rest of the stones we need to finish...assuming they've not been discontinued. The style is "bellacobble buff". Erika says there's something good she's buying for me, but it's not arrived yet! My brother says what he has sent from Florida (also not here yet) is something I don't want to get hit in the head with.

3. How much did you spend on your haircut and in what type of establishment did it occur? (that's only one question)
I went to a place called "Colton Joshua Salon", which is a remodeled former "Family Haircut Store" that changed ownership a few months ago here in Fairfield where I work. I paid $15 for the cut and left a $5 tip.

4. What kind of outdoors-y type games did you play with your friends when you were a kid?
Lots of wiffle ball. We had a great fenced-in yard for it. Kept track of all the statistics via tally marks after every at-bat. And real ball....run the bases, ghost runners....not just "you hit this far, it's a double" baloney. Then we'd do write-ups on the games and stick them on the refrigerator....next to the statistics like a real sports section to a newspaper.

5. Did you get any cheap lobster when you were in Maine?
I do not like it in a house. I do not like it with a mouse. Actually, I was a very fussy eater as a kid (or as my dad used to quote George Carlin, a "big pain in the ass at the dinner table"). They offered me baseball cards if I tried some when I was 12. I said okay, and had spasmic reactions every time I tried to swallow. Looking back, I wonder if it was an allergy thing....but I ended up spitting it out after a minute in my mouth. My parents gave in anyways (rare for them) for putting forth the effort. I re-tried lobster a couple of years ago, and didn't like it again.

So there's the deal...Feel free to leave a comment and then I'll get to make up questions for you.

The rain in Maine stays plainly as a pain...

One thing that Maine is known for is its blueberries. Here's one, from a single bush that grows along the lake shore amidst large rocks.



More importantly, though, is where we were. The lake is Upper Sysladobsis Lake in eastern central Maine. My grandfather built it (the cabin, not the lake!) in the 1950s, I believe, after their older cabin burned down. There's no electricity, but most everything runs on gas. There's a fridge and stove/range that haven't changed in fifty years, easily. Gas lamps that you have to be careful lighting, not to blow out the glass mantles. A couple of years ago Erika tried to make me a cake in the oven but it didn't cook very evenly. But it's easy to fry stuff up on the range part. I made bacon and eggs and pancakes Saturday and Sunday, for instance. Something about being at camp lets you say, "screw eating healthy!" although I did bring some fruit and nuts for snacks.

This year's birthday cake was finished off in Connecticut, but by the time she'd frosted it, it was like 9:30 pm, and the kids were in bed because we were getting up around 1:30 am to start driving. We took off around 2:10 from home and stopped in Augusta, Maine, at around 6:30 for breakfast at Friendly's. We got up to Lincoln, Maine around 9:30 or so and hit the grocery store for some last-minute beer. It takes about 45 minutes from Lincoln...the first 15 or so are regular road, but the last half hour is on unpaved dirt roads. It was dry up there, so even though I was in a little Nissan Sentra, I had no real issues with clearance over some of the rocky parts. A couple of loud bumps on the bottom of the car, but at 20 mph, they don't do any real damage.

So the kids changed out of their PJs and into their bathing suits. They have life vests that keep them afloat while swimming. I don't think they NEEDED them, but they don't have to worry about the depth of the lake or the gunky mossy bottom of the lake touching their feet that way, either.

On Friday the kids and Erika swam about a third of a mile and back with vests on to this island at the top.







Anyways, I had to help with yard maintenance. The original septic tank has rusted out, so there was a sinkhole that needed to be filled....a few trips in my uncle's pickup to haul dirt from a nearby quarry-like spot. In addition, I was finally instructed how to operate a chainsaw, as I was in charge of slicing up a cedar tree that was impacting the ability to pull down the driveway, and may also affect where the replacement septic tank goes once the permit is obtained. (I'm not sure how much of the operation is impacted by the Penobscot Indian sovereignty in the local areas. My uncle seems to be in okay with them.)

Anyways, we were all exhausted most of Thursday, so the good part of vacation started Friday. My uncle left, with instructions for cleaning up and locking the place. I took the boat out on the lake....there are a couple of clusters of cabins in spots, but mostly only a few isolated ones, or none at all. Very peaceful. There was a loon in the lake, I only got a half-decent picture of it....its song greeted us each morning. Friday evening, thunderstorms rolled in and rocked the place. The skies kept changing color from bright orange to purple to gray, and then once the really dark clouds came in, they opened up. High winds led me to need to bail out about 6 inches of water (mostly waves crashing in, rather than actual rainfall) the next morning.

Saturday we did a little day trip to Bangor. In part to re-load on things we needed -- paper towels, dishwashing soap -- stuff we didn't know that the camp was out of. Also, to see how much rain had collected on the dirt roads. Several puddles of varying sizes that required me to swerve back and forth on the roads....A guy on my fantasy baseball team who lives in New Brunswick and I had discussed meeting for lunch, but Canada had a three-day weekend, so he'd made other plans. Still, we got to see Stephen King's house in Bangor. It's nice, but very centrally located in the city. My camera batteries died out the first time we swung around the block (the master of horror strikes!!!), so we did swing around again and take a shot from my new cell phone. Erika was surprised someone of his stature chooses to live in a non-secluded area. I say, good for him! Between the two of us, we've read all his books. I read his book "Faithful", a running dialogue with the co-author about the 2004 Red Sox, and Erika's read everything else :) -- in fact, she's just re-read 1408 after seeing the movie.

Sunday was mostly cleaning, and we left around 11. One of my contacts had ripped Thursday, so I spent the rest of the weekend with my glasses on. That meant no sunglasses for the drive back west. Interstate 95 is also a nightmare in southern Maine and New Hampshire on Sunday afternoons, we learned last year. So my bright idea was to cut through northern Maine on back roads -- Route 2 from mid-Maine west through New Hampshire and Vermont, to cut down Route 91 south as the sun was setting. Much less traffic, and since the last 4 hours would be south, the sun wasn't an issue. All that was true, except the lack of a high-speed freeway added 2 hours to the middle of the trip! Ugh. Anyway, home around 9:30 for a well-needed shower and bedtime....and slice of birthday cake!

La policia!

We saw the Police last night. They were great. I didn't realize that Sting's actually pretty good on the bass. Only the trio, no backup musicians...that was also cool, although hearing no piano on "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" was a bit odd.

Parking was 15 bucks....cash only. There was a supervisor taking our $, and he was a prick about it, told us to do a u-turn, and they'd stop traffic to let us out when we told him we only had nine dollars in cash plus our checkbook. Well, they direct us out, and next thing you know, we're in another lane leading to a different parking area, where people have ALREADY paid. Serves the s.o.b. right!! :)

Too bad it took 50 minutes to get out of there after the show. It was at UConn's football stadium....several towns away from the campus, of course, because they only went division 1-A (Bowl subdivision) so that they could make money, so they put the stadium near Hartford instead of near the students. Almost entirely bleachers. Beer was expensive, of course.

So anyway, what a great show. They did pretty much every song you'd expect, and I don't think there was any Sting solo crap. Andy Summers looks a little bit like the hairstylist from "What Not to Wear" (the American version, Carol!) Sting was buff, and Stewart Copeland had a gray mop-top...and odd look for someone that old, but at least it looked like they were having fun.

Next time, though? I park somewhere else in East Hartford (I grew up in the next town over, so I know all the streets) and walk to the stadium.

This game is.....

Bonkers!

This was a game that I loved as a kid in the late 1970s. And unbelievably, my wife had a full copy of it when I met her! So now we force the kids to play it, instead of Monopoly, to the chagrin of my older daugther.

Here's a recap of the rules. You roll the dice, move, and then play a tile on the spot you land, that'll say something like "ahead 4" or "back 2". Then you do that instruction. You try to aim yourself to the scoring pods. There are also "lose" spaces on the board where you'll lose a point. First to 12 wins.

Because you can't go below zero, Erika's favorite thing to do, even more than winning, is to set traps. If she ends up on the Lose space, she'll deliberately play cards that lead people BACK to Lose. Roll a 5? Then she plays a "back 5" card and you lose another point. (Unless you're at zero.) Click on the picture of the board to see how whatever you'd roll from the Lose space would get you stuck BACK at the Lose space, except for only a couple of possibilities on the dice.

It's also fun when the cards instruct you to go to spaces that have OTHER cards.....Back 5 could lead to ahead 10, which then says back 15, which then says back 4, and you finally get a Score point. If the scoring pod is occupied, you also get to roll again, so you can possibly continue to accumulate points.

Here is the song from the commercial way back when, printed on the bottom of the box. (Courtesy of boardgamegeek.com.)




All right, I gotta pack. We leave at like 1 am tonight. What's that, 4 pm your time, David?

...one of those mornings...

So, interesting weekend. I beat my daughters at a six-hour Monopoly game. It took forever, as we each had one of each color group. Except me, I had all the yellows. So I had hotels on there, after which point my daughters decided to trade between themselves to try to mount a united front of some sort. Anyway, the 6-year-old didn't last long after that. Eventually, I got it so that I had hotels on Mediterranean, Baltic, Oriental, Vermont, Connecticut, Atlantic, Ventnor, Marven Gardens, Pacific, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. My 8-year-old only had the reds covered with hotels, but had like $5,000 in cash. Of course, I had NO cash, or "operating capital", you might say. And sure enough, I kept hitting the reds and she kept missing mine. I'd pass go, and either hit Income Tax, or land on Reading (she owned all 4 railroads, too). Everything else I had was mortgaged. Luckily, I'm well-versed in the Law of Large Numbers....the more rolls, the more likely she'd start hitting mine. Eventually she started having to pay up....and then I accepted her two oranges in lieu of the $1150 rent on a yellow. There weren't any more hotels, so I loaded those up with 4 houses each right away. Finally, she landed on one of them, the rent was $700. She had already sold off her hotels/houses the time before, so she mortgaged her properties, counted up her cash....$699. Oh, sorry, thanks for playing!! :)

Then it was off to my mom's for birthday presents! $50 from home depot so we can buy stones to finish our front walkway....when we last left off in May there was no crabgrass all over the place, however. Also some audio CDs on the history of baseball, a Red Sox - emblem set of serving platter and bowl (why? why? why? really? to serve turkey and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving?) Also, a bag of Popnots brand popping corn, which will deliberately only half-pop so it's extra crunchy. (I highly recommend these things to popcorn fans.) Dinner was steak, potatoes, corn on the cob, and Italian bread. Fantastic! Completely made up for the store cake....plus the hideous vanilla ice cream that Hood thought would be good to color with annatto -- the same orangish dye that makes cheese look stupidly orange, now makes vanilla ice cream look peachy.

Anyways, the "one of those mornings" parts. I was assigned to take Erika's car in for a tune-up so we can drive it on the dirt roads in Maine. She needs to pass emissions testing for the state of Connecticut, and her "check engine light" needs to be fixed, too, as that was part of why she failed the testing a couple of months ago. So I was ready to go, and suddenly the corn and bud light I had last night decided to give nature a call, if ya know what I mean. The funny part there is that we use Charmin toilet paper in our house...and the wrapper mentioned that it was a 6-pack of MEGA rolls, which are 4 times the size of "regular rolls", apparently. Then, the button on my pants for work fell off, the threads were a bit worn, so I had to rummage around upstairs for my sewing kit to put THAT back on...have I mentioned how lousy I am at threading a needle? Luckily, Erika had some pretty good-sized needleholes. Next, I forget Erika's car keys in the house after setting the alarm, so I have to go back in. THEN, I can't start her car.....and in attempting to find the phone number where she worked, my phone found me a business with the exact same name, only instead of Monroe, CT, it was Monroe, NC. No help. Anyways, apparently you have to really slam the clutch pedal all the way down to the floor, and I wasn't pushing it in far enough. So she's asking me if I'm pushing the clutch pedal in, which sounds kinda obvious and patronizing, and sure enough it starts right up. GRRRrrrr....and to top it off, an old lady cuts me off up hill, pulling out of her driveway and failing to notice the traffic moving at 40-45 mph.

A couple of quick "random hits"....

Carly Simon's "Anticipation" song was used in Heinz Ketchup ads years ago....but really, no constipation remedy thought of using it? If "Anticipation" is "making me wait" according to the original lyrics, then really......

Also, please remember that as a present, cash is always good. I have sorta trademarked this phrase: "It's like a gift certificate, redeemable ANYWHERE!"

What would happen if.... (7/25 edition)

...if I gave in to Down Under David's request for before and after pictures of my haircut. (Sorry, I still haven't put the knee-high socks back on for a picture yet.)

I'm working with an accountant on a common client whose initials are KJY. I simply HOPE that the J does not stand for Jelly.

So, yeah, I got the haircut last night. Is "barbress" a word? I want to say that I tipped the barbress five dollars. I could say stylist, but really, does it LOOK like my hair was done by a stylist???

My wife was born in Virginia and moved to Staten Island when she was like eight. So while most of the drawl is gone, she still will say she waits "on line" (the NYC way) instead of "in line" when she is queued up at the Department of Motor Vehicles. (Or as it's known in Connecticut, Vehicals.) Just one of those weird regionalisms that freaks me out when I hear it. Waiting on line, to me, is what you do when your Internet connection is freaking slow.

I wonder if HBO would try to sue, if the Emmy awards restricted their categories to over-the-air broadcast channels only. It seems odd that cable shows go up for the same awards. I haven't had HBO for 20 years, I have no idea if their shows are any good.

I enjoy taking a Friday off, and then coming back on Monday and finding an overnight-express envelope (like FedEx) in my mailbox. Gee, I hope that wasn't a RUSH job that I wasn't around to act upon last week....

I'm not a big fan of poker games with "community cards". I would like the World Series of Poker to feature Dealer's Choice rounds. If someone wants "day baseball with rainouts", then that's what gets played. (By the way, I'd like an informal poll of which readers know how that game is played.) Then the next guy wants 5-card draw, jacks-or-better, progressive....spice it up a bit, huh?

I've ordered my Maroon 5 tickets for October. Apparently, though, the trick is not to be first logging into Ticketmaster right at 10 am when seats go on sale, but to be late by a couple of minutes, as earlier people's seats become available after their Internet connection screws up, or they botch the word verification. (you know, after waiting online....)

I would like Dan Mega to host a version of ESPN's "Who's Now?" competition among our fellow bloggers. Because he is just SO Now.

Roasted pistachios are awesome. It's a close race between them and roasted almonds, except almonds come already out of their shells, whereas sometimes pistachios are hard to open. I've been known to slam my stapler on my desk here to try to pry one or two open.

(I knew I used up my best thoughts yesterday.....)

Next week I'll be in Maine Wednesday to Sunday...so no list next week.

Random hits....

So, I have poison ivy forming on my right leg, right at the top of where my knee-high socks reached just below my kneecap.

I have two screws in my left kneecap, a bad accident trying to learn to ride an ATV. Some day....the full story.

My boss took me to lunch today. Check it out. I had a dog with chili and cheese, and another with bacon and cheese. Only 25 cents for bacon....the same amount the deli next door adds to a sandwich for a dollar.

Tonight, I should be getting my hair cut. They said they had just closed up early yesterday afternoon when I asked how long the line was. Perhaps some before-and-after pictures? I did take a before shot this morning, just in case.

I heard on the radio that Michael Vick's attorney's name is Billy Martin, which obviously is an ESPN cross-promotion for The Bronx Is Burning mini-series they're showing on Tuesday nights.

I never fancied myself an animal person, but even I know better than to treat dogs like that. Sheesh.

Would it be wrong of me to solicit tips from our clients? We prepare government forms for them, signature-ready, among our various roles as third-party administrators. Too bad they don't come to our office....I could put a tip jar directly on my cubicle.

College football is nothing but minor-league football. And yet it's shoved down our throats like it's just as good as the NFL. Phooey.

I think Family Guy should do a Hong Kong Phooey parody. Peter as the chief, Lois as the secretary, Brian and Stewie as Phooey and that cat.....

Uh oh, better save some for tomorrow....

The poison ivy tree!

So, we went attacking the oriental bittersweet again....

We have some small trees that aren't alive, having been dwarfed now by taller trees between the street and our front yard (makes for good privacy). But they give the bittersweet something to climb up to get to the live stuff up there.

We were cutting and pruning evil growth today, Erika in long pants (despite the 85 degree weather), and me with knee-high white socks to cover my legs. Groovy, eh?

So I see a hairy poison ivy root scaling one of the dead trees....I also see some leaves and berries on the tree, but they don't match the type of tree, and sure enough I see that they are GIANT poison ivy leaves. I swear, I thought they were elm tree leaves. The giant root has actually branched off the dead tree trunk, and put out its leaves just like a tree would. I almost got hit in the face with them, they were at eye level and higher.

We'll know at the end of the week whether or not we've contracted urushiol-induced contact dermatitis....if ya know what I mean.

We will have to sacrifice some privacy once the trees are taken out. My cousin's husband does that stuff for money, so he's welcome to come and grind it all up. At first I was like, hmmm....mulch made out of poison ivy. That can't be good. But really, who's going to be walking barefoot on it? Or throwing mulch at other people? Mulching up the poison ivy probably will be okay....maybe the urushiol washes away after enough rain, who knows?

What would happen if.... (7/18 edition)

...fans of baseball who gripe about the designated hitter were instead treated to this: the person put in the lineup to hit for the pitcher, also had to stand right behind the mound and FIELD for the pitcher, too? That way, the pitcher doesn't have to worry about covering first base or backing up behind home -- this new fielder would stand right behind the pitcher and take on ALL fielding duties as soon as the pitch as thrown. That also stops old lousy fielders from playing "half the game", as DHs are accused of.

On my way in to work today, one of Connecticut's Department of Transportation's portable electronic signs on the side of Route 8 in the Shelton area warned of Slow Moving Vehicals. WHAT?!!!!! You see, my web browser even underlines Vehicals as a misspelled word. Good grief!

When I was a kid, the only non-peanut butter sandwich type I would eat was: American cheese with ketchup. I was mocked often by older cousins. Looking back, it's like a burger without the ground beef in it, though. And yet, I have no interest in eating such a sandwich any more, and it's probably been 25 years since my last one.

I work in a building with offices on floors 2 to 5, and parking on the ground floor and basement. I work on the top floor. I will take the elevator when it's resting on G when I walk in....but really, to walk up 4 flights of stairs, is quicker than waiting for the elevator to come to my floo

DAMN! I'm mid-Webex and the presenter keeps taking her window to the front of my screen!

As I was saying, why wait for the elevator to come to G, and then ride it up to 5? Or worse, sharing the elevator to stop at 3 and then 5. Walking is faster for that few a number of floors to travel along. The worst is when I got on alone, someone doing maintenance called for the elevator at 3, rode it to 4. At that point *I* got off because it's faster to walk the last floor than wait for the doors to close and ride up to 5. There's a "door close" button inside, but it never makes the doors close quicker. It's a tease!

When my brother was a kid, he used to ask for chewing tobacco on his list to Santa. Carlton Fisk of the Red Sox used to do Copenhagen ads. Needless to say, Santa didn't come through. (Yes, Dan Mega, Fisk played for the Red Sox long, long, ago....)

During this WebEx, the presenter is displaying her Internet Explorer window, and her Yahoo! Toolbar says she's got one new email. Should I bug her to remind her to check her email? :)

Nerf Herder was a band who did a song called "Van Halen", a cute little ditty about how they went to hell with all their infighting. I think Van Halen should do a song and call it Nerf Herder...maybe tell them to mind their own business! Actually, I've BEEN waiting for Madonna to do a song called "Lady Beatle". See what I'm going for? Not like rap feuds, but more amusing ditties.

I had to post this...

I left this as a comment on my last entry, but I want it more prominently displayed, because I feel kinda smart for asking it. It's a take-off on an old George Carlin bit, and he probably didn't invent the original question either....

Anyways....

Can God create a kidney stone so big that even He can't pass it?



Thanks, and remember to tip your server generously. I'll be here all week, followed by two nights at Chuckles in St. Louis next month.

Busy schedule this week!

4 games this week. 3 for the hideous "Team formerly known as SCRUBS". And then one for my good team on Thursday. Last Friday my arm hurt throwing, so I played first base. No errors....one miscommunication, though. A ball was hit in the hole between first and second, I couldn't get it, but the second baseman could. The pitcher yelled about who was supposed to cover first. Um....ball hit to the right side, that would be YOU, pitcher! Actually, we lost when our manager got thrown out at the plate with what would have been the tying run. It was his 2nd time in the game getting tagged out at home. Doesn't matter, though....we only had 6 people show up and borrowed some extras from the other team. I'm sure we'd have had to forfeit if we'd actually outscored them. 4 for 5 with two dingers, though. I like that!

I was scheduled to play some tennis last night with my friend Rob. We went over to the courts at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, where he lives. It's a ritzy prviate school, apparently where JFK went to high school before Harvard. The storms were threatening, and in the first set (me, up 6-5) the rain started. I thought, hey, here's an idea, plunk the serve over the net by about 2 feet to make him scurry on the wet pavement. It worked for a couple of points, but then the next point he got there faster and suddenly I was stuck unable to react on the wet ground. I did close out the set, and then we stopped playing. We eventually left, after about 20 minutes of waiting, and as we were driving back we noticed it wasn't wet as we'd driven about a mile down the road to a different part of town. So we went to a park and it was, indeed, dry. After warming back up with slightly damp balls, we started the second set. Got to deuce, I believe, when it started to pour at THIS court, too.

(One funny thing happened before the rain -- I hit a return that hit some crabgrass growing in a crack in the asphalt, and barely bounced up. If you think the half clay, half grass court was weird for Federer-Nadal a few weeks ago....they shoulda tried something like that! Different surfaces within the same side of the court!)

Okay, so tennis was over, we went to dinner, and as we looked outside it had dried up once again....we were too full to play again, but God made sure we didn't change our minds, by having it start pouring AGAIN as we walked through the parking lot back to the car.

another reason to love wikipedia...

So, I was listening to some VH on my iTunes here at work, and went to check on rumors that the reunion tour with Dave is back on.

That started at the wikipedia page for VH, which then led me to click on the article on Eddie's "Brown Sound", the way old VH guitar parts sounded.

At the top of that article, it had some disambiguity language --
"For the defecation-inducing sound, see Brown note"

So OF COURSE I had to look....and now, so must you....

Here comes the weekend again...

Nothing makes me look forward to a Friday than when late on Thursday afternoon the boss mentions he won't be in the next day...

My co-ed softball team won again last night, so we're 7-0. I actually drew a base on balls during the game. That's pretty tough to do, because I like to hit and I'm not too fussy about where the pitches are. But if you can't reach the pitches, you do what ya gotta do. The weird thing in our league is that if a guy walks, and there's a woman next in the lineup, she gets a free walk, too -- to avoid the idea of intentionally walking men to try to pitch to the easier-to-get-out women.

Maroon 5 tickets go on sale soon. I found that there's a show at Mohegan Sun on October 12. It was weird, the Ticketmaster list of shows didn't mention it, only New York on the 10th and Boston on the 15th. But amidst the pre-sale special offers, there was mention of one promotion that applies to only four shows, one of them being in the budding metropolis of Uncasville, CT. (I think Uncasville is actually part of Montville....but the point is, it's where the Mohegan Sun casino is.) My wife is a big Maroon 5 nut, so maybe I can get some early Christmas shopping done!

WFAN in New York just had its 20th anniversary, so they were doing a retrospective a couple of weeks ago -- they started playing songs from July 1987. One of them was the underrated "Jammin' Me" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And sure enough, not only did I know most of the lyrics, I sang the same WRONG lyrics I sang as a teenager. There's a line about "take back Joe Piscopo" and I always would sing it as "take back your basketball"...and sure enough, I screwed it up again 20 years later.

I was supposed to have my bloodwork drawn for my regular diabetes checkup, and I forgot that they wanted me to do it "fasting" -- don't eat breakfast! Of course, two things. My blood glucose level was on the low side when I woke up, and I didn't read the paperwork for the lab specifically indicating not to eat....so it wasn't too long before it was too late -- a hideous frozen bagel from a bag of them that my wife bought but rejected....followed by the last slice of homemade poundcake made with strawberry yogurt instead of sour cream -- Erika had made it for strawberry shortcake last weekend.

What would happen if.... (7/11 edition)

...the UFC (ultimate fighting championship) people decided to stage tag-team matches? Now, I'm pretty sure boxing as tag-team would be stupid, but maybe the octagon would have some interesting matches. Or would it carry the stigma of pro wrestling, and detract from the legitimacy of the sport?

Most parents of small kids, and perhaps bored college students, know the song "We just figured out Blue's Clues.....etc." from the TV show on Nickelodeon. I think it's very easy to substitute "Booze Cruise" for "Blue's Clues" and make your own lyrics. (I thought of this BEFORE hearing of Jenny's tale on the boat this week....)

With the summer humidity, my piano isn't sounding great....it always seems a bit muffled in the dense damp air, perhaps. I've been converting guitar music on the fly to play such silly stuff as "Smoke on the Water" on the piano. I did a paper in college about music chords, the wave equation, and harmonics, that sorta explains why songs like that SUCK on the piano. I'll spare you the details, I'm sure anyone can imagine the lameness involved.

Some people complained about the 4th of July being celebrated on a Wednesday, because, oh boo hoo, it doesn't lend itself to a three-day weekend. That annoys me to no end. If it's that big a problem, don't celebrate it. I feel there's too much of a sense of entitlement for some folks. Just you wait, everyone....somebody will try to make Christmas a "Monday" holiday....move it to the 27th instead of Saturday the 25th, so that you don't lose a free day off from work. And by "somebody", I think I mean George W. Bush.

Why are cable channels called networks? Aren't networks supposed to be different stations linked together? Like NBC, there's a couple of hundred channels all showing the same shows around the country. That's a network. CNN is one channel. What's being networked? The Cable News Network is really the Cable News Channel.

I also hate when people refer to stations by their cable number. They'll say the game's on channel 6....when it's really channel 61 over-the-air, and the cable company just happened to assign their number 6 to that channel.

There's a sign on my street advertising the college students who are painting a neighbor's house. However, the house itself is set back from the street and the driveway runs down hill a couple of hundred feet. I've never actually seen the house from the road. So although I appreciate the idea of the contractors advertising what they do, they certainly don't have the opportunity to show off whether or not they're doing a good job.

At my church Sunday, they asked to congratulate "Gene and Fran" for being named Eucharistic ministers. Or perhaps it was "Jean and Fran". No indication who was who. It was an old married couple in their sixties. I thought for sure that they were going to get to debut by handing out some Jesus during Mass....but they weren't even utilized. Seems to me if they're going to make a point of calling them out, then they ought to put these new skills to use.

One last thing, I guess. I was a big fan of the old Hartford Whalers. Their logo was pretty lame at the time, but now I kinda think it's got some erotic lendings to it. Maybe not to the extent of Joe Camel's nose looking phallic....but certainly either some cleavage or butt crack.

And on that note....back to work :)

Oriental bittersweet

Anyone know this stuff? It's a woody, vining plant that will take over the vegetation in the area. Our yard has this stuff. I went to search the internet for it once, and the very first hit off of Yahoo was a page sponsored by the Town of Newtown, CT. That's less than 5 miles from Oxford, so it's most likely a local phenomenon.

Of course, if you ever want to see it in action, travel down I-84 between Waterbury and Danbury, and then hit I-684 in New York down to the city itself through Westchester County. The bittersweet sends out new growth in pairs, the 2 shoots intertwine themselves for support, and go up, up, up the nearest trees, and then spread over to more trees up at the top. Then the vines choke those trees to death, and move on. Last fall along both of those highways we saw what looks like giant nests of the bittersweet vines all at the top of the trees. Small trees have no chance.

In fact, last summer we first noticed the bittersweet crawling up our house onto our deck (elevated off the kitchen, above the garage in the back), and taking over a young 12-foot tree. We had to pull all the vines down, and then noticed this stuff was responsible for a lot of young trees being fallen over in the immediate periphery of the wooded area between our house and the neighbors'. So it's been an ongoing fight. Part of the problem is that the bittersweet gets buddy-buddy with poison ivy. In fact, we misidentified large poison ivy roots as bittersweet, and Erika had to go on prednisone late last fall.

This year, the bittersweet is much less, and we do enjoy seeing new growth turn brown as we identify the roots on the ground that it's sprouting out of, and both cut it, and then spray it with concentrated poison ivy killer (what is that, triclopyr?) However, the dead vines from last year are twisted around trees and accumulated about 30 feet off the ground, so it's not always possible to pull them all down. We may need to rent a cherry-picker or hire a tree service. If we didn't have poison ivy, it would be easy to just ask them to mulch it all and spread it around the back yard, but really, who wants mulch that makes you break out in an itchy rash, huh?

What would happen if.... (7/5 edition)

... somebody named Bob worked at my client, the Juran Institute? Oh wait, one does. When I get an email from him, I am inevitably haunted in my head with the chorus of "Bob, Bob, Bob...Bob Bob - Juran". (Think Beach Boys, and the melody should come to you.)

Shea Hillenbrand used to play for the Red Sox, and whenever he'd hit a homer, I wanted the announcers to say "Shea ralphs one over the seats in left," because that would pay homage to Shea Ralph, who played women's hoops for UConn back around the turn of the century.

The Spanish words for "wet floor" are "piso mojado", and I often see a bilingual sign in the aisle of a supermarket where there's been a spill. The funniest thing to do here is start singing Janis Joplin -- "Take it! Take another little piso mojado, baby! You know you got it, and it makes you feel good!" (Really, I'm only 35 -- it's just that car trips with my parents subjected me to a healthy dose of music from the 1960s.)

Blog reader Jenny had an interesting post about the Shocker. This made me think of two things. One was the way my wife makes the symbol whenever the song "Shock the Monkey" comes on.

The second thought has to do with animals like birds which have a cloaca. Having a veterinarian for a wife teaches you all sorts of stuff....like how some animals have a cloaca, one all-purpose hole for both reproductive and excretory functions. This, of course, makes the Shocker an interesting undertaking....of course, those animals don't have opposable thumbs anyway.

This is prime nectarine season now, and nectarines are my favorite fruit when they're ripe and in-season and juicy. None of the dry ones that I take a flyer on in the winter -- those are awful. Anyway, about 15 years ago I was having one as a snack at work, and the pit was freestone and partially opened. So I didn't have to crack it open to see that there was a small nut inside for the seed. It looked just like an almond after you crack one of those open, so I gave it a small taste. And sure enough, it actually tasted like almond flavoring. You know, like Amaretto or "toasted almond" flavored stuff. Eating almonds themselves NEVER taste like "almond flavor." But this nectarine seed tasted just like Amaretto. I mention this to my dad, and he says that nectarine seeds are a natural source of cyanide. Yikes! (I've since read up that there is cyanide in there, but generally not at fatal levels. Nevertheless, I've never had another nectarine seed again.)

What's the probability that a pitcher will pitch well on any particular day? I mention this as a student of mathematics and probability. Let's say that 85% of the time, a pitcher will do well. Well, if you're a manager and you make 4 pitching changes, then the probability that all 5 pitchers do well would be 0.85 to the 5th power, or 44%. My point is this: The more pitchers you bring in, the more likely one of them is going to suck that day. (I think most major league pitchers should be able to get most hitters out, and leave it at that.)

If we were at war with China, would the US Government discourage fireworks, having been a Chinese INVENTION (whoops, not invasion)? Would we call firecrackers "freedom crackers" or something like that? (I just get annoyed by clowns in the neighborhood setting off stupid loud noises.) Like, too bad they weren't invented in France -- that would cut down on the racket! :)

540 rubles

So, Erika hooked me up to this Russian website which hosts a bunch of MP3s. Cheap, too. They used to bill my credit card in American money, like $20 or $30 at a time, and then you could buy songs for like 10 cents. The price per song has jumped to 15, and now 19 cents each, but that's still pretty good.

Actually, now they're not in cents, but rather these "c.u." which may or may not stand for "customer units". But whatever. The thing is, the prices are now being dictated in Russian money. I went with the lowest re-load amount they offered, which was "20 c.u." for 540 rubles. Unknowingly I just went ahead and clicked for that choice. Then it hit me, what's the exchange rate? Yikes! Well, it turned out that 540 rubles was $20.97, and then I had a 21-cent (one percent) fee for the international transaction.

Let's just call it "coulda been worse...."

As for the MP3s? I still have about 25 out of my 250 audio tapes that haven't been re-done as MP3s. At first, I used to run a wire from my tape player into my Mac, and made mp3s that way. The quality wasn't always the best, depending on how worn the tape was. All of my Beatles stuff sounds great that way....one reason I did that is because I was raised on the American albums -- so to hear the original British CDs is weird, because my mind cues up the next American song in my head, only to have it be something different playing next on the disc. (Each side of an album ends up being a 15-minute "song", rather than me splicing apart the 6 songs into separate files -- that's why it's important to keep the as-in-my-head order.)

So I did a Tesla album from '91....filled in missing songs from Def Leppard's Hysteria, and then took some greatest hits from Eddie Money and George Thorogood and put them on one CD. (Neither of these guys have enough famous songs to really issue an album completely of hits, anyways -- songs on the original tapes that weren't famous to begin with, and not worthy of being included.)

One last weekend bit....our on-demand is working again from Comcast, so we bought Stranger Than Fiction last night -- Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. I give it a B- to a B, but no higher than that.