Sunday, January 30, 2005

Today is a really big day. A day which most of us Americans took for granted, but something historic happened today that may very well change the course of history itself!

No, not the Iraqi elections! Today I found out that some of my artwork is being featured on the front page of the Coast To Coast website! What is so big about that, you ask? Well, it just so happens to be the second largest syndicated radio show in the entire world!!! It's ratings are second only to the good ol' pill-poppin Republican blowhard Rush Limbaugh himself!

The top shot on the right shows a screen grab of th website. A larger picture of the art is shown at the lower right

Today, Coast To Coast, Tomorrow, THE WORLD!!!!!!!!

BWAAA-HHHAAA-HHA- HA-HA!!!

Monday, January 24, 2005

Today is a significant day because of two things. According to Her Majesty, it is the second day of my stupidity because of my haircut. Boy! I sure feel stupid. Look at me...... I'm stupid! Stooooopid! Hmmm...nope. I don't feel any less intelligent today.

This is also the first day that Sioux and I have made a pact to quit the nicotine addiction for good! Lets hope we succeed this time since we have both been trying to quit off and on for almost 3 years. She quit when she got pregnant, but that doesn't count. Technically that wasn't quitting. That was just a little smoking hiatus. Hopefully we both will be strong enough to do it this time. It seems like we became each others crutch in the past. Like she'd quit for a week and then get really stressed out and there I would be, her Dr. Feelgood of nicotine, "C'mon Sioux! Smoke up! It'll make you feel good....feel good....feel good. But maybe that won't happen since we're both making a concerted effort at the same time.

Geez..... I just realized. I'm trying to quit smoking while I'm into it with my wife. This ought to prove interesting.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

I got my hair cut today. Okay, more than cut. I got it buzzed to the point of being near bald. I like my hair short. I have worn it this way for the past 15 years and plan on keeping it this way until I grow tired of it. Did I say that I like my hair short, because I do. But Her Majesty hates it and got on my case about it. She always complains when I get it cut. Today was no different than the others, she hates it and got all pissed at me. Spouting off at her Royal Mouth about how stupid it looks, blah, blah, blah. Oh, did I mention that I like to have my hair cut short?

Anyway, Her Majesty's rampage got me thinking. Why does it even matter to her? And after some thought, I think I know why.......

Its funny how couples fight over stupid trivial things. Especially when you've been married for over fifteen years. Each partner has learned to accept the major flaws of the other and continue to make the marriage work. From incompatibilities of the social aspect, to trying to become accepted by the inlaws, to slight nuisances such as bed times and cover hogging. These are the things that make marriage fun. But what happens when you finally accept ALL of the flaws and eccentricities of your partner? What happens after the nuisances of your spouse no longer affect you?

I think that once a couple truly accepts their other half, then they begin to look for other reasons to inject strife and chaos into the marriage. After all, no one would watch a movie that lacked any type of conflict, right? Who would want to spend time watching something that had no excitement, fever, or point? No one. And I think that when a couple have grown to the point where they are no longer affected by their spouse, they begin to search for new ways to create strife. Because chaos and strife create conflict, add drama, and make life worth living. And families need that drama to stay together. Whether it be a sexual tension, a heated argument, or a good laugh at someone else's expense, these emotions are what keep relationships exciting. And excitement builds a strong marriage.

Ahhh, the joy and excitement that a single little haircut can inject into a marriage! It is beautiful.

Saturday, January 21, 2005

As some of you already know, I have this little issue with depression sometimes. When I'm feeling down I try to remember all of the good things in life and focus on the positive aspects of being who I am. So I am putting together a list of the small things that make life worth living. the list will be continually updated and I welcome any submissions that you guys might want to add. Like always, let me know if you don't want your name displayed, otherwise each entry will be identified by first name and last initial.

Click here to see the list!

Click here to submit some simple pleasures.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Apparently the Military.com site is the real deal because I have already been contacted by two of my of friends, Mike Fuller (pictured at right in the yellow t-shirt,), and Jake Cissarano (at the right being a hardcore devil-dog).

Its really cool to here what these guys have been up to, but it makes me feel really, really old.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

C-130 rollin' down the strip....

I found a place on-line called Military.com. Its owned by monster.com and its a place where past veterans can get together and search for old friends and people that they served with.

I was surprised to find that there were seven people who served in H 3/12 with me way back in the early 90's that belonged to the site also. So after about 2 hours of filling out crap to become a member it let me email three of my old friends.

Two of them, Jake and Brian were members of my original gun-section, gun 2: "Whore's breath". Hopefully I'll here from them in a few days.

Friday, January 14, 2005

I had an epiphany today at work. I was in the bathroom and WHAM, it hit me like a ton of bricks! It was a life changing realization and very personal. Too personal to discuss here anyway.....

Yep, leave it to me to figure out my life when I have my pecker in my hand.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Just thought I would show off the redesign of the Soltis Inc. site. I spent the entire evening working on it yesterday and I think it paid off. I think the new look conveys a more professional image and has a modern, clean feeling to it. The old design appeared rather clunky and outdated to me. (Even though I originally designed it also.......)

You can check out the live Soltis site here. Tale a look at it if you get time and let me know what you think about it.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Am I a Manual Spammer?

I had a conversation with Ed Baumgarten the other day and was telling him about a little game that I like to do when I'm just sitting around with nothing to do. I go onto a browser and log into a website such as CNN.com, or Fox news.com and read the latest news. The fun part is that these sites always have an "email this article to a friend" button that anonymously forwards it to whatever address you give. So I make up addresses like amyp@yahoo.com, or papastan@hotmail.com and send them random articles. Thats all in good fun right? Sometimes I even get onto one of those free e-card sites and type out a really personal message like "Why don't you come over for sandwiches next week?" or "I really enjoyed the time that we had together last Thursday at the auction-house." Then I sign it with something like: your friend, Bumblebug.

Anyway, Ed pointed out to me that I was basically acting like a spammer. A manual-spammer if you will. I was thrown for a loop. My crazy little messages were never intended to be annoying junk mail, but clever little web experiences. A sort of weird gift from an anonymous friend. But then I questioned myself. Was I spamming people? What seemed to be a little bit of humor to me is really annoying other people! Oh, I feel so low and dirty now. I feel like I have to take a shower now....

Monday, January 10, 2005

Sioux's back was out today. I felt sorry for her at first, but then I remembered the time when mine was out and she tipped my chair backwards at work. Oooohhhh Yeah, she's gonna' git it tommorrow........heh, heh, heh.

The Brat had her second basketball game tonight and me and Her Majesty left work early to make it. The schedule said that it was in Mattoon Jr. High School but when we got there, no one knew anything about the game. So we were directed to go to another place; Central School. And after about 20 minutes of road time to that school, we were shocked (and a little pissed-off) to find that it wasn't there either. So we went back to the Jr. High School and found someone who said that it was probably being played in the Lutheran Church (huh???). We found the church after another bout of "where the heck is it" and discovered that the game wasn't there either. So once again we made the perilous journey back to the Jr. High School. This time, there was a ball game going on and the lady at the ticket counter told us that "Yes, the girls game was scheduled to be here, but there was also a boys game so the girls had to be moved to Blah-blah-blah school." So off we went, searching for the elusive girls game amidst the thick fog. We finally arrived at the school, which was surrounded by fields and nestled gently in the billowing fog. Once we got in, we got to see The Brat play for approximately 3 minutes before the game was over. Grrrrrrrr.........rackem, frazzum, mixel, frizzle, mruzzle.

Sunday, January 9, 2005

Today , her Majesty and I decided to try out our new super powered vacuum cleaner that we bought at Lowes. We were hoping that it would help out with their allergies because it came with one of those HEPA filters that supposedly sucks in everything bad that lives in your carpets such as pollen, dust,, hair, micro biological animals, evil spirits, etc.

It really works! It didn't take long for our new "Shark" (thats the brand name, not a nickname) to gross us out to the point of insanity. You wouldn't believe the crap that this sing sucked out of our carpet. It literally (yes -- LITERALLY) made us want to puke!

The suction power of this thing must be astounding. The Brat is afraid of it now because it sucked up the dog and stuffed it into its little blue canister! Okay, not really, but it really sucks. And I don't mean sucks like "Waterworld," I mean sucks like Monica lewinski. This thing is powerful.

Its good to know that this thing will really keep the carpet clean, but now I'm paranoid about the mattress, my pillow, and my all powerfull recliner. Blech!

Thursday, January 6, 2005

Just what does a creative mind do when it is waiting for something to download? Why, see how many steel clips that one can put in his hair of course!

Amazingly, I found that I can put all of them on my outer epidermis. The final count was 78 of those pinchy little suckers! Owww!

Oh....thats 80 of them if you count the two on my ears, by the way.

Wednesday, January 5, 2005

Nothing much going on today. Me and Sioux ate our lunches under "The Cross," just for a change. Damn! That is one big cross!!! For those of you who have never seen it, is probably a hundred feet tall, made of metal and towers over the interstate like an immense, monolithic, uhhhh.....well, cross.

Its a symbol of peace and love that greets weary travelers by saying: "Welcome to Effingham, Illinois! You had better be a Protestant!"

The picture of the cross on the right is a stolen image, so I'll take my own and put them here when I get a chance. The picture doesn't really do it justice anyway. I also got to thinking, the organization who put up the cross claims that they aren't trying to "push" their religion on anyone. Thats fine, 'cause I personally am a big fan of ol' Jesus, but I don't believe that they aren't pushing their religion with that monument. Hey, I could (and hope that) I am wrong. I just don't wanna hear all of the bitching and moaning when other religions start doing the same sort of things. What other religions, you ask, why look below and see what I an talking about.

Monday, January 3, 2005

Today is our 16th Wedding Anniversary!!! Yep. Its amazing. Somehow Wendy has been able to put up with me for nearly half of her life. You gotta' give her credit. I haven't made it easy on her.

Check out the "then and now" pics. Dig my rockin' Guns-n-Roses shirt! I was SOOO cool!! Ha-ha

We had dinner at El Rancherito ( a local Mexican restaurant) with my friend Sioux and her husband Stu. We had a good time and are talking about inviting Andra and Luke next time. Its kinda' cool to hang out with other married people once in a while.

Hey, I thought in might be neat to do a "Whats on your desktop?" Feature to display what kind of stuff that my friends have on their 'puters. If you get a chance, send me a pic of how you dress up your screen and I'll post them here.

Saturday, January 1, 2005

Happy New Year! We try to always have something exciting going on at the Greenwood household. This time, we started the new year out right with a bang. Literally! At about 6 am, we were awoken by a loud "Thump-thump-THUMP!!" Above our heads.

We knew the sound because it had happened to us once before a year of two ago. One of our nieghbor's tree limbs had fallen on our roof. Now, these aren't little trees mind you. This are gigantic old cottonwoods which are notorious for their weak limbs and soft wood.

We've talked with our nieghbors about having them cut down, but at about $4,500, they decided that it wasn't worth it. Apparently they don't mind having our houses destroyed by fallen trees. It seems funny how they always leave their house and stay at a parents house whenever it storms though.......how peculiar.

The last time, a branch fell straight through our roof above our bedroom. We tried to have their insurance cover it, but they considered it an "act of God" and we ended up having to turn it into OUR homeowners insurance. I wonder if it would be considered an "act of God" if the trees mysteriously caught on fire some night?

The fist photo shows how enormous these trees are and how many of the limbs have already broken off and are dangling in the other branches, like big ugly missiles just waiting to impale people. I assume that those trees will eventually destroy our homes and possibly kill one of us before they are ever cut down.

Monday, February 28, 2005

I had a reoccurring nightmare again last night. I'm walking around in a strange city while being pursued by this big, noseless creature wearing a smiley-face shirt.

No-matter where I would go, I would see a smiley face, and then the creature would somehow materialize out of it. It was a giant beast, about ten feet tall and really fast.

Leave it to me to get a fast monster instead of one of those lumbering ones like the Mummy or Frankenstien. If either of those guys were chasing me, I'd have time to run a few blocks, have a cup of coffee, play some poker, etc. before sprinting away again.

But nooooooooo! My monster has to haul-ass like a dog! The cheesy animation on the right shows you a cartoony version of my "boogey-man."

Sunday, February 27, 2005

I've been starting to kick around the idea of dropping out of the design profession for a while. And no, I'm not suffering from a case of burnout because I love what I do. I just can't imagine doing this until I am 65 or older. And for my career, its difficult to find a place who offers their designers any type of retirement benefits. If I could afford it, I imagine myself going back to school to get a teaching degree in art. Then I could get a job at a school and have a retirement, summers off, and that all-powerful symbol of job security; tenure.

It is all a pipe-dream anyway though, because I'd have to win the lottery or inherit a ton of money in order to do it. And since I don't play the lottery, nor do I have any rich uncles, I remain the designer.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

I noticed these signs have been popping up throughout the town where I work. I must have seen a dozen or so this morning on my daily commute. I'm not sure what it is for; a public elected position, a union position? Who knows!?

I wonder if it is a position at all. It would be an awesome job title don't you think?

"Hi! I'm Derek Greenwood, koester supervisior. How may I be of assistance?"

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

I just finished a new feature called "Ambiguous Safety Diagrams!" Check it out by clicking here.

And while you are at it, be sure to send a question to the Swami-Monkey!

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

That's just what we call "Pillow-Talk" Baby! - Ash.

After being together for the better part of two decades, pillow talk has evolved to the point of including some really deep and sensitive conversations. The following transcript from last night shows the thoughtfulness and tender feelings that married couples often share after spending almost half of thier lives together.

Her Majesty: "Good-night Honey."

Me: "Good-night."

Her Majesty: "I love you."

Me: "I love you too."

Her Majesty: "But you suck."

Me: "No, you suck."

Her Majesty: "No, you suck!"

Me: "No, you suck!"

Her Majesty: "No! You suck!"

Me: "No!! YOU suck!"

Her Majesty: "No I don't. I blow!"

Me: . . . . . . .

Her Majesty: "But YOU SUCK!!!"

Monday, February 21, 2005

Just in case you have been wondering, my postings have been more and more infrequent because I have been watching tons of television lately. Yep, TV. I used to watch quite a bit of television like E.R., Judging Amy, Conan O'brien, Survivor, CSI, blah-blah-blah. But that was before the bane of all television broadcasts took over my living room! Yes, I'm referring to the destroyer of all that is manly; Lifetime Network.

While I don't like the way Lifetime network has somehow infested our television, and never intend on watching its self-made movies, I do respect the network for filling a much needed void in television programming. You see, before Lifetime arrived, women never fully satiated their craving for shows about pregnant daughters, spousal abuse, extramarital affairs and date-rape. Women across the nation could be heard crying out; "We want more date-rape movies starring Nancy Mceean! Which leads me to another good factor that Lifetime provides. It may be the largest employer of washed up actors such as Merideth Baxter Birney, Sissy Spacek, and Nancy Mceean, allowing them to feed their kids.

THE HORSECOW COMETH!!!

My friend Aaron snapped this photo while we were on lunch today of the legendary Horsecow. This elusive beast had somehow managed to avoid all of our previous attempts at photographing it. Even when another friend, John, believed that he had captured an image of the equine-bovine, the photo came out blurred and unrecognizable. This makes me realize why there have never been good, clear photos of Bigfoot or the Loch ness monster, for the Horsecow manage to evade the auto-focus even when tethered to a wagon!!! Oh, the trickery that this creature can bestow is mind boggling!

Look how the Horsecow stands apart from the real cattle, as if saying: "I am the Horsecow! I shall not stoop to standing in a pile of feces like you lowly cows!"

They say that a person should try to learn at least one new thing everyday. Today I learned that Sioux is a "licker", and I am a "biter". Okay, now get your minds out of the guttter because I'm talking about ice-cream cones here. After an unsatisfying dining experience at lunch (me with bean-spout sandwiches and Sioux with her patented PB&J sandwich), we decided to go for the gusto and get some ice-cream at McDonalds. It was then that we discovered the emormous rift our ice-cream consumption styles.

Apparently, Sioux has sensitive teeth because she slowly licked small swaths of ice ceam off of the center mountain of vanilla. Over and over, and over, slowly wearing away at the pile of scrumptious joy stuffed within the sugary cone. It really kind of surprised me, her sensitive teeth that is, because I always thought she was an extremely insensitive person.

Me, on the other hand, dove into the ice-cream like a starving rat in a pile of rotten corn. I quickly sank my teeth in and began devouring the ice-cream like a true carivore should. Mmmmmmmm........chomp, chomp, chomp. Carnivores don't have sensitive teeth.

Too much work these past few weeks. I don't even have time to email my friends anymore. It's kinda' depressing! I haven't even had the time to email my bestest e-pal Michelle.......

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!

Monday, February 14, 2005

A discussion actually spoken during a meeting today.

The Deb (the boss): Just a reminder to you Derek; next Wednesday and Thursday I have enrolled you in some all-day classes.

The Aaron: Yeah, sensitivity training!

Me: Sensitivity training? What kind of F***ing bullshit is that?!

Luckilly everyone involved thought it was funny.

The popularity of my site seems to be ever growing as my stat-counter won't track but a few day worth of traffic anymore. Awesome!!! Last night I almost met the beginning of the end when I tried to upload my updates only to learn that I had used up all of my allotted server space! Luckilly, I was able to consult with the digital Lord of 'Puters, Rick Hickox (owner of Bspeedy.com) and he did some fast magic to give me plenty more space. Thanks Rick! I owe you one.

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

I don't know a whole lot about the Buddhist religion, but I think that I have a fair grasp on the cause and effects of what they call karma. From what I understand, karma is basically an atonement that you do in this life for misgivings that you performed in a previous life. We humans are then forced into life after life until we learn to live a harmonious, peaceful life. Once we have achieved this, we are allowed to pass on into paradise.

From what I have read, karma is gained through poor moral actions, and some actions build more karma than others. For example, kicking a dog, however vile it may be, would not collect as much karma as kicking a child (even an ugly child). I'm not sure what would happen if your target would be something evil though, like if you kicked a rapist. That might be considered good, even though you are still kicking someone. (The next time I see a rapist, I'll be sure and kick them and then check my patented karma-gauge® and let you know what happens.)

In theory, those of us who want to stick around for a few more thousand years, should be able to use these rules of karmatism (Yep, I said: karmatism. I think I just invented a new word there.) to secure a decent life for many, many incarnations. The secret is to do bad things, but not vile enough to make your next incarnation be a poor, fat lady with no legs, or something like that. Luckilly for you, I have thought of ten things that you can do each day to insure that you DO NOT pass on into paradise, but remain here on earth in another incarnation. Yes, another incarnation, but not a bad one. One that is relatively similar to the way in which we live our lives today.

The List of Daily Karmatic Practices (or, Staying Out of Paradise in Less Than 10 Minutes a Day)

1) Be condescending to someone every single day.
You don't have to talk down to everyone mind you, just find a single person who is truly inferior.

2) Lie to your Grandmother.
Make a point to call your grandmother each day and tell outrageous lies. She won't really care. Chances are that she'll forget the whole conversation by the time that she goes to bed that night anyway. Make sure that the stories are extravagant to keep her attention!! Relay stories about how your dog swallowed the remote control and was leaking radio waves out of his butt which allowed the gray aliens to home in on the distress signal that you intended for Gary Coleman.

3) Think evil thoughts.
At least once per day, think a purely evil thought. Be sure not to act upon them however, as that would build up massive karma. The trick is to think it, but not do it. Consider this an exercise in mental self-restraint. For example, If you are angry with your neighbor, try picturing yourself drowning him/her in the shallow end of the birdbath. Tightly gripping their head as they gasp for much needed air. See, wasn't that nice? Just be sure not to act out on it.

4) Talk about someone behind their back.
Oh, c'mon...... do I really have to explain this one to you? You know you do it already anyway.

5) Rub your Buddha (If you know what I mean).
Rub it A LOT. Rub it well. Have someone else rub it for you if you can. I'm not sure if this will even build karma, but who really cares, right?

6) Covet, covet, covet.
If they have it, you need it.

7) Litter.
Always be sure to leave some small element of non-biodegradable material behind every day. Good littering material includes: aluminum gum wrappers, oily rags, beer bottles and the ultimate in non-biodegradable materials; styrofoam containers.

8) Scowl at small children.
This one is really easy. Simply make mean looking faces at other peoples children. Great places to do this includes grocery stores, shopping malls, and while driving through residential neighborhood. With enough practice, you may even be able to make really small children cry.

9) Don't shower until someone complains.
This one is pretty self explanatory. How do you spell bad karma? B - O - thats how.

10) Break a promise.
Thanks for lunch Sioux, I swear that I'll buy yours on Friday.

Does anyone know if they ever freed that Leonard guy? Not that I really give a damn, its just that I haven't seen anymore of those stupid "Free Leonard!" t-shirts or bumper stickers that proclaimed his innocence in quite some time.

Maybe he's free. Maybe he's dead. Maybe, just maybe nobody gives a rats ass anymore.

Do you ever wonder where those weird sayings that we have actually mean? It mystifies me as to where we derive some of them. Like, where did we get the saying "The proof is in the pudding"? No matter how you interpret that phrase, it seems disturbingly gross. Maybe I should invent one of those phrases but make sure that it relates to absolutely nothing whatsoever. That way, you'd only need a single phrase and could apply it to any situation that you wanted. Something that sounds cool but means nothing at all. I can see it now. I'd be at work and someone would try to one up me in a meeting.

Bill: "Hey Derek, why haven't you drafted that proposal yet?"

Me: "Well, you of all people should realize that its easy to hammer a nail in September, Bill."

Bill: "Oh, ....... Okay."

And then he'd shut up because he didn't want to look like a fool!

In our traditional family gathering, I went to my in-laws house tonight to watch the Super-Bowl with my father in-law and brother in-law. We always get together and drink a few brewskis, eat some snack and watch the commercials.........er... I mean the game. Unfortunately, this year the game sucked. I mean, I'm not even a big football fan and I was getting disgusted at the offense of both teams. I've seen better games at our local high school. At least when the kids do something stupid, you can brush it off as inexperience! If this year was any indication, I'll have to make sure that I drink a lot more beer in order to enjoy the game next year. I think that I've had more fun watching a potato bake.

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

Tomorrow I plan on releasing my very first "What the @#*! practical joke.The intention is to go around town and post a "Lost Pet - Reward" flyer that is commonly stapled to poles and pinned to bulletin boards. This one will be a little different however, as it seems a rather strange pet has been lost. I intend on posting at least 20 of these throughout the adjoining two counties, but am hoping that some of the readers of this blog will print out one or two and put them somewhere over this next week.

The number for "Irene" is an actual number for my unsuspecting friend Aaron. Shame on him for not reading this blog! Shame!!!

I truly wonder if these will even generate a single call. It'll be fun to find out!!! And even if they don't, I'm sure that it will get some good laughs out of people who see it. And thats what I try to do in life. Make people laugh. Oh, wait-a-minute. No I don't, I try to make money and have sex. Hey, what can I say? I'm a guy.

If you want to help me out, click here and print out a full-sized version of this flyer.

I'll be sure to post some pics if I get the chance to put the flyers up tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Problem Solved! I discovered the solution to my broken console dilemma! My Baseball glove! How could I have been so blind as to not recognize the solution earlier?!

• The glove is leather, my seats are leather.
  
  
• The glove give the car that "new leather" smell again.
  
  
• Baseball season is approaching, so it will look appropriate.
  
  
• It holds the console down, but still allows access.
  
  
• Allow me to officically classify my bonneville as a "Sportscar."
  
  

Hmmmmm..... I wonder if I threw a couple of ball-bats in there if I could legally claim that I drive around in the Batmobile?

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Remember way back in December of last year when the spirit of Karen Carpenter screwed up my car interior? Well today I screwed it up even worse! If you remember, I had used the miracle of Crazy Glue® to fix my console. Much like Oscar did with the bionic man, I made the console stronger, faster, better than before. But it wasn't strong enough!

I started out with the best of intentions; to clean my filthy vehicle and get it all nice and shiny again. So I took the Bonneville to the car wash over my lunch and broke out the cleanser of the gods: Armor All!!! You know the cleaner is the shit when their mascot is a warrior Viking! I mean, think of all of the other product mascots! Charlie Tuna (nothing but a fish! A near sighted fish at that), the Jolly Green Giant (big, but kind of a sissy! Besides, the whole thing of him and "Sprout" is kinda reminiscent of Michael Jackson and Emmanuel Lewis. Too creepy.) The Morton Salt Girl (she's just a little kid!), Morris the Cat (Just a stupid, finicky puss!), the Tidy Bowl Man (He lives in a toilet --- Do I need to say more?), Mr. Whiffle (has a toilet paper fetish!), they all pale besides the fearsome armor all warrior! The only mascots that stand half a chance are Tony the Tiger (Because he's a friggin' tiger for crying out loud!!), and Mr. Clean (One seriously tough looking gay dude!), but even they pale in comparison to the Viking Warrior. The dude has got a sword and shield at the ready. I imagine the sword would make mince-meat of any tiger (anthropomorphic or otherwise)! And I really doubt that hacking off Mr. Clean's bald head would prove to be challenging either.

So while wiping the dashboard with Armor All, I inadvertently leaned against the console, pushing the top towards the side, resulting in a faint "snap", followed by a spring-loaded pop of my console! Even thought the Crazy Glue® was strong enough to secure the up and down pressure of the console, it could not hold the force of sideways pressure. I found the piece and noticed that it had broken along the exact same area that I had repaired. "Good", I thought "I'll just have to glue it again and it will be as good as new!"

So I sat the broken piece in the passenger seat and commenced to cleaning the car. After wiping down the interior, I removed the mats and started vacuuming. It took about three seconds for me to realize my mistake! Before I even thought about it, I ran the vacuum over the seat and heard the plastic piece "zip" through the hose, rattling as it flew towards the canister! Damnation!!! How could I have been so careless???

I finished cleaning the car, but now have a permanently open console. Now instead of resting my arm comfortably on the leather, I have to rest my elbow in a deep, hard plastic hole. I'm miserable.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

I hate blogs that are nothing more that a long list of complaining and ripping on other people, the government, why "the man" is keeping them down, etc. Is it just me or does it seem like 99.9% of the blogs out there are nothing more than a bunch of whine-bags trying to blame things on other people?

Grow up! Learn to write something worth reading. And stop posting stuff that other people have written or created. Be original! With the exception of two items, my entire site is original. C'mon people, get off your lazy asses and do something for yourself. I'm sick of all of the bitching!

AAAAAAaaargh! Now I'M bitching about thier bitching!!!!!!!! It's infectous! Flee! Flee, before it infects you too!

Friday, March 25, 2005

The Good Friday that wasn't so good.

Have you ever had one of those days where absolutely nothing goes right? A day where you realize that the world would be safer if you had simply ignored the alarm clock and stayed in bed? Well, today was like that for me. It began like every other workday, with me awakening not by the alarm clock, but by the aggravated voice of Her Majesty telling me that i had overslept. So I drag myself out of bed, start a pot of coffee and climb into a hot shower. All was going fine so far, but little did I realize that fate had began playing its cruel joke.

After the showering, shaving, and basically making myself super-sexy for work I proceeded to make a salad to take to lunch. It was one of my famous kick-ass salads with fresh mushrooms, bean sprouts, and all of the other sweet goodies provided by Mother Nature. I added all of the components to the master salad and was putting away the ingredients when WHAM, the plastic container of alfalfa sprouts fell to the floor. I stared in amazement as an explosion equal to that of a hundred nuclear bombs pitched the seeds, covering every damn inch of the linoleum floor. I wiped up the seeds with a paper towel, cursing like a sailor the entire time, until I had scooped up every last one of the miniscule brown germinators. "I'll be damned if I get blamed for alfalfa growing out from under the stove!" I thought.

Shaking off the experience, I poured the pot of coffee into my thermos like I have done every day for the past seven years. you would think that I would be able to do this act blindfolded by now, but no! just as I was topping off the thermos, I twitched just enough to pour a dab of piping hot coffee onto my hand. Yep! And damned if it didn't hurt like hell!

undaunted, I took upon the task of preparing breakfast. Since I was running late already, I popped two sausage patties in the microwave for a "quickie" morning meal and I poured myself a large glass of cold milk. I thought it would be a good idea to help out with the dishes while I was waiting on the sausage to be finished so I decided to unload the dishwasher. I walked around the kitchen opening the cabinets and proceeded to spill the whole glass of milk off of the counter. The milk burst from the glass like white napalms, absolutely covering everything within a six-foot radius. There was milk in the cabinets, under the stove, inside the drawers, on the floor, and all over me!

This eruption of milk set off the loudest and most dire string of cusswords that have ever been spoken in the English language! I was swearing so loud that Her Majesty woke up to make sure that I hadn't chopped off a limb in some horrible utensil accident.

She cleaned up the mess while I went and took another shower. Luckily she had taken the day off from work and told me that she would go ahead and finish cleaning up so that I could make a mad dash to work.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

We sold Easter eggs at work today for charity. Some were filled with cash prizes, some contained candy, and some, yes some.....caused you to mutate into an insect!

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Bad Apples!

Those of you who know me realize that I am addicted to my Mac. In my opinion, the world of PCs always seem to be a step or two behind the ingenious innovators working at Apple computer. Since I am such a die-hard fan, it should come as no surprise that all of my previous vehicles have been adorned with the little freebie Apple decals that ship with Mac computers. All of them but my current vehicle that is.

So today, I found the decals that arrived with my new G5 and prepared to apply the sticky little apple onto my back windshield. But as soon as the smallest portion of glue touched the glass, I was struck with a perplexing question.

Is the Apple logo really a sign of the devil? Sure, the little happy Apple looks harmless enough just sitting there in all of its white goodness, but there may be an evil hidden behind that symbol.

Monday, March 21, 2005

The Brat has been on vacation with my parents since last Friday, so I haven't updated the site much since then. Amazingly, I have been spending time alone with Her Majesty. (A rare occurrence, indeed.)

Gas prices reached an all time high of $2.13 a gallon today. Bummer! Now I'm contemplating things that I can do to earn more money. Aside from graphic design, here are some of my non-art related talents:

1. I can spit sunflower seeds very, very, very long distances.

2. I can yell loud enough to make every kid in Chucky Cheese start crying.

3. I am fluent in American foul slang.

4. I am awesome at pretending that I care what other people are talking about.

5. I eat almost all kinds of garden vegetables.

6. I am good at finding weakpoints and stupidity in others' personalities.

7. I can accept blame.

8. I can find humor in everything. (well....except for high gas prices)

9. I can break promises, things, and people.

10. I can dance if I want too.

If you know a part time money making opportunity that suit the above skills (outside of quick turn real-estate or internet terminals), please let me know!

Sunday, March 20, 2005

This whole feeding tube thing is driving me crazy! On one hand, I believe that a person should have the right to die, but on the other I think that if her husband has a kid with another woman, that the parents should become Terri's default guardians.

If Terri Schiavo's "life" is going to end, the doctors should at least have the decency to dope her up with morphine while she is starving to death! Should the tube be in or out?! I don't know, but someone needs to make a final decision and stick with it. Maybe it will come down to a coin toss.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Wow! The Brat is becoming quite the accomplished chef. She even goes all out on the appearance! This is the salad she prepared for Her Majesty and I this evening! Mmmmmmm..........

Monday, March 14, 2005

Her Majesty went to bed early tonight so The Brat and I decided to make emergency preparations for the upcoming alien invasion!

These aluminum foil hats were specially designed to repel the mind control waves that are being sent by the advanced alien intelligence.

The Brat's design reflects the waves from the dome shaped helmet and safely discharges the mind control waves toward the floor. As an added bonus to this design, we discovered that it also interrupts the signals from the alien implants in her brain. Plus, we can pick up all of our local TV channels if she raises one arm to the sky and touches the back of the television.

My helmet design is based upon a combination of the classic "My favorite Martian" design and the ill-remembered "Sleestack" design. The fin gathers all alien transmissions and allows the antennae to dissipate the waves safely. There were only two drawbacks to this design; the dissipating waves cause a slight humming noise and it caused a very worried look on the face of my wife when she awoke to seeing me wearing it.

And what did Her Majesty have to say about the helmets? "You guys are so f***ing weird."

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Just so that you know, I use a stat counter service to keep track of my web hits. It kinda' neat to see whos been checking out your site and how they found it. Sometimes it can be quite disturbing however, as you can see from this screenshot of one of todays "hits".

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Today we went and saw "My Fair Lady" at the OCC theater. It was an impressive production considering the small population that we have in the surrounding areas. Tammy Myers, a friend of the family, was cast in the lead ole of Eliza Doolittle. She was awesome of course and her personality came though to become the character. At one point while changing scenes, she was bumped by someone moving props and she got a bloody nose. So she continued on holding a kleenex to her nose throughout the next two scenes, explaining to Henry Higgins that she had been practicing so much that her nose was bleeding!

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Started teaching tonight and I think its going to be a super class this time. There are on;y seven students this semester which means that i will be able to spend a whole lot of time with each individual student.

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Her Majesty had a small ar accident today. I can't hassle her too much though, because she was working in her office at the time. Her car was parked "safely" in the parking lot when an old truck pulling a trailer full of junk rounded the corner without slowing down. It was one of those trailers with "redneck tie-downs" or as most of us call them; old tires. when the trailer rounded the corner, the tire flew off of the trailer and bounced into Her Majesty's carriage. It caused a massive $800 worth of damage to the right rear of the car.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

12 - (124-7 * 44657712.548) + 2123-54111 - 4515674 +([54848 * 645856] /216541)........... Too.... many..... numbers! Must..... shift brain back..... into...... right-side..........mode.

Monday, March 7, 2005

I went through some training today at work. it was a specialized course called "Catalog Math" and it dealt with calculating figures such as response percentages, total promotion cost, and profit per thousands.

I spent the majority of the day listening to the speaker as if I had any clue whatsoever as to what he was saying. I tried to absorb it, but i just couldn't seem to get the left side of my brain to fire up. My synapses were sputtering and coughing and seemed to stall everytime I heard the phrase "break even point" or "contribution to promotion cost". The worst part of it was that I was sharing the classroom with a butt-load of left brained people who were used to crunching numbers. I tried to keep up, but my mind unconciously translated the instructor's lecture into the familiar language of the Charlie Brown teacher. For every "Now calculate the promotion cost' that he spoke, I heard "Wah wah wah whah, wha wah waaaah."

So I'm spending time tonight going over everything at my own pace. I'll be at it all night.

Its funny that I couldn't seem to get shirted into using my left brain. its been so long since i've even really tried. It will sound funny to some of you, but I used to do a mental excercise called "The enchanted loom" when I was in college. Its a visualization excercise that helps to activate your right hemisphere while "powering down" the left side. its freaky, bizarre, and it WORKS! It will even make you feel drunk the first few times that you do it successfully. It took about a year before I got proficient in it, but now I can get results in less than a minute. All of you creative-folk out there should try this if you haven't already. Its effects are astounding. The sensations that this can cause are amazing. Personally, I can "feel " the right side of my brain get heavier, like water rolls into it like a small wave. At first you'll notice some things happening. You may feel dizzy or a little disoriented and you may (or probably will) lose track of time. I think this may be some sort of self-hypnosis or something. Anyway, it works! if you truly need to be creative, you should try to do this excercise.

I didn't invent this. It was compiled by Sir Charles Sharrington and was published in the book "Drawing on the right side of your brain."

1. Visualize in your mind's eye the magic loom inside your head, with its myriad flashing shuttles now coalescing in one part of your brain -- disolving, darkening, then streaming across to another part in an ever changing pattern; glowing and subsiding, glowing and subsiding.

2. Now imagine that you can control the pattern and can cause the flashing shuttles to gather in one part, then to dissolve and gather in another part. Imagine them gathering first on one side then on the other. Imagine that this gathering causes an actual physical sensation inside your brain, a slight change in pressure, a minute shift in weight, a slight warming or cooling, a faint buzzing sound.

Sunday, March 6, 2005

I've been reading a lot of other peoples' blogs lately. I never realized how many thousands upon thousands of people are into the whole blogging thing. Since I've started reading them, i've begun to notice some simiarities between most of them. From my experience, the typical blogger either listens to CNN and rehashes the news after attaching their personal slant, or they ignore the news entirely and report on pop culture and like an angry version of MTV news. There are exceptions though. I find sites like Mightygirl.net, Defective Yeti, and Jennville to be amazingly different.

After a few weeks of intensive blog reading, I discovered that I am not your standard blogger.

1) I do not consider myself to be an expert at politics, world views, or international relations. I tend to vote Republican for high offices and Democrat for local offices. If I don't like a candidate, I will switch paries without a second thought. (I guess this makes me a Republicrat....or maybe a Democan. Perhaps even a conserberal or a libervative.)

2) I don't really hate anyone or anything, and I'm not angry. I do however, like to poke fun at everything

3) I make my own observations about what I notice in my world, and then comment upon it. Sometimes its funny, sometimes its serious. But it is always my personal observation, not someone elses. Most of the other blogs that I've looked at appear to be clones of other blogs. Most are full of the same photos, jokes and rants. And while there is no shortage of blogs, there appears to be a shortage of originality.

4) I am not a good writer and I don't pretend to be. I usually forget to use spellcheck, my syntax sucks, and I often forget to capitalize my letter "i"s.

5) I don't take any of this too seriously. This is kind of a new hobby for me and I enjoy it.

Saturday, March 5, 2005

I just got an email from Maggie Mason giving me permission to link to her site; Mightygirl.net.

Maggie is a freelance writer and editor in San Fancisco and has an awesome website/blog that is smart, funny and rant free. I love it! You'll love it too, so check it out here.

Friday, March 4, 2005

We were returning home from a basketball game around 9pm on the first night of the year that it reached 60 degree weather.

Her Majesty: "Do you hear that?"

Me: "Hear what?"

Her Majesty: "That noise! Is that bugs hitting the windshield, or is it raining?"

Me: "I think its bugs."

Her Majesty: "But, its wet....." (long pause) "Blood."

Me: "Blood?"

Her Majesty: "Clear blood."

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Okay! Now the skeletal system is starting to take shape. Today I re-enforced much of yesterday's work as well as finishing the legs, feet, neck and head. The whole skeleton stands nearly seven feet tall. The photo on the far right shows a detailed shot of the neck and skull. The bottom photograph illustrates the depth that I am building into this project.

Now that I have the whole body hanging on my door I'm considering not turning it into a skeleton at all. I'm really starting to like it and think that I might just leave it as it is. Maybe even take more wire and "flesh it out" until it gets the depth of a complete human figure. I bet I could do it for under $30 more. I guess I would just hang it in my studio if I did that.

I dunno. What do you think?

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Well, its been four months since Frightfest 2004 and today I began ny first project for next years party.Since I do most of the decorations by hand, it takes lots and lots of hours to get the new decorations ready for next October.

I always wanted a life size skeleton but never could afford to fork out the hundred or so dollars that the cost. I know, I could get a cheap junky one fro around thirty dollars, but who wants to decorate with junk?! I want a cool looking skeleton that looks like real bones and that is flexible enough to be posed.

So I bought a spool of 9 gauge wire for under $8 and began my design. As you can see, tonight I began with the rib cage, collar bones, pelvis, arms, and hands. I even got the beginnings of a leg!

Friday, April 29, 2005

Seen and noted during my lunch hour.

Nothing screams sicko like a bunch of hookers wrapped in black plastic sheeting. Sounds like a scene from CSI or something.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

WOW! This site is really taken off! After checking my stat counter, I found that I have had nearly 300 hit today! that has to be my personal record so far. Whoa! Do you hear that?! That, my friends, is the sound of my ego swelling!

Monday, April 25, 2005

MORE NEW STUFF!!! See, I told you there would be more crap coming down the pipeline.

Who'd Get a Kidney: Are you a friend or coworker of mine? Check here and see if you rate one of my internal organs.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

NEW STUFF!!! I know, I haven't been updating for quite a while! Hopefully I will be able to get back in the swing of things.

Click here to check out my new article about the most creepy direct mail that I have ever gotten.

Click here to check out my new webcam gallery!!!

Friday, April 22, 2005

I took the day off from work today for some much needed R&R. It was nice to spend some quality time with myself for a change! I went fishing at this secret "Posted: No Fishing" pond and snapped this shot of the railroad tracks while I was there.

Yep, they just stop right there! I suppose you could say that I had reached the end of the line.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been getting some email feedback from readers, which for the most part is really cool. Here are some excerpts from emails containing recent comments about my site:

Absolutely MAD-FUN stuff. right up there with Howie Mandell, Julia Childs, and Kofi Annan (wait... Julia is dead!). - Thanks Dan!

I was setting here drinking beer thinking about passing out and then I saw a link I had saved for your site (between "teethless hoes turning tricks" and "I corn holed your mama" saved sites). I am really impressed with your web site. I enjoy the engaging personal approach. - Thanks Ernie, you freak!

The faux fur article isn't funny. You are sick. - Thanks Jill, you oversensitive twit.

Have a comment? Let me know what you think by contacting me here!

Thursday, April 21, 2005

I helped a gal out today at work and she said, and I quote: "Thanks Derek. You’re a real peach."

It wasn’t until later that I questioned the statement. Did she mean that as a compliment, or was she telling me that I am all round and fuzzy?!

I’m taking tomorrow off! It will be the first day that I have taken off from work since last July. I don’t have any big plans or anything. What I intend to do is drive to a secluded pond, taking with me a radio, sandwiches, three fishing poles and a 12pack of beer. Then I’ll just relax and fish. If the fish aren't biting, I’ll just sit back and listen to the radio and enjoy the solitude. But……its supposed to thunderstorm tomorrow and the temperature is going to drop from the high seventies to the low fifties. Do you understand how my life works now?!

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

My friend Lisa has been developing a weblog and photo galleries on her site. Check it out if you have time!

I inquired as to why Lisa was sniffing Courtney's butt and was told that "Its just what she does."

Monday, April 18, 2005

This has been a horrible day!!!! If I had the time, I would have gone by the pound today, just to pick out a puppy to kick! Just kidding!!!!! I like puppies, so get off my ass.

I even have two of them. Uh.......puppies that is, not asses.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Okay, so we didn't get the mother of all storms today like I was expecting. But geez.... look how nasty it looked out the window where I work! That's how it really looked out there! I didn't alter the color or anything, as a matter of fact, you can see all kinds of reflections of my office if you look close enough!

How about a rainy day poem?

Where is the unwavering ray of light
waging relentless war to stretch
from Bifrost unto the beaten earth?

When will it bathe that sunken form,
that shell of a human soul
in its spectrum of golden warmth?

An anguished sob as a tear
blends with rain when
the light was meant for another.

Monday, April 11, 2005

I drive by this Lawn Dragon every day on my way to and from work. I think it is made of old lumber saw-blades!

I don't know who's house it is, but there are two of these dragons swimming through their yard. I just think that this is a really cool lawn ornament!

I wonder if they feed them with garden gnomes???

Sunday, April 10, 2005

More sample interview questions for my friend Timay, who is interviewing for a graphic design position. These aren't from me however, they were written by Fred, the copywriter from where I work. Good luck Tim, I hope these help prepare you for the interview!

Please submit one sample of an original design. You can choose any subject, but you must use only black ink, on black paper. Be prepared to explain why your black on black design is better than a sheet of plain black paper.

I like to design in the nude. Would this offend you? Would this excite you?

If I wanted you to design in the nude, would it offend you? Would this excite you?

Would you consider painting my house an exciting design challenge?

If forced to choose, would you prefer to come to work late in the morning or leave early in the afternoon?

What is the hardest design challenge you ever faced and how did you get out of doing it?

What are your three favorite excuses for missing a deadline?

Saturday, April 9, 2005

We went to a charity basketball game tonight at the High school and watched the Sheriff Department vs. our local Police Department. The cool thing was that my "little" brother Kaleb actually got deputized by the Sheriff so that he could play on the team. I shouldn't call him "little", he may be younger than me (he's a sophomore in High-school) but he towers above me in height. I'm about 5' 10" and I think he's around 6' 4" so far.

It was a fun game to watch! Kaleb blocked smacked down A LOT of their shots. He's a pretty smooth ball player. The Sheriff's Department ended up with the win by about 10 points or so.

Friday, April 8, 2005

Today was truly a day of mixed blessings. I suppose an optimist would say that it was a grand day, but no one ever accused me of being an optimist. I should relate the good events before I wallow in pity, however.

Sioux and I went to lunch at a new coffee-house in Effingham. It was a truly artsy-fartsy restaurant, complete with drawings on the walls, fancy "faux-paper" lamps, over crowded, noisy people, and decent food. I was truly waiting for Joey and Chandler to walk in.

I ordered the turkey and swiss with a coke while Sioux (being the brave soul that she is) requested something a little more exotic that appeared to be a sandwich stuffed between two giant dog biscuits. She also ordered a glass of tea that frighteningly resembled a large cup of urine.

But you can't always go by looks, can you? Case in point; anything from Taco Bell. Taco Bell's food is absolutely delicious, but everything on their menu looks like something that the dog may have coughed up in the corner.

While we were standing in line, we saw our ol' friend Liz. Liz, for those of you who don't know, recently married Eric Greenwood (or as some call him; the Anti-Derek). She has gotten a new job and seems really happy about it, but then again, she may just be ampped up on coffee too. It was good to see her and we talked for a little while. She mentioned that they check out this site every once in a while so..... Eric, I AM going to stop by some night to visit. Really! I swear!

If one were to end the story here, it would seem that my day was quite pleasant. I mean, I ate at a new restaurant with my bestest buddy and ran into another of my close friends. Oh, but no. That wasn't the end of my day. No sir, the day was fraught with PAIN. Pain like no man should have to experience! Pain brought upon me by the evil, evil, evil Ralph Lauren.

That's right, Ralph Lauren is a bastard! You see, I have this really nice t-shirt that I can wear to work on casual Fridays. Her Majesty bought it for me and I like it, but I curse myself every time I wear it. The logo says "CHAPS", which is a fitting description for this shirt. Although chaps, ....as a verb.

The logo would be more accurate if it said "Ralph Lauren NIPPLE SHREDDER" because the damn seams are like cheese graters for your nipples!

Check out the detailed photo showing the strategically placed seams that are apparently sewn with razor wire. By the end of the workday I felt like I had just survived some kind of Chinese torture.

I pictured it like this: The Chinese officer removes the bamboo splinters from underneath my toenails, frustrated because I won't give them any information. "Very well, Mr. Greenwood. You are strong willed!" He would look at the ninja soldier beside him and say: "Very well, you leave me no choice! Shiro, bring me the nipple ripping shirt!"

At which point I would scream "Noooooooo!!!!!!!" and somehow find a way to commit suicide while tied to a chair.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

Overheard at Lunch:

Three guys and a girl sitting around talking. One speaks up and says: “It doesn't really matter what they look like right? I mean, once the lights get low enough its all the same anyway, right?”

Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - 12:30am

I just noticed something bizarre! My phone number is 662-6403 and if you go by the letters for each number on the telephone, it spells "MOAN GOD". (If you make the zero an "O", since there is no letter for zero).

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - 1:00am

A friend of mine named Tim is applying for a graphic design position where I work. He's interned there for several years and is a cinch to get the job. But even though he has been there before, he has to go through the interviewing process in order to negotiate his contract. I was thinking of some tough interview questions for him to practice on before he goes out for the real one. Here are a few:

Where did you see yourself three years ago?

Hypothetically speaking; If you had to eat Scrappy Doo and one member from the cast of Saved by the Bell, who would it be?

Which piece in your portfolio did you copy from something that you saw in a magazine? (Juuuuuuuust kiddin' Timmay!)

What kind of pressures do you see yourself putting me through if you get this position?

Who among you will not kneel before the power of Zod?

Exactly where were you last Tuesday at 8:30pm? Why not?

This position requires a great attention to detail. What detail do you think that you will have the most trouble paying attention to?

How do you intend on keeping me happy?

(2 parts:) I like to eat lunch at restaurants. How often do you think I should do that? Do you think I should eat Chinese more than Mexican?

What do you consider is your least weakest area? What is your weakest strength? Why do you feel that way?

Why are you the best candidate for this job? Elaborate in sentences without using the letter "E".

Good Luck Tim!

Monday, April 4, 2005

Hey, have you ever thought about how the meanings of words can be twisted just by the association that they get from other words? I mean, some words sound absolutely filthy even though they aren't. Now, I'm not talking about words like pussy willow, or cock-fight, those are compound words that are formed using a slang term. No, the words that I'm talking about are guilty by association. Word that are assumed to be nasty even if they aren't meant to be.

Don't believe that it happens? Then try to use the word "engorged" in casual conversation today and see what kind of looks you get!

Sunday, April 3, 2005

If anything will bring about the demise of this weblog, it will be Jax and Daxter! Who, you ask? Well, Jax is a pointy eared little guy and daxter is his little smart-mouthed anthropomorphic friend.

Actually, I shouldn't put all of the blame on them. I suppose the blame should be on me for finally breaking down and buying a Playstation 2. I love that damn little plastic gaming system. It will be the downfall of all of the productivity in my life.

If you ask me, the Sony Playstation will be the downfall of all mankind.....

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Wanna' Take A Ride In The Love Machine Baby?!

While driving home this evening from my in-laws, I got behind a slow moving Pontiac Van. It was after dinner and dark outside and I noticed a greenish haze glowing in the back window of the van. As I drew near, it became evident that it was one of those fancy-schmancy vans with the built in DVD players. I always thought that it would be cool to have one of those in the car! That way The Brat could chill out and watch TV while me and Her Majesty drove in peace and quiet. But as I caught up with the creeping vehicle, I discovered exactly what they were watching in the backseat, and it wasn't a cartoon!

I'm just guessing here, but I don't think that the passengers realized that you could see the screen through the tinted windshield at night. Otherwise they probably wouldn't have been watching a porno while driving into town. Somebody in that van must have been "getting busy." Once I noticed what it was, I had to ride closely behind to make sure that I was correct, and this wasn't a figment of my imagination! Nope! They don't do THAT in commercials, especially THERE!

Luck illy, I was able to maintain a close distance behind them so that no other cars (possibly containing someone under the age of 18) would be exposed to that kind of pervasive filth! I ended up following ---- er, staying behind them until they drove halfway through town and turned off (or maybe turned on, if you know what I mean....) Someone who I related this story to asked my why I didn't write down the plates and call the cops. Well, I didn't ever get a good look at the plates! It was dark, after all!

Monday, April 1, 2005

My best friend Sioux has been sick from work for the past two days and it sucks! I'm such a pansy! Wah, wah, wah! It just goes to show you how big of a role that your friends can play in your life.

Wednesday June 1, 2005

The Brat had a friend over for dinner today and I think we may have really grossed her out during our meal. Y’see, The Brat inherited a lot of things from her mother, but she did the the mutant gene from me that allows us to share the same twisted sense of humor.

We all sat down at the table to eat and noticed the little girl looking downward at her plate, eyes open wide, like a scared man looking into the eyes of the Grim Reaper.

“What is that?” she asked, suspiciously eyeing the slab of meat on the plate.

“Its pork-steak.” Said Her Majesty. “ You mean you’ve never had pork steak?”

Now, I myself have always been uncomfortable with this term “pork steak” because the word itself is a conundrum. Pork is from swine, while steak should refer to something bovine in nature. Is this meat carved from some sort of strange genetically modified pig-cow? If not, I think that the meat industry should really rethink using the term.

Anyway, Her Majesty always trims the fat from the meat before cooking it, but there were still little fatty remnants in the meat. The girl obviously stuffed some in her pie-hole because she made an awful face like “ Damn! How can I spit this crap out without them seeing me?”

“You don’t like it?” inquired the Brat.

“Oh, c’mon,” I touted “Just chew it up. Don’t be such a sissy.”

The girl was trying.... Chewing away at the nasty stuff.

“Its not that bad. Just think of it like jelly.” I said

“Yeah, its just like jelly” The Brat added.

“ Meat Jelly” I said. “Just chew up your meat jelly and then you can have some vegetables.”

The entire table lost it.

Monday May 30, 2005

I got an exciting email tis weekend from Mark Butler. Who is that, you ask? Well Mark is the owner of the largest collection of Halloween project links in the entire friggin' universe. His site: The Monster Page of Halloween Links is used by thousands upon thousands of haunters, both professional and habbyists alike. It appears that Mr. Butler has chosen my Halloween section of this site to be included within his collection, and he had some fine fine things to say. Take a gander at the email.....

Derek, I'm finally about done with the Monsterlist update (watch for big announcement soon).. and I wanted to say how amazed I was with your pages..
Simple easy to do stuff that was wayyyyy cool!

I'm so glad you posted the pages, your gonna make a lot of haunters happy.

Mark

So, if you get a chance, or are interested in haunting your home for Halloween, be sure to check out Mark's site!

Friday May 27, 2005

The following photo is a picture of my Halloween costume back in 2000. This nerd costume was probably my favorite costume of all time and it was so successful that my coworkers didn't even recognize me when I showed up at my desk.

Some of you guys have already seen this photo from years back, but its so damn funny that i figured that I would share it with some of my new friends.

I'm not usually the kind of person who reads astrology, and neither is Her Majesty, be she found this on MSN and sent it to me today. I was amazed at how accurate it seemed to be.....

Virgo (Her Majesty) & Aries (Me)

Virtual opposites: The Virgo is a diligent worker, a faithful partner, and a born organizer; sparkling Aries lacks ongoing commitment but has pizzazz. He may sometimes chafe under Virgo's critical gaze. The Ram will dominate the pair, and his or her unpredictability will wreak havoc with Virgo's plans. But Virgo gives backbone to the Ram's impulses, and guides him or her with valuable advice. The alchemy of opposites forges a constructive but continually strained relationship.

Tuesday May 17, 2005

I've often been down about all of the responsibilities that I carry in my life. Not that I believe that my burden is any greater than your average American, but there are responsibilities nonetheless.

Everyday on my commute home, I pass through a small town called Hord and am greeted by the same person as I leave the tiny village. The greeter is a man, slightly older than I , who always stands or sits along the path of a Care Center's wooden ranch style fence which stretches parallel with Hwy. 45. I never learned his name but he is as much a part of the town's landscape as the dilapidated old gas station, or the small country houses nearby.

Sometimes I look at the man as a I passby in the Bonneville and I feel sorry for him. Because there he has stood, all day, everyday for at least the seven years that I have traversed this path on my commute to work. And I think to myself, wouldn't it be great to be like him? Sometimes I think that it would be a blessing, to know that all you had to do is go out and stand by the fence and watch the world go by. And because of your mental capacity, you wouldn't realize the monotony of it all, day after day, after day.

But then I think, what if he isn't mentally challenged? What if he believes that he has been blessed with some sort of misunderstood gift of sight? What if in his own mind, that he MUST stand by that fence? What if it is his duty to guard mankind from some unimaginable horror that will unfold the moment that the fence is left unattended? Could his burden be to guard that fence through rain, sleet, sun, and snow in order to protect OUR reality?

That is a burden that I would not want to have resting on my shoulders.

Monday May 16, 2005

Wow! I got a lot of responses emailed to me regarding the Yoda interview from this weekend! Here are some snippets from two of my favorite emails:

"I must admit to an egregious act of slander on my part towards your person. While perusing your site I noticed the photo interview with Yoda, and thought in my head “this man-child has finally created something so moronic that history will site it as the cause for the fall of western civilization.” But then something in side told me to give it a chance. So I did, and was suddenly laughing despite my self. It was Glorious! So I went back into my head and took a vote on whether or not I should apologies, and the yeas won by a margin 405 to 387 with 13 abstaining (libertarians!). So even though I don’t agree with the use your artistry skills to put a very funny looking fictional creature next to Master Yoda, I must say kudos to you sir for showing us there can be a use for the internet other than religious zealotry and wonderful pornography.

P.S. I would be interested in obtaining this “Fleshlight“ that you promised to Mr. John Schaljo. If you could let me know where you obtained such an item, then I could see to it that your name be among the list of those who will be spared when my people return to enslave this planet."

and another....

"The force is strong with you and your longer arms! :) It was very interesting..... You must have great powers.... Have you ever done a comparison between Captain James Tiberious Kirk and Captain Jean Luc Picard? Could be a good debate! :)

I'll be thinking how lucky you are that you were able to interview Yoda. Have you been able to bang Amedala yet?"

I'll be sure to post more as they come in...

Sunday May 15, 2005

With all of the hype surrounding the new Star Wars Episode 3 coming out next week, I thought this would be the perfect time for me to try and make contact with one of my childhood heroes. You may have noticed that the Star Wars characters have been making a lot of appearances to promote the upcoming movie release. So, being a childhood fan and all, I decided that this was the right time to contact my favorite Jedi Knight. It was surprisingly easy to do. I just had my people call his people and WHAM, I got an interview.

Unfortunately, I discovered that childhood heroes aren't always what they appear to be.

You can read the photo journalistic interview here.

Saturday May 14, 2005

Well, here it is! The first ever interview conducted for my website. because this is the introductory interview, I thought it would be particularly appropriate if the first participant was none other than this sites number one fan - John Schaljo. Click here to red the interview.

Friday May 13, 2005

Overheard in a lucnch conversation at the sub-shop.

Guy #1: Do you know Alice's number? I need to let her know that we are eating here.

Guy #2: Yeah, its 3972.

Guy #1: Thanks! (begins dialing phone)

Guy#2: Y'know, if you were into numerology, youd know that it is the number for "dirty f*@#ing whore".

Thursday May 12, 2005

I’m sitting in an empty class right now. It’s the last one of the semester and all of my students have finished their final exams. As far as I know, I am expected to remain here for the next four hours in case some crisis arises like an earthquake, tsunami, or a Michael Jackson molestation. So I’ll just sit here and grade papers, surf the net, and do other professorly things.

I know that my entries have been rather lame lately, but don't give up on me. I have some real cool stuff in the works and hope to post it over the weekend.

Tuesday May 10, 2005

I have newly updated artwork from my Adobe Illustrator students. You should take a minute and check out the new work. This semester's students are featured across the bottom row. You can view them by clickng here.

Monday May 9, 2005

Why do you suppose that aliens only abduct people from farm-houses and trailer parks? I mean, does the anus of an old farmer really hold THAT much of a mystery to the extra terrestrials? Since they are so much more advanced than us, you'd think they'd have the common sense to abduct someone who has a white collar job. If I had to pick an butthole to probe, it sure wouldn't be from a sweaty old farm-hand.

Stupid, stupid aliens.

Thursday May 5, 2005

Today is 05-05-05, triple five, Cinco de Mayo de cinco, if you will.

That’s uno + uno + uno + uno + uno de mayo de cinco.

Have you ever had one of those days where you wish a lot of the people you have to deal with would commit suicide? Well today was my day! Don’t get me wrong, its not like I was going to go postal on anyone or anything like that! No, the Derek abhors violence! Plus, you could go to jail for that!!!

Oh, I just added a new section to the Fun Stuff pages called Metaphoric Connections. Be sure to check it out and see if you are a genius.

Wednesday May 4, 2005

Happy Birthday to my pal Lisa! She's the big 32 today!!!! She sure acts alot younger than she is, the old goat!!! I wonder what she got for her birthday? probably VD. Besides from eating lunch with her, my day was horrible.

I'll give you four words to describe the coupe de grace of the afternoon:

Pickles, Kleenex, Lubriderm, Pepsi! Oh wait, that was my Walmart list......... I meant to say: Keys Locked In Car.

Derek Ouuuuuut.

Tuesday May 3, 2005

This evening we loaded up the car and made the 8 mile trek to see my Dad, Step mom and my two Brudders. The Brat was real excited to go because one of Pat's horses had just given birth to a colt the night before.

The photo shows my Dad (blue hat), my uncle Jerry (white hat) and my youngest brother. There was some argument going on as to what name should be given to the awkward little thing. I think they went with "Joe", but I thought something like "Stumbles" or "Cricket" would have been more appropriate.

Even though I'm not very fond of those equestrians, I have to admit that it was kinda' fun watching the silly little thing try to run and keep its balance.

Monday, May 2, 2005

A casual pre-luch conversation on semantics:

Me: Do you have any plans for lunch today?

Friend: I have to go to the Post Office and then I think I'm gonna read a book. I've been reading a lot lately. This is my third book in a month. It's really nice :) What about you?

Me: Nothing. I don’t have any money and I didn’t bring my lunch. Maybe I’ll just stay here and dink around. Dink – a term used to describe being lazy, without saying “being lazy.”

Friend: Does this work? I am so dinky.

Me: No, dink means something different when used like that. I think it means “small” in that instance.

Friend: ...like a dinky winky?

Me: No........ I think that may be a penis. Like in “Jill kicked Jack in the dinky winky.”

Sunday, May 1, 2005

Okay, time to start this months installment of my weblog. Nothing fun or exciting to report at the moment, but be sure to check out last months archives if you missed any postings! You can get there by clicking here, or by using the link at the top of the page.

Tuesday June 28, 2005

I received this email from a reader concerning the posting on last Sunday regarding the boys who threw feces at a State Trooper:

"WI was just perusing your blog and came across the guy who was arrested for mob action and that reminded me of back when I was in college. At SIU the had a time when the campus closed on Halloween to prevent rioting (im sure you heard something about it) well then next Monday I went to class and the instructor told us that a member of our project group wouldn’t be with us that day because he was arrested over the weekend for “Mob Actions” (he even showed us the story in the paper). Not a big deal except for the coincidence concerning his name. The guys last name was Capone. I swear to you this story is true, and while most people I tell it to don’t find it that funny; I still laugh my self silly when I think of Capone being arrested for mob actions.

Signed,

JP

Monday June 27, 2005

The picture below was taken from Foxnews.com and it shows some of the stupidest people on the face of this planet. The pics show ta portion of the Florida coastline as taken from a helicopter. All of thse black dots on the right are sharks swimming towards the beach. The three people swimming on the upper left are, well..........dinner.

Saturday June 25, 2005

The following information is a news story sent to my by Jon Lankow. It involves two "men" for our area who discovered a whole new level of the term stupidity!

Two Charged w/Mob Action
Two 19-year-olds from Stewardson have been charged with mob action for allegedly throwing bottles filled with human waste at an Illinois State Police squad car. Charges filed in Effingham County Circuit Court today allege that on June 12, Richard Hxxxe threw a plastic soda bottle containing human urine at a trooper`s squad car containing three individuals, while Chad Cxxxxr is alleged to have thrown a plastic soda bottle containing human feces and urine at a squad car. Mob action is a felony with a maximum penalty of prison time. Cxxxxr and Hxxxe were also each charged with one count of aggravated assault and two counts of simple assault. State police say the incident was the outgrowth of a traffic stop. Bond for each defendant was set at $10,000. They are due in court July 11.

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Friday June 24, 2005

The mercury today is expected to top one hundred degrees! Yep, I said ONE HUNDRED degrees. To quote the skankilicios Paris Hilton, "That's Hot!"

We were expecting to go to the drive-in theater tonight. Yes, we still have drive-ins in Illinois! These nearly extinct gems of audio/visual enjoyment are all but forgotten in much of this gloriuos nation of ours, but as you may know, time tends to stand still in rural Illinois.

We had went to the drive-in several times last year and always had a good time despite the ordeal that it becomes. Let me elaborate on what I am referring to when I say "ordeal." The trek to the Newton drive-in is no simple matter for us. A smooth drive-in experience takes more planning and operational tactics than most military strikes. It begins with Her Majesty leaving work and driving south about 15 miles to pick up the Brat. Once loaded, they embark on another drive, this one a massive 50 miles, to my place of employment. Once near, they call me to scramble my gear and await thier arrival outside of my workplace. All necessary cargo is then transferred form my vehicle to Her Majesty's. After the primary vehicle is loaded, we embark on yet another drive, this time going East about forty miles to the town known as Newton! Newton is a small midwestern town known for its Eagles and its other attractin, the Drive-In. Once we arrive in this quaint little town, we travel to a general store and purchase chips, popcorn, or other means of greasy sustanence. This whole experence allows us to arrive back at home somewhere in the vicinity of 2am.

But we won't be going tonight, as it its too hot to be outside, even when the temperature drops to a chilling 87 degrees at night.

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Thursday June 23, 2005

I feel aweful today. It feels as if a rock has been bearing down upon me and I feel horrible. You see, today, I lied to one of my very best friends. It wasn't a malicious lie by any means. It was a lie with the intentions of sparing one's hurt feelings. In a way, it was a comforting lie. But it was a lie nonetheless, and I reget telling it.

It all began when I was told some information by my friend regarding a past event. And since we run in the same circles, I relayed this information to a mutual friend because I knew that they would be concerned as well. No problem I thought. Until today, when I was asked to keep the event secret. Of course I agreed, knowing full well that I had already discussed the secret the day before. And now I feel ill.......

I will confess. Because if you can't trust your friends, then your life is rather pathetic. Trust is important.

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Wednesday June 22, 2005

Some people believe that a persons name can dictate their personality, the way that they are percieved by others, and possibly their station in life. For example, if your name is Poindexter P. Thinkalot, you would probably grow up to be in a high paid white-collar job where yu use your brain over brawn. If your name is Vito Knucklebasche, you'll probably be a union leader who walks around carrying a steel pipe. These names may be what psychlogists refer to as self-fullfilling prophecies. Just take a look at the man below. This is an actual screen shot for the Illinois State Police Sex Offender Registry. Now, while I make no assumptions to whether this man is guilty of his charges, I do think that it is a horrible coincidence that hiss name reflects his prosecution oas a sex offender. Just read his name and then tell me that this guy wasn't destined for wrongdoing.......

Wednesday June 22, 2005

The challenge issued in last Thursdays post has been won by none other than Blackboard Super-fan John Schaljo. The callenge stated that I would award the first person who contacted me and correctly told where the phrase "Close your eyes Marian! Don't look at it!" was derived would win a dollar. The answer was that it is a quote from Indiana Jones in the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. It comes from the scene where Indiana and Marian are tied to a pole as the Nazis open the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.

I had two correct responses on the same day, but Johns was sent to me first. Kudos to Mr. Josh Poe for being the other correct respondant. You guys are both truly geeks of the celluloid.

Mr. Schaljo was awarded his dollar via four sparkling quarter dollars for his quick response. And not just any quarters, mind you, as three of them were particularly valuable because they were classic quarters. Yes, classic quarters! Embellished on the reverse with the engraving of a Bald Eagle, the true symbol of American Pride. Our National Bird, who bravely fought extinction to once again become king of the skies! Congratulations John!

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Tuesday June 21, 2005

Its really neat to see how your website ranks with other sites out on the net. I for one, have never submitted this site to any search engines and only appear there because the pages have been indexed through other sites that have linked to me. So it always surprises me when something strnge like this shows up in my stat-counter logs. Apparently, I got a visitor to my site because they searched for "alleric to vegetables". Thats right, alleric which was a typo on my behalf because of my loathing of spell-check. This typo gained my site a #2 rating with MSN! Incredible! But the funniest pert is the way that msn addrieviated the page content. Read the listing below and see if it makes any sense to you! Why in the hell would any sane person click on my link with a content abbreviation like that?!

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Friday June 17, 2005

I went to Olney, IL today and visited my old "mentor" Vic Connor. Vic was my first college art professor and is responsible for pushing me into this field that I love to this day. Without him to guide me along in my fledgling days, I assume that I would probably still be working in a gas station somewhere. (Not that there is anything wrong with working at a gas station, mind you. I did it for a year, myself).

Amazingly, it had been almost 7 years since we had gotten together and visited. He has since retired and built a new studio behind his house. Its really nice, I'm sure it is the studio that he wished he could have had decades ago. Its full of an amazingly eclectic array of things. Animal Skulls, bits of machinery, sculptures and drawings, bits of this and that are everywhere. Its truly a feast for your eyes and could easily bring one into a sensory overload. I could have just wandered in there for hours studying the curiosities all around me.

It was good to see him and to know that all has been well for he and his family. Now that the relationship has been reestablished, hopefully we can see each other more often. Maybe even get the families together for dinner.

I had such a good time visiting that I am going to try and make a better effort at keeping in contact with old friends. So Ernie ol' buddy, you are next. And so are you, Mr. Benjamin Dybas!

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Thursday June 16, 2005

Before we make the long and arduous journey home from the land known as Indiana, we always try to make a tradition of an activity which is beloved to white trash families across the tri-state. Of course I am referring to the shopping adventure known as the garage sale.

Exploring the vast richness of other peoples' trash is a learned skill. I learned its secrets from my grandmother, who in turn learned it from her grandmother. (My skills are rudimentary at best however, because I was the only grandchild at the time. Eventually these skills were passed down to my cousin Courtney when she became old enough to learn).

But even with my limited garage spelunking skills, I do know the most important rule of garage sales:

It doesn't matter whether you will need the item or not, only that you want it, or it is priced cheaply enough.

So what did we find? The Brat actually made out like a bandit and purchased a bunch of brand new hardbound "Nancy Drew Mysteries" books. Her Majesty on the other hand, found absolutely nothing.

I struck gold, however with a creepy, old latex mask that I purchased for a dollar. I know, big friggin' deal to most of you, but I absolutely live for Halloween. Its my favorite holiday, and we go all out for the season. So a one dollar mask is a major find for me.

I was so excited!!!! You would have thought that I had located the Ark of the Covenant right there in this chubby ladies' garage! I didn't really need the mask, but Halloween is only a 136 days away after all, and the lack of needing the mask is securely covered by the rule stated above.

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Wednesday June 15, 2005

Okay..... I've been dieing to show these pics off for a while now, and now that the new Batman movie has been released, I can FINALLY post these pictures. It was a pretty exciting day at work when we got to mess around with the new Batmobile. The Brat even had a good time checking it out, but even she didn't realize that I am secretly The BATMAN.

If I'm the Batman, then I'm the Bruce. If Tim is Robin, that makes him the Dick. Sorry Tim.

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Tuesday June 14, 2005

I just heard on the news that another one of my old high-school friends is going to prison! Geez, you'd think that by their 30's these guys would have straightened their lives out. This makes the sixth one that I can think of right off of the top of my head. Its a shame. We were close ever since the sixth grade, and I really liked him. Oh well, people dig their own graves. Here is the news report:

A Louisville man was sentenced to 6-years in prison after pleading guilty to unlawful drug conspiracy. The 35-year old entered to negotiated guilty plea earlier this week. The charge stemmed from his arrest on May 30, 2003 was involved in the production of methamphetamine and the transportation of supplies and chemicals to the location where the drug was being made.

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Sunday June 12, 2005

Well folks. I'm finally going to take a vacation from everything, including this website. I don't really have any plans besides going to visit my mom and step-dad in Indianapolis, so it should be a very relaxing week. Hopefully this whole eyeball sickness thingy won't ruin my fishing time.

Saturday June 11, 2005

Last week The Brat bought me a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans. I loved them and decided to take the bag wit me to work to share with my co-workers. But unbenownst to me, I had inadvertantly dropped on onto the floor mat of my car.

Let me preface this with saying that it has been sweltering hot here in Illinois for the past week. Almost everyday the mercury has crept into the nineties. Well, I got a nasty surprise today when I noticed what looked like small pubble of baby crap on my floor mat. I was shocked and revolted by this glob of chocolate stuck to the rocks and twigs which regularly inhabit my floor mats.

Friday June 10, 2005 - Evening Post

The eye doctor said that my eye is really screwed up and that if I don't take care of it, the infection could work its way behind my eye and eventually to my brain. If it reached that point it would turn into menengitus. So I just have to be reeeeeeeeeeeeeealy careful that it doesn't get worse.

Friday June 10, 2005

What a day so far! I awoke witha a burning sensation in my right eye this morning and was astounded to find out that my body had created its own version of Super-glue to hold my eyelids together. It was nasty! So after about five minutes woth a warm wash-cloth over my eye, i had absorbed enough moisture to open my eye the slightest bit. Eventually, I got the whole thing open and was horrified at what I saw in the mirror.

Is it pink-eye, an alleric reaction to something? Who knows. I have an 8:30 appointment with the eye doctor and will give you complete update later tonight after work. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of my Quasimodo eye!

Thursday June 9, 2005

I may have already mentioned in previous posts about the annoying family who is leasing the house next door. Well, to be truthful I suppose I should admit the whole family isn't annoying, just the son. The 16 year old kid is a drummer. And that's using the term lightly, believe me!

But, like all good students of music, he makes sure to practice playing his instrument at least twice per day. Unfortunately for us, this usually either occurs during dinner, or in the middle of one of Her Majesty's favorite television programs. Needless to say, the drumming quickly became the bane of our existence.

The funny part is the fact that The Brat has inherited my malicious frivolity, because today, she came up with a BRILLIANT idea! Each time the boy would start playing his drums, my evil little princess would open the adjacent window, leaving the blinds down, and blow on her bugle like an air raid siren.

The best part is that she never really learned how to play the bugle, as she was only in band for half of a year in 5th grade, So each time the drums fired up, she would bellow out some string of sickly notes that would surely call bison into our yard.

I missed it all of course, but I received a nice lecture from Her Majesty on how we should be polite to our neighbors........

Wednesday June 8, 2005

I received this chain letter today in my email. It looks like I'm getting three years of bad luck from Sylvester the Cat.

Tuesday June 7, 2005

Sometimes you just can't win no matter what!

Monday June 6, 2005

Today I went to a sporting good store over my lunch hour to buy The Brat some softball pants. Where do these shops find these freakazoid kids that work in there? I had a young lady help me find the pants and the whole time that she was with me, she was bouncing around like a cricket on crack! It was like she was in training for as a troupe member of Cirque de Soleil, all flipping and bouncing on her heels. I swear she was barely human.

I walked out of there with the pants alright, but I was physically exhausted from just watching this kid.

Sunday June 5, 2005

We took her Majesty to see Star Wars Episode 3 today. She really, really, really, hates Anikin now.

Saturday June 4, 2005

I got this for a traveling circus at a little diner that I sometimes frequent. Is it just me, or does this look a little disturbing? Call me crazy, but I think sending my kid into the same place with the clown in this flyer would be the last thing that I'd want to do. I know a lot of people who have a fear of clowns, and by the looks of this dude, I'm starting to understand why. This has to be the most evil, sadistic looking circus clown that I have ever seen. He seems to be saying “ C'mon kids and come play with Uncle Slappy the Clown! Watch me make the knife dissappear in your gut. Taa-Daa!!!!”

Creepy, creepy clown.

Friday June 3, 2005

Nyah, nyah, nyah. Guess who got to play on the new Batmobile today?! Yep, me and The Brat! Pictures to follow in a week or so......

Thursday June 2, 2005

I discovered something today that I should have realized ages ago. Some people just can’t write. Now, I realize that I’m not exactly a top notch wordsmith because my synntax sucks, as does my spelling, but at least my ramblings make sense. Sioux and I saw one of those “lost Pet” flyers today and I burst out laughing the moment that I read the first line. “Lost Inside Cat:”

How hilarious is that?! I mean, just what the hell would you lose inside of a cat anyway? That’s just nasty.

Wednesday June 1, 2005

The Brat had a friend over for dinner today and I think we may have really grossed her out during our meal. Y’see, The Brat inherited a lot of things from her mother, but she did the the mutant gene from me that allows us to share the same twisted sense of humor.

We all sat down at the table to eat and noticed the little girl looking downward at her plate, eyes open wide, like a scared man looking into the eyes of the Grim Reaper.

“What is that?” she asked, suspiciously eyeing the slab of meat on the plate.

“Its pork-steak.” Said Her Majesty. “ You mean you’ve never had pork steak?”

Now, I myself have always been uncomfortable with this term “pork steak” because the word itself is a conundrum. Pork is from swine, while steak should refer to something bovine in nature. Is this meat carved from some sort of strange genetically modified pig-cow? If not, I think that the meat industry should really rethink using the term.

Anyway, Her Majesty always trims the fat from the meat before cooking it, but there were still little fatty remnants in the meat. The girl obviously stuffed some in her pie-hole because she made an awful face like “ Damn! How can I spit this crap out without them seeing me?”

“You don’t like it?” inquired the Brat.

“Oh, c’mon,” I touted “Just chew it up. Don’t be such a sissy.”

The girl was trying.... Chewing away at the nasty stuff.

“Its not that bad. Just think of it like jelly.” I said

“Yeah, its just like jelly” The Brat added.

“ Meat Jelly” I said. “Just chew up your meat jelly and then you can have some vegetables.”

The entire table lost it.

By: Corporal Aaron M. Gilbert, US Marine Corps
USS SAIPAN, PERSIAN GULF

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Friday July 8, 2005

Well, here I am at the park again, just gawking at the squirrels. I think the people at the picnic table behind me must think that I am crazy just sitting here pecking away at this mini-keyboard. Sorry that I haven't been posting as much as usual, but Iv'e been extremely busy over the past few weeks, with softball games and the preparation for the beginnings of The Brat's Halloween party. I know it's in October, but for such an expansive event this really is the eleventh hour. Some of the props take hours and hours (and hours) to build. So if you feel disappointed about the lack of posting and you want me to write more often, you can always volumteer to help with the party props........

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Monday July 4, 2005

Happy Birthday America!!!!!

My dad bought three 1970's style recurve bows on ebay and we were messing around shooting milk jugs on this farm today. Its been a long time since I have shot one (probably close to 15 years) and I had forgotten the pain that is induced by drawstring burn. For those of you who have never experienced this, this is when the string of the bow, along with its 50 lbs. of resistance, flies across the skin of your forearm at about 200 miles per hour. The sensation is not unlike what I imagine having your arm plunged against a cattle brand would feel like. Anyway, it only happens once and then you tend to remember to be more careful..... You can see in the photo the results on my arm. They are such pretty shades of yellow and purple, don't you think?

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Saturday July 2, 2005

Just who the hell reads these posts anyway? Let me know! Click the link here and let me know that you have read this. You don't have to say anything, I am just a curious little monkey.

Friday July 1, 2005

You always hear about bad timing. It happens to everyone at least once! Like saying something bad about a co-worker just as they walk up behind you, or the fact that it always seems to rain after you wash your car.

But this movies’ untimely release coincides with all of the recent shark attacks going on in Florida. It makes me wonder if it hasn’t been some marketing scheme gone horribly wrong. I can here them in the board room now:

Creative Marketing Guy: "The marketing team has developed a plan to release 50,000 sharks off of the coast of Florida . Their sudden appearance will surely make the headline on FoxNews."

Stuffed Suit: "Hmmm, very clever. But what if they start attacking swimmers?"

Creative Marketing Guy: "We've purchased a breed of sharks known as Bull-sharks. They aren't very aggressive. Besides, if they bite anyone they sharks will be in breach of contract."

Stuffed Suit: "You guys never fail to impress me, Perkins! Lets go with it!"

Creative Marketing Guy: "Just in case there would be attacks, we have changed the name of the movie slightly . It no longer named “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Legless Girl.”

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Wednesday August 31, 2005

Where is the United Nations? Where are all of the relief workers from other countries? We give millions of dollars in relief to other countries each year. Tsunami relief, famine relief, drought relief. No matter what the problem that another country has, they can count on the United States of America to hand out millions of dollars to help fix their problems. But when a disaster strikes at home, there is no foreign aid.

No donated food. No UN volunteers. No helicopters flying around to rescue trapped people. And don’t get me started on all of those people who are trapped in New Orleans.

Listen. If you are told to evacuate the entire friggin’ city, then do it. Most of those stuck on rooftops are there because they ignored the warnings and I’m sick of hearing them bitch that no one will pick them up. Hey, It was your choice to stay, so shaddup already! Our rescue workers have other important things to do, like get power back on for people who heeded the warnings. So sit down on your rooftop and wait it out like everyone else.

Wednesday August 31, 2005

I got two replies to posts from the Amazing Poe this week they are as follows:

In regards to the August 29 Post about my new beard:

As you know I dislike all hair (that’s where the government likes to hide the transmitters). But if you must draw a line of hair from one side to the other then I agree that the Franz-Josef is a much leaner look. However, be thee warned, it appears that the weight of the whiskers will pull on your nose, and thus elongating it.

In regards to the August 29 Post about gas prices and the hurricane:

Ok ha ha, I get your biting sarcasm. And I would agree with you if gas went from $1.50 a gallon, or $2.00. Gas was already inflated, and while it may not be Bushes fault, as commander in chief it is still his to answer for.

Saturday August 27, 2005

I went fishing today with two friends of mine from work, Aaron and his girlfriend Loretta. It was a lot of fun and we had the whole pond to ourselves for about the first hour or so. To give a little background on this particular pond, let me tell you that it is a very LARGE pond that is conveniently tucked away about a quarter mile in between two cornfields located in the middle of nowhere.

We thought we were going to be able to have the whole area to ourselves and did, in fact, for a few hours. But then a crappy little white car came buzzing down the dirt road and pulled over a hundred feet past us. I should have know what was about to happen as I could have sworn that Kid Rock was the passenger who met my gaze as the car drove by. It was an enlightening experience as they climbed out of the car and proceeded to drink beer at a nearby picnic table beside the pond. They were white trash to the Nth degree! It was two adult couples and a small child about 10 years old. I felt like we were watching a live Jerry Springer episode! The more beer they ingested , the louder they got, until we could hear every word that came out of their public aid fed mouths. I'm, not sure, but I imagine the whole damn family, including the 10 year old and the pet dog, had mullets.

So we continued fishing and listened to the ramblings of the drunk woman who proclaimed in a raucious voice "I know how to handle my mother f****ing alcohol!" It was an enlightening experience for Loretta however, as the drunk lady of oh-so high social stature spoke of the two things scare a man the most:

#1. When a woman asks a man what his true f***ing feelings are for a woman.

#2. When you tell that man that you are sick of his shit and that you are going to cut off his f***ing balls.

Ahhhh........ true life lessons such as these come along only once in a lifetime.

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On August 18th, I posted how my friend Timmay was so young that he didn't always get my references to older television shows. The posting must have gotten under his skin because when I got home today this message was in my inbox.:

TS: You suck, geezer. Ok you don't really suck...that bad. You are a geezer though... And NO, I didn't say "You suck geezer!" I said, "You suck(comma) geezer!" So no misstatements when you rip me for this one on your blog! Ok bye.

Tim.

Timmay sure gets all defensive when he brings up sucking geezers, doesn't he?.

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Everyone should know by now that I am a freak when it comes to Halloween. Each year I construct homemade props for my daughter's Halloween party. This year, the biggest prop so far has been what the Brat and I call VLAD (very large Areal Demon). Its completely homemade and has a wingspan of over eight feet. Although it isn't finished, I figured that I'd give you all a sneak peak at it since this is the project that has been taking all of my blogging time away for the past few weeks.



The first two shots show the styrofoam body and the wire armature used to construct the wings. The head is shown in place, but wasn't actually attached at the time of the photo.

These pics show a more detailed pic of the skull and the way that the wings appear after mounted to the styrofoam body.

The shot above shows VLAD after he has been assembled - minus the legs and tail.

An underneath shot, showing the fully assembled VLAD. Detailed work like paint and texture still need to be applied of course.

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Just what kind of sicko do we have working at Wal-mart now? Super-fan John Schaljo sent in these images of a peculiar shaped fruit smile that he purchased at the local Wal-mart. These snacks were intended for his baby daughter and he and his wife were appalled to find this mutant abnormality within the bag of otherwise normal fruit snacks. Look at the huge phalls protruding from the rear of the smile! Disgusting. Is it an attempt to slowly sexualize our society? Is it some sort of sick attempt at recreating a Robert Maplethorp photo? Or something more devious, like the scientists at Great Value experimenting with Happy Smile DNA to create some unnatural , hybrid mutant?

The world may never know.

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Timmay, my main cohort at work, is quite a bit younger than I, (22 years old -- I think). He's a very talented designer and we get along great, but sometimes I catch myself saying things that completely blow by him. Not because he is mentally challenged or anything, but because he has no point of reference for some of the things that I say because of our age difference. Most of these are in respect to popular culture of the 1970's or 80's. There is a twelve year gap of pop culture between us and I often forget that.

Sometimes I make references to television programming from the 70 and 80’s and it goes right over his head. Like today I made a reference to George Jefferson “moving on up to the sky” and he had no clue as to what I was rambling about. I think that the cable executives developed that TV Land channel to solve this problem.

Perhaps this entertainment gap that is plaguing our society is actually the cause of the ills of the western world. There were no suicide bombers when Mrs. Garrett was mentoring Tootie, Blair, Natalie, and Joe! No mailed anthrax when Fred Sanford and Grady were drinking ripple! I don’t even remember a single gang-war when Snyder and Mrs. Ramano were taking it one day at a time.

So perhaps this TV Land is what we have been lacking for the past decade. Maybe it will take us back to the peaceful decade of the 70’s and 80’s, where all the children had to worry about was the imminent death of Nuclear War, crack fiends, and AIDS. Oh, wait a minute........ nevermind.

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NEVER, EVER, EVER start laughing when you are using the urinal.

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Quick Note: Quite a few of you have sent in your top 5 Hollywood Hotties! There's still time for more though, so send in your list if you haven't done so already! Click here to see the results so far!

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For some bizarre reason I awoke today at 6:30am instead of my usual Sunday 11:30am sleep schedule. So, with all of that extra time, I finally finished and posted two new additional section to my site!

One is the first posts of my "Hollywood Hotties" page that I thought of on August 10th, so if you want to see who's hot and who's not, check the page out by clicking here. If you get a chance, be sure to send in your top five, as I plan on making that a page which will be continually updated.

The second new feature is my biting expose' on the quality of water in my hometown of Flora! Believe me, its a must see. Check it out by clicking here.

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I got this reply from Poe in regards to the "Hollywood Hotties" posting on August 10th.

"You devious bastard, you want me to write this list of the hot chicks, then when I marry number 4 on my list, you can show her that I picked 3 other girls above her. You almost had me, but I saw through your ploy! This round goes to Poe! "

Sometimes I say very, very stupid things to other people. Things that either make myself look like a blithering fool, or confirm it to those who already think that I am. This little snippet of conversation occurred today near the end of my afternoon.

Tim: Is grandstand one word or two?

Me: I think one...... Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s one.

Tim: Okay.

Me: But then again, I ain’t the brightest tool in the shed.

That last sentence alone proved my point.

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A friend of mine sent me a link to the BAJAK-FLUX-CAPACITATOR ASTRAL TRAVEL TIME MACHINE that was being auctioned on ebay. (You can click the screenshot below to view the actual post.) The email quickly blossomed into the following banter:

JS: My B-day is 8/29. You guys better start bidding. Once you give it to me, I'll use it to go back into time, re-list it on ebay and pay you back.

Me: We already bought it for you six weeks from now.

JS: I'll thank you last week then..........

Me: You are......... Uh, will be......er.......were welcome.

Just for something fun, I’m going to do a thing on my website comparing everyone’s 5 hottest actresses (or actors for you gals). So I need your list! Remember, no singers, models, tv stars (or Porn stars..... Sorry, but you can’t nominate Ron Jeremy). You can email me the list by clicking here. If you are attaching photos of the stars, please try and keep each file under 30k in size. Results will be posted soon.

I think I may have skipped my upper thirties and jumped right into my middle fifties this weekend. Why? Because I found myself actively participating in the recreation of nearly all middle age men, metal detecting. It all started last night when we went to my Dad’s for a nice family dinner. After eating all of the sloppy-joes and cherry tomatoes that I could hold, we men went out to do something a little more exciting in the remaining hours of daylight. My father, grandfather and I walked though the field and began searching for buried treasure using that miracle of modern innovation; the metal detector. I knew that it wouldn’t be too terribly exciting, but its not often that I get to do anything with my father or grandfather, so that alone made the time worth a million dollars. In truth, I imagine the only person who truly got overly excited about metal detecting were those mine-sweeping guys in Vietnam, and I bet that if you took a survey you’d find very few of them who go metal detecting today!

We strapped on the headphones and swung the detectors to and fro searching for what promised to be the reward of an age-old coin. After about an hour of searching, I felt glorious achievement at the discovery of an old oil filter buried a mere three inches in the hardened dirt. What a discovery! I never even knew that the Indians used automobiles to work the land! Surely this is some kind of significant archeological finding. I mean, I have never seen any reference to any type of Native American internal combustion engine.

Now this is just a theory, but I’m almost certain that we white men must have stolen the technology and and driven the Indians away from the land! Perhaps I should send an email to the Native American Geological Society. Yes, I think that would be appropriate. After all, why should I keep this astounding discovery to myself, right?

You may not have noticed, but the handy dandy little counter at the bottom of the page finally rolled past twenty thousand! what a milestone. This site hasn't even been up for a year yet, so I think those numbers are pretty friggin' impressive.

Friday August 5, 2005

Sometimes you run into sites when you are doing searches on the internet that just make you think " What the f***??!!" And I think the following link will be one of those! Be careful if you are at work, while it's not full of swearing or porn, it is definitely strange and suggestive.

The Wall of Toys!

Thursday August 4, 2005

Today two friends of mine, Lisa Tebbe and Courtney Wittenberg volunteered to help me with the photography that I needed for The Brat's Halloween Party invitations. Together, Lisa and Court make up Photoworx Studio. It was awesome for them to do this and I think everyone had a lot of fun with it, even if we did make Courtney contort into some uncomfortable poses a time or two. I'm posting just a few of the awesome shot that these guys made for me. I haven't had a chance to mess with them or clean them up yet, but they will be amazing when it comes time to design the card. The Brat and I really appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedules for this project. So thanks, friends!!!

If you are curious to see what kind of invitation that I typically do, you can click here and view 2004's invitation.

Wednesday August 3, 2005

Sweat drips from the driver's brow as he awaits the green light. The heat from the rumbling engine bellows as he grips the steering wheel in anticipation of the green light. He steals a quick glance to the driver to his right and then slams down the accelerator as the vivid green hue signals for him to go. The car tears forward, tires spinning and squealing on the hot pavement before finally rocketing the massive metal machine down the lane and ahead of the vehicle to the right of it.

Okay, so it didn't really happen like that, but I think the dude in the van beside me thought that I was trying to race him on my trip home. His shitty little mini-van was grumbling defiantly as he continued to push the engine to keep up with me. Eventually, he went around me, no doubt feeling victorious for outrunning the Super-charged Bonneville.

The truth is, I wasn't trying to race him. I was simply trying to keep cool! According to my in-car thermometer, it reached a sweltering 92 degrees last night and the whole "race" scenario was nothing more than me trying to get going fast since my damnable air conditioning went out of my car. Since I haven't gotten the relay replaced yet, I am relying on the old 4W65MPH air conditioning system (That's 4 Windows-Down, 65 Miles Per Hour for those of you who have never heard of that expression.)

So let the van have his victory. Let him remember the day that he out-ran the "big, bad" Bonneville. Let him drink champaign and flirt with wild women in his hotel at night, I'll just be satisfied knowing that I won't be sweating in my leather seats.

Tuesday September 27, 2005

TV will rot your brain
The Brat came home with her first “major” civics project for school. She was struggling to learn the preamble to the constitution.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s easy! I can help you with that.”
Brat: “You can?”

Me: “Sure, it goes:

“We the people of the United States,
In order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare and ensure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Do ordain and establish this constitution
of the United States of America.”

She looked at me in awe. “This is the man who can’t help me with my longhand division?” She seemed to be thinking. “Amazing!”

So I sat her beside me and began teaching her how to recite the preamble as if it were a flowing poem, each line’s syllables transitioning rhythmically to the next line. Eventually she got it down-pat and she could recite the entire preamble along with me. She was as excited as I have ever seen her and she couldn’t wait to tell her teacher and friends that she learned the whole thing, word for word overnight. She for a brief moment, I wasn’t the stupid dad, or overbearing parent that all teenagers seem to believe controls their life, I was that “cool, smart” dad that I was back when she was in the fifth grade.

Thank you, thank you, thank you schoolhouse rock. Even 25 years later, the effects of your songs still ripple through my life.

Monday September 26, 2005

Somber
What does it mean when the highlight of your entire day is something as mundane as your lunch hour, where you essentially sit down and do nothing? If your existence has sunk so low that you find no enjoyment in your day to day life, what do you have to look forward to? Do you set long term goals and think about reaching them? Do you really believe that time will dissolve any of the sorrow in your life? Do you try to enliven your days by doing new things, creating new experiences? Will either of these even help?

Sunday September 25, 2005

Its a very special day today for three big reasons!!!! For one, today is the day that my website has surpassed the 50,000 hits. Thats alot of hits now!!!! If I wasn't so poor, I'd take you all out and buy you dinner and drinks. But since I have no fundage, maybe I can bring you all a glass of tap water instead, okay?

The second and third reasons are that it is my youngest little brudda's birthday and the birthday of my bestest buddy Sioux! So happy birthday guys.

Friday September 23, 2005 Evening Post

I'm getting really excited about the days ahead. I received word that one of my ol' college buddies Ernie Miller is coming home for an art show in Olney
this weekend. It'll be nice to see him again. I don't think we have met since 1994. MY GOD! THAT'S 10 YEARS!!!!! Where did they go?????? It should a fun visit. Ernie is about as twisted as a person can be without being institutionalized. Wait, maybe that's where he has been all this time.....

And I also found out that another old-time friend of mine is visiting also. This other friend, Andrea, and I go waaaaaaaay back. Probably further back than any other friend that I have. I remember being around her when I was in kindergarten if that tells you anything. But eventually she and her parents moved to Florida and we lost touch.

Last year I heard that her parents had moved back to my hometown and I took a trip over to say hi. They told me that Andrea had married and was getting ready to have her first baby. Then, as so often happens in the hectic life of the American worker, we lost touch again. But last week her father called and said that she was coming to visit next week and wanted to go out to dinner. Its going to be exciting to see her again!!!!! I have wondered about her for years, and according to my best guesstimate, we haven't seen each other for 21 years!!!! What a long time reunion that should be!

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage

Thursday September 22, 2005

The Amazing Poe sent this correspondence to me regarding yesterday's post:

I know we don’t see eye to eye on the President (you think he is doing a good job, while I on the other hand think he is EVIL personified), but I found this post very amusing. I don’t understand the mentality of people who stay in this situation. I’m not calling them stupid, or dumb, or lazy, or shiftless, or “evil-doers”. I just don’t understand the mind set of people who know there is a good chance of this happening, see there neighbors leave, and say “ill not let this storm force me out of my house”. But then I think what if they are the most noble of all, what if it is their very spirit that enrages Mother Nature so much that she sends storm after storm to put out the shining light that are these people. On the other hand they could just be morons. I find it interesting that when Katrina hit New Orleans many people were transported to Texas, and now Rita is heading after them. Sounds like God wants to have a word with someone.

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Disturbing things that throw my whole life out of balance and drive me to the brink of psychosis: My 12 year old daughter told me that Steven Tyler, the singer for Aerosmith, was "hot."

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I saw something today that brought me back to reality and forced me to remember what it was like to be a young boy. I was driving past the local grade school when I saw a child (around 10) walking beside the school's chain link fence, On the other side of the fence was the basketball courts. The boy could have walked another 20 feet and entered the school yard via the gate, but instead, he leapt up, climbed over the fence and jumped down, falling on his butt in the process. Then he got up and ran to the ball court.

Do you remember how it felt to do that? To not take the easy way around obstacles, but rather take the more challenging, more FUN way? Its a shame that we lose the drive to do things like that as we get older. We are so conditioned to doing things in the acceptable, easy-way-out manner, that most of us lose the ability to even think about the more adventurous ways to solve problems. If we were to do these things as adults, we would be branded as eccentric, if not criminal. I am sure that if I were to scale a school yard fence, there would be a crowd of police officers there in a flash. it's too bad that we lose that exhilaration as we get older. Perhaps that is why the most extreme adults pursue things like base jumping and sky diving. Do these acts of "insanity" bring back the same feeling that we have as children?

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Wednesday, September 15, 2005

Today is Her Majesty's birthday and I am feeling rather guilty because I am not able to treat her like I would like to. You see, I am gearing up for our customer appreciation weekend at work (more on that later) and it has litterally sucked the life right out of my body. Hopefully we can get together and celebrate next weekend. I feel horrible about it, like I am letting her down on her very own special day. But such is life in the real world.

She understands and can handle the letdown, but I am sure it isn't easy on her. Hell, she should be able to handle anything! She has stayed married to me for 15 years and hasn't cracked under the stress (and there WAS stress, believe me, because I don't hold back on my craziness at home like I do at work!)
So if you're reading this Honey, I love you and happy Birthday!

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my pal Aaron Zane too! He is younger than I am by a few years, but he acts way more responsible and is a Shriner! Happy Birthday old man. May your fez be pleasantly comfortable tonight.

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Monday September 12, 2005

Me and the crew had a lot of fun today over lunch and I plan on posting more about it whenever I can find some time this week. So stay tuned for something cool. Speaking of cool, remember those pics that my friends Lisa and Courtney helped me with for The Brat's halloween party invitations? Well, here is the first draft of a concept for the invitation. No text or anything yet, just image. Let me know what you think.

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Saturday September 10, 2005

Today was movie day at the Greenwood household. The following is a list of the movies that we watched, and what I thought of them.

Hide and Seek
Overall Rating: B-
It's not scary like they propped it up to be. That little girl, whatsername, is a good actress though! Her Dad is a psychiatrist, and ends up being the killer. Oooops!!! (Awe, don't be pissed! I just saved you three dollars 'cause now you don't have to rent it!)

Kung Fu Hustle
Overall Rating: B
Fans of the old-style kung fu movies will thoroughly enjoy this pic. Its like a cross between Crouching Tiger and Dumb and Dumber. Secret: This DVD starts out with the English subtitles on but speaks Chinese. You can go into the menu and turn off the subtitles and change the language to English and have a more enjoyable time.

Million Dollar Baby
Overall Rating: A+
You MUST watch this movie! I ain't gonna say anything other than it gets you sad, happy, laughing, sad, aggressive, and stunned. All in one sitting. (If you ever get a chance, rent a girl-boxing movie called "Girl-Fight" released a few years back. It is an awesome movie also.)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Overall Rating: B+
I dig scary movies. This one was rather disturbing though. A good rendition of the classic of the genre. The movie rested on the performance by my brother R. Lee Ermy. Gory....but good.

Rocky Horror Picture Show
Overall Rating: A-
I've seen it a million times, but nothing is quite as funny as watching singing transvestites trying to seduce Susan Sarandon!

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Friday September 9, 2005

While researching online for a freelance project, I used Google Image search to look up "City Hall." I got a bunch of good pics, but the best one took me to this hilarious 404 error page!!!!

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Tuesday September 6, 2005

Yessiree, Murphy's law was in full effect today. Some of you guys might not know it, but I had an interview at 3:00 in St. Louis regarding some prospective freelance work. Hopefully this work will offset the skyrocketing price of gas and allow my daughter to have some Christmas gifts this year.

Otherwise it will be like this:

Me: "Happy Holidays Honey! I hope you like the gift that your Mom and I got you this year."

The Brat: "Oh, Daddy, thank you thank you thank you!" She exclaims gleefully while opening up the ring-box that I hand her.

Me: "You're welcome Honey! Merry Christmas!"

The Brat: "Hey, isn't this the ring that you gave mom last year?!"

Me: "Well....... ummmmm"

The Brat: "The one that you bought off of that old lady who was begging for bread in front of the gas station?! The one who smelled like cat piss and the boy's locker room?! "

Me: "Well, Honey.... you see, its been really tight this year and....."

As you can see, I truly want to avoid anything like that, and have taken it upon myself to try and earn some extra moola this year.

So, as I am always trying to be "Mister Prepared", I spent the weekend prepping my resumé and portfolio. I even set out my clothes early, nothing fancy, a pair of black dress-pants and a polo shirt. I thought that I was ready. I thought I had it under control. But ol' Murphy showed up anyway and bitch-smacked me with a vengeance.

Let me continue by saying that I had one hell of a time finding black socks the night before. Two complete drawers full of socks and underwear and not a black sock in sight. Oh, there were plenty of Michael Jackson socks in there, i.e. socks that were once black but have lost their color over time. No sir! I needed the finest black socks in the house, socks that would make the client go: "Holy Sh**!! Them is some black socks!" And after a few minutes of digging like a mole, I found a pair.

The morning started out okay. I awoke, showered and shaved, even sat down for a bowl of cereal. "Smooth," I thought, "Everything is going according to plan." After consuming my bowl of soggy cereal, I went to the Master bathroom, because, I AM the master, after all! (Just kidding hon, don't hit me again! whimper....) I began to get into my respectable designer clothes, starting with the socks. Unfortunately I must have forgotten to shut off my deadly ninja heel-knives®, because as soon as the material touched my heel it tore a hole through them like......well, like a hole. Frustrated, I went back to the sock drawer to try and locate another suitable pair of socks to stink up.

Also, I discovered that my black belt was nowhere to be found. I don't know where it had fled to, but it was not in its appropriate place. I waded through a vast sea of brown belts, but my black one was still eluding me. I searched high. I searched low. I searched in my drawers, in the closet, down the laundry chute, in the hampers, in the laundry room, I even went so far as to search in the trunk of my car (???) , but never found the belt. I searched every possible place that a belt could have conceivably migrate to, but to no avail. So I finally gave up and continued to get ready. (As a side note: This whole belt incident has reinstilled my belief in the Loch Ness monster. After all, isn't it believable that scientists could never find the elusive beast in a 400 square mile lake if I couldn't even find a belt in my 1600 square foot home?)

Once desperation had sunk its ugly claws deep into my chest, I decided that it would be faster to simply go to the store and purchase a new belt. So into the Bonneville I leapt, speeding towards the mecca of the blue collar shoppers; Wal-mart. Once inside, hands in my pockets to keep the pants from falling off of my ass, I strode directly to the belts. Quickly picking a plain black work belt, I walked directly to the checkout counter to purchase my new strip of cow-flesh. From there I had to wait behind a massive line of geriatric old ladies. Somehow, the slowness of their movements affected me, as I felt as if I had aged thirty years just standing beside them, watching them move in all of their sloth like glory. Finally I got to the checkout and presented the cashier with my Visa Platinum . "Finally," I thought ,"Things are going my way." But nooooooo ----- the cashier informed my that my card had expired back in January. Stunned with disbelief, a quick visual confirmation from the back of my card proved her correct. Damn! Reluctantly, I swiped my debit card in the machine, sweating as I hoped it would be approved. And it was. I know what you are saying: "Why were you sweating over the price of a belt.? Surely you have enough in your account for that, don't you?" And the answer is no. Hence the need for the second job.

After leaving the store and returning home to don my new belt, I assembled my portfolio and resumé to head out the door. But wait........ my freshly printed resumé was nowhere to be found. I scoured the rooms like a tornado through an Oklahoma trailer park, any movable item in the household was tossed violently in my wake. Finally, I discovered the hidden resumé! It had been cowering in fear of my wrath!!!!! Actually, I had accidently set some books atop it whenever I was looking for my belt earlier.

You see, I AM my worst enemy.

Monday September 5, 2005

I just heard on the news tonight that Kuwait, (You know, the country that I fought to liberate from the tyranny of Saddam Hussien) has volunteered to donate a half-billion dollars to the United States for relief in New Orleans. That's half a B-I-L-L-I-O-N dollars. That's 500 million U.S. dollars in donations for hurricane Katrina relief! And do you know why they are doing that???? Because they are f***ing grateful. Do you know why? Because we were the ones who witnessed the horrors that were taking place in their land and had the intestinal fortitude to do something about it. We liberated them from the evil of Saddam Hussien, thats why. Take note liberals!

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Saturday September 3, 2005

Sometimes I believe that I am destined to be blind. Throughout my entire life I have had trouble with my eyes. Yes, I hear you, who hasn't right? Lots of people wear glasses and I should just quit whining about it. Well, that's not what I am talking about. When I say trouble with my eyes, I mean trouble with a capital T. Trouble like Oprah is coming over and we didn't make it to the grocery store. Trouble like a Sith Lord is coming to kick my ass. Trouble like the FBI is coming to my house to question me about Schaljo's Olsen Twins photo collection.

Lets see (see.....get it??? Get it? Bah!), Here is a small list of things that I remember going wrong with my eyes.

1. When I was in 4th grade, I threw a 50 caliber bullet (just the bullet not the casing) in the grade school gym and was watching it bounce off the rubber floors. It bounced up like a rocket and went through my glasses and hit me in the eye. --- I never claimed to be a particularly smart kid, by the way.

2. Somewhere around the 6th grade, a piece of fireworks fell into my eye while we were watching the city's fireworks display. That kinda' hurt a bit. Nothing quite like somebody dumping burning hot gunpowder residue in the ol' optical receptor.

3. In highschool I got this weird eye disease that fused my retina so that it was constantly dilated. We had to go to a specialist who told me that I would have went blind if I had waited another day. Then he proceeded to give me a steroid shot right into my friggin' eyeball!!!!

4. Earlier this year I got some ceiling tile material in my eye that could have blinded me. (See June 10th post for a picture!)

So as you can see, I thought that I had injured my eye in about every conceivable manner. Until today. Yes, today I experienced the most freakish eye injury to date. And no, I didn't scream, or cry even though it hurt like a bitch. Nor am I going to lose my vision. It was just so strange that I have to mention it here.

I had gotten up in the morning and was in the kitchen getting ready to take my daily hand full of pills. Suddenly, I felt a little tickle up in my nose. you know, the one that indicates that you should find a Kleenex fast, to avoid shooting snot rockets across the room! So I dashed to the counter and grabbed the next best thing, a paper towel. With the sneeze itching inside of me, fighting to get out, I raised the paper towel to my face.......and felt horrible pain!!! I had such a sharp pain in my left eye that the sneeze said "screw this!" and disappeared.

When I raised the paper towel to my face, the damned thing had somehow managed to slide up in between my cheek and glasses and right into my eye, cutting a nice little slit on my eyeball. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth as Her Majesty laughed at the freak accident. As of right now, I am considering wearing full swimming goggles at all waking moments for the rest of my life.

Friday September 2, 2005

Well, I missed the one year Anniversary of this website. The whole Blackboard started way back on August 28th, in the year of our Lord, 2004. Happy Belated Birthday!!!!

Sunday October 30, 2005

Garden of the Gods.

We took a trip to Shawnee national Forest today and visited the cliffs called "The Garden of the Gods." It was The Brat's first time there and she really enjoyed climbing all over the cliffs and bluffs. It kinda' made Dad (i.e. me) sweat a little when she would go jumping around though.

The Brat flashing a smile.	The Camel. One of the most famous rock formations.
The Brat after climbing down some rocks.	The brat and her Grandpa Owen, my father in-law.
Cold chillin' on the cliffs.	Another view of the Camel formation.

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Thursday October 27, 2005 My So Called Life - Remixed? This morning was filled with surprises as Her Majesty and I made the journey to my daughter's educational institution for what is known as "Parent/Teacher conferences." Let me prelude this by saying that my mother is a highly regarded teacher, so I grew up around the folk. I realize that they are normal people, not vast warehouses of stored information. They have flaws and memory lapses just like us non-teaching folk, so I don't expect them to be the epitome of all knowledge (such as the Swami Monkey is). Let it also be know that I, myself teach a graphic design course for the local college. So believe me when I tell you that I don't expect all teachers to be perfect. I DO however, expect The Brat's teachers to be perfect. (Ohhhhhhh.......settle down, I am just kidding.) There weren't any surprises in our meetings with her teachers, except that two of them looked incredibly young. Perhaps I am just an old codger now, but I don't ever remember having a teacher that was too young to be my parent. At one point, I was momentarily taken back, when I saw how young they appeared. One in particular didn't even look old enough to drive, let alone twist my daughters malleable mind with the NEA's liberal agenda. I was like "Wow! My daughter never mentioned that Claire Danes taught her English this year." Again, I am not saying that the teachers are to young, quite the contrary. Perhaps I am getting to old. Yep, an old conservative man......that's what I am.

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Wednesday October 26, 2005

Just for the record.....

Just to show you how important my family's account is to one of our many credit card companies, they sent us a bonus "cash back" rebate check. Her Majesty was so incredibly amused that she set it on the counter for me to see once I arrived home for work. Truthfully, it amazed me to even find that we had a card which granted us a cash back bonus. I don't ever think that we had received a check before, so naturally I was as excited as a dog in a buttsniffing contest. Until I read it that is.......

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Saturday October 22, 2005

The Monster Mash

Yesterday was The Brat's annual Halloween party and Her Majesty and I are worn out. You see, we make a big ordeal of the party and this year we decided that our kid could invite thirty or so of her friends and have a Halloween dance. Since our house wouldn't hold that many children, and not to mention the incident where we had kids going through our things last year, we decided to hold the event in my cousin's Karate Studio. It's a HUGE building (about 50 x 50) and took two full days to decorate. I even took Friday off of work to get a jump start on the decoration! It was tough making the old building with white walls into a spooky old place, but we finished up merely hours before the party began.

Somehow a spontaneous game of Red Rover broke out midway into the dance.	The Brat and three other party goes taking a break to smile for the camera.
The girls rocked the house while the boys went outside to be boys.

Friday October 21, 2005

What I need........

Okay, so sometimes I tend to follow the bandwagon. Case in point: today's post. I finally got around to doing the whole "What I need" trick that has been floating around on the net for quite some time. What you do is google your name such as "Josh needs", or "Dan needs", etc. and see what the first 25 listings say. Apparently it is an old trick, but it was so friggin' funny that I had to post it. And here goes, according to google.......

Derek needs a dated list of TV Comedy shows
Derek needs our mojo
Derek needs a woman
Derek needs to save this book
Derek needs YOUR help
Derek needs heartworm treatment
Derek needs to earn the trust and respect of this group
Derek needs to access the internet
Derek needs a vacation!
Derek needs to consider testing environments
Derek wants and needs an iLife
Derek needs to toughen up
Derek needs to become more familiar with the source code
Derek needs to get back to his blues roots
Derek needs no introduction for all of you
Derek needs to tell people who she is!
Derek needs Casey to take over the business
Derek needs to be broken down even further
Derek needs to learn how to restrain himself
Derek needs to raise enough money
Derek needs to get out of here for a while
Derek needs to build on the skills he has developed
Derek needs a bubble wand too
Derek needs to be more conservative now that he's married
Derek needs to compete or match Warren's efforts

Amen.

Tuesday October 18, 2005

The legend continues........

Sunday October 16, 2005

Letters, we get letters........

Just so you know that I don't post only the favorable emails that I receive, I thought that I'd post one that wasn't favorable. Isn't it kind of ironic that his last name is harass 'em?

While your campaign may be amusing to some I'm certain those who climb telephone and hydro poles in your area do not appreciate the messages you attached to poles. When climbing the spurs used can easily slip on staples/nails causing the climber to fall. This can also tear clothing or cause injury. Others I work with have experienced this firsthand. For this reason, the posting of such material is prohibited in many areas.

Dave Harasym - California (email withheld because I am a swell guy)

Sorry Dave. Let me assure you that I shall not put our city officials at risk like that again. I had no idea that staples presented a such a danger when placed five feet off of the ground. I was under the assumption that clinging thirty feet off of the ground by only steel spikes and a belt as you work with electrical lines was dangerous. My bad.

Friday October 14, 2005

My pages got hit more than Tina Turner after happy hour!

In case some of you hadn't heard, somehow one of my Halloween project pages was posted on several link site yesterday. This tutorial "How to make a Head-in-a-Jar" has been on the net for a year now, yet somehow it seemed to explode overnight. I typically get between one and two thousand hits a day on this pathetic little site, so you can imagine my amazement when I checked my Stat-counter this morning to see that I had over a thousand hits before 8 am. I was ecstatic! "Cool!" I thought, "Surely I will break my record of 3500 hits!"

Little did I know then just how much traffic I would get. By the time that I got home, I had over 200 emails in my inbox wanting more information about making the Head-in-a-Jar. So I made up a HUGE mailing list and answered them all in one big honkin email that took hours to write.

The graphic below shows my daily stats and how they compare to my "usual" stats for the day. I had an ungodly sixty-thousand hits on my site yesterday. INCONCEIVABLE!!

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Wednesday October 12, 2005

Ode to a friend.

My good friend Aaron no longer works with me at my place of employment. He started as a graphic designer, and then moved on to photography, and has yet again moved on for greener pastures. For the next week, as a tribute to my good buddy, I will post all weblog entries late. We miss him so much that I even composed a Haiku for him. It is called, Fallen Homie.

Derek:

Why Fallen Homie
did you leave us on Tuesday?
We'll miss you beeotch.

Superfan John Schaljo, also a friend of the fallen one, composed his own haiku. His poem even refers to another alumni of photography as well.

John:

Aaron Friggin Zane
Now, you and Lisa Tebbe
Can say you were canned.

Superfan John Schaljo, forwarded this haiku along with one from Aaron Zane.

John:

The haiku below
Came to me from a dear friend
Who ain't with us now

Aaron

HA HA! Too funny!
I like that you write Haiku
in my memory.

Sioux:

That maketh me sad,
thank you for sharing with us,
oh great one with chips.

Derek:

Jobless he now is.
And sad am I that he’s gone.
Bastard owes me cash.

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Tuesday October 11, 2005

And this weeks "What the F@#k Award" goes to........

Okay, just when you thought Anjelina Jolie was the epitome of Hollywood freakishness, someone comes out and proves you wrong. Last Tuesday, Nicholas cage and his wife had a baby boy and named him Kal-el, after the Kryptonian birth name of Superman. Yes, Kal-el, complete with the hyphen. Do they have any idea the teasing that the child is going to go through? I mean, even when he is grown to adulthood, people will be going "hey, there's Kal-el. I wonder if he flew here." or something like that. And do they not realize that everyone who plays Kal-el ends up dying horrible deaths? George Reeves committed suicide, Chris Reeves, well you know about him. What about Dean Caine and this new kid - whats his name, on Smallville? Well, Dean Cain is now hosting Ripley's Believe It Or Not, so he might as well be dead, cause he can't get a serious acting job. And the Smallville guy will undoubtedly meet a horrible end too. Its the curse of the Supermen.

The pic above shows Cage and his wife Alice preparing to launch their son toward a distant planet in his custom built rocket. Good luck Kal-el!!!

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Monday October 10, 2005

An anonymous letter from Poe

A concerned citizen sent this in regards to the Personal P.R. campaign listed in yesterdays post:

You may have the other fooled but not me. Do you actually expect me to believe that this Mr. Schaljo is A-OK? Am I just supposed to take your word for it? I don’t think so! I have no idea who this person is, for all I know he could be a truly evil man (I still don’t know who stole my bike in the third grade). They say the Anti-Christ will come to earth in the final days. Now I’m not saying this guy is the Anti-Christ, but you seem awfully eager to make everyone like him. Do you perhaps have an agenda to which we are not privy? For now I'll reserve my judgment of Mr. Schaljo (if that is his real name), but rest assured, I'll be watching.

Yours truly,

A citizen for the betterment of stuff that needs to be better.

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Saturday October 7, 2005

Updating like a madman

I am trying really hard this weekend to get some updated material for the site. Unfortunately, both September and October are very hectic months in our household, full of birthdays, parties and trade shows.

So even though it was a month ago, I finally wrote about a little lunch-hour activity that Aaron, Sioux and I did for one of our unsuspecting friends. Be sure to check it out by clicking here.

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Friday October 6, 2005

Some typoes typos are worse than others......

An email conversation with Lisa, one of my photographer friends:

Me: Hey, have you ever shot piss under a black light?

Lisa: What?

Me: pics, not piss.

Lisa: Oh

Me: LOL. That typo was hilarious!!!!!!

Lisa: No doubt - I was like oh shit he's surfing porn!!!!

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Thursday October 6, 2005

Do The Zombie Stomp!

Halloween is drawing near and our annual Fright Fest is only two weeks away. Now is the time where I start getting ancy about finishing all of the homemade props and decorations. Today I finished designing the invitations so that The Brat can hand them out tomorrow. This year is going to be crazy since she is going to invite 30 people, where we previously only allowed 12. The new invitation design is shown below.

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Wednesday October 5, 2005

Find it on ebay.

Just for fun, I Googled some strange stuff to see if it was available at Amazon.com or ebay. Low and behold, look at the results!!!! If you get any wierd things listed on ebay, take a snapshot of it and send it in. If I think that it is funny, I may post it.

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Wednesday October 5, 2005

Never was a story of more woe.

I thought that I would pass this info along. This morning I was greeted with an email from my friend Kim regarding the two dead deer described in the September 23 post. The email was as follows:

Went to my Dad's house last week...
was sittin there visiting with him and he says,
"did ya see my arm?"
Shows me his right forearm,
slightly swollen, narrow 6 inch gash running down it.
I said "hmph! whatd'ya do to it?"
Then he tells me he got hit by a deer!

Seems that he and his work crew driving Rte 45 going to Norris City the other morning.
Just tooling right along with all the windows down and their arms on the window sills.
When TWO deer run out in front of them.
Jim (the driver) hits and kills both of the deer
(one of which gouged Dad's arm with his hoof.)
They then get out of the car and pull Romeo et al off the road into the grass!

I bout blew a fuse when he told me that.
He almost didn't believe me when I told him that
I'd seen a picture of those very deer on the internet that morning!

Too hilarious!
Just had to share.

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Monday October 3, 2005

Modern Mythology

Anyone who has a doubt to the depths that popular culture influences America got an eye opener this week with the discovery of what scientists say is a new, 10th planet. In July of this year, Michael Brown and his crew of scientists from the California Institute of Technology discovered a new planet, larger than Pluto within our solar system.

They named this rocky, Icy planet Xena, after the warrior princess of television fame. Whats even stranger, is the announcement of CIT’s discovery of a companion moon orbiting the planet, which they appropriately named Gabrielle. (After the annoying little blonde sidekick of Xena from the television series.)

It seems that the popular culture of TV has invaded our society and even impacts the scientific community.

Monday October 3, 2005

Update!!!!!

After pondering over this post, I have changed my opinion on this subject. The heavenly bodies of old were named after the Roman mythologic legends of the past.

Mercury - The divine messenger
Venus – Goddess of Beauty
Uranus – God of Proctology (okay, so I made that one up....)
Pluto - God of the Dead
Jupiter - King of the Gods
Neptune – God of the seas
Saturn - God of Agriculture
Mars - God of War

So why not name any additional celestial bodies after some of the mythos of contemporary society? After all, the story of Xena was set in the age of the gods (albeit the Greek counterparts of the Roman deities). So, in retrospect, I whole-heartedly agree with CIT's naming convention! Pretty cool really, I bet Lucy Lawless is getting a thrill out of it. Lesbians of the world, this is your day to celebrate!!!!

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Saturday November 26, 2005

Sometimes you just have to say things...

Today we went shopping with my Mom and Step-Dad to find The Brat a pair of Etnies. For those of you who are out of touch with the skateboarding culture of today's youth, Etnies are THE must have shoe for any kid serious about skateboarding. Don't ask me why, but I bet it's because they have a hell of a marketing team. The shoes were being purchased for The Brat's birthday next month but since we didn't know what size to get, we purchased them today so that she could try the shoes on.

Unfortunately the store didn't have her size in the girls shoes, so we suggested seeing if they had a boys size that would fit. We were looking at the boys shoes trying to find out how they differed from the girls shoes. That's when my Step-Dad spoke up and I couldn't help but to say the first thing that came to my mind.

Step Dad: "So what's the difference between boys and girls?"

Me: "Boys have a penis."

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Friday November 25, 2005 - Evening

It was such a buffetful day!

I had two big meals today, and my workday was like a see-saw. Parts of it were awesome and I had a complete blast, and others were so friggin’ boring that watching my fingernails grow would have been more exciting.

I went to a Chinese Buffet for lunch with two of my best friends and had a fun time. They are both very close to me, one from a long time ago and one from the recent years. It was nice to see them both together in one place. The buffet wasn’t your standard “day after Thanksgiving” meal, but I had a fun time. Chewy eggrolls though! Like chompin’ down on a roll of rubber bands! But everything else was okay.

That is, until I got back to work and had to battle the effects of “after dinner drowsiness.” Luckilly I was able to beat back the sandman and get some work finished. It's weird, but Chinese food seems to make my brain work at half-speed, but it makes my stomach work overtime.

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Friday November 25, 2005

Why must everything around me be strange?

Her Majesty found this egg in a carton that she purchased to make devilled eggs. Neither of us have ever seen anything like the deformed horror that she found. We were afraid to crack the egg, lest we unwittingly release some new and unknown horror upon the world.

I tried to take some shots from every angle, but there were just too many weird markings to shoot. The damn thing just looked downright creepy to me! Have any of you guys ever gotten an egg like this? What if it hatches out to be a basilisk, or a deformed chicken with psychic powers, or worse yet: some twisted descendant of Gary Oldman?!

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Wednesday November 23, 2005

Scarring the children for life.

Overheard at work:

Talking to a group of coworkers: "Have you ever stuffed your Thanksgiving turkey with a cornish hen and then when you begin carving it at the table, scream in disgust, "Oh my god!!! This turkey was pregnant!!!".

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Tuesday November 22, 2005

Monsters walk among us.

Late last night I had a shocking revelation that completely took me by surprise. I was reading some entries in Dimentia's blog and came across a post where she was relating a news story about six US servicemen in the Philippines who had done unspeakable things to a local girl. I was horrified that these things happened, but what bothered me even more was the fact that I had not heard of the story in our news. It is a story which no American wants to hear, but all need to hear. Even more shocking is the fact that these servicemen are protected by a "treaty" of rules set forth to govern the disciplinary actions of our troop on Philippine soil.

If enough evidence is found to bring these "men" to trial, then they should be charged and brought to trial in the Philippine court system. My sympathy goes out to the girl and her family and I hope that they know that all American servicemen are not the monsters which they encountered. It disgusts me to know that we have people who supposedly represent our way of life doing such vile things in foreign lands. Speaking as a former Marine, I hope that those "men" are punished beyond anything that they can imagine. I would like Dimentia and her friends to know however, that if these soldiers are found guilty and brought to trial in a US military trial, their punishment will not be light. Military prison is far worse punishment than any other US prison, and while prison-time cannot make up for the unspeakable acts that were allegedly done to that young Filipina, at least those found guilty will not go unpunished. Again, nothing can repair the damage that has been done to the girl, her psyche or her family and friends, and that is a horrible fact. But please understand that just as in your land, monsters walk among us Americans also, and they are just that: monsters.

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Response to November 22 post

Letters, we get letters........

Thanks for posting about what happened in our shores. It really was a despicable act but even here, there's not much news about it anymore. Our current President, Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo, doesn't want to sever her good relationship with Bush so she doesn't show her support to the Filipino victim. It's really sad but that's the way it is here in my country. You can really get away with murder if you have the right connections and a lot of money.

dementia

Monday November 21, 2005 - 9:00pm

Wish you were here! No, not really.

I survived the probing and wanted to report that my prostate is fine and doing quite well.

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Monday November 21, 2005 - 12:00pm

Afternoon email conversation:

Ernie: Wow, a prostate check. Good luck.

Me: I hope he uses his finger at least......

Lisa: Maybe he will call you the next day. That's what I do.

Me: Yeah, but what happens when I run into him at wal-mart? How uncomfortable will that be? Do you think that he walks around town and subconsciously goes: "Hmmm, there's Mr. Reynolds..... I had my finger up his ass."

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Sunday November 20, 2005

Doctor Shocker!

It's been two years since I went to the doctor. I don't have to go much because I'm generally in good health. Well.... as good of health as an overweight manic depressive tobacco user with a bad heart can be! I’m rarely sick enough to go to the doctor thanks to my daily regimen of life preserving medicines and vitamins. But in order to continue receiving prescriptions for these life preserving pills, I am supposed to make an annual journey to pay the doctor to write his name on the little slip.

So the up until now the appointment has been a nuisance to me at best. That is, until my last appointment when the Doctor asked if I wanted him to check my prostate.

“Uhhhhhhh..... No” I said.

“Oh, okay. Maybe next time then.” He said with a smile as an uncomfortable silence seemed to fill the room.

It was really uncomfortable after that. Not because I am apparently the age that needs to have a prostate check, but because of the way that he said it. He spoke in a tone of voice that showed disappointment when I answered “no”. Hence my feelings of uneasiness for this year’s appointment.

So Monday afternoon, am scheduled to go in for an appointment, and this doctor will probably go in me! I shudder to think about it.

Friday November 18, 2005

Just turn on the lights please.

Apparently my posts from the other day must have been a little darker than I expected because several readers had emailed me to make sure that I was "alright". Of course I'm not alright!!! Those of you who know me in real life can testify that I am never "alright", but alway on some weird emotionaal roller coaster between mania, depression, rage and complacency. There is no "alright" for me and never has been. There is only what I feel at the moment, which can change in the beat of a heart.

This whole mood shift thing is what makes me so hard to be around sometimes. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm going to snap one day and go postal in a McDonalds or anything. All I'm saying is that I am one moody mother. Just because I get angry doesn't mean that I am going to go all Danny Bonneducci on people.

so am I "alright"? No, I am not alright. Am I okay with that? No, but I (as well as those who live with me) have learned to accept that this whole moodiness is part of who I am.

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Thursday November 17, 2005

What makes the measure of a man?

Everything has a lifespan. Whether you want to call it the shelf-life, half-life, or life, or even its expiration date, the fact remains that everything must come to an end. Our lives. Our relationships. Our jobs. Our milk. Our seasons. Our dreams. Everything must eventually die. As adults, we learn that all living things must eventually pass away.

But what about the immaterial things, those wispy, intangibles which exist only in our minds ad souls?

How about friendships? What causes a relationship to wither away like a neglected plant, desperately trying to cling to life? Over the past ten years, I seem to have lost almost every friend whom I once cherished in my heart. And to what, I ask. What an I doing that has driven away so many of those which I once shared so much with? Is it some innate negative energy field irradiating from my soul that seems to drive people away? Or am I so boring that my companionship becomes merely a repetitive quagmire that drags friendships down?

Surely there must be something more to this than meets the eye. Perhaps I am not supportive enough to those in my life. Or maybe the opposite; I am too smothering and controlling. Perhaps it is just me being paranoid that the fault of fallen friendships always seem to rest on my weary shoulders.

The only absolute truth is that I have become so accustomed to losing friends that I recognize the signs as they appear.

Consider these in point: Over the past two years I have lost complete contact with my best friend since childhood. A person whom I once considered to be my "brother". We have not spoken for over a year now, even though he lives less than an hour away.

Another friend who I have seen slowly slipping from my grasp is my e-friend. The story behind our friendship began when we "met" in a graphic design forum nearly half a decade ago. For five continuous years we "talked" on a daily basis, our banter ranging for the lighthearted to the serious. I revealed secrets to her that I have never trusted anyone else with. Yet for some reason last year, our letters dwindled from daily, to weekly, to monthly and now it is often months before either of us say "hi". She was a close friend and I miss her.

This year I was reunited with two long-lost friends and I hope that I can develop those friendships into what they once were, but I can already see that dream dwindling down to nothing.

I think the true measure of a man is not how much power he possesses, nor how much wealth he can amass in his lifetime. No, the true measure of a man can only be seen after he has passed on. The true measure of a man is gauged by the number of loving friends who show up at his funeral. I would like to think that mine would be many, but I will never know.

Among this sea of friends, I still feel as if I am drowning. Something is wrong, seriously wrong, and I'm not sure if I know how to fix it.

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Wednesday November 16, 2005

Something new (finally).

Remember the Super Friends cartoon from the 70's? They always had the coolest heroes and the neatest adventures of all of the Saturday morning cartoons. But did you ever ask yourself how they selected the new recruits? Would they be fair and impartial, or would they show some of the same biases that we mortal men (and women) might have? In the second installment of Talkin' in my Noggin', I allow you to slip into the secret world of a super team and see what really goes on!

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Tuesday November 15, 2005

Self Censorship.

This post was removed on May 5, 2007 so that a man's children won't stumble upon it when they Google his name. Never let it be said that I am not a swell guy. Curoius as to what I'm babbling about? Check the following link: WWMT News.

Monday November 14, 2005

An illustrated example of my 3-day transformation into a germ.

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Monday November 14, 2005

Creme De La Phlegm.

I feel as if someone were shoving a baby-bottle brush up my right nostril and using it to poke at my brain. I went to work today even though I felt bad. After all, if you're gonna' feel like shit, you might as well get paid for it, right?! I don't get it though. I don't feel like I'm gonna' Puke, nor crap myself, nor do I have snot dripping down my nose. What gives?! Why do I feel like I have been ran over by a truck if I don't have anymore symptoms?!

I do have quite a pesky dry cough however, that sometimes gives me a little phlegmy gift that I am compelled to examine. Oh, c'mon!!!!! You do it too!!!! Don't act all high and mighty around me!!! You know that you do it too!

The last one looked a little bit like Africa, and the one before it resembled a german shepherd, or maybe it was a young Richard Gere? Yay phlegm!

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Sunday November 13, 2005

Sunday afternoon marathon.

I'm sick.

No, not like "french kiss your sister" sick, I mean sick as in ill. I've parked myself on the couch and refuse to get up. Not even six full hours of the Gilmore Girls marathon has dredged me out of this miserable stupor.

You would think that a whole quarter of a day spent listening to Lorelai's incredibly fast dialogue would snap anyone out of anything.... or possibly induce a coma.

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Saturday November 12, 2005

On awaking with a long white beard.

I slept for 17 hours straight. I usually only get between 4 and 5 hours of sleep per night. What is happening to me?????

Monday November 7, 2005 - 8:30pm

Deep thought for a shallow mind.

You ever stop and think about how the world keeps on moving regardless of your role in it? How in the grand scheme of things, we are really nothing? If we died at this instant, that the birds would keep singing, the snow would still fall, our friends and family would go on? Well, you're WRONG! Dead-ass wrong. We each play an integral part in this twisted web of reality that we know. Granted, not everyone can have a gigantic impact on the human race , but we are all important. From the richest king, to the lowliest street urchin. Our actions shape what will become the future of this world. Although there are a few which play larger roles; Einstein comes to mind, Eli Whitney, Rosa Parks, Pauly Shore. We all have some sort of impact on the outcome of the world. It may be generations to pass, but our actions may very well shape our future existence. And it may be something as simple as cutting off a person on the freeway. Our single aggravating act just might cause another person to snap, the final straw of frustration. That person may go to work angry and in a fit of anger, pummel his overbearing boss. That violent outburts causes him to go to prison for assault, thus leaving his son without a father figure. That child may grow up without learning to stand up for himself, being picked on by schoolyard bullies until he has no self worth. And what if that boy was brilliant, but afraid to take chances, thus missing the opportunity to ascend to the greatness which he was slated to become, the President of the United States. One will never know how each of our singular actions is effecting our future. It is a mystery that cannot be fully contemplated nor understood. It is simply a fact, that we are our own future.

Uuurgh...... Somebody bring me a beer.

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Monday November 7, 2005 - 6:30am

I feel pretty, oh so pretty.....

I smell of flowers and baby powder. I ran out of my deodorant yesterday and neglected to buy more. So today I was forced to wear Her Majesty's deodorant because smelling pretty is better than smelling like a sweaty armpit, right?! Schaljo will want me.

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Response to November 7 post

Letters, we get letters........

Wow, my first ever response to a blog.
I work in sales, and travel. One packs either the night before, thoughtfully placing all necessary items in the suitcase. Or, one packs like I do - arising late on the day of departure. Half asleep. Cramming misc. items in the small suitcase when you needed the large suitcase. Awaking the next morning in Boston, OK a little hung over - eating alone in the hotel restaurant requires that you talk to the barkeep, and keep the beer going - and find that the deodorant is still on your shelf at home, in Maine. Smelling good is 200 miles away. Or as close as either the hotel soap, or your travel toothpaste. Either one can be made into a sticky paste that will stick to your underarms, and hopefully give off a semi-pleasant odor until you get home.

Only trouble is, the paste clogs up on your underarm hairs (real men DON'T shave there) and pulls on the sensitive skin there every time you move more
than 1" at a time - which happens when you walk, talk, drive, drink coffe and eat - so you're pretty much in pain all day long. So you smell OK but you're grumpy. All for lack of aluminum chloride. Why didn't I pay more attention in chemistry class?.

Dave M - Maine (email withheld because I am a swell guy)

Dave has the solution to all of my deodorizing woes! Uhhhhh....... thanks for the tips Dave! Glad you like my site.

Sunday November 6, 2005

Spreading the disease

One of the coolest things about having so many hits over the past few weeks is the vast range of cool people who I have "met" out here in cyberspace. Two of them are listed here along with their websites if you want to take a peek. Both of them have their own blogs, also.


I got an email from Dementia with a link to her blog. If you're over 16, you should check it out at: http://www.burymeinthisdress.com

I was also contacted by John Gawler, a former jarhead and current Guardsman. He has a way cool site that gives an inside the many facets of his life: http://gawlers.yfug.org/

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Saturday November 5, 2005

Wal-mart: watch for falling undead ninja heads

We went shopping today and found some great bargains on clearance at Wal-mart All of their remaining Halloween stock was 75 percent off. Too bad that we're so damn broke right now or I would have really stocked up for next year. I did purchase two masks though, one of an undead ninja(???) and one that looks like a shrunken head. I suppose I will use them to decorate some dummies next year, or maybe even myself (another dummy?). I got the masks for about a buck fifty each -- it was just too good of a deal to pass up. Maybe I'll go there early next week to see if anything is 90 percent off or something crazy like that.

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Friday November 4, 2005

Around the world in 80 days!

Any of you who have not paid attention to the Personal P.R. campaign that I have implemented for super-fan John Schaljo should take a look at how his fame and A-OKness has spread throughout the world!!! Click here to see photos of this global phenomenon or click here to see how it all began back in September.

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Wednesday November 2, 2005

Kickin it back an hour or so.

I really hate the whole daylight savings time thing. The guy who invented it needs beaten with a big, heavy club....with spikes on it ....and poison tipped barbs. Why do we have to go around messing with everyone's sleep patterns?! Surely the whole thing is antiquated now.

Tuesday November 1, 2005

More of Derek's Stupid Movie Reviews.

Boogeyman: A++++++++
I had some misgivings about watchng this movie. The PG-13 rating alone was enough for me to have initial doubts. But once this movie began, it took me on a horror filled roller coaster ride of non-stop creepiness. The ending happens to be the worst part of the film, almost as if the writers needed to finish up the story but didn't know how to do it. but the entire show was eeriee as hell all the way through. It is BY FAR the best horror film that i have seen in the past decade. I can honestly say that this film is right up there with the Excorcist and Silence of the lambs for its chill factor.

Lords of Dogtown: A
An awesome show that I had no intention of watching, let alone enjoying. We rented it for The Brat and I ended up really liking it. The movie is a true life account of the "Z-Boys" of Zephyr skateboards and how they influenced the sport of skateboarding in its emergence in the early 1970's.

House of Wax: F
I was looking forward to this one as I am big fan of the old Vincent Price movies, of which this is supposed to be a remake. Unfortuanately, they turned a seriously creepy movie into a crappy old slasher film. This movie completely sucked!

Bewitched: D
Will Ferrel (Darren) is funny as hell, just like in all of his films, and ? (Samantha) is both spunky and sexy as Samantha. But the decent character acting just couldn't make up for the bad writing. Sorry, I really, really tried to like this fim but couldn't.

The Longest Yard: A
Adam Sandler and Chris Rock do an outstanding job of updating this classic sport comedy. While it lacked some of the adult edgieness of the original,it still came accross as a solidly good movie. The only disappointment was that they changed the best scene in the original. I'm talking about when the convict straight-arms the gaurd during the game and sets of a chain of "I think he broke his f@#*ing neck." from the onlookers.

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Decking the halls. A whole lotta' decking.

We spent about a half an hour putting up a second Christmas tree yesterday evening. Yes, I said putting one up, not taking one down. For years now, her Majesty has wanted a larger tree for our library window. Out current tree is paltry at best and looks as if a family of raccoons had nested within its branches. It takes a lot of work to get the little thing looking good.

In order to remedy our Christmas tree woes, Her Majesty set off on a post-holiday shopping excursion. She has wanted a larger, prettier tree for several years now, but being the frugal shopper that she is, has never purchased one before.

This time, she came home beaming with joy because she had finally bought a new tree. It started out at $175 but with the after Christmas sales and a handy-dandy discount card, she ended up only paying around $60 dollars. (or so she says!) She hoisted this monstrous box of artificial needles into our library and called me in to bask in its holiday glory. The box was huge! And when I say huge, I don't mean huge like a typical artificial tree box, I mean like "Hide the children, Sally Struthers is coming to dinner!" huge.

The tree itself is pre-lit and has three sections to assemble. The box says that it is easy to assemble. Yes, it says that it assembles in "three easy steps." It was easy alright, about as easy as trying to wipe a porcupines ass. The tiny synthetic needles were like little daggers sticking into your skin. And you had to stick your face deep within its branches to assemble it. A feeling akin to some type of amazon facial scarification ritual. And now you wear the mark of the great tree god! Now you are truly a man)

Once the tree was assembled and my face was pulled away from the synthetic Christmas daggers, we admired its beauty. It was a beautiful tree, I have to admit. Quite possibly the most realistic artificial tree that I have ever seen. It towered above our previous tree, which must have been feeling quite inadequate by then. It stood seven and a half feet tall and damn near four and a half feet wide.

Her Majesty: "This is going to look so beautiful in the window"

Me: "Not really, Its so tall that you won't even see the top of it from the window, or even the bottom for that matter. Hell, its so wide that people will only see a window that is completely full of green. The might not even be able to tell what it is!"

I was joking of course, but it was enough to make her begin to reconsider her purchase, which was by no means my intent.

Her Majesty: "I'll just take it back."

Me: "No, I was just kidding. Its beautiful."

Her Majesty: "No, its too tall. I'll just take it back."

Me: "No you won't. I can just unwind the pre-lit lights and cut part of the top off with some tin snips." I said, because I know damn well that anything can be fixed using tin-snips.

Her Majesty: "Okay. It sure is beautiful isn't it?"

Me: "Yes. Yes it is."

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We got them Karen!

OLONGAPO CITY, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine prosecutors charged four U.S. Marines on Tuesday with raping a 22-year-old Filipino woman in early November but cleared two other soldiers who had also been accused.

Washington has not responded publicly to an earlier request by the Philippine foreign affairs department to transfer custody of the Marines to local authorities. A statement by the U.S. embassy, which has been holding the soldiers, made no mention of custody but said the United States would continue to cooperate with the Philippines on the case under the two countries' Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). "The U.S. remains committed to seeing that justice is served, and looks forward to a fair and impartial process that can provide for a just outcome," the statement said. Beyond small protests, the case has caused little public outcry or anti-American sentiment in the Philippines, the only former U.S. colony in Asia and a major security ally to Washington in the region.

Read more here.

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The fact of the matter is...

A discussion about the former King of Rock and Roll that came up when one of his songs began playing n the radio.

Me: I can't believe that they still have an Elvis song in rotation on this radio station.

Unnamed Elvis fan: Well, he is the King of rock.

Me: You mean WAS the King of rock. He's dead you know.

Unnamed Elvis fan: Elvis isn't dead.

Me: Well, even if he didn’t die when they said, he’d sure as hell be dead by now. Just look at the guy.

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Unexpected outbursts!

Her Majesty and the Brat went to the grocery store today to pick up some pickles for todays lunch with my Step-Dad's family. Unbeknownst to me, they also picked up a few other items from our shopping list. The following conversation took place after I had warmed the car up and was getting ready to go to lunch at my Aunt's house.

Me: C'mon, the car is all warmed up. Lets get the hell outta' here.

Her Majesty: I'll be ready in a second. I have to wash all of this blood off of my hands first.

Me: Why do you have blood all over your hands?!

The Brat: She killed a man in Reno.... just to watch him die.

Me: What?!

Her Majesty: Hamburger. I was patting out hamburger.

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Strange Fortune!

This has to be one of the most bizarre fortunes ever written for a fortune cookie!

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And now a little social commentary!

Compared to most of the general public, we military veterans have an unusual degree of understanding of how the government tends to come across as cold hearted. When our servicemen die, it is a sobering, yet understandable fact that people will die. Whether in combat, or merely training, the hard truth is that accidents can happen, miscalculation can made, and deaths can be the result.

When these deaths happen, our government tends to look at it as an unpleasant necessity of military life. They tend not to become too involved, treating these deaths more as incidents that happen, instead of the death of a person. Overall, it is viewed as a loss of government property rather than the loss of a person. That's the way it must be in order for our military to function, no matter how harsh it seems to civilians.

But even when taking that fact into account, I found it disheartening to read the story from the Associated Press regarding the shooting death of a Marine by another. You would think that the government officials would have sought a better phrase to explain the death to the Marine's family. Below are some snippets of the article.

Marine Fatally Shot in Sleep
Associated Press  |  December 21, 2005
CULLMAN, Ala. - A Marine in Iraq was shot in the back of the head and killed while sleeping in his barracks, his family said it was told by the military. The Pentagon said only that the Marine died of a "non-hostile" gunshot wound.

The mother of Cpl. Adam R. Fales, 21, of Cullman, said she was frustrated in her attempts to learn more about the circumstances of Friday's shooting in Fallujah, and to bring his body home soon.

"The Marines came out to my house Saturday morning and told me my son was shot in the back of his head in his secure barracks," Glenda Fales said Tuesday in a telephone interview. "They said it was under investigation and they won't tell us anything else. We don't know if it was accidental or if somebody shot him on purpose."

The Defense Department confirmed that the Marine from Alabama was killed by a "non-hostile" gunshot in Iraq, but said the death remained under investigation.

Oh, really??? He was shot in the head and they call it a “non-hostile” gunshot wound. As opposed to a “hostile” gunshot wound to the head. Horrible, horrible wording......

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Her Majesty to the rescue!

We have a neighbor who is always out walking his dog. It's a tiny dog, some sort of miniature "yippee" dog that while small, is always tugging at the leash. This neighbor is a retired teacher from our high-school and is a generous, kind man. Over the past decade, we have become very accustomed to seeing him and his yippee dog circling our block. Yesterday when Her Majesty turned the corner coming home from work, she noticed that the little yippee dog was standing on the edge of the road. Not wanting to hurt it, she carefully turned the corner to avoid running it over. That was when she noticed the figure laying in the ditch, tethered to the dog.

She jumped out of the car and helped our neighbor up. She struggled as her 5' foot frame hoisted him up, his long body well over 6 feet in length. His hands were cold, and chilled her even through her gloves.

He explained to her that he has Parkinson's disease and that his muscles sometimes seize up not allowing him to move. Apparently, he had an attack while walking, and the miniature dog pulled hard enough to topple him into the ditch.

Her Majesty called the gentleman's wife, who came and picked him up. He was lucky that his dog was so recognizable, or my wife would have drove right past them, not noticing the man in the ditch.

And while this event seems horrible, it could have been much, much worse. If this had happened two days ago when the weather was near zero degrees, he would have surely perished. Some might call it an early Christmas Miracle.

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Tuesday December 20, 2005 All fairy-tales must end. Tomorrow I become the parent of a teenager. Yes, the sweet innocent little baby, birthed and raised with love and care will be over half way out of our home. Those of you who are new parents won't understand this yet, but it seems like only yesterday that the Brat and I were finger painting, reading childrens books at bedtime, and playing with toys. Gone are the magical days filled with Santa Claus, Tooth Fairies, and egg hiding bunnies. Enter nights filled with teen angst, homework and instant messaging. Where did my little girl go? I think maybe a part of her is still there, perhaps hoping to remain somewhat of a child, yet at the same time, yearning to become an adult. I myself sometimes feel like a child, but have been tainted by the dull-gray glasses of society. My world is no longer filled with the magic of unicorns, the primal fear of the Bogeyman, nor the hope of a happily ever after. I hope the world doesn't force its bitterness on my daughter as it did to me at her age. Because we all need to believe in magic for as long as we can. My favorite magical moments: Age 3: The Brat and I planted a lock of her hair in the front yard to see if we could grow her a new sister. We checked everyday. After a week or so, we planted more in the backyard, under the moonlight to see if a new location would be better.

Age 5: When she was in kindergarten, the teacher read the class a book about a boy who captured a leprechaun in a homemade trap. She came home and assembled a trap out of a box, a stick and some rope. She went all out, even going so far as building a bed for him and painting pennies yellow to lure him into the trap. I tried to explain to her that she didn't really want a leprechaun because they didn't make good pets. I told her that they were dirty and stink, and that they couldn't be housebroken. Never the less, she fell asleep that night with the string in her hand, determined to spring the trap. When I woke up the next morning, I took the gold (pennies) and wrote a note thanking her for the bed. I signed it Conan O'brien. Before leaving for work an idea hit me. I unwrapped some tootsie rolls from our candy dish and rolled them into little "leprechaun turds". When Her Majesty woke the Brat up, she told her that she needed to clean the floor because "A leprechaun took all of the gold and then pooped on the floor!" The Brat was shocked and disgusted to learn that a leprechaun would do that! It wasn't until a year or so later before we explained the joke to her. Age 7: When The Brat became old enough to question how the tooth fairy had time to visit kids around the world every night, I explained to her that there were regional tooth fairies. One for the West coast, one for the East coast, and one for us in the Midwest. I explained to her that our tooth fairly was actually a black gentleman named Clyde. Comment on this post. Be advised that I reserve the right to post all comments for public ridicule.

Response to December 20 post

Letters, we get letters........

Aw Derek, just smile knowing that someday, she'll stop and reminisce about the same things you do... and be thankful she had such a great daddy. :)
Jody J.

Thanks Jody! I hope that you are right.

An old wives tale of science???

They always say that no two snowflakes are alike, but how can they truthfully say that? Exaclty how can they back up that statement? Has anyone actually compared every snowflake in the world? I think not!

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It's funny how aggression turns to humor sometimes.

I worked late tonight and wasn't in the greatest of moods for my commute home. I was trying to chill out by talking to a friend on my cell phone. Everything was going fine at first, but then something happened that made my blood boil!

LT: So, I've been okay, I guess.

Me: Well, I just thought I'd call to say "hi" and see how you are......Holy Shit!! I just about got side swiped by a car!

LT: Really?

Me: Yeah, it just flew over toward me! What the f@#k was she thinking?! Geeeeeez, and now she just cut me off!

LT: Really?

Me: Man, I'm gonna' follow her and kick her ass for that!

LT: Really?

Me: No. Not really!

LT: Oh?

Me: No... I'm gonna blow up her car!

LT: Really?

Me: No. Not really! Oh, but I AM going to set it on fire!

LT: Really?

Me: No. Not really! Maybe I should just pay someone to kill her!

LT: Really?

Me: No. Not really! But maybe I could pay them to beat her up!

LT: Really? Shit, I'd do that!

Me: Really?????? No. Not really. I would never pay for that.

LT: Really?

Me: No, but if someone were going to beat her up, I'd like to watch!

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Karen Carpenter is the Ghost of Christmas Past! (Y'know, the one that looks like a skeleton....)

The following email conversation took place when Sioux heard me bitching about a Christmas song (sung by Karen Carpenter) on the radio. Longtime readers will remember that it was her ghost who trashed my car last year.

Sioux: You aren't damning Karen Carpenter, are you?

Me: No! I would never do that. Especially in bad weather!!!!!1 Yikes!

Sioux: What does 1 Yikes mean?

Me: Its like “Yikes”, but with a number. Like 1 Holy Shit! I use the 1 to show emphasis, like a preemptive exclamation point. Oh -- okay, it was a typo......

Sioux: 7 I know.

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Remember, only 11 more days until the Christmas music stops!

Today I taught my final Adobe Illustrator class for this semester. There was a lot of talent in this class and you can check their works by clicking here. The last four images were from my most recent students.

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Tuesday December 13, 2005

"Santa ain't got no time for ya's kids! Go away!!!".

I took this pic today of Santa's workshop. I think the signs really say something about out world today, sigh.

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Tuesday December 13, 2005

I dream the weirdest shit.

Her Majesty and I were in some little dingy dive of a bar with my childhood friend Jeff Walker. We were sitting at a small round table that was covered with a thick layer of dust, dust that was heavy enough to show where our hands had rested on the table. I wasn't really into visiting because I had one hell of a sinus headache. It felt like someone had stuffed a huge wet beach towel up behind my nose. It was horrible. Jeff asked what was wrong and when I told him he introduced me to his doctor. The doctor pressed my face to the dingy table, his hand on my cheekbone as his weight kept me from turning my head. Then he took out a small wooden handled sculpting tool. You know, one of the ones with the sharpened wire loop used in ceramics to carve the clay. He slid the loped wire tool deep inside my nostril and turned it, scraping the inside of my sinus cavity. It hurt like a bitch, but I couldn't move because all of the doctors weight was pressing down on my face.

“There!” he said, withdrawing the wire tool from my nose.

I looked at it and saw the nasty mucus covered tool. It was a huge lump of tan-grayish glop about the size of a golf ball. For the first time in my dream, I could breathe clearly and my head no longer hurt. But the most disturbing thing was that within the glob of snot were two very large fly wings and assorted bloody insect appendages. I gagged in my dream and yelled “What the f@*#?!

“Oh, those are horsefly wings” the doctor said. “sometimes they crawl up your nose at night and die.”

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Saturday December 10, 2005

Excuses.

I am going to be adding some new features to the site in the near future. One of which is going to be a separate web log which will be sort of a "best of" type of thing, so if you have a favorite post be sure to email me the date and I will include it.

The weather here has been crappy. Everything looks dirty from the melting snow and casts a negative shadow on my outlook. Hopefully the creative spark will hit me and I can be back to my old rambunctious self. Yeah, I know. My posts have sucked lately. Rest assured that even as I try and write a bit everyday, sometimes I don't really feel very funny. Deal wit' it.

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Friday December 9, 2005

Shoppin' hard for Christmas bliss.

Her Majesty and I finally got the chance to go out and shop for Christmas today. Since we live way out in BFE and have no shopping outside of Wal-Mart, we drove about 75 miles to the nearest big town to shop. The interstate was fairly clear and Her Majesty ran about 65 the whole way. Yeah, that's right, she drove. You see, my wife isn't the stereotypical girlie-girl driver. She is a much better driver than I am and I'm not afraid to admit it because odds are that she's a better damn driver than you too!

We shopped all of the typical places and some that weren't so typical. Towards the end of the day we both began to get nervous. We had both been watching the totals add up and when the we reached into the hundreds of dollars, we stopped. Thank god for self control. Again, Her Majesty has much more self control than me. I would have spent my way into oblivion if left unfettered.

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Thursday December 8, 2005

Snow on the ground.

We had the first heavy snowfall of the season today. And even though there wasn't much accumulation, the funky Illinois weather soon turned the beauty of the snow into sheets of dangerous ice. To explain just how crappy my commute home was, let me say that it took an hour and a half to go 45 miles. And that was with NO traffic.

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Wednesday December 7, 2005

The legend continues.

The Schaljo countdown has begun. In a mere three days, john will be moving his ass down the road. (Literally. His new job is just down the road!) It is in his honor that I post yet more facts about the enigma that mortal men call John Schaljo.

When John was 16, he had sex with the entire cheerleading squad --- of the NFL.

John Schaljo doesn't need a posse. His Posse needs him.

The FCC was suing John Schaljo for illegally broadcasting things via the steel plate in his head. They soon dropped all of the charges after he ate 3 congressmen.

John Schaljo has his own emergency room wing at the Mayo Clinic --- because he sends so many people there.

John Schaljo was the REAL reason that King Kong fell off the Empire State Building.

Schaljo doesn't take a gun when he hunts for bear. They drop dead from fright.

John lost a testicle in a bar-brawl when he was nine. He was so upset that he ripped off the guys right testicle also.

John's immense hunger for salmon is the reason there are no fish in the dead sea.

Schaljo once knitted his own wool coat. The wool was taken from Mammoths.

Only John Schaljo truly knows why chocolate milk is brown.

John's droppings don't degrade for millions of years. For this reason, many aboriginal tribes seek them to construct their cities.

John once used his tapeworm as a whip to defeat a Nazi brigade during the Battle of the Bulge.


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Wednesday December 7, 2005

And this week's "What the F@#k Award" goes to........

This is a house that I drive past every day on my commute to work. I took the pic while driving by it in the Bonneville.

.

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Monday December 5, 2005

An email correspondence this morning.

The following banter regards the list of Schaljo facts posted yesterday.

Schaljo: You sure know how to make a guy feel good.

Me: Uh............... I’m not exactly sure how to reply to that. Ick!

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Monday December 5, 2005

Strange clouds o'erhead.

I took this photo of the strange cloud cover this morning on my way into work.

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Sunday December 4, 2005

Rollin', rollin', rollin'.

In case you haven't heard, Super-fan John Schaljo is leaving our place of employment for a position somewhere else. In honor of his career move, I thought it appropriate to post this list of John Schaljo facts. If you'd like to submit fact of your own, email them to me and I might post them

The blood of John Schaljo can bring things back from the dead. Unfortunately, John rarely bleeds on dead things.

Mr. Schaljo invented the toilet. To this day, it is referred to as the "john."

Stranded in a blizzard with a pregnant woman, John Schaljo delivered quintuplets with only his teeth and a zippo lighter as tools. All of the children were named John in his honor and grew to be fine ladies. Now they all serve in public offices.

John Schaljo once stumbled upon a family of sasquatch while camping. Over the weekend, he shaved them and taught them to speak Mandarin Chinese. The family now owns a fur processing plant in Bejing.

John Schaljo thwarted an alien invasion by eating the first armada and smoking their bones.

John travelled back in time and was solely responsible for our winning the war of 1812. He fought in New Orleans under the surname of "General Jackson".

A doctor tried to consult Mr. Schaljo about performing an experimental brain surgical technique. John had just returned from the war of 1812, and reflexively killed the doctor with a mind beam.

John received the name "Schaljo" after defeating a marauding band of Icelandic invaders. In English, the name "Schaljo" roughly translates to "The man who defeated a marauding band of icelandic invaders."

The mere mention of John Schaljo's name will keep biting insects away.

John Schaljo is so tough that his shadow doesn't even touch him for fear of being harmed.

Schaljo's only known weakness was a serum called murishma. In a clever ploy, John sold all of the existing serum to Keith Moon who in turn, injected it.

John has a conjoined parasitic twin inside of his colon. This twin has the power of flight, but because it is conjoined, can only fly inside of John's colon.

Schaljo once won a staring contest with the Great Sphinx. This act is commemorated on our currency with a depiction of John's eye rising above the Great Pyramid.

There can be only one true Schaljo in existence at any given time. Upon his death, a new, younger Schaljo will rise from his ashes.

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Saturday December 2, 2005

Office conversation heard yesterday, as told by penguins.

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Friday December 2, 2005

Chowin' Down.

I met several friends which worked with me at Yellowbook USA before they fired us all. It was a raw deal that I'd rather not get into right now. The good thing is that through this whole mess, some of us still get together every other month and visit over dinner. I love visiting with everyone and wish we could get together more often, but everyone has such hectic lives anymore. I count my blessings everyday because I still get to work with Sioux.

The people that went to the dinner were: (left to right) Me, Sioux, Robin, Megan, and Jennifer. Patti isn't in the pic because she was working the camera.

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Thursday December 1, 2005

Lots going on!

Sorry for not posting much. We had a death in the family and much of my time has been in preparation for the funeral. I have also been working a bit of overtime. I know these aren't good excuses for not writing. But they are the excuses that I am going to use, so there.

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