Unreleased Aerosmith Songs

Janie's Really Annoyed

Janie's Not Going to Take it Anymore

Janie's Applying for a Permit

Janie's Waiting 5 Days

Handy Tip! Free!

A magnetic key holder placed on the underside of your car doesn't have to contain keys - how about some change and a few emergency phone numbers?

Phone numbers such as the American Automobile Association (don't forget to include your acct #), your work, your kid's school, your spouse's work, spouse's cell, and the number of your best pal.

Just a thought. Might make a cute, inexpensive gift for friends and loved ones too.

In Real Life = not at all slanty

Who Knew?

A sign near my work

<<--Men || Boys-->>

Denny's or IHOP?
IHOP

Beatles or Elvis?
Elvis

Britney or Christina?
Christina

Bottled or Brita?
Brita

Rings or Fries?
Frings

Early or Late?
Early

Rough or Gentle?
Yes please.

Slimbolala RULES!

I don't know if I'll be able to read this blog much longer... You're just too perfect.

You have a beautiful wife who also has a humanitarian-type job, adorable kids, writing talent, photography talent, drawing talent, you play an instrument, math skills, programming skills, you're into local folklore, you lived through Katrina, you have cool pets, you're about to be a math teacher in a high-needs region...

(There are probably 20 cool things I missed!)

And to top it off, most damning of all, you resemble Harry Connick Jr. more than a little.

Thank Brahma for IMDB!

I was trying to think of that guy, he's a musician, from New Orleans... Handsome guy, good singer, if I were gay he'd totally be my type...

How in the world to Google that?

Wait, he was in Iron Giant as the beatnik junkyard sculptor dude...

IMDB... Iron Giant...

Harry Connick Jr! Yes!

Real Life Conversation #37

This weather man-child is not filling me with confidence.

Yeah I think he's new.

Well I can tell you, he's no Jim Cantore.

Hah! Well, who is? I'll bet, some days even Jim Cantore has a hard time being Jim Cantore.

Strange, when did I order Porn-by-Mail?

Oh, wait - it's not porn, it's my quarterly dividends prospectus from Smith Barney.


If it's shipped in black plastic, you can bet it's not something to be proud of.

Iron Man rocks! Err... Ores!

I had to work on Saturday (grrr) and what with Cindy working late into the night every night until next Thursday, and since I was out of the house anyway, I took it upon myself to see Iron Man all alone (yes, I took one for the team, I'm a great guy, what can I say?).

It was a nearly full theater - I had strangers to either side of me for the whole film, despite my carefully orchestrated early arrival and sitting down in an empty row.

A woman was sitting to my left - I never did see her face. She was light haired, was wearing very pretty flip flops (I'm sure they're called Designer Sandals when you buy them at Nordstrom's) and seemed generally a nice sort. She chatted very softly with her man on and off throughout the film, but since they whispered so softly it didn't trouble me (so it must have been very softly indeed).

The endearing thing about this woman was how much empathy she had. When Tony Stark stubbed a toe, she gasped and cringed - she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. When Tony kicked ass and took names, she was right there for him, woo!ing and yeah!ing right along with the rest of us.

I think it would be fair to say I enjoyed the movie more because she was sitting next to me - her immersion and suspension of disbelief was infectious - I was drawn in deeper thanks to her. "Thanks, Lady in Pretty Flip Flops" I thought.

(I've always considered movie-watching to be a solitary thing - you might attend a movie together, but you're essentially sitting alone in the dark for 2 hours. Iron Man makes me rethink this theory.)

Then, as we waited as the credits rolled for Samuel L. Jackson to make his post-credits cameo, she was chatting it up with her man, and I realized what an OMG LOL As-If Talk to the Hand type-girl she was. Ah well. Still, her contribution to my experience remains.

Yoink!

Kato recently blogged of his trials and tribulations attempting to eat cake from a ziplock bag.

(We've all been there, don't try to pretend you're above such things.)

I posted my solution in his comments section, but then realized that the world at large should be able to benefit from my sage culinary wisdom - - Also, I couldn't think of anything else to post.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I would recommend this as the best method of eating cake from a ziplock:

1) Secure at least 8oz of whole cow's milk @ 40 degrees F, in a glass

2) Make sure the ziplock is tightly zipped

3) Pulverize the cake with your thumbs (NOT your fingers)

4) Cut a .5 inch hole in the bottom left corner of the bag

5) Roll the top of the bag down to tightly contain the cakey contents

6) Squeeze the cake through the hole cut in step 3

7) Pretend you're an Astronaut, and it's your birthday

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Any day you can pretend you're an Astronaut is a good day.

Names Changed to Protect the Innocent

I checked my email this morning to discover one from Hallmark E-Card Services:

Your E-Card has been sent to BadgeryMojo!

"Whaaaa?" Says I.

I fumble around in my recent memories... I don't recall sending an e-card. Nope.

Now I'm worried. What did I send? WHEN? Was it that night I was high from sniffing cherry-flavored markers? Or that night I concocted the Ultimate S'Mores (80% pure Cocao, Mallow Whip, and Gourmet Graham)??

What did the card say? Was it a mad plea that we run off together to Beautiful Downtown Des Moines, to live in a cardboard box, dwelling in quiet obscurity as Beat Poets and Soap Box Philosophers?

Turns out it was a simple 'Hello', but I still don't remember sending it - and Hallmark doesn't say when I placed the e-card request, just when it was sent.

It might be cool to create a series of e-cards for your loved ones, each one different, to be sent each year on their birthday, for like the next 100 years. How odd would it be to receive a B-Day card from a long-dead friend or loved one? Would you change your email address to avoid it, or wait excitedly to see what they sent?

Imagine getting annual e-cards like that from your parents - it would be especially cool if each card told the secret story of their lives, all the crazy shit you never knew about, and you had to wait a year for each installment.

Portishead! New Album!

Yes, it's true! Go Go Go!

Overheard, just wrong

"An angry pregnant woman, dat's the woist. I mean, dat's da only time you can't hit em back, em I right?"

Brica-brack

You know how over time, you end up with a drawer of odds and ends, stray buttons, screws, little adaptors that fit nothing but might be useful one day?

I have a sentence like that...
An odds and ends sentence, that I'll probably never use...

"Her ovaries were dark with promise."

If you can find somewhere to use this, you're welcome to it.

a work-in-progress snippet

Is it possible to create a novella-length melodramatic work entirely in the present tense? I'm sure it's been done... How readable would it be? That is, can it hold a reader's attention without feeling too awkward to them?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Green is beginning to stir. His breath is raspy, heavy with effort, wet thanks to a punctured lung.

Gail finds her hands gripping his gun in fingers tight and cold. Her jaw is clenched, teeth grinding. She's overwhelmed by a sense of outrage at his invasion into her space, not just her car, but her space – her tidy world.

Her fingers close on the trigger, and the gun goes off almost effortlessly. She will later convince herself it was an accident. The BANG fills the tiny space to overflowing, and her ears whine an endless E.

The red-haired thug runs up to the car just in time to see his buddy take a point-blank bullet. Red stumbles away, gathers himself up, running off at top speed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Also, can you say these words in the present tense:
punctured
clenched
overwhelmed

Best evidence that Life is a cruel joke:

Your art enjoys massive posthumous success.

A leading cause of diabetes...

Ever have trouble saying "insulin"?

I was trying to warn myself against the dangers of overeating, and was mentioning to myself the slippery slope that is Insolence Resistance...oops, Insulin Resistance.

What? You don't talk to yourself? I'd be lonely without the voices*.

(*Mostly they tell me to clean the house)

Fun with SMS

My new cell phone automatically corrects for spelling errors as you type a text message. Here's what it should have sent:

Hey Darlin - I'm at the archery range, gonna shoot a few vollies, be home by 9.

What it did send:

"...archery range, gonna shoot a few collies, be home by 9."

Labels Tabulation Extravaganza

Do you guys ever look at the labels list that's compiled for your blogs?
It's interesting to see which things I talk most about...

Real Life Conversations (37)

EtchCo Inventions (19)

Cats (17)

Cindy (10)

Credi-Bull (9)

Florida (7)

Music (6)

Potty (5)

Actual Job Postings (4)

How odd that I talk about the cat more than my good lady wife...

Morbidly Craft-tastic!

The best arts and crafts take everyday things, everyday problems, and turn them into something other - perhaps wholly unexpected, but somehow fitting in their new guise and surroundings.

In business, huge profits can lie in finding a niche market - going into a fresh direction, solving a problem no other company has even realized needs solving.

The Problem:
Serial Killers have loads of corpses littering up our good nation's ditches, copses, and marshlands - this unregulated disposal is highly problematic - I can't tell you how many nature hikes I've taken that have been spoiled by the discovery of a mutilated corpse - another Sunday morning needlessly ruined!

The Solution:
EtchCo's Corpse-Cutters: The Road-Kill Collection(tm)

Don't fling last night's conquest down the nearest embankment! Is that the work of a professional hunter or a perverted nothing? Are you a Nine Year Old Boy Locked In His Aunt's Closet Or Are You A Man?

Prove your manliness with EtchCo's Corpse-Cutters: The Road-Kill Collection(tm). The kit includes: Goggles, Gloves, Fillet Knife, Trophy Ziplock, Assorted neutral-toned (fully biodegradable!) fur scraps, Disposable Waterproof Camera, High-Quality 32-page scrapbook, Bleach (1qt), and these 4 quality road-kill cutters:

That's right, we have four high-quality .5mm teflon-coated steel cutters, each with their own size and weight allowance:

Cute Little 1 lb. Mouse
Adorable 3 lb. Bunny
Precious Lil 8lb. Schnauzer
Huggable 35 lb. Llama

(photos not to scale)The first 200 orders include the 'How to Scatter Your Road-Kill Cut Corpse' pamphlet - (don't make the mistake of drawing attention with too many roadkills per mile), so ORDER TODAY!

Did you know that over 63% of all serial killers are apprehended as they revisit the graves of their conquests? With EtchCo's Corpse Cutters: The Road Kill Collection, you'll be able to drive right by their mouldering remains every day and never raise an eyebrow. Now that's satisfaction you can take to the bank! ORDER NOW!

Overheard

"Seriously. The sooner you stop chasing mythical girls with blue hair, the happier you'll be."