Sturgeon’s Law Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, “Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud.” Oddly, when Sturgeon’s Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to ‘crap’.
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Last week while listening to the Red Sox/Blue Jays games on WEEI via MLB.com the annoying sound gaps I’ve been complaining about seem to come and go. I sent an email reply to the last customer service address I had that said keep them posted, but heard nothing. Saturday and Sunday the Yankee’s games were on the tube, so I watched. Monday and Tuesday games with Baltimore were on ESPN as well. Tonight it was back to “radio” and I couldn’t make it through the player introductions the silences were so bad. Tomorrow I’ll give them a call on the toll free number and see if I can get 2/3rds of my money back or something.
Guess I’ll go back to listening to Radio Paradise in front of the PC in the evenings and check the box scores in the morning…
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 158
Wow, 79 years old today. I know what you are thinking, if you knew you were going to live that long you would have taken better care of yourself. Well, hell, I don’t smoke, don’t drink, I’m taking blood pressure pills and now cholesterol lowering meds and sometimes I’m not so sure I’ll make it to 50, a mere 4 months from now. 
The monthly meeting of the Master’s Miata Club was tonight and we held it in a back room at Bobby’s BBQ just west of Aiken. I like the food here and managed 3 trips to the buffet, before getting dessert. I don’t heap the plate or anything, but I do get my $6.95 worth.
The weather has been downright dreary around here the last week or so, but today we did manage to get the top down for the drive in to work and the ride home. We put it up while at the meeting as radar looked ugly, but it didn’t rain while we were inside. So the top went back down for the drive home. We almost made it home with it down, but about 2 miles from the garage we had to put it up as the slower city driving allowed the rain to get us wet instead of just the windshield.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 162
I called and complained to to MLB.com’s Customer Service on Thursday morning. Talked with a nice fellow named Victor, who while sympathetic, could not do anything about a refund because their policy is they are only available for 10 days after purchase. He asked if I would email him a description of my issues and he would pass them along to his supervisor. I sent him a novella generated from my ranting posts here and earlier email traffic to someone else in their customer service department.
The Red Sox had an afternoon make-up game with the Orioles and wouldn’t you know it, the audio was nearly flawless. But tonight’s game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was one of the worst ever in the quantity of sound gaps. I’m listening to the game on the Angels radio station, ESPN. I’d really like to listen to the Bosox’s announcers, maybe if I tried the Spanish language broadcast, might learn to speak a second language…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 165
Rare night off from blogging last night.
All this hoopla over Star Wars: Episode III — Anakin Goes Bad has made me want to go see it, but somehow I feel I will be disappointed, so I hesitate. Yesterday while channel surfing I stumbled on something on VH1 entitled, When Star Wars Ruled the World. An hour long retrospective of the original trilogy. Jonsing for a Force Fix, I decided to pop in the DVD of Star Wars: Episode IV — The One That Started It All. Even though I could do the all the dialog right along with the actors, I still enjoyed it.
The final battle to destroy the Death Star got me thinking. Maybe I need to change out my current Share the Road license plate for a personalized tag that reads “RED 5″ for Luke’s call sign in his X-wing. It is probably long gone as I can’t be the only one in South Carolina to think of that. Maybe “REDFIVE” or “RED V” is free. In some states you can check online if a plate is available, but not here…
Because I am going to see the movie eventually and just like seeing James Cameron’s Titanic I know how it ends, I didn’t want to spoil the journey.
Thanks Derek.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 165
All I had was a portrait of Andrew Jackson and I wanted a candy bar to brighten up my ever so dull afternoon. I headed down to accounting the get the clerk to turn the one bill into several, and at least one of which should be one the vending machine would digest. As I stood in front of the counter where the clerk should be I heard the Accounting Manager call me into her office. She said, “I’ve got something for you,” and reached into her top desk drawer. She pulled out a plain brown paper bag and handed it to me. I knew instantly it was food, we’ve been down this path before. She said she bought two and after finishing the first she knew she shouldn’t have the second, so she hoped I would be so kind and remove the temptation. Being the gentleman I am, I was happy to oblige. Inside the bag was a 4″ x 4″ by 3/4″ thick chunk of candy/cookie thing. It had to be good because it felt like it weighed a pound. After I finished, I sent her a thank you email with the subject of
In this Issue: Perfect Timing, Not For Me, Heavy Burden.
Perfect Timing:
I was down there looking for Sally, so I could have her break a twenty dollar bill. I wanted an afternoon snack, but you handed me something much better than I could have gotten from the machines. I was in the right place at the right time.
Not For Me:
When I left your office I went to share with Donna. I broke “the snack” (at this point I don’t know what it is called, so I’ll just call it the snack) in half and gave one to her. She felt it and decided that was too much, so she broke the half in half again and handed me back one. She took a healthy bite out of the 1/4 of “the snack”, probably half of it, and chewed. She made a funny face. Donna likes chocolate and was fooled by the coating of that on top, but she is not much for sweets otherwise. She handed the 1/8 bit of “the snack” back to me as she finished chewing. She reached out and took the 1/8 of “the snack” back, then carefully, using her teeth, scraped off the chocolate coating and discarded the remainder.
Heavy Burden:
I was now stuck having to eat 3/4 of “the snack” all by myself. Truly, both literally and figuratively, a heavy burden. I was up to the task though and had no trouble devouring the remainder of “the snack.” It was delicious. Unfortunately “the snack” had enough calories to feed a small island nation and now that my body is working to digest them all it is a heavy burden just to keep my eyes open and head up…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 165
We have one of those single arm kitchen faucets and it has developed some leakage. Anywhere from a drip to a small stream depending what the angle of the arm is when it gets pushed down. The work around for this bit of annoyance is to shut off the faucet and then lift the arm ever so slightly. I am perfectly happy with this arrangement, Donna is not.
All it probably needs is a replacement washer inside the faucet. Because she watches a lot of HGTV, Donna sees a 15 minute job rated 1 screwdriver at a cost of under a buck. I see an all day job costing hundreds of dollars because I know my limitations and luck.
Here is how I see it going: I turn off the 50-year old shut off valves under the sink so I can work on the faucet. Because they are so old they don’t shut off the water completely. So I then have to go outside to the main water shut off. (Fortunately this works because it was replaced 4 or 5 years ago when we had lawn sprinklers installed.) I now disassemble the faucet and extract the mangled rubber piece. I will then spend 15 minutes looking thru the junk plumbing bits I have in the garage in hope of finding a match. With no success, I head over to the local mega home repair place and spend 30 minutes wandering the aisles and pulling open plastic drawers looking for a match. I find something I think might work, spend $2.98 and return home. With the new piece I reassemble the faucet and close the outside valve and am greeted with barely any water pressure. Oh, yeah, the inside valves. I open them up and the faucet now leaks all the time because the rubber piece I brought home was not an exact match. To compound matters, now that I have disturbed one of the inside shut off valves from its comfortable spot it proceeds to start dripping from the packing around the handle. Outside to shut off the water to the house again. Back to the mega home repair store. This time, in disgust, I just buy a whole new faucet. Back home I spend the next 3 hours pulling out the old faucet, scraping the old caulking and plumber’s putty off the sink and installing the new one.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 167
Two women who had been friends for years, decided to go for a Girls Night Out, and were decidedly over-enthusiastic on the martinis.
Incredibly drunk and walking home, they needed to use the bathroom.
They were very near a cemetery and one of them suggested they wiz behind a headstone.
The first woman had nothing to dry herself with so she thought she’d take off her panties, use them, then throw them away.
Her friend, however, was wearing rather expensive underwear and didn’t want to ruin hers, but was lucky to salvage a large ribbon from a wreath that was on one of the graves. She dried herself with the ribbon. After finishing, they then made off for home.
The next day the first woman’s husband phoned the other husband and said, “This girls night out thing has got to stop right now. My wife came home last night without her panties.”
“That’s nothing.” said the other husband, “Mine came home with a card stuck to her butt that said, ‘FROM ALL OF US AT THE FIRE STATION, WE’LL NEVER FORGET YOU.’”
Remember a couple weeks ago when I asked everyone to concentrate on the number 62? Well, after over two weeks of just needing that number to win the Safety Bingo Game, it was called last Friday (must not been a lot of you putting out the right vibes.) Because we had been 2 weeks without another boo-boo, they had added $100 to the pot making it worth $260. Monday after all three shifts had had a chance to check their cards, I was a winner. But so was someone else. We had to split the pot. Hey, $130, is $130 more than I had the day before, so who am I to complain. Today I got an extra check to go along with my regular paycheck. It was for $120.05. Not only did I have to share the pot with a co-worker, but Uncle Sam had to get his cut too.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 171
The last time the Boston Red Sox played the Chicago Cubs was in 1918 when the Bosox beat the Cubbies in the World Series. I think the Cubs were still holding a grudge because they, like St Louis (who the Sox beat in last year’s World Series) earlier this week, whooped up on the FRS like they were little leaguers. Or maybe the Cubs are upset that the Red Sox won the World Series last year after only 86 years since their last, while the Cubs are only a couple of years away from a century since their last World Championship team of 1908.
My local cable company doesn’t carry WGN, so I can’t watch the games, like I could with the Braves and TBS, until Sunday when the match-up is the ESPN Sunday night game of the week.
No postings here tomorrow as we are spending the night in a motel in Beaufort, SC. We are heading that way with a few of the Master’s Miata Club folks to meet up with a bunch of Low Country Miata Club folks to go to the drive-in there. So you can share in some of my furor, I’m going to let you in on the two movies we will be seeing tomorrow: The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D, followed by Madagascar. Damn, I’m all a tingle with excitement.
As I do for any Miata gathering I participate in, I wash the car before so it will look nice. Afternoon showers were popping all over the area, so I tried to time my washing just right. I almost made it. I had at least finished washing it before the next shower passed through. I was under the awning in the driveway that is for the MSV and drying the car off when it started raining. The top, hood and trunk were dry, but the sides kept getting wet down with the splashes of the heavy stuff. I waited a bit and when the rain intensity slowed some, I quickly backed out from under the awning and drove into the garage where I finished drying off.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 172
Started up, went down, went up, went down, back up again, back down again, up, down, up still another time, down yet again, back up, back down, up one more time, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 184
Boy I wish I typed faster because then I could relate all the very weird stuff I witnessed this weekend because there was so much of it and I’m not even counting the Shark Boy & Lava Girl movie.
(That’s me, second from the right, Donna is peeking out over my shoulder)
Here is a sampling: When leaving the parking lot of the grocery store this afternoon, because the spot in front to me was empty, I pulled out straight through instead of backing up. I pulled slowly through in between a new BMW 5 series on the left and a Toyota Tacoma pickup on the right. As I eased my nose out I had to wait on some kid in a several year old Honda Civic hatchback pass in front of me. He was going slow because he was thinking of pulling in on the other side of the BMW. He finally gets far enough past that I can pull out. I look back to give him the evil eye for going so slow when I notice the reason he was going so slow was about half way down into the spot there was a shopping cart sitting there. Instead of pulling 10 feet further down the aisle (away from the store) into an empty spot or stopping, getting out and moving the cart he decides to push the cart out of the spot with the front of his car. Even though he is moving forward at a walking pace, the cart bounces off his nose and, you guessed it, rolls into the side of the BMW. Donna and I both witnessed this, just shook our heads and drove home thinking that we had just seen the topper of all the strange things we had seen this weekend.
But we were wrong. Halfway between the store and home a Don Martinesque (sample DM toon) parade of two old ladies with dogs crossed the street in front of us. The first woman was 6′ tall and weighed, maybe, 75 pounds with an unruly shock of white hair, wearing a white shirt, white shorts with black knee socks. She was carrying her Maltese dog with matching white fur which weighed 5 pounds soaking wet. Her friend, following a few paces behind and wearing a dark brown skirt weighed 250 pounds and was dragging by a leash a large brown mixed breed dog who probably weighed more than woman #1.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 185
Ever since the last time I wrote about the quantity of spam at work seemed to be averaging over a hundred a day, it quickly fell back down near an average of 50 a day. Well now we have sunk to a new low. Saturday morning’s summary email reported just 34 messages, Sunday’s had 37 and this morning’s a paltry 25. The new spam attention getter subject is today’s post’s title. I noticed a smattering of them earlier last week, but it came on strong Saturday as it was the subject of 14 out of 34 emails. Then it showed up six more times in Sunday’s report, but disappeared on Monday’s. Is that the end? I’ll let you know when I get back from shopping at Walmart…
I wish I had better luck with the lottery. That way I could be wealthy enough to just stay up all night and watch Bravo’s West Wing Marathon Mondays and not have to worry about getting up the next morning.
They say bad things come in threes, well I’m here to tell you sometimes good things come in threes too. First there was that winning the company’s Safety Bingo game, then there was all those Walmart Gift Card emails and now this lil’ ol’ website won $30 paypal dollars in a weekly contest held by my webhost. I was chosen from literally tens of entrants as the best designed and most informative. Click here soon as it may not mean anything in another week.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 185
Continue reading Abu el Banat*
This is the last time you hear me bitch about listening to the Red Sox on MLB.com. I tried listening to the Sox –Reds game last night and I couldn’t take it, the sound randomly cutting out was too much to bear. I then took a shot at listening to the Cincinnati broadcast of the game, but while it wasn’t cutting out, the announcers sounded like they were moving closer then further away from the mikes, The volume was up and down and about as distracting as the WEEI sound drop outs. For a second I thought maybe all this was me, but funny thing though, the volume of the commercials was perfect.
Tonight, I tried to listen to the Red Sox broadcasters again, and the game sounded fine. Might have been because there were some different people in the booth. One of the regular announcers was out because of a sick relation or something and that changed something just enough that there were almost no sound cut outs.
Next time the broadcast gets crappy I’m going to call and cancel even if there is no refund. If I keep the service I will be tempted to try and listen and then just be pissed at the quality.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 187
In leiu of actual content, a smart blonde/dumb southerner joke:
Bubba and Junior were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking up.
A woman walked by and asked “What are you doing?”
“We’re supposed to find the height of the flagpole,” said Bubba, “but we don’t have a ladder.”
The woman took a wrench from her purse, loosened a few bolts, and laid the pole down. Then she took a tape measure from her pocket, took a measurement, announced, “Eighteen feet, six inches,” and walked away.
Junior shook his head and laughed. “Ain’t that just like a dumb blonde! We ask for the height, and she gives us the length!!”
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 187
Looking for the perfect 50’s college nostolgia? How about a letter sweater just like dear ol’ dad wore? Get a duplicate of the one the moths ate or make one up of your very own at lettersweaters.com.
Here is Doug Neidermeyer’s letter sweater from Faber U.
Or if you would like that High School Letter Jacket you missed out on back in the day, because they didn’t award them to members of the AV Club, you can get one at their companion site, American Letterman Jackets.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 191
Continue reading Letter Sweater
And about 10 Shriners on Go-Karts. The Emperor passed the 25,000 mile mark on the way to the Ridge Peach Parade this morning. It was organized chaos, both in the manner of go-kart driving in front of us and at the start when the “float” markers weren’t out on time, so we just kind of lined up where we thought we should be. Coincidentally there were 10 Miatas in the parade following right behind the Shriners. Although we would have liked to have done some of the maneuvers that the go-karts were doing, and Miatas are small cars, our turning radius is not that tight.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 191
I certainly hope that all you fathers out there had half as nice a day as I did. While I’m not a father myself, so I didn’t get a hand drawn card or burnt toast in bed, I did have a nice leisurely day. This morning was spent reading (The Genesis Code by John Case) on the screened porch listening to Radio Paradise. With both the humidity and temperatures lower than normal for around here, the screened porch was the place to be. So much so that after lunch with friends I headed back out there to read some more and listen to the Red Sox trounce the Pirates.
Excuse me while I go finish the book and then it is back to reality. Tomorrow starts a new work week and I really need to get going on a Master’s Miata Club newsletter…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 191
A guy is browsing in a pet shop and sees a parrot sitting on a little perch. It doesn’t have any feet or legs. The guy says aloud, “Jeesh, I wonder what happened to this parrot?”
The parrot says, “I was born this way. I’m a defective parrot.”
“Holy crap,” the guy replies. “You actually understood and answered me!”
“I got every word,” says the parrot. “I happen to be a highly intelligent thoroughly educated bird.”
“Oh yeah?” the guy asks, “Then answer this — how do you hang onto your perch without any feet?”
“Well,” the parrot says, “this is very embarrassing but since you asked, I wrap my weenie around this wooden bar like a little hook. You can’t see it because of my feathers.”
“Wow,” says the guy. “You really can understand and speak English can’t you?”
“Actually, I speak both Spanish and English, and I can converse with reasonable competence on almost any topic: politics, religion, sports, physics, philosophy. I’m especially good at ornithology. You really ought to buy me. I’d be a great companion.”
The guy looks at the $200.00 price tag. “Sorry, but I just can’t afford that.”
“Pssssssst,” says the parrot, “I’m defective, so the truth is, nobody wants me cause I don’t have any feet. You can probably get me for $20; just make the guy an offer!”
The guy offers $20 and walks out with the parrot. Weeks go by. The parrot is sensational. He has a great sense of humor, he’s interesting, he’s a great pal, he understands everything, he sympathizes, and he’s insightful. The guy is delighted.
One day the guy comes home from work and the parrot goes, “Psssssssssssst,” and motions him over with one wing. “I don’t know if I should tell you this or not, but it’s about your wife and the postman.”
“What are you talking about?” asks the guy.
“When the postman delivered the mail today, your wife greeted him at the door in a sheer black nightie.”
“WHAT???” the guy asks incredulously. “THEN what happened?”
“Well, then the postman came into the house and lifted up her nightie and began petting her all over,” reported the parrot.
“NO!” he exclaims. “And she let him?”
“Yes. Then he continued taking off the nightie, got down on his knees and began to kiss her all over.…”
Then the frantic guy demands, “THEN WHAT HAPPENED?”
“Damned if I know. I got a hard-on and fell off my perch!”
While we await the start of the Tour de France and the real reason we are plunking down an extra $15 a month for digital cable, we get to enjoy several “movie channels.” A half dozen Starz channels and eight Encore channels of which there is a lot of cross pollenation. I always check to see what is playing in case there might be something interesting and usually there isn’t, but one of the movies in the rotation this last month or so is one I can’t help but to stop and watch. I enjoy it so much that just tonight I broke away from watching the West Wing Monday Marathon (and we all know how much I love that show) to enjoy watching it for the umpteenth time.
Jack Sparrow: You, sailor.
Mr. Gibbs: Cotton, sir.
Jack Sparrow: Mr. Cotton. Do you have the courage and fortitude to follow orders and stay true in the face of danger and almost certain death?
[pause]
Jack Sparrow: Mr. Cotton. Answer, man.
Mr. Gibbs: He’s a mute, sir. Poor devil had his tongue cut out, so he trained the parrot to talk for him. No one’s yet figured how.
Jack Sparrow: Mr. Cotton’s… parrot. Same question.
Parrot: [squawk] Wind in the sails. Wind in the sails.
Mr. Gibbs: Mostly, we figure, that means ‘yes.’
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 191
At our lunchtime walk around the parking lot the sky was looking kind of iffy. Donna asked if I thought that we should put the top up and I waved her off. As a precaution when I got back inside I checked the radar loop on Weather.com and it looked like the line of thundershowers was moving north and east away from us, so I forgot all about the rain. For about 10 minutes. That is when the bottom fell out. If you were to look in the Microsoft’s Encarta for the word deluge, a video of what happened this afternoon would appear there.
It rained hard, like a cow pissing on a flat rock in a flowing stream, for at least 20 minutes. After 5, I knew I was in trouble. When the storm passed I wandered out to the parking lot to inspect the damages. The cockpit cover was soaked and when I peeled it back the inside looked barely wet. I did a quick sigh and felt the driver’s seat bottom. Uh, oh, it went squish, squish. That’s when I noticed the puddle of water under the seat.  There was about an inch of rainwater under there. I went into the trunk and got my hand towel I use for quick detailing and started to sop up the puddle. After about a dozen dips and then squeezing out the water onto the asphalt the remaining water was at least not in danger of slooshing around on the drive home. The passenger side didn’t have a puddle, everything was just soaked through. I used a bunch of paper towels and dried the rest of the surfaces off. The seat bottoms and the “carpet” was still very wet.
Once I got home I pulled the seats and popped off the sill plates so I could peel back the carpet and dry underneath. I ended up using 6 full size bath towels to get all I could get dry in the cockpit. The colored and shredded recycled 2 litter 7-Up bottles that Mazda uses for carpet in the car is no real problem, it should eventually dry with no issues. But underneath that on each side are a couple of pieces of fiber padding that acted like sponges and they will not be 100% dry when I button the car back up later tonight. I may just rip the soggy padding out and replace it with something else later…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 193
Our pants got a little damp on the ride into work this morning, but leaving the cockpit cover off in the morning helped quite a bit. Not taking any chances we put it back on for the afternoon. Tomorrow’s planned repeat of this process will probably have the car totally dried out.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 193
Six weeks ago my doctor put me on Crestor to lower my cholesterol (actually it was to raise my good cholesterol and drop my triglycerides) and a little over 3 weeks into it, I called the doctor and begged off because it was upsetting my stomach and making copius amounts of gas. We went back to taking Red Yeast Rice for about the last week and a half before blood was drawn last Friday. Today was my follow up appoinment and the numbers, like last time, shifted some up, some down. Now we will try Tricor and see what happens in 6 more weeks.
| |
Chol |
HDL |
LDL |
Trig |
| Goal |
<200 |
>40 |
<100 |
30–150 |
| 09/21/04 |
209 |
24 |
131 |
271 |
| 01/10/05 |
176 |
33 |
110 |
167 |
| 05/06/05 |
174 |
27 |
108 |
194 |
| 06/17/05 |
164 |
31 |
85 |
238 |
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 193
I have once again opened up a Cafe Press store to sell merchandise to the gullible. I have made up, just in time for summer, some Camp Mazdamiata T-shirts. There are 3 slightly different designs to choose from and if you want some slight customizations, that can possibly be arranged too. Plus held over are the world famous “Oh Yes Wyoming” t-shirts. Also available is a faux Euro oval sticker that reads “LOB” (Life Of Brian), a rectangular sticker with Sturgeon’s Law on it and a bumper sticker that proclaims “Interstates Suck”.
Please buy my stuff.
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 Looking southwest at the corner of Mr. Fletcher’s Ride and an unnamed path about 1/2 mile in from our usual entry point into Hitchcock Woods. The last couple of months this image has been pretty static and I’m sure it will be that way for the next couple of months too.
For the reopening of my CafePress store I commissioned a professionally done commercial for airing during the baseball all-star game on Fox July 12th. I had it made in Brazil to take advantage of the lower production costs, but that might have been a mistake. The problem is not the quality, that is fantastic, but I think they misunderstood the product I have for sale. See for yourself, Life of Brian Stuff Commercial (1.8Meg video) and let me know, use it or not.
Either way, please buy my stuff.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 195
I grew up in Connecticut, but ever since I joined the Navy at 18, I have not been back north to live (except for that 2 year mistake in NJ.) I have lived in Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina for a total of over 30 years. The last 16 have been here in Aiken, SC. While I don’t consider myself a Yankee anymore, I am still far from being a southern country boy and every once in a while I’m really reminded of that fact.
Here at ASCO the Activities Committee is forever raffling off one thing or another. They sell tickets for a dollar and all the money goes into a kitty to fund donations to worthy causes and a family fun day. The raffles are usually theme related to a holiday, like for Mother’s Day it was a basket with fluffy stuff & a gift certificate to a day spa. For Father’s Day, the prize was a combination smoker & grill.
Well, for fourth of July, they are raffling of a hog. A 50lb dressed, ready to cook, pig. Soooey.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 196
Even though I tried to be obtuse enough in Sunday’s post — there was big doings elsewhere that I can’t talk about for fear of jinxing it (hint: American League East.) — the baseball gods saw right through me. The FRS lost last night and the damn Yankees won…
That is what I get for blogging early. Late last night a trip to the grocery store was required and because of the rainy weather in the area that meant down to the store up while inside and down for the ride home. The ride home was slightly damp too because it started sprinkling half way back, but not hard enough to scare us.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 199
You cannot put the same shoe on every foot.
Publilius Syrus (c.42BC)
Writer
My manager at work has subscribed to a little monthly motivational handout called Bits & Pieces. The above quote came from the July 2005 issue he handed out today, it was the second bit, or piece if you will, in the magazine, right there on page 1.
My question is why was this particular piece of “wisdom” saved? Did someone other than Mr. Syrus hear him say those words and instantly think, “Ooooh, I’d better save that, it sounds like it will be inspirational in about 2,047 years?” Well, here’s hoping that the July 4052 issue of Bits & Pieces includes this:
Be careful what you write, no matter how inane, it might be permanent.
Brian the Red (c.2005AD)
Blogger
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 201
Our friend’s 11-year old son plays on a traveling baseball team. No, not like Bingo Long & 20 other guys in an old bus barnstorming the southeast, but more like 20 Chrysler minivans with rear seat entertainment centers filled with siblings who go from town to town all over the state every other weekend playing more teams just like themselves in tournaments. The teams have to pay to enter the tournaments and there are uniforms to buy and umpires to bribe and all manner of other expenses that are borne by the parents. To help offset these costs, they do what all kids are taught in school to do from an early age, they sell stuff.
The team’s current scheme promotion is selling raffle tickets to win a bat that has been signed by Yogi Berra. When we had a visit from them this evening to ask if we would like to take some chances, I asked, “Yogi Berra, isn’t that the guy from those Aflac commercials?”
Jared, just gave me as world-weary a look as an eleven year old could, like he had heard that a million times before and it wasn’t that funny the first time either, and nodded his head to say just fill out the back of the ticket fool.
Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 205
Well Mateys, it happened again this evening. I lost time. Fox Mulder would tell you that that is a sign of alien abduction.
After dinner I settled in on the couch to finish reading my current book, I had my headphones for music and a fresh Diet Dr. Pepper to slake my thirst when I made the fatal mistake of doing a quick check of the movie channels. It was about 20 minutes after 6PM when the channels stopped moving on Encore wam. Next thing I knew it was 8:20PM. If it was 9 minutes I’d have said Mulder was right, but this was 2 hours, that could only mean one thing.…
Barbossa: For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starving to death and haven’t died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea. Nor the warmth of a woman’s flesh.
[steps into moonlight becoming a skeleton]
Barbossa: You best start believing in ghost stories Miss Turner. You’re in one.
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 205
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