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The Curse Of That Damn Pirate Movie

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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Happy Father’s Day

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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Letter Sweater

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.

Letter Sweater
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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Abu el Banat*

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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My Sureal Life

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.

Cool Shades
(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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62 II

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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The Snack

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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