Saturday, February 25, 2006

Chemo and some chips

Old Jay Leno routine: "What kind of a ying-yang goes to Montgomery Wards for a lawyer? 'Hey honey, let's pick up some snow tires and, while we're there, get a lawyer for that manslaughter indictment.'"

Wal*Mart plans to open more than 50 in-store health clinics this year, for employees and customers. Cost: $40 per visit.

Four years of undergraduate school, 4 years of medical school, and 3 to 8 years of internship and residency to be a doctor in a Wal*Mart.

Do they make a golf-ball size Valium?

Jim is at his mother's home. Someone did something and both the telephone and cable are out. They will not be back up until Monday afternoon.

Jim is cut off from the Internet. He can text-message on his cell phone. He has no Web access.

The phrase "bouncing off the walls" most likely applies.

When he returns to the land of HTTP, all hell is going to break loose. Until then I am going to post whatever I damn enough please. There may be nakkid pictures here soon. I have a Coca-Cola next to the keyboard. I turned off the security cams and unlocked the doors. Anarchy am amuck!

Friday, February 24, 2006

Little Boy and Fat Man

An Italian toy manufactures is selling exact scale models of the atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Toy A-bombs!

The toys were introduced at the Nuremberg Germany Toy Fair. That sounds like something Jim would make up so I added the picture below.

The second photo below is of the Italian guidos with a full-size bomb strapped to the top of their van! A new signal for the Autobahn: "Move over I have a thermonuclear device on my roof." Jim would insert an I-270 joke here.


Willie does what Willie wants!

Cowboys Are Secretly, Frequently (Fond of Each Other)

Written by Ned Sublette (1981)

Recorded by Willie Nelson (2006)

The same day the song was released Willie performed a free show at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for soldiers wounded in Iraq and their families. Willie is an Air Force veteran.

The most cool dude ever!

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Milburn Drysdale, Sex God

This was the deal: I would work for my dad and with my two brothers for one year. If that worked I would continue to do that. If it did not work I would go do something else. Jimmy has always assumed that something else would be grad school. My parents do not care.

What everyone seems to care about is that I do something now. Starting yesterday. The thing with my dad lasted seven months not one year. Jimmy bet seven weeks so at least I cost him some money.

I have been looking at graduate schools. Jimmy thinks I should consider big name schools. I think I should live here in Rooty's house, and it is Rooty's house, and go to a grad school in St. Louis. My parents do not care.

Jimmy is away. He said he wants a written plan by the time he returns. He wants goals, strategies, and an action plan. He does live in that kind of dream world.

I though I would base my goals on the following list of sexiest jobs. He did not say not to. Anybody know what the hell an event planner does?

Sexiest Jobs 2006
Title % Votes Median Salary
Firefighter . . . . . . . . 16% . . . . . . . . . . .$37,341
CEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16% . . . . . . . . . $637,579
Pilot . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12% . . . . . . . . . $101,666
Doctor . . . . . . . . . . . . 10% . . . . . . . . . $146,707
Flight Attendant . . . . 7% . . . . . . . . . . $50,815
Police Officer . . . . . . . 6% . . . . . . . . . . $45,158
Event Planner . . . . . . .6% . . . . . . . . . . $52,649
Interior Designer . . . .5% . . . . . . . . . . $46,376
Soldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5% . . . . . . . . . . $15,894
Nurse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5% . . . . . . . . . . $57,755

From: aol.com

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

This is so outrageously silly I love it!

dresskevin.com
"I didn't know what to wear, so I made a website."

Kevin McCormick (above) lets you decide what he should wear. People who visit his website can pick from photos of just about everything in his closet. He has lots of clothes so this take a few minutes to load, even on broadband.

On the other hand, with a little group effort, we could really dress Kevin like a geek! Give it some thought.


Man Charged With Killing Roommate Over Toilet Tissue


MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- A man has been arrested for fatally beating his roommate with a sledgehammer and a claw hammer because there was no toilet tissue in the home. The roommate was beaten so badly he had to be identified through his fingerprints.

Everybody needs a buddy...

Rooty (right) and his best buddy Ozzie (left, sitting).
Ozzie lives in Missouri.
They are both wirehair terriers.

Maybe it's just me...

but the best part of the Olympics is the music.
CLICK HERE
Takes a few seconds to start.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Those of you who are preoccupied with your weight

You might consider moving instead of dieting!

Click HERE or the graphic above to see how much you would weigh on each of the planets and on the various moons in the galaxy.

[I believe this is the very definition of useless data.]

Every hour on the hour...

A different "melody."

Probably more about Presidents than you ever wanted to know...

I have removed the long list of presidential facts until next President's Day. In it's place is the remarkable Gettysburg Address.

The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Next time popsicle boy...

It was 9-degrees F (-13C) this morning at 2:30 AM as I was speeding down I-44 in St. Louis on my way back home. The freeway, four lanes in each direction, was almost deserted. I was being pretty good, pushing it by a little, maybe 8 or 9 mph over the limit. Right at the Kingshighway overpass, an ice cream truck passed me as if I were standing still. It must have been doing 90!

A few things:

(1) I still resent being passed by anyone, but I am getting better. But...an ice cream truck!

(2) Who would have guessed that an ice cream truck could move that fast?

(3) Do you think some poor guy had to use his ice cream truck for a date?

Just when you thought there was nothing left to connect to your USB port:

How about a USB Noodle Strainer, $120?

Click here for a video of the noodles being strained, although they look like they're
just whirling around to me.

The purpose of this is beyond me, as is why it needs a USB connection.

As best I can tell, it does not heat the noodles. In fact, you add ice cold water, and then the noodles. After they have swirled around, then you try to catch them with your chopsticks.

Even if you wanted ice-cold, wet, soggy noodles, is bobbing for pasta really something you should be doing next to your computer?


Here's a good Saturday Night rule of thumb...

If you ever get so drunk that your friends can draw on you, and not awaken you, you need to get sober, drink less, and find new friends.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

How cold is it....

It's so cold, and the furnace is running so much, that I put the tea kettle on the store to boil some water. I have no tea (sorry Ben), but oddly enough I do have a tea kettle.

A little later, I heard a smoke alarm go off -- a continuous wailing. I checked all the smoke alarms in the house and garage and found them all silent.

It was that stupid tea kettle. It has a whistle built into its snout. Dogs in Clevelnad probably heard it. That annoyance aside, the boiling water did raise the humidity in here to a tolerable level.

"Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"

Have them go into ceramics, that's where the big money is!

Cost to fix the beak on the little bird: $170


"Rush Job" so it will only take three months rather than one year.



Friday, February 17, 2006

Dave wants to play too...


David has been banned by his parents from the Internet for one year for posting naked pictures of himself. He has cheated a little by leaving blog comments but they caught him!

So, got a question for Dave? Post it here and I will get his answer (and translate as necessary).

[The animated gif is composed from a photographic motion study by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870's. Muybridge photographed the first successful serial images of fast motion.]

Yesterday, in Missouri...

Rooty, asleep on the sofa, during the thunderstorm, at grandma's house.

Rooty hides from thunderstorms on top of sofas. Go figure.
When I got back last night, after the storms had cleared, David was already here. When you're 20-something, forecasts of baseball-size hail are no deterrent.

I could hear him upstairs, singing along with whatever garage-trash band was thundering through his headphones. "Zulla, zulla, zull. mensa van da war. brengen lopo. brazen lopy. zulla brengen zen." He was either listening to a foreign band or he has actually gotten worse at repeating lyrics.

Jim: How was Valentine's Day?

Dave: Heart-shaped.

He has stopped shaving his chest, not that it made any, any, any difference, probably because of his parents uncontrollable laughter.

Dave: Can I borrow your tux? [Someone gave it to me.]

Jim: Sure.

Dave: It'll be too big?

Jim: A tux is easy to fix, with just a few safety pins.

Dave: Snazzy!

Jim: Where are you going?

Dave: 1099.
---------------------------------------------------

I got it right away, but I've had lots of experience with dave-speak. Give it a little thought and it will come to you too.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Missouri has gone multilingual...


Missouri has its driver's manual online...

...a good thing...

...in English...

...in Spanish...

...and...

...and I bet you didn't see this one coming...

...in Bosnian!

CLICK HERE for the offical Missouri site
Scroll to near the bottom of the page.

Monday is Presidents Day (oh boy!)...

But what do you know about the Vice Presidents?

Here's an interesting quiz
...with great explanations of the answers.

[Ben -- check out the photographs of the author of the quiz -- he's been to Warwick Castle!]

I feel like sharing...

I cannot sleep if my fingernails are too long, but I think that's fairly common.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Call Leno...

Oh.
Guard, as in Guard, v. guard·ed, guard·ing, guards
v. tr. To protect from harm by or as if by watching over

Valentines Day Not Exactly the Super Bowl?

How about checking out some Yahoo personals? Some guy found all the worst personals for you.

There is a popup, and you might need a Yahoo ID -- but some of these are major funny.

WARNING: Have your popup blocker turned on!

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Okay, this has all now gone too far...

Why, oh why, is it always the innocent who must suffer?

Why will I be alone on Valentine's Day?

I want it to be Spring. I want the trees to have leaves.

I want to get that damn ball of paper into the wastebasket --
not easy with that dmn fan blowing.
CLICK HERE

Monday, February 13, 2006

You would think "Vice President Shoots Lawyer" would be the weirdest story of the day...

But you'd be wrong wounded-quail breath.

Woman charged with smuggling human head -- she was arrested Thursday, charged with failing to declare the head to customs.

Penis enlargement surgery a waste of time -- [misleading spam, who would have guessed] -- "The average increase in length is 1.3 cm (0.5 inches) which isn't very much and the dissatisfaction rate was in excess of 70 percent."

Man's Elbow, Mistaken for Squirrel, Shot -- [not a good day to be in the woods] -- Golden Township, Michigan - A man was shot and injured when his hunting partner mistook his elbow for a squirrel.

Experts believe dogs growl with regional accent -- The idea for the research came with the re-release of the 1955 Disney classic Lady and The Tramp on a special edition DVD.

You can fool some of the fish some of the time . . -- Fool-a-Fish comes in a bottle that sprays titanium dioxide on fishing lures and bait. The chemical lights up the watery depths like a disco ball, luring fish up to half a mile away. -- HURRY, you might still be able to order some in time for Valentine's Day!

This may be the supreme waste of time...

...but then so are Mondays!

Use you mouse to draw lines to change the way the sand falls. Yes. That's all there is to it. There is no more. There is just falling sand. If you are up to anything more complex then you clearly did not have enough of a good time over the weekend.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

scooby-dooby-doo

David wears headphones and listens to music almost all the time. He usually sings along whenever he's wearing the headphones. That means -- since the songs that he listens to have no intelligible nor discernible lyrics -- that you can tell where he is by listening for the "da dah say the dah boom trip say the far da dah" as he moves from room to room.

He's going back home to Missouri later today, so he can be there for Valentine's Day. I asked him why. He said "Better odds." He'll be back in the middle of the week.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

This evening's episode of dave-speak

Jim: Are you going out?

Dave: Chinese is okay.
----------------------------------

This is typical dave-speak, he has just jumped ahead in the conversation, letting out what he thinks is obvious.


If David were of this planet, this is what the conversation would have been:

Jim: Are you going out?

Dave: No.

Jim: What should we eat?

Dave: Chinese is okay.

Dave-speak makes his parents crazy, I think it's just fun.

The oddest one that I can remember was:

Jim: Where's Rooty.

Dave: Post Office.

Well, the blade is never going to get dull...

When he came home from his date, Dave used my shower, which is near my computer, After his shower, he put on a pair of boxer shorts and that red and white plaid cashmere sports jacket that he was wearing this afternoon. (I have no idea why, and didn't ask.) He then came in to sit on the sofa by my computer and read a paperback.

This was our conversation.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Dave: I shaved my chest.

Jim: You had no chest hair to shave.

Dave. Now I will have to shave my chest everyday.

Jim: Why, to keep it from getting dusty?


Friday, February 10, 2006

Is it just me...

Is anyone else receiving this annoying message from Blogger?

And, "10 minutes" in which time/space continuum?

Hit and Run

I have been working on a project today at my desk. Dave proofreads my work in the family room. We usually meet in the kitchen to exchange sheets of paper. Below are some of the brief conversation we had today during our various meetings in the kitchen.
------------------------------------------------

Jim: You have a date tonight?

Dave: I lost a pound and a half.

(That means in his mind he is no longer repugnant to women and therefore has a date tonight. His brothers have always called him fat and made fat jokes at his expense although he is very thin.)
-----------------------------------------------------------

AN HOUR OR SO LATER

Jim: Where are you going tonight.

Dave: I
need gutter-money.

(I have paid him three times to clean out the roof gutters, no leaf has been moved an inch. Implicit in his answer is that where he goes on his date depends on whether or not I give him some cash. He has money, this is just a game he plays to see if he can get any cash out of me.)
------------------------------------------------------------

AN HOUR OR SO LATER


Jim: Assume there is
no gutter-money, where will you go?

Dave: Her house.

(Now I understand. The young lady's parents have an indoor pool -- not a big deal, they enclosed their outdoor pool so they could use it year-round -- but still a nice thing to have. This is probably why he has been so preoccupied with his weight, it was about how he would look in his swim suit.)
------------------------------------------------------------

AN HOUR OR SO LATER


Jim: What
if I give you gutter-money?

Dave: [With enthusiasm.] Popcorn!

(Not $50 worth of Orville Redenbacher's -- he's talking about going to the movies. You catch on to dave-speak after awhile.)
------------------------------------------------------------

AN HOUR OR SO LATER

(Dave showed up in the kitchen wearing a red and white cashmere jacket that belonged to an uncle who died many years ago -- since it's cashmere I have never been able to throw it away, since it's bright red I have never worn it.)

Jim: You look like Otter in Animal House. (see photo)

Dave: Who?------------------------------------------------------------

AN HOUR OR SO LATER


Dave: Well?


Jim: Okay.


(We all knew that I was going to give him the money.)
------------------------------------------------------------

AN HOUR OR SO LATER


Jim: Will you take Rooty out before you shower?

Dave: My car needs gas.

(This is more dave-speak. He is answering "Yes" he will take Rooty out in the yard -- he will do it when he goes and gets gas. It also means that he is going to take Rooty with him so I should not worry when I cannot find him. Rooty thinks Dave is a big squeaky-toy.) ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------

Some explanation is probably due. A few years ago, I hurt my neck bad. That's when McDonald's put up the sign asking where we were (see below). At the same time, we had a significant family crisis in Missouri. David, although he was only 17 at the time, was the one who stepped up and helped me make sure that everything that needed to get done got done. No one else even offered. In contrast, in the middle of all that, I asked another of the cousins to drive me to have a MRI taken. Which he did. And then asked for $75 for his time and trouble. David is major fun to have around -- but even better, he's proven that he's the one I can count on.

And, yes, as has been pointed out before, Rooty got top billing!

They am exactly what the box say they am...

Click the box.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

A truck hit the "NFO Barn"

The barn with "NFO" painted on its side is a landmark along I-270 in Illinois. The barn is on a rise just north of the Interstate. "NFO" stands for National Farmers Organization. For years, their slogan was "Full Parity for Farmers." It was slogan only farmers understood.

A westbound driver left the Interstate this morning and hit the NFO Barn with his tractor and trailer. He probably had a fatal heart attack while he was still on the roadway. In the picture above, you can see the cab is partially under the roof of the barn, with the trailer at a 90-degree angle towards the bottom of the photo.

If you put anything near an Interstate, someone will eventually hit it!
-----------------------------------------------

Footnote: To the truck driver's credit, he took his truck off the right-side of the highway. When someone has a heart attack while driving, he or she usually veers to the left into on-coming traffic. This phenomenon has something to do with how a person's muscles contract when experiencing a heart attack. My father had a massive heart attack while driving but managed to pull off onto the right shoulder of the highway. It was such a massive heart attack that no one has ever been able to figure out how he managed that -- but he always was the best driver that I ever knew.

The truck driver's name was Richard C. Wolf, of El Paso, Illinois.

Checkmate

First-time visitors: there is an explanation of who Dave is in one of yesterday's posts.

-------------------------------------------------------
Dave: I think I should have my own room.

Jim: You do.

Dave: So I can put up some posters?

Jim: Sure. There are some framed posters in the attic. Take out the old posters and roll them up and put in your own.

Dave: In frames, just like old geysers!

Jim: I think you mean "old geezers."

PAUSE

Dave: "Old geezers" is redundant.

Jim: You're right, it is.

PAUSE

Dave: I meant "old geysers" because geysers are show-offs.

Jim: You cannot tape posters to the walls.
----------------------------------------------------------

Dave has left to go run on the hike & bike trails -- I went upstairs to see what he had done -- he did get the old posters out of the attic and hung them, frames and all, on the walls in the guest room -- then, being Dave, he taped his posters to the fronts of the poster frames.

Zoo uses Swedes to tempt gay penguins to go straight

The Bremerhaven Zoo in northern Germany, has 10 male penguins -- six have become same-sex couples.

So, the zoo flew in four female penguins from Sweden
in an effort to tempt its gay penguins to go straight and procreate.

But, that brought complaints from gay-rights groups.

So, the zoo issued a statement saying:
"...of course we accept the male couples that have formed and we are not trying to enforce heterosexuality."

Greetings from Planet Earth: They're birds!!!!!!!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

'cus the world was just not strange enough

The Internet Urinal

"Shopping, gaming, chat rooms, cyber-dating - the internet is such an addictive and time-consuming force, who's got time to go? With the Internet Urinal, you'll never have to leave your computer again. Imagine the freedom - destroy your opponents on network Quake without taking a break; drink as many cans of Jolt as you want and still be able to make that last important trade before the market closes. Each urinal is made with hard plastic and comes with a handy female adapter. Holds 32 oz. of liquid (same as a Big Gulp!). "


Internet Urinal
2 for $4.95
was $5.95 ea.

Swimming against the current!

I actually have a plausible explanation for this conversation. Dave got up early to go swimming, to get more exercise -- his body fat has increased by .0000000001% and he's in a panic.

For first time visitors,
I should explain that Dave is my second cousin once removed. He is staying with me to proof things for a couple weeks while I'm doing taxes and working on some other projects. My dyslexia is legendary (I once sent the water company a check for $10,000 -- they sent it back -- and still refer to me as "that guy.") He often visits, usually to stay with Rooty the Dog while I am away.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Jim: How was swimming?

Dave: It was cold.

Jim: It's an indoor pool.

PAUSE

Jim: And, the water's heated.

Dave: I didn't get in the water.

Jim: How come your swimming suit [hanging in the downstairs bathroom] is wet?

Dave: I washed it.

PAUSE

Jim: [Knowing better.] Why did you wash your swimming suit?

Dave: It had jelly on it.
-----------------------------------------------------

It took me awhile, but I believe I can reconstruct what happened.

Dave got up and put on his swimming suit (so he won't have to change at the pool) and a t-shirt (also hanging up wet in the downstairs bathroom).

It was twenty-something degrees outside this morning (probably about -5C) and snowing. That means he had to leave the house and go to his car in the cold blowing snow wearing only his swim suit and a t-shirt.

The heater in his car would not have warmed up until he was half way across town.

Once he arrived at the athletic complex, he would have had to park and then walk a long, long distance wearing in February what most people would wear in July.

When he got inside, in the pool area, there were probably some attractive young ladies already there (there always are). That meant that the t-shirt was not going to come off and reveal all that extra weight (maybe one pound).

So, my guess is that he decided against the swim and went back to his car and then to McDonald's to pick up some breakfast (there is NO food in my house).

He probably spilled the jelly that they give you on his lap when he was trying to open the little container or perhaps it just dribbled off of his breakfast sandwich and onto his clothes.

Before you ask why he would eat at McDonald's if he's trying to lose weight -- because he believes that he can eat anything that he wants as long as he gets enough exercise. This is true, of course, when you're 21.

The remaining mystery is how he was going to get back to his car, and drive his car, wearing a wet swim suit, in the cold, in the snow.

It snowed this morning!





I don't normally post jokes, but...

Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Answers:

KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side.

PLATO: For the greater good.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

KARL MARX: It was historically inevitable.

HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN: The road, you see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

MOSES: and God came down from the heavens, and he said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

JERRY SEINFELD: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?

BILL GATES: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2008, which will not only cross roads, but also will lay eggs, file your import documents, and balance your checkbook.

OLIVER STONE: The question is not, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Rather, it is, "Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

DARWIN: Chicken, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such ways that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon you frame of reference.

BUDDHA: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.

RALPH WALDO EMMERSON: The chicken did not cross the road, it transcended it.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.

COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Muscle Beach Party of Five

The Good News: There has been a 2/5 reduction in the use of illegal anabolic steroids.

The Bad News: The Mr. America Contest is going to really suck.

Conversation this evening on the way to McDonald's

Dave: How many years do there have to be to be considered a late child?

Jim: Five, there have to be five years between you and the next oldest. [I just guessed.]

Dave: There's seven between ||||||||| and me.

Jim: I know.

Dave: How does that happen?

Jim: Oysters.

LONG PAUSE

Dave: What do you do with the oysters?

Sorry, No Habla Martian

Steven DeGraeve appears to be a creative fellow with lots of time on his hands. On his site you can translate web pages to Yoda, ROT13, All your base are belong to us, Boston accent, Canadian, simple hax0r, Ebonics, Valley Girl, Binary, Jeff K, Ultra Leet, Martian, Pig Latin (above), or Smurf. The default website is CNN but you can change that.

He also has this amazing list of utilities: