BOO!

Chris Pronger is a hockey player.
He now plays for the Anaheim Ducks.
Last year he played for the Edmonton Oilers.
Before that he played for the St. Louis Blues (photo above).
He was the team captain.

He's 6 foot 6 inches tall (198 cm).
I'm 6 foot.

A few years ago, I was waiting for someone in the very small room just inside the players entrance to what was then the Keil Center (the door next to the stage door to the opera house on Clark Street for those of you in St. Louis).

I was the only person in the very small room -- the security guard is behind glass in an adjoining room.

Through the door from inner bowels of the Keil Center popped Chris Pronger, in his complete uniform (except for the skates).

It was the most startled that I have ever been -- alarmed, frightened, suddenly surprised -- for a nano second I thought I was face to face with a giant alien monster. I probably turned several lighter shades of pale.

He was very nice about it, when he really didn't have to be.

I hope you come upon your own giant alien monster, and he gives you a real scare.

Happy Halloween!

That darn New Math!

The giant flashing sign said: "End of Work Zone 7 Miles." Then it flashed "7 Minutes until End of Work Zone." The speed limit in the work zone is 45 MPH.

What a relief!

Well, they finally found out how the E. Coli got on the spinach, causing the deaths of three people and making over 200 people ill in the USA and Canada. Darn if it wasn't wild pigs running through the California spinach fields. I certainly feel a lot better. From now on, however, I'm going to insist that my spinach come only from fields where the hoards of wild boars pillaging about are not infected with a deadly bacteria.

Be careful what you wish for...

Every five years they lower the lake so people can fix their seawalls. [Yes, I know, but it's like chandelier, it makes no sense.]

When they lowered the lake five years ago, it rained for five weeks.

This year we have had a terrible drought all sumer, with water restrictions, and we're 3,000 inches or something below average rainfall.

Then, of course, they started to lower the lake. It has pretty much rained every day since, including a rain out of Wednesday's World Series game in St. Louis.

The lake is usually about half-way up the rocks in the foreground, it has about two more feet to go down, which will take it another six feet or so from my shoreline. The yellow line is leaves -- marking the level of the lake yesterday.

The rubble is what's left of my seawall, I'm having it replaced.

What looks like rocks in the mud is actually the remains of thousands of freshwater clams, plus a few beer bottles. You have to ask yourself, "What kind of jacka$$es throw glass bottles into a lake?"

A clear trend is developing...

Some of you might recall that I recently put my cell phone through the washing machine. It was cleaner but of otherwise little further use.

Tonight I did the same thing with my check book (above).

Rooty's hiding under the bed -- can you blame him?

Hard as rock, tough as nails

The most common sedimentary rocks are chalk, limestone, sandstone, clay and shale.

If you heat up sedimentary rock and apply great pressure you get new rocks like granite and marble.

But why don't we got new igneous (granite) and metamorphic (marble) rocks any place?

When was the last time you heard someone say "Hey, look at the new marble!" or "That will be great looking granite when it cools!"

And why does the "size" of a nail get larger as the nail gets larger, but the "size" of wire gets larger as the wire gets smaller.

Doesn't this seem a little odd?

Odd things I know from watching the Discovery Channel

The locks in the Panama Canal were built to hold the Titanic and other ships of her size.

The Hindenburg was almost the same size as the Titanic.

The lights on the Titanic stayed on under water as the ship sank because electricity was relatively new and no one had invented fuses.

The Rothchilds frequently marry first cousins in order to keep the money in the family.

The Rockfeller brothers provided the initial funding for Eastern Airlines and Pan American Airlines -- and Apple and Intel.

As an independent city Brooklyn would still rank as the fourth most populous in the United States.

The moon rotates at exactly the speed necessary to keep the same face towards earth.

The urban legend that a baby born on an airliners flies free for life is not true in the sense that it is required. In the few known instances of airborne births, the babies have been given lifetime flight privileges by the individual carriers. A baby born on a BART train was given a lifetime pass.

And, the Area Code for Antarctica is 672.

The November Election

I plan on voting for the candidate in each race who runs the fewest TV ads.

I plan to campaign aggressively for the opponent of any candidate who uses those annoying recorded telephone messages.

Animated Editorial Cartoon from Newsday

Click picture or HERE to start animation.
The words to the song appear (in case your sound is turned off.)

The REALLY shallow end...



A few posts ago, I was joking (sort of) about hiring attractive people to populate the swimming pool that I might have installed. That got me to thinking last night about what really attractive people I might have known over the years.

By far the single most attractive person that I have ever seen, in person or on a screen, is a guy that I knew in Texas -- he looked like an ancient Greek statue that had come alive.

I only knew him from parties and from occasionally water skiing -- he was always in the company of the most attract girl/woman that you can imagine -- someone who had usually just been named the Miss North Texas Rich Surburb Queen or the Miss Oil-Something Institue Queen. Everyone would always remark and agree, however, that no matter what lookers his dates might be, he was clearly out of the league of any of them.

I was talking to him one night at a party and, out of no where, he said "I'm going to be miserable the rest of my life."

As usual, I made the mistake of asking "Why?"

He went on to explain that he had always been a fat kid, in grade school, in high school, and during his first two years of college -- then someone introduced him to gymnastics, which he did for hours everyday thereafter. Somehow out of the fat popped this physically perfect guy.

And now for the good part. He continued to explain that since he was so attractive he would have to marry someone as attractive as himself and "you know how shallow and phony really attractive people are!"

That's right! He did not consider himself to be shallow because he had not become an attractive person until recently but felt that he was condemned to a life of hell on earth because he was going to have to marry someone who had been attract all of her life. He wasn't being a sexist, he way being -- well -- incredibly shallow.


[NOTE: This is the first post that where I have used Google Docs and Spreadsheets to post directly to the blog. (Remember, Google owns Blogger.) The picture is a little large but otherwise it seems to work great. The first line that you type in your document automatically becomes the TITLE when you click SAVE. I used INSERT to add the photo after that first line. The URL is docs.google.com.]

I-270 is the Interstate Loop west and north of St. Louis

I have had occasion to post comments several times before about drivers who tend to push the speed limit on I-270 in MIssouri, including: "No matter how fast you are going on 270, someone will pass you."

Last Friday, the police set up a speed trap in a work zone on 270. The posted speed is 65 MPH (102 KPH) -- the speed limit in the work zone was 45 MPH (72 KPH). The first three cars that went through the work zone after the police got there were each doing 87 MPH (140 KPH).

Those of you who live elsewhere have now thought to yourself "That's terrible, how could those drivers be so irresponsible."

Those of you who live locally immediately thought to yourself "If the cops had not been there, someone would have passed those three cars -- in the work zone!"

I'm alive! I'm alive!

Some one, or some things, nuke my blog earlier today -- all you probably saw was a blank page.

I was finally able to 'republish' the entire blog successfully!!!!!

The shallow end....

I'm giving more thought to having a pool installed. Since there's nobody that I know who I would want to see in a swimming suit, however, the biggest expense would be having to hire good-looking people to hang out around the pool.

You deserve to be broken in two today...

McDonald's was chaos today -- it's Saturday -- and Big Macs are a buck on days the Cardinals have a playoff game.

The drive-thru line stretched into the parking area.

A white sedan was in the way of a car backing out of a parking space. The car was about half-way out, waiting for the drive-thru line to move. It finally did. The white sedan pulled forward. The car that was ready to leave was ready to go. Then, the giant Ford Expedition, with the seven, yes seven, religious stickers on the back, quickly pulled up to where the white sedan had been. It was a Fried Green Tomatoes moment but the car trying to leave waited until the line moved again -- and I didn't move up until he had backed out and left.

Rounding the curve to the order-menu, I could her the lady who had just placed her order say "And I'll have that to go." Then she just sat there, I guess she was expecting someone to bring her order to her where she was. Finally, the order-taker repeated "Please pull to the first window."

Rounding the corner to the pay-window, I could hear the guy in back of me arguing that he wanted three Big Macs for a buck each, and yes he knew that the limit was two, but he wanted three.

Pass the test, and die.

The Missouri Drivers License Manual says that the chevron sign at the top is the same as the arrow sign below it. Chevron signs can be used in place of the arrow signs or mixed with them. Both signs would appear to mean Keep Right or Road Curves to Right. The chevron sign in the photo below (one in a series), however, would appear to mean Drive Into Ditch or Hit Electric Pole.

I can see clearly now, the kook has gone...

had to go to eye-glasses place today to pick up some lenses.

thirty-something woman beat me to the door.

25 minutes later she was still arguing with the woman at the counter.

annoying woman had had her eyes examined and was given 'temporary' contact lenses.

she was supposed to come back a week later to see how the 'temporary' lenses had worked and to order regular contact lenses.

they called to remind her.

she dropped by today to pick up more 'temporary' lenses, having never returned for the week-later visit.

oh, did I forget to mention that her initial visit was in January.

that's right, ten months later she shows back up, and wanted freebies.

she was told that she would have to have her eyes reexamined before a prescription could be written because it had been more than three months, for another $65 dollars, or she could wait until January 2007 when her insurance would pay for an annual exam.

no, she could not wait -- because her husband likes her in contacts.

no, the 10-month delay was not her fault because she has three kids and they keep her so busy she had no time for herself (she had no kids with her, they were in school).

note that, in effect, she was saying that she did not have time to visit the optometrist during the past ten months because ten years ago neither she nor her husband could follow the instructions on a box of condoms.

The sun never sits on silly!

Many news sites group humorous stories under banners such as Oddly Enough or Strange News of of Day. These are usually fun to read, and I've based many post on them over the years.

On the other hand, you can also go to any British news site and usually find even odder stories mixed in with the regular news. Today, I went to the Daily Mail site:

Could age laws spell the end for office birthday cards? -- Workers have been warned against circulating or signing 'ageist' greeting cards that make light-hearted references to age, such as being over the hill. So much for the classic "You're not getting better you're getting older." "Under rules that came into force this month, staff can take legal action if they feel they have been harassed or victimised due to their age." Or, they could just take the stick out of their collective butt and be grateful someone remembered their birthdays.

Is this 27-year-old cat Britain's oldest moggy? [A moggy is a cat, especially of mixed breed] -- The kitty, Bungalow Bill, was found by Dorothy as a stray in 1980. When Dorothy died 15 years later, BB went to live with her sister Ruby. When Ruby died four years after that, BB went to live with Ruby's son John. Am I the only one who thinks this cat might be a jinx?

Dog eats dead master and his wife -- The dog ate two people, not it's own doggie wife.

Ritual Routine

Do you put your house to bed at night?
And wake it up in the morning?

Rooty and I spent a few days with someone who has a well-established procedure for closing down the house at night and waking it up in the morning.

Night:
Empty wastebaskets from all rooms, in specific order, and take outside to the trash.
Dogs get late night treat.
Dogs go outside.
Furnace/AC is reset for night.
All storm doors are locked (deadbolts) in specific order.
All outside doors are locked in specific order.
All blinds are closed in specific order.
All draperies are closed in specific order.
Some TV's turned off, others turned on, in specific order.
Security system turned on, outside lights turned off.
Table lamps turned off room by room, in specific order.
All doors are rechecked, in specific order.
Ceiling lights in hallway turned off.

Morning:
Draperies opened, specific order.
Blinds opened, specific order.
Exterior doors opened specific order.
Family room TV turned on.
Security system turned off (so dogs can go out).
Everyone has peach juice for breakfast.

My routine at home is a little different.

Night:
When I get tired, I go to bed.

Morning:
When I get up, I turn off all of the lights and TV's that I left on when I went to bed the night before.

You should see the photo of the first-lady...

This guy is running for President of Catalonia.

The headline on the AP article is The Naked Truth. (CBS)

Albert Rivera's running for office because he feels the current politicians are not addressing serious issues.

Mark Foley has endorsed Albert's candidacy,and sent an email saying he's behind him 100 percent.

Just when you thought enough was enough...

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, best know for their protests at military funerals of GI's killed in Iraq, announced they were planning to protest at the funerals of the Amish schoolgirls shot to death in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, earlier this week. It seems Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania has angered the group by calling them "insane" for protesting at the funerals of US soldiers who have died in combat in Iraq. From the church's website: "We are continuing to pray for even worse punishment upon Pennsylvania.

Fox News offered a hour of national airtime in exchange for not protesting, which the church accepted: "The Westboro Baptist Church planned to protest the funerals of the Amish school children. Shirley Phelps-Roper and Mike have agreed that the church will not protest at the funerals in exchange for an hour of airtime. It happens today on the Mike Gallagher Show." FOX

The governor had a more direct approach in mind -- he planned on sending in enough state police to ensure that the funerals were not disrupted.

So, you think your life's dull? Amateur!

I watched an hour-long special this evening on the History Channel about the history of glue.

I win.

How old were you, and was it legal?

It really depends upon where you were, your age, and sometimes the other person's age.

Here is a chart showing the worldwide ages of consent by country and state

If there are two numbers listed -- 14/18 -- the first number usually refers to persons very close in age, the second if there is a big age difference or the other person is over 21 (it varies by state)

When I was 12 I couldn't find my way home from school by myself much less be needing a condom!

Something for Florida Congressman Mark Foley (R)

These are the two statutes that stood on either side of Hitler's Reich Chancellery.