Hel Ping with Tech Nickel Sub Port

I try to help my friends understand their technical, scientific and mathema-tickle difficulties by using confusing answers with the primary purpose of cheering up their day.

A friend noticed that after living in Germany for two years her camera was still on Oklahoma USA time.

My Response: So its been messed up with daylights savings time as well several times, this could pssibly explain why half the year your pictures are _under exposed and the other half ^over, but this doesn't explain how I mispelled 'possibly' earlier (She never responded about how I misspelled the word 'mispelled' which I pssibly did on purpose.)

When a friend complained about a hydraulic leak on her commercial airlines flight as "bad news"

My Response: That's pretty cool how they can fix things like that in mid-flight now that they have in-flight maintenance crew pod docking. (Oh, sorry, I was thinking 50 years in the future.)

Several of my friends were talking about things and events that they just barely remembered, all of them using the word 'vaguely'

My Response: I vaguely remember being five years old and learning about death, birth and death [my three oldest documented memories] in the span of a few months in that order but I don't remember learning the word 'vaguely' until much later but I am unsure when.

One of my friends wrote: A little paint on the barn never hurt anyone :p

My Response: I s'ppose lead based paint could possibly be an eXception. If it is lead colored paint but contains no lead, then that would be okay.

(I later found out she was talking about her facial make-up)

One of my friends published a picture of a goat in the back of a pickup truck, announcing that it was his next vehicle. One person asked which one - the goat or the truck?

My Response: My father-in-law raises OR raised goats in Stinnett TX - I am not sure if the city has forced all the livestock out of town yet. I think he had about 7 or 8 at one time. After raising three daughters I am pretty sure he can handle 8 goats. So the Goat:Girl ratio of 8:3 seems adequate, but it depends on several other factors. (And you don't know my sister-in-laws!!!)

My friend was wondering why certain terrible big bad bug related events happen mainly at night. Now it was going to give her horrible dreams.

My Response: Some things are nocturnal and some thinks are nocturnal.

What are the odds of a cell phone still working after a hot water wash cycle of 12 minutes? (Someone suggested putting the phone in a container of rice, to act as a dessicant, for several days, and don't turn it on until it dries out)

My Response: Then combine the rice with cream of chicken soup, chicken, tabasco sauce, worcestershire sauce, bake at 375 for 'bout an hour, then you have a phone-y casserole that you should not eat, a bit crunchy, melted plastic, so you need less grated cheddar cheese on top at the end to make it look right.

How can it be 93 degrees at midnight? Ugh!

My Response: It was either 92 and went up a degree or it was 94 and went down.

A friend had tire trouble yesterday: There was a huge screw in it with a washer attached. She got a little discount to get it fixed too! (Amount was not revealed)

My Response: Was your discount the retail value of the huge screw and washer at hardware store prices?

If the value of their discount was less than that amount, then you should go to negotiate a better deal. But it depends on whether they gave you the screw and washer back.

A friend complained that hers eyes and her friends eyes were both infected!

My Response: Its probably just a mild case of Spider Monkeys.

Wikipedia Photo:
Photo used under the Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license
Geoffroy's Spider Monkey, also known as Black-handed Spider Monkey, at Belize Zoo, Belize.
By Michael Schamis

A friend was complaining about how hot it was in south Texas and that she was reconsidering her choice for which college parking lot. She compared her journey to hiking on the surface of the sun.

My Response: I ran into the same situation when I moved (as a small child) from the dark side of the moon to the Bright.

My niece mentioned that her 2nd grade daughter was wandering around the neighborhood, going door to door performing cheers, 5 for a dollar. She had earned $12 before my niece knew she was gone. WHAT is she going to do NEXT?!?!?

My Response: How much time did it take her to make that much money? If it has a good rate of return we can probably find some venture capitalists, not sure 'bout the child labor laws and the age old question, "Is Third Grade Really Just A Luxury Item For Society".

My friend said she was off to another day of rejections, persecution, and despair, and to wish her luck,  in Oklahoma, USofA.

My Response: I guess thats better than injections, electrocutions, and despots, but maybe not by much. It just depends on your choice of TWTS (Third World Trouble Spot) for comparison.

My friend said she was beginning to get a sore throat and feeling bad, followed by the single word 'No', only there were 39 of the letter O's instead of just one. I figured the illness must be affecting her numerical skills. 18 of the O's were lowercase and 21 were uppercase. If she were feeling okay she most likely would have been sure to make them be the same number, being a graduate student.

My Response: My diesel truck engine is feeling the same way. I was told it needed a new EGR cooler and an oil cooler; I'm thinking, "Fever?!?!?"

Scientists discover an asteroid with a mountain three times taller than Mount Everest!

My Response: That just means its a funny shaped asteroid. Plenty of those. Yawn. Non-event. Not news worthy. [Can you tell I am not a mountain climber?]

From National Geographic:

The fierce fish can be excellent communicators, though their "talk" ranges from "go away" to "no, really, go away," experts have found.

Piranhas Bark—Three Fierce Vocalizations Deciphered

Now a fish tank, an underwater water microphone, and a video camera have helped uncover three different piranha calls—all tied to a variety of grumpy behaviors.

My Response: I think they are really saying, "I bit myself!" - "I bit myself AGAIN!" and "I really can't believe I bit myself a third time! I even know to be careful around piranha because I am one."
Repeat ad nauseum.
Fish forget so soon.

A friend asked me: I need your brilliance to check into HAARP and break that down in language I can understand...doesn't have to be ga-ga-goo-goo but close okay? :)

My Response: E.T. The Extraterrestrial movie came out in 1982, and HAARP program began in 1990.

E.T. phone home.

My friend was proud of herself that she had hemmed a pair of pants using Duct Tape, proclaiming "MacGyver would be proud". I think this was actually the second time.

My Response: Its great for you that Duct Tape now comes in so many colors, patterns, waterproofedness, UV resistence, and tensile strength.

Today (Sunday Oct 16th) one of my friends almost got ready to go to work, but one of his friends reminded him that it wasn't Monday.

My Response: Daylight Saving Time doesn't end until Nov 6th. If you wish to actually skip a complete day I think that would be called Day Lite Losing Time. At least you don't have to change your clocks, just all your calendars. But I think you have to be a Pope to do that kind of thing, and it helps if your name is Gregory the (Number). When you retire though, you will gradually forget what day it is and typically won't care.

My aunt in South Dakota wrote: BBRRR!! COLD..21 FEELS LIKE 13...!!

My Response: Old..54 feels like 74... no eXclamation marks needed

Trifecta Dialecta

While I was leaving a gas station on the far side of town
this morning I got no response when I said "hi" to a horsey.
It could be that maybe I needed to roll my truck window down,
as horses may not read human lips with ease.
Maybe they understand rural speak better than folks from town,
or it could have been I needed to select a different dialect of Horse-ese.
After I said "bye" a few seconds later to the animal large and brown,
I wondered, was that a horse she or a horse he?

Response from My Nice Niece M: You are a nut!! LOL! In a good way of course!

My Response to My Nice Niece M: Its a true story! Just as I was leaving the Toot N Tote M [CONVENIENCE STORE] there was a horse trailer beside me and I wrote the kinda-almosta-poem rough draft in about 30 seconds when I realized I could form the trifecta semi-homonym-ish (horsey)-(horse he)-(horse-ese). The horse-she was just a bonus. And yes, you can find several humans to agree with you that I have a nut flavoring.

I would tend towards honey roasted cashews, mmm.

Poetry Link: The Next Poem in My Blog

Busy Learning Polish

This is what too much 2 AM does to me:

Busy learning Polish ... .. .

Language and Society

How?

Studying and Enjoying the photography at this website

(photo blog titled [ Simple Observations ])

http://towiech.blogspot.com/

And getting a little help from Google Translate

Yes, I'm still awake.

Why?

No, I don't know why.

I learned that the time display for comments in Facebook is dynamic.

"2 seconds ago"

"a few seconds ago"

"about a minute ago"

"2 minutes ago" 

... ... ...

But I am not sure if other peoples comments will pop into place automa_Gically.

If I was a worm, people would say, "Wow! Thatza bigga worma! I wonder if itz a snake?" Then I wou

(I accidentally split the sentence in two at "would", sorry)

ld say, "I am a worm, not a snake"
And then the people would run away screaming,
"a giant talking worma - Everybody runna awaya!"
(I have no idea why they are sounding like the Mario Brothers)
Then I would say to myself, "my, my, Self, I'm glad this isn't a dream, it would be scary"

Happiness: Freshly clean shoes

Sadness: I have to wait about 24 hours for my shoes to dry

Coming soon: Horse Poetry

4 AM - Still awake, but I got to see a lot of Poland through an interesting lens.

Thanks Tomasz Wiech.

Obama Time Machine Math

One of my friends wrote the following, most likely copying it from someone else:

Let's take the United States to it's pre 1957 state - no Hawaii - then Mr Obama will for sure not be a citizen of this great country and those of us with any intelligence can support Israel until the end! That's ok the God I worship and the nation of Israel wins I read THE BOOK

My Response: Haha, doing the math, BHObama was born in the year 1961, so HAwaii was already 716 days old. While doing the math I suddenly realized why BHObama must be so special - he was born in the SAME month as YOU! ROBLOLAMLOI - rolling on bed laughing out loud at my level of inventiveness.


Now I wonder why the original author chose "1957" when wikipedia has 1959 for the year Hawaii became a state. Do you suppose there is another conspiracy theory now going on about Hawaii's birth certificate as well?

Update: I later found out "they" had an argument about whether it was 1957, 1958, or 1959, and chose the oldest year to be safe, so it was a group thing.

My Second Response: Thats funny that you had an argument about a statehood year when there were probably at least 4 internet devices (guessing the number of smart phones etc) in the room to search the year! I did read the CNN article about the Obama proposal for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, and that has no support from either Netanyahu or Hamas, who want to take Israel to a pre-1948 state. I imagine that Israel will keep right on doing whatever it wants based on its previous behavior and the United States government will keep right on supporting Israel based on its previous behavior. (I did look up Israel's birth year of 1948 AD, so hope-fool-ly Wikipedia was correct) Israel can always insist on it's 930 BC borders.

My Third Response: I was reading the requirements for Prez, and noticed that it says "natural born Citizen" - so this must mean anyone who was born by C-section method or a test tube baby would not be eligible to be Prez. We'll have to find out how he was born!

I looked at his long form birth certificate, and it does not indicate type of birth, C-section or natural, BUT I did learn that his last name is really "OBAMA, II", in uppercase. Does that mean we are supposed to say it really loud (uppercase) when speaking his name, and should we pronounce the II part as each letter of the alphabet as "eye eye" ? Maybe its suppose to be pronounced "Obama comma eye eye".

OH NO!!! I just saw the space between the comma and the II, he is a SPACE man, SO HE IS AN ALIEN !!! This totally disqualifies him as president, he isn't even HUMAN!!!

Link to Barak H. Obama II Birth Certificate Long Form PDF File

Peanut Butter - NINJA Style!!!

(3AM) ‎"I just finished making peanut butter NINJA style!!!" - I didn't write that, I just now heard it on teleBision and wanted so much to share with everyone. I do plan to tack on "NINJA style!!!" at the end of sentences at an annoying rate.

(NOW) I just called my wife to see how she was doing to make sure she was awake. She told me how she was doing. She asked me where I was. I told her that I was still in bed. Then she reminded me that I had to do an errand for her and that I was the one who had to go to work an hour earlier than her. Oh joy thinks me inside must now get the move upon me-self-lil-elf. There be coffee? Yes'em, there be the coffee. I could try to strangulate this into Swedish, but I yam mainly trying to go the other way.

[Other Way: Attempting to learn Swedish simply by reading it, with a lil bit of help from Google Translate]

Oh, I just remembered another Ninja-like product, the knife that claims to be able to slice a pineapple in mid-air, making me think-giggle, "just the way The Supreme-Being meant for them to be prepared for mass consumption", I say to myself in a Coneheads voice.

The Beginning and Middle of the World

The "End of the World" is getting quite a bit of discussion lately. I thought I would add some clarity to the issue.

Nothing. 

That is about all I can tell you with absolute complete certainty.

Nothing.

My advice, or Something, to anyone who wants to listen, or to take my advice, is to keep right on doing what you were going to do before you ever heard about the coming May 21st, 2011 nonsense. So continue on with your "Middle of the World" activities. Take everyday one day at a time while logically and judiciously planning your future. I went to a funeral yesterday of the brother of my best friend. He was slightly younger than me. We had similar careers. We both had two children, only he had to watch both of his children pass away, one quite tragically, whereas mine are both still doing quite well. Cherish every day. Go ahead and work on some "Beginning of the Your World" activities as well, find some brand new things to do every once in awhile.

Enjoy.

Everything.

I think this particular church has a very clear message:

More ... I wonder if Hallmark will have a sale on their 'Happy End of The World!!!' cards next week, or save them for 'next' time at regular price?

Wonders:

I wonder if May 21st will continue to be known as End of the World Day on a permanent basis?
I wonder if it will then become a Federal Holiday?
If Yes&Yes, I wonder if the Federal Government will have it moved to the following Monday so that people can have a three day weekEND?
I wonder if this eXplains the sudden decrease in the wholesale price of dynamite?

(I was just teasing about the dynamite, just checking to see if you are awake OR still here.)

I wonder if the The End of The World actually happened BUT we were too busy to notice and




(Extra white space included for effect)

I wonder if anybody got scared when they read that last sentence of mine that ENDed abruptly incompletely with just an and?

‎(No, that last sentence wasn't meant to be tricky and end with another and because that and was meant as an object rather than a conjunction AND I did include the question mark after the and) (hehe, actually I planned that one as well, I'm still here, "thinking" while successfully ending yet another two sentences with 'and')

Ha Ha He He Ho Ho

Mmm, I just discovered Lemon Pecan Creme Cake from United Supermarket, good stuff, really good stuff! BUT the lid for the container izzzzzzz eXtremely difficult to remove, especially for the elderly and the semi- elderly (me). AND they need to come in WIFEproof and nonWIFEproof containers.

You are probably asking yourself right about now what 'cake' has to do with 'The End of The World' - see section "find some brand new things to do every once in awhile", mmmm, new cake. Actually, it was "old cake", past its eXpiration date, it's END TIME, but it didn't seem to know that and was quite quite good anyway. Moist.

The Power of One

I did not win the Texas Lotto last night but I thought the winning number pattern was interesting: 12 21 24 41 42 48

Plus the winning amount was 11 million

‎... Which no one won (hehe one one 11)

One-der-full !!

(Happiness comes through mathematical regularity)

((If you are disappointed by this particular blog post, trust me, all the rest are much much better than this one, maybe even much much much better, but certainly not much much much much better. You would not BELIEVE how many times I had to re - type the word 'much' just then just to make it all pretty, but I did it all just for you, my adoring fans, including fixing both of the occurrences of the word 'just' and one time fixing the word 'the'))

Actually, my irritation with my clothes washer was probably more interesting, but not by much:

Dear General Electric: I hate the logic of your clothes washer "computer"(?). IF I forget to close the lid after putting in the clothes while it is filling up with water, I DON'T want the water to drain completely IF I don't shut the lid within a few minutes. Can't you design it with a speaker and a loud message, "Master Ernest, come close the lid!!!" ?

My GE clothes DRYER comes with a built-in end-of-cycle annoying buzzer (selectable, of course)

Yours truly,

A FORMER stockholder of GE

Imagine All The Mantises

May 16th, 2011

This morning my imaginary psychiatrist tells me, "So let me get this straight, the reason why you are depressed is because its 11 days after May 5th and you haven't been able to find a praying mantis named 'Polly Jr' to be your insect friend for this year? I don't think I have a drug for this particular situation"

My favorite East Coast pen-pal replied: You're not depressed. You are just not in the mood to kick my butt in our mantirace this year....hoping to find my babies on the deck this week!

[The 'mantirace' that she refers to is supposedly a competition between us that she started to see who could be the first one to find a praying mantis for a pet. The plural of mantis is mantises and I was reading the wikipedia article about John Lennon yesterday, so that is the origin of the blog post title]

My reply: Yes, its just imaginary depression to go along with the storyline. I am enjoying getting my wood posts put in place for the grapes and hope to string up the wires later this week. We are just busy in the middle of so many things, this isn't even CLOSE to being retirement, more like re-tired-meant. Coopie is pretty much doing fine, being silly every once in awhile, just like his royal servants E & T.

I did have a dream later in the day during my afternoon nap where I laid something green on the kitchen countertop and right before my eyes it slowly turned into a giant praying mantis.

Update 2011.05.18

I found this year's praying mantis to be my 'Coffee Companion in the Mornings", meet Polly Jr !!! 

(My pen-pal from the Northwest wants the name 'Pollyanna' - my reply, "How about 'Polly Ester' ?")

This is the link to last year's blog post of my adventures with my praying mantis named Polly

Update 2011.07.08
Yea! I finally got to play with my praying mantis who lives indoors, he/she came out of hiding yesterday, and I taught him/her how to play "Infinite Stairway" walking up my hands. He/She has tamed down considerably today, readily transferring from my hand to a leaf and vice versa calmly. There are a couple more that I have seen on my outdoor plants, one on a tomato plant, and another on a grape vine. I didn't have much luck training them just yet.

Extremely Large Brown Wooden Holes For Sale

If I wanted to buy a big brown wooden hole at an angle complete with chain, I think I "wood" pick the $15 dollar "Momma Bear" one, it is almost as big as the $30 dollar "Papa Bear" model. The $10 dollar "Baby Bear" just doesn't have e-nough angle for me, and it doesn't have the "Everyday Low Price" sign.

You can roughly tell how large they are compared to the soda pop machine on the left side.

(These aren't really for sale - they are the empty containers that hold the plastic wading pools for small children and large dogs like my Cooper)

I Make A Trump-ette Noise

I thought I would make my own Trump-like announcement that I, too, am not running for the Office of the President of the United States of America, nor will I accept a nomination from my party.

One of my friends commented an hour or so later: I WILL accept a nomination to a party....oh...wait...oops

My response: I am making my own party, of sorts, jacket on, sitting outside in my vineyard (so far no grapes, so its still just vines in yard, but hopefully get grapes this year), full-ish moon rising over the trees, doggie-doggie by my side (eXcept when barKing at neighbors walking by), light wind, no one asking me to kill anyone in PickAStan, any -stan, but the night is young. Coffee Time

Cooper and I returned to the great dark-ish outdoors with coffee.

After a half hour I said, ‎"Cooper, we should go inside now before you get sprayed by a skunk ... well, more importantly, before I get sprayed by a skunk"

In other recent Presidential nonsense, I found this for the other side of the aisle, a strange highly imprecise vague statement from CNN:

"The president and First Lady Michelle Obama had assets valued between $2.8 million and $11.8 million in 2010."

The ratio of the high/low is about 4. I will go ahead and report that our assets for 2010 were somewhere between -11.9 million and +11.9 million. (Notice that I was tricky and left off the $ sign, so maybe I meant pennies, nickels, dimes, yen, or seashells.)

My New Improved Prehensile Toes

While sweeping the kitchen floor early this morning I found one of Cooper's tennis balls and moved it near his water bowl to be sure no humans trip on it. Then I got the bright idea to see if I could pick up the tennis ball using just my toes and the ball of my left foot. I have been wearing Vibram FiveFingers shoes since February and wanted to see if there was a noticeable (and novel) improvement in my toe strength and dexterity. I tried several times and then the right foot, but couldn't quite grasp it to lift it off the ground. Then I noticed his box of used raw hide chew fragments just inches away, and so I tried using the wall and the top of my foot, and carefully cupping & balancing, I was able to lift it up and put the ball in the box!

So then I decided that maybe the worn surface of the dog-abused-used tennis ball might not lend itself to monkey toes, and went to the cabinet where I thought the new tennis balls were located. At first I didn't find the new tennis ball which later proved even less toe graspable, but I did find a raquetteball from my wife's physical therapy moments (she only used it one day). The raquetteball was just a little smaller and had a better surface for grasping with skin and I was able to pick it up off the ground with just the bottom of my foot! So don't be surprised to find me in a zoo cage some day.

While checking the spelling for 'prehensile' I found an article in Wikipedia for ...drum roll, please... Prehensile Feet!

I probably won't tell my wife this story. She has had enough fun already telling me that my toes look like gorilla feet when I wear my Vibram black and charcoal grey TrekSports. Thats one of the reasons I now wear the more colorful KomodoSport model.

JoinWhatWhoWhy?

Here is part of my today after dealing with the Great Blogger Collapse of Twenty-Eleven. Luckily I stopped trusting CERTAIN people a long long time ago and have a backup copy of the blog post they lost (Extremely Large Brown Wooden Holes For Sale). I will hook it back in place later today.

I saw a Facebook ad that said "Join Tommie Lee Jones", and I thought, "How Can I Do That?!?!?" Do I really want to be physically attached to him, say, maybe superglued?? Are there going to be others hooked on as well? Then I thought maybe ToLeJo is falling apart and they are raising money to put him back together, i.e. Humpty Dumpty Jones. The least I can do is this: "TommieLeeJones"

My wife gets out of the shower this morning and yells into the bedroom, "Get outta bed, you lazy bum, I'm ready to go to breakfast, I'm hungry!", but then moments later she realizes that her silliness has been wasted as I am outside having coffee with Rover-Rover-Pupstinator admiring my vineyard-in-progress. So she was wrong about something at least once this decade. At least her silliness is slowly increasing over time, a very good thing for me - my diabolical plan for her is working (evil mad scientist in a deep dark la-bor-at-ory laughter sound effect goes here).

While we were playing fetch with his squeaky ball Cooper accidentally let it get away and it wound up at the bottom of a post hole. I get the post hole digger to recover his toy only to discover that he had already put a tennis ball in it before on purpose. I am going to be doubly sure the holes are empty before setting the poles in place.

Cooper likes to wander around the "construction site" peering down into all the post holes, making sure that he looks down into all of them. Perhaps I should rename him 'Snoop-y'? I wonder if he is impressed with my hole digging abilities, able to go so deep and uniformly shaped(?)

(The Shower: Part Two)

Monday, Three Days Later

I start the water in my shower and go to get a cup of coffee that should be finished brewing by now, while the shower warms up. After I get my cup of coffee and I'm headed back to the bathroom I see my wife enter ahead of me and start talking to the shower thinking I am in there. So I quietly continue on into the bathroom and she is startled, saying, "I thought you were in the shower!", and then I know my plan has worked.

New Photo Blog: Finding The Cute of The Universe

I have a new blog for certain adorable photos:

Finding The Cute of The Universe

Salvador Dalí Designed My Steering Wheel

Dream: In my truck you can remove the steering wheel to use it for other purposes but you are left with a somewhat functional limp droopy hologram version of a steering wheel. I tried driving the 18 wheeler (Freightliner, of course) with the virtual steering wheel but it proved too dangerous and difficult.

I never got around to figuring out what the other uses were for the detached real steering wheel other than it was a popular/common occurance to see all the other truck drivers in the restaurant with their steering wheel laying on their tables. Maybe there will be a follow up dream to explain the unanswered questions in my mind.

I was a safe driver. I only drove with the unreliable virtual steering wheel for a brief time period and didn't have an accident.

It was odd that I had the wrong Freightliner model in my dream. It was my favorite one, their smallest M2 Business Class with four full doors, which isn't used in eighteen-wheeler combinations.

Extra: I found out that today is supposedly International Monty Python Awareness Day. I think it would be fitting for Monty Python Awareness Day to be plural in nature, "Days", where it is celebrated in only one country on any given day of the year, and every country has to have a designated MPAD, including NorKor, from "The Committee Who Assigns". There could be Python Pilgrimages that snake from country-to-country and people could dress up in medieval costumes complete with coconuts for transportation.

Extra Extra: I popped a Wint-O-Green Life Savers mint in my mouth just seconds before someone called. He asked me to confirm the receipt of his e-mail so that I could respond with some business info. BUT when I tried to read the details on the screen my tongue was overcome by the heavy mint flavor and I messed up and told him, "Sorry I am being 'mint'-ally challenged today with my speaking"

Dream Link: The Next Dream in My Blog

A Story About N0thing

I love "my" new Dyson DC25 "Animal" vacuum cleaner, but it was terribly eXpensive so I am starting a new maid service to pay for it. A "vacuuming-only" maid service.

From the wife: "I luv it cause I do not have to vacumn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (her typo, not mine)

It turns on a dime with the giant ball instead of wheels for its transport system. Its much lighter than previous vacuum units, and thats important for elderly, tired, hard working [ha-ha] people like me.

The Dyson is much quieter than our previous vacuums. I don't have to wear ear plugs and it doesn't scare the household's small furry animals, wolfie & wifey, aka Cooper & Tamie. I thought of a great name for my vacuuming business. Since a true vacuum (like in outer space) is a region of emptiness, the name I chose for my business is 'N0thing'.

The second character of "N0thing" is the number zero, preferably in Italics where possible.

The Big Hug Theory

Nearly 2 AM

That was a different subject matter sandwich: I was just studying physics and got interrupted for a few minutes to research the history of certain teleBision soap operas, and now I am back to physics. I think I need some coffee now.

Moments later my best friend asked: "When do you sleep?"

Ernest: "In between not sleeping"

I am in favor of renaming the physics theory "The Big Bang" to something nicer sounding, with my first choice: "The Big Hug"

The Big Ban(g)

There are clearly discernable stages/eras to The Big Bang:

The Big Ban - The federal gov't took away alcohol during Prohibition, hence no final G ("G"-overnment)

The Big Ben - someone in England made a clock! (actually this one doesn't count since the vowel morphed/rotated from an "a" to an "e" - well, it looks that way if you use the right font). Probably a gravitational force anomaly, spiral galaxies formed, -ok,ok,ok- it can stay in the list.

The Big Band - An era of music where large densely packed groups of mainly men played music. These groups of stars eventually disbanded forming smaller groups, such as The Frank Sinatra, The Rat Pack, and The Beatles. Sometimes the gravitational force was great enough to form extremely long lasting smaller groups such as The Rolling Stones or Keith Moon (I know, some of you will say, "Who?", and my response is "The Who")

The Big Bank - this was an era where money and value collected but then seemed to disappear very suddenly, very dark-enly.

The Big Banff - Canada makes a park! (They obviously stutter or really like redundant f's)

The Bag Bin - this is the name of the current era of recycling where large stores that giveaway plastic bags now offer receptacles to recycle them, a reversal of vowels, "a" place where "I" can put them. This may be signaling a collapse of the universe in a "re"-cyclic manner.

Dear Sista' (my BFF from earlier in this blog post, not a real sister - these are our nicknames for each other),

Immediately after posting this I took a nap.

Love,

Your Brotha'

You Are There, I Am Here

My Facebook status a few minutes ago: Since my current non-US readership for the day is entirely euro-ish with Denmark, France, Russia, Poland, Austria and Romania, I feel obligated to say something funny about the Franco-Prussian War, but it eludes me.

Facebook's response? Instant advertisements for the pages "Funny" with a geriatric smiling face of questionable gender with my follow-up question: "Is that a hat or a hairpiece?", and the second page being "Romania" with what appears to be a distortedly shaped flag,,,,lets confirm the flag - - - yes, the Romanian flag was distorted, the three vertical bars are s'pposed to be equal sized.

Oh, the ratio of FB "Likes", Funny vs Romania, humor beat the country by about [mental math] 5 to 1, which, considering the last several decades, makes sense.

‎877,256 / 177,828 = 4.93317, [calculator, not me] so yes, lets just call it five.

Update: several minutes later Germany shows up, so Yea! The gang is all here!

The answer to your question is: YES! - I realize this is a very lame blog post but I am in a very silly mood this morning. My previous FB status was questionably slightly better:

I saw something from National Geographic - "A gnawed fossil skull points to 'a really aggressive encounter' between two giant dolphin-like reptiles." - and I thought, "I think I will start using this as a verbal eXcuse for everything that mysteriously appears damaged in my life, beginning with the breakfast at Bennigan's"

Update: As I was driving away from the groc store I told myself that I wish I was better at making wishes. My next thought was debating whether that was a wasted wish. I still don't have an answer several minutes later. It's been that kinda day. But groc shopping had moments of eXtreme hilarity with The Guys in The Produce section mocking Prince's "When Doves Cry"

Just at eXactly at the same moment that my hand reached for a purple onion I thought, "Isn't this a song from The Prince 'Purple Rain' album" ?, an album I have never owned. ...checking... Yes, side B of the album, first track, 5:54, but I think the groc store Produce Boys version was longer.

Update: Status of Day Number Two in the Great 'Let's Find An Insect To Be Your Friend Again' Search: Failure - No can find um a cute lil praying mantis to be this year's Polly Jr.

Will continue an eXhaustive search high and low for a tiny tiny green alien looking being with a triangular head willing to spend time with me in the mornings during coffee.

Link to last year's adventures with Polly, The Staying Praying Mantis

Stop Eat Throw

I'm collecting money to stop The Grand Canyon. It's eating North America!

Like

I have photographic evidence that this is really happening and no one appears to be trying to stop it! Millions of people just go there and look at it and do nothing!

Like

For each $10,000 that I collect I will personally drive there and throw in one very large rock.

Like

Notice that I have already clicked the 'Like' button, so you don't have to do that, just send money, HURY! (00pzie - I got in too big of a hury I left off an 'R' - 00pz, I did it again.)

Like

I will soon be distributing collection jugs in restaurants and C-stores to make it easier to donate!

Like

T-Shirrts! Mugs! Trravel Logs of my jourrneys to the Big Giant Crrack Eating NA! Panorramic picturres of the destrruction! Soon available forr $$$$

STOP
EAT
THROW

Like

Amount Collected So Far: $0.00

Tiny Mint Flavored Knives & The Sodium Chef

We recently ate at a restaurant (non-Borger, Texas) where the primary ingredient in the BBQ meat appeared to be salt instead of pork and the side dish could more aptly be called Mustard Salad with a slight potato flavor. The fouth time I tried to take a bite of the MUSTARD/potato "something", my left hand actually slapped my right hand as punishment.

Typo: "fouth" should have been "fourth" but that is what the word sounds like after my mouth has had too muth (much) salt.

I feel that I can not give a proper review of the beans as they were the third item that I attempted to eat after destroying my taste buds with S&M (Salt & Mustard). My wife said, "At least the bread tastes ok" to which I responded, "But honey, that's the only thing they actually didn't cook, they just took it out of the package (thankfully)". The generous mountain of onion rings were actually quite good for their style of batter, but it just happens to be a style I don't care for, so they were the only positive thing about the meal, other than the laughter. We were in agreement that was one pig that had died in vain. There was plenty of uneaten meat at the end of the meal, but I like Cooper way too much to let him eat any of it. He got freshly cooked (by Ernest) registered ground Angus mixed with dry dog food and topped with cheese, Kraft American, diced, so he ate much better than we did for the evening meal.

It took a few hours for my mouth to recover from the meal. My wife gave me a piece of gum on the drive home and when I put it in my mouth it felt like chewing tiny mint flavored steak knives.

As a spin on the words "Iron Chef" from teleBision, I created the term "Sodium Chef" for the evening's metal of abuse.

We graciously accepted the giant styrofoam to-go container that the waitress had brought us without asking for. But we soon found the nearest dumpster at a convenience store for Tamie to throw it into. BUT in her weakened condition of malnutrition, sodium overdose and laughter she missed getting it into the dumpster during the drive-by. The dumpster only had a tiny opening of five feet across at it narrower distance, so I had to drive back around the C-store to pick it off the ground, as I didn't want any raccoons to be hurt by the leftovers.

My tongue finally recuperated after a frozen strawberry fruit bar AND time. I haven't checked yet this morning to be sure Tamie is still alive. I know Cooper is. He is asking for breakfast.

Pre-Birthers

So if you want to be involved with another Presidential controversy (and I really don't, I'm just pointing out the simple math here), then if you calculate the difference between the parents of Obama wedding date of February 2, 1961 and Barak's birthdate of August 4, 1961, do the math and that is only 6 months, so most likely he was conceived out of wedlock.

So would people who argue about this be called "pre-birthers"?

Reference for dates was the Wikipedia article for Barak H. Obama

Disclaimer: I don't support the "Birther" arguments or imply that even if Barak was conceived out of wedlock that he is unqualified to be President on that account. I'm just creating a new label for a conspiracy group, just being my lil ole inventive self. Actually none of us knows for sure where or when we were actually or accurately born, as our memories don't typically go back that far. We depend on others to let us know.

So there is always the slim chance that someone else has lied about your true citizenship without you knowing about it. I'm pretty sure if you've always thought of yourself as a U.S. Citizen from birth, even if you really aren't, you have the proper frame of mental citizenship that the founding fathers were looking for in order to be qualified to lead your fellow like-minded citizens.

Why Did The Vampire Chicken Swim Across The River?

You can even get a live chicken at certain convenience stores in Amarillo TX if you are fast enough. I didn't see a price tag or bar code. This was at St Francis Blvd near the Dumas highway.

Message from a Friend: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get a burrito and a Talsup!

(For all the non-locals: a Tal-Sup is a very Tall soft drink in a large plastic cup from Allsup's brand convenience stores)

Response from Ernest: That's why the chicken was so irritated, it's a Toot N Totum, not an Allsup's. (actual street address for the convenience store is 5424 River Road, so yes, 'ROAD'!!!)

Notice this one is not a vampire chicken, you can see its reflection in the vehicle.