The Vineyard of Death at Wal-Mart

This is a group of grape vines for sale at Wal-Mart. They never lowered the price, and sold very few. I bought one a few months ago and it is thriving now. Its brothers are not. I asked the clerk what they were going to do with them. She said she would ask about getting the price chopped in half, but they would go no lower than that. Other wise they will just throw them all away.

There are a few almost done grapes. The typical yield for a mature grape vine is about 40 clusters per vine, at about a quarter pound per cluster.

There were a few over-done grapes.

There are a few grape leaves (essentially all of them) that have been transformed into big bugs. So their investment in a dozen plus plants has produced at least two bugs.

(I believe these are eXactly the same kind of worm that attack my tomato plants, but notice that the grape chemicals dye the worms with a light purple where there would normally be green. I noticed the same thing last year when one of my grape vines was attacked by these monsters)

Português Leakage

Tut tut, looks like rain, feels like rain, feels like the temperature dropped a bunch. We're just a lil backyard lack-of-rain crowd, hovering beside the grape-y patch. We're just gonna sit here and clouds the watch.

Later ... Humidity is at 57 pretty scent.

Later ... Now at 81 prettier scent, c'mon baby, daddy needs a new pair of guarda chuvas, oh, sorry, umbrellas. (Portuguese leakage during periods of eXcite-mental) Oops, my plastic coffee cup got knocked over onto my lap by the wind, luckily cold coffee, old clothes, old man (me). Luckily the dog has no fashion sense and doesn't mind being seen (by no one) with me.

Later ... Even preTTier, (my internal chant-self echo takes off) 90-90-90-90-90-90-90-90 ..... any neighbors with telepathic powers are possibly confused right 'bout now.

Later ... much later (12 hours after starting this blog post) still no rain. I watch the projected weather for the next 6 hours from The Weather Channel. The clouds "of the future" built up to the west, then disappear just as they get to us. It was such a sad lil move-y. The cloud and rain movies of the past 6 hours show some rain just south of us along interstate 40.

Later ... (3 AM) There is visible lightning to the south of us and scattered clouds building, no drops yet that are clearly rain, hopefully close.

Last ... much later, 24 hours from the beginning: So, I no longer believe that rain eXists. I only believe that rain eXits, it no longer wants to come play in my backyard.

Update: I figured out how to make it rain. I told my wife that I wanted to build a gigantic horizontal wind mill that is seven miles wide that blows the air straight up. She asked, "what will that do?" I told her that it would have a tendency to make the wind blows towards us from all directions, and then hopefully some day bring some rain with it. Then I thought, yes, seven miles wide is a ridiculously huge size, and so I changed it to six and three quarters, much more realistic.

The Adoption Agency Turns Me Down for Quite Obvious Reasons

Lack of sleep OR something worse(?): 

As I am pouring BBQ sauce onto some very fine pork just as the bottle is almost empty, I tell myself, "Hmm, looks like I need to get some more gasoline today" - the really strange part of that statement is that I switched from gasoline to diesel 6 months ago.

The not-quite-as-strange thing about that sentence is that my spell checker likes the word "Hmm" but thinks "Hmmm" is a typographical error. It offers this list of alternative spellings:

• Hmm
• Hm mm
• Hm-mm
• Hmm m
• Hammy

But notice, no "Ham" - Didn't it notice that I had just been talking about "very fine pork" ?

I should name my next child " Hammy ", (that rhymes with my wife's name)

Then when I want a nickname for my little girl Hammy it can be shortened to "Hmmm".

Then when I call her "Hmmm" and someone says, "Did you just call your daughter 'Him' ?", I will respond, "no, Hmmm", and they will instinctively say, "Oh, 'Hammy'!"

My Solutions to the Seven Bridges of Königsberg Math Problem

Tonight I was reading the life story of Leonhard Euler and came across the Seven Bridges of Königsberg mathematical problem. It involves trying to cross the seven bridges of Königsberg of Prussia in a path where each bridge is crossed only once. The problem was solved negatively in 1736, by Euler declaring that it was impossible. The rules are to cross each bridge only once and return to the starting point. I spent about fifteen minutes eXamining this problem and came up with a novel solution: 

1. Start in the Middle of a Bridge
2. Use Stilts  
3. Clarify the Definition of the Word 'Once' with Fractions

This is a picture that I obtained from wikipedia and reproduce through their Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. I have modified the original picture with labels of the bridges and a path for my journey.

My journey starts in the very middle of bridge A, with the starting point highlighted in purple

Then I travel across bridges B, C and D and arrive at a point midway between the entrance for bridges E and F

Then I climb aboard a pair of gigantic stilts and cross bridges E and F at the same time. This route is highlighted with a green path.

Then I get off the gigantic stilts and go across bridge G and then cross the same half of bridge A to arrive back at my starting point, in the middle of bridge A.

So I have crossed half of bridge A twice, so one "half" plus one "half" equals one "once" and I have returned to my starting point. The only thing I regret is that my cup of hot coffee sat in the breeze of my air conditioner too long while I typed this and did the artwork and now it is cold. Luckily I don't have to use stilts to get to my microwave oven in the kitchen or cross any bridges.

Reference to the wikipedia article: Seven Bridges of Königsberg Math Problem

Update: I just now realized I could have walked with gigantic stilts the entire journey, but I am so used to my Vibram FiveFingers shoes that I prefer to walk in them as often as possible. I figure the city is quite old and there may be cobblestones involved, so I will have to practice stilting on that particular surface. I am imagining myself in a humongous Godzilla costume tromping through Königsberg destroying everything with my gigantic stilts.

Update 2011.07.17: This morning I thought of another route with stilts that doesn't involve starting and stopping in the middle of a bridge. I don't have access to draw another map at the moment so I'll describe it using the current map lettering scheme.

Start on the bottom part of the map at the letter B, not actually on the bridge B.
Cross bridges B and G at the same time on the stilts.
Cross bridge F with both feet.
Cross bridges E and D at the same time on stilts, then continue on with the right stilt to cross bridge C
Cross bridge A and return to the starting point at letter B.

Update 2011.08.05: This morning while demonstrating a Möbius Strip to my favorite restaurant owner, I thought of another route AND another means of crossing bridges. I thought to myself, why not go over AND under the bridge? Cross the ENTIRE bridge? In other words, walk on the UNDER side of the bridge, kinda like Batman and Robin, with suction cups on the bottom of your shoes!

So I drew another map that shows the path, with color coding of GREEN meaning that the bridge was crossed on the TOP side, and PURPLE showing that it was crossed on the bottom. I start with the GREEN square and cross bridge A first, then go to B then G on top, then return on those three bridges on the underside, via the PURPLE path. Then Bridge C on TOP then return on its underside, then the top side of bridge D then the top and bottom of bridge E, then the top and bottom of bridge F, then lastly on the bottom side of bridge D to return to the starting point.

Update 2011.08.14 - I figured out another path that crosses all seven bridges ONCE but doesn't take you back to the original starting point. The secret to this path is to go ALL the way around the world. Use the map (above) for my most recent under over solution and start at the green square. Travel across A, B, C, D, E, and then F. At this point it looks like you are trapped on the top side BUT all you have to do is think GLOBALLY - and then just go "north"/"up" over the earth by land and sea; north, then south then north again back around to reach bridge G, and then cross it.

Second Update 2011.08.14 - I decided to try hooking two Möbius strips together starting with a piece of paper in the shape of a cross. At the intersection of the horizontal and vertical pieces I drew the map of Königsberg. Then I drew the river so that it reconnected with itself on the "horizontal" Möbius strip. The "vertical" pieces were hooked into the horizontal pieces, also twisted a half turn to form another Mobius strip.

After traveling from bridges A through F, the path starts down the vertical piece. When it reaches the intersection of the two Möbius strips, the path takes a right turn because it is blocked by the river. So then the path simply continues then on the horizontal member until it makes it's way back around to the "other" side of the river at bridge G. The path then goes across the bridge G to complete the journey. Each bridge is only crossed once and the river is never crossed except by a bridge path.

I shot photos of my double Möbius Strip creation and published parts of the path:

Use The Same Teller

1ts one o'clock in the morning.

1 am still awake.

1 think it is the volume of the teleBision keeping me awake.

1n the other room.

1 just had a great idea for a flash mob. Everyone show up in the lobby of Wells Fargo later today at 1:34 PM with a ski mask and a note that says, 

"Please. Give me all your money. Thank you." 

Form a line and use the same teller.

When the police show up just tell them, "We were just askin' for money. And being polite. Say, where's Howie Mandel and the teleBision cameras?" Later lets all y'all meet up at my house fer milk 'N cookies, A-cause my cookies are getting old and 1 need new ones.

(1n case you are confused: 'A-cause' is sometimes used in certain situations where 'because' just doesn't feel quite right)

(1n case you are confused: google 'flash mob teleBision Howie Mandel'. YES! 1t actually works using my word 'teleBision')

(1n case you are confused: yes, 1 used the number "1" instead of an uppercase I on purpose because it's one o'clock in the morning)

A Broken Dry Sky

I would like to be on vacation right now.
Where?
Anywhere,
any how,
as long as it rained,
and rained [lightly]
every single minute of
every single day
and
I would smile
the whole while,
the whole way,
and
bask in the chill
of the feel
of the tingle spray.
I clutch my icy water bottle
from the night stand
in my warm dark fanned room,
tilt
and drown my dry brown sorrows,
knowing there is no scheduled hope
for several tomorrows.



Ear-Lier To-Day:

I made a delivery today for my wife's business because the customer had told my wife that "she didn't have a way to get to our shop". The house was on "Mary" street which was right next to "Turner" street, which was interesting to me because those are the names of one of my relatives from a long time ago.

BUT I was not very amused when I discovered there were 8 (EIGHT) vehicles surrounding HER house, after wasting at least a gallon of MY diesel for the trip. AND the purchase had sat at our shop for two months after repeated calls had been made to the customer to pick up her order. Grrrr ....

My Cousin Asked: Hmmm, coincidence?

My Response: Yes, coin side dents.

Water for Dessert

FATHER'S DAY LATE

At 16 minutes before 10 PM my wifey tells me, "If you hurry, you can make it to the grocery store and get us a creme cake!" Unplanned hurry at pre-10 dark 44 usually doesn't happen with this tired end of the day I-thought-this-wasn't-gonna-be-a-work-day-Sunday. After a collosal caloric consumption couple of blazed days, a cold bottle of water sounds like a good dessert right about now.

As I head off to sleep I see that the page reads for my blog are eleven away from 10,000. So I hope to wake up with the odometer in five figures.

zzzzzz zzz zzzzz zzzzzzz (get another dwink of water) zz zzzzz zzzz (dREaM) zzzzXzzzzzz (don't know what the deal was with that X interfering with my z's) zzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzz

I wake up to confusion from Google. Their normal simple report embedded in Blogger isn't working at first so it directs me to a different web site which shows the number of page views as 11,009 vs 9,990 AND my earnings aren't the same, with one report showing $1.94 and the other showing $1.55, so I have no idea which one is correct,

*sigh*

Then I realize that part of the problem is that its a complete report for my entire account, I have forgotten that I have made a few cents more from my cartoons, artwork, Kakuro game instructions, photography and my separate blog where I translate some of my writings to Portuguese. But there is still an extra 26 cents showing on their one report that I can't find elsewhere.

*slight un-sigh*

Ahhhhh, I finally discovered most of my lost coinage, I found 25 cents earnings from the Portuguese language blog, so perhaps I can afford that creme cake soon.

*complete un-sigh*

Update: I'm at 9,999 at 11:34 AM for my writings in the English language version of my blog!

Checking a few minutes later the page view counter reached 10,004 so someone from either France or the USofA was my 10,000^TH page viewer!!!

*complete un-sigh accompanied by a smile*

So 66 Is 'The Mark of The Best'?

I saw that Phillips 66 (a gasoline brand of ConocoPhillips) has teleBision advertising with an idiotic theme of "Show Us What You Are The Best At", with an example of someone who is the best at "staring". They have someone stare back at the world's best stare-er and squirt water at his face, subtly reminding you of fuel injection.

So they want people to submit their "I'm Best At" ideas in order to win a year's worth of free gasoline. 

I thought, hmm, I've already spent 28 plus years showing your company what I was really honestly good at (inventing things, fixing things and building better systems) and you fired me. PLUS they didn't give me the bonus I earned for 2008 even though they fired me in 2009 right before they announced the annual bonus for the previous year. Wonderful timing on their part. Of course they actually had "loaned me" to a joint venture of the company 8 years earlier with Chevron, so they probably won't consider that Tricky Timing Bonus Thing their idea.

So good luck with that theme of 'Equating a Comatose Wide-Eyed Vertical Man' with 'Quality', I'm sure you'll go far. (I chose an evenly spaced hypnotic Courier font on purpose for effect just then) I'll just try to stay a little farther away from you. As far as the contest though, I think I'll just stick to trying to be an honest person, and I know better than to try to submit that idea to their contest. It looks like they have done a good job spending my last bonus.

Update: Hah! I just remembered that Google puts ads by my stories that are driven by content, so its possible that a Phillips 66 ad could show up on my blog, and then if someone clicked it, I would receive ad revenue from them! How ironically funny; maybe thats what I am the best in the world at, who knows .....

My AAA BaDDeries Are D Minus

BaDDery - my new word for a DeaD battery.

Math Story Problem: Calculate the percentage of how much your blood pressure goes up as you search your house for a pair of {working] AAA batteries for your blood pressure machine. Actually its easier to count the total number of discovered now disposed dead batteries: 11

ELEVEN!!!!!!!!!!

Keep in mind that the process of checking the battery pairs is delayed by the device wanting to set the time and date in the device while it is using the marginal battery strong enough to run the electronic computing type circuitry BUT not strong enough to run the mechanical device for actually performing the blood pressure reading. WHY can't it perform that more demanding test first? Meanwhile your blood pressure goes on up in frustration. SO if you had enough semi-dead batteries you might actually get your blood pressure machine to give you a stroke.

Don't worry, my blood pressure turned out okay; (dramatic semicolon induced pause) eventually.

I guess I just need to invent a device that lets you put a whole bunch of semi-dead AAA batteries in parallel and then have a connector in the shape of a AAA battery so you could slide it into the blood pressure machine or whatever you need to run. Kinda like having jumper cables for my blood pressure machine! Actually because the voltage is the same you could make the device allow a wide range of battery sizes that use the same battery chemical technology. BUT not being an electrical engineer I don't know if there is anything special about having smaller batteries, such as maybe current limiting, so I don't recommend this activity to everyone for every situation for every device.

For those of you who counted, yes, I know, I only put ten eXclamation marks after the word "ELEVEN", I did that to see how many people would notice. I went back later and made them BOLD so that it was even harder to count or notice them numerically; sneaky, yes? Yes, sneaky.

Invention Link: The Next Invention in My Blog

Boo Stew

One of my friends named Stew had a picture taken with a startled look on his face. I don't know the story behind the photo or why the face of fear and fright, or even if it was a true eXpression because someone right beside him was smiling. There was just a caption: "Stew saw a ghost."

My Response: But did the ghost see you, and was the eXpression on the ghost face aghast as fast, and did the ghost say 'boo', 'boo-hoo', or 'say, who you, OH, its Stew!'?

Poetry Link: The Next Poem in My Blog

Coins Just Wanna Have Fun

All of these photographs were shot with a lousy camera of my Samsung phone under very dismal lighting conditions. If your vision is poor, the objects in the pictures are American coins on my nightstand in the glow of my iPad doing silly things that my late night mind conjured up.

Sometimes Abraham Lincoln likes to do fun things like stand on his head, indicating that he had a secret desire to join the circus as a high wire act rather than be President.

The Famous Triple Abe Vertical

Thom J used to hang with Abe L in the late Sunday June evenings, too.

Even buffalos will act odd when Abe is around finding a flat spot, no matter how tiny, no matter how shiny.
(I just noticed you can see the reflections of the other side of the coins in the iPad)

Franklin DR showed up, but because of his edge wasn't able to stand on his own, so he got some help from some Prez twins, George & George, quarters as wheel chair substitutes. He enjoyed watching Abe L and Buffy The Nickel.

What can I say? Just nickels flat out showing off during the teams session, but the crowd loved it, they went wild!!!

These seven cents seem to have a sixth sense at this balancing game.  

(That's a nickel plus two pennies)

Nickles will be nickels (Their manager told me to type it eXactly that way)

This is an old trick from when Thom and George were kids and they would go over to Paul Revere's house and tease him about him never going to be on money like them when he grew up, and then Thom would dance on George's nose. And Paul Revere would get all irritated at their shenanigans and say, "you just watch, I'll grow up and be a silversmith!", and Thom and George would say, "oh, yeah, well we're gonna be press and dents" and Paul R would be like all, "whats a 'press and dent'?" and George and Thom would be all, "we don't know, but itsa bound to be better than being a slivver-smith", and Abe would show up and say "can I play too?", and the three PT&G would say, "NO, you haven't even been born yet!"

How did I do this feat of magic? My nightstand is obviously very level (quite by accident I'm sure) and if you mess around with certain coins trying to make them stand upright, just keep rotating them slowly until you find a "relatively" flat spot of the side. OR move on to a better coin. You may have to try slightly different directions for where the surface is locally "flatter", such as mine seemed to work better going in a Northwest by Southeast orientation. Nickels and pennies work well, whereas dimes and quarters do not - its a plain (flat) versus "reed" (bumpy) edge thing. 

Have Some More Headlines

This is a bunch of my Facebook status that didn't make it into longer blog posts, enjoy! I no longer do Twitter or MySpace.

Date Range: ? to ? (approximately now back to some time in the foggy past)

The top two ads that Facebook customized for me today are:
"Sick and Tired?" and "Daughter Getting Married?"
Ummm, NO! Sorry, no daughters, don't need any wedding insurance.
Wedding Insurance?!?!? Never even heard of such a thing before.
I think a more interesting ad would have combined the two:
"Sick and Tired of Your Daughter Getting Married?"

Okay, now I'm waiting for the teleBision commercial where three spiders are eating in a fancy restaurant and the middle spider sets his cellular telephone on the table with a picture of a human on the screen and then the left spider goes berserk and then the right spider saves the day by smashing the telephone. Where is my commercial?

Sometimes sister-in-laws are a bit devious: "Ern, will you go outside [in the rainstorm] and bring in the 'Open Flag' ? [with the METAL pole]"

Happy Birthday, Neptune! It's been one Neptunian year—or about 165 Earth years—since astronomers first observed the most distant planet from the sun.

"Honey, do you know where my RAIN is, I can't find it, I have looked everywhere for it, and can not find it"

We just got directions to a rural customer: "He's out in the middle of nowhere, on the left"

After discussing the non-merits of prairie dogs, my wife gave me her impression of the aforementioned animal: an extremely wide tight smile with clenched teeth and I can't even begin to describe her audio, well, lets just say, high pitched funny. She even repeated it for me because I missed the first time while driving. I'm sure she'll share it with you, just ask.

The Wifey is cooking pork chops, and I tell her, "I love you, Honey". 

[-No response-] 

I repeat, thinking that the frying pan and kitchen stove vent may have drowned out my ~quiet~romantic~ words. 

"Oh, I thought you were talking to the dog" 

"No, Honey, he has about 14 terms of endearment and nicknames, but 'Honey' is not one of them"

After just rescuing one, I don't think that a "smart phone" should be called "smart" if it is capable of being lost; it should detect its master leaving it behind in a strange place (i.e. Starbucks restroom) by GPS and audibly start yelling, or even crying, the cyborg version of "MOMMY!!!!!!" or "DADDY?????"

OUT ON THE HVAC TRAIL: Today a client gave me a glass of tea. After drinking the tea I returned the glass to her kitchen. My mentor Eddie told me that the glass was a gift, and she said, "it's one less thing I'll have to move" (when going to her new home soon). So now I'm the (proud?) possessor of a Santa-Snowman-Gingerbread Man Glass, thanks to The Turtle Woman of Fritch Texas.

I had a dream that I took my dog Cooper with me into our business attic while doing an insulation job. Hah, he won't even go into a dog house much less let me pick his 90 lbs up and carry him up a set of squeaky springy spongy stairs. He does a good job pulling weeds around the tomato and grape plants, but I don't know how good of an insulation installer he would be, it wasn't part of the dream.

Thank you Ace Hardware for my tiny side cutter pliers. Sometimes wild mustache hairs appear and must be trimmed immediately to avoid an onset of insanity and you also would think that being married to the finest hair stylist in town would mean that there is always a pair of scissors nearby, but you would be wrong.

This is an ACTUAL "news": A utility pole about a mile south of Kinston, North Carolina, has attracted attention in the last week or so from people who say the kudzu clinging to it resembles the image of Jesus on the cross.

I think Jesus said "I am the vine, you are the branches" - I am not sure if he ever got around to saying anything like, "I am the weed, you are the gullible"

Secretly, in my mind I am dancing right now. Groc stores have a way of inducing that behavioral response some times. [Don't tell anyone, itz our lil secret]

Later I found out they had NOT stopped carrying ground buffalo in the meat market as I had been told was going to happen, now there is a reason to dance, baby, dance! I got 'em TWO packages.

Today's New Word: Humans have 'escalators' and fish have 'pescalators'. While studying pumps today I found out that special large screw pumps are used to safely move fish in places like hatcheries.

‎"I wish it would rain"

"Maybe you need to do a 'war dance' (smile-giggle)"

"Honey, don't you mean 'rain dance'?"

"OH!!!, yes, 'rain dance' (more giggles, bigger smile)"

Oh wOw, I just saw a picture of a Great White Shark jump completely out of the water going after food. As a person who wishes to remain a non-food item for as long as possible, I guess my days of paragliding at the beach are over. No wait, I've never started paragliding yet; its just like the GWS to go messing up my plans all the time.

My dog Cooper was so funny yesterday morning during our play episode of "Sock The Dog". It had been a while since we played this game and his growl sounded fake and very rhythmic, like an old car starting roughly, cranking, then I noticed that he hadn't moved his front paws off the floor like his normal bucking bronc rodeo routine. Tamie chuckled, "silly dog".

Work has been interesting today. I haven't had a PPAAH (pink-pig-as-a-hat) induced giggle session in quite a while. No wait, soRRy, that was a first.

I told my wife that the touch screen on her laptop computer doesn't work very well. She frowned perplexedly and said, "What do you mean? It doesn't have a touch screen" I said, "Precisely, that is my main problem." I have non-iPadness sadness.

At the restaurant I was leaning sideways onto the empty chair, tired at day's end. The Wifey mockingly leaned onto her side chair and asked me, "Should we just go ahead and sleep here? (giggle)". I told her, "It will be interesting when the police show up", this induced another giggle from My Girl.

WHAT?!?!? Its supposed to be 106 F today. Grrrrrrr.....eat - somebody left the kitchen eXhaust fan on after supper and so I woke up in a too warm bedroom (its 86 outside at 3 AM) but I won't mention any names since she was kind enough to cook supper. At least our kitchen is chilly, think of all the $$$ we are saving on reduced electricity consumption to run the refrigerator in The Arctic (my new name for the kitchen)

[106 will be close to an all-time record for this day of the year for our location]

When my wifey came home I asked her if it was still hot outside. She didn't know. I asked her if the sun had gone down yet. She replied, "a little bit".

SO, in the middle of this drought I discovered that Olive Garden apparently drowned (KILLED) two of their plants at the front of the Amarillo restaurant .... I will post a photo later.

My half of a conversation with my wife:
(initiated from an email notification today from the US govt)  
 Honey, there's a chemist job available in The Department of The Navy, but its in Atsugi JAPAN. So if you want to get rid of me, I have to let them know by June 20th. Don't worry, its our navy. $60,274 to $78,355

One of my friends asked (obviously wanting to get rid of her husband as well) if they needed history teachers.

My Response: To teach the history of chemistry in Japan to American sailors?

I decided that I want a T-shirt that says, "Half Ninja - The Other Half Ninja As Well"

My friend responded with a web site of interesting T-shirts, but I won't include the link or name of the company due to amount of non-G rated material.

My response: The one I found that struck me as odd was the one that had the single word "Helvetica" on the front of it, and I thought to myself, "hold it, thats not a Helvetica font" - (sad, yes I know, thats a really sad geekness moment - I confirmed it, it's not Helvetica)

Our drought has been so bad that it makes you invent new ways of finding the good in things, no matter how small or how meager. I have cardboard box lids on the ground near my tomatoes for controlling ground humidity and temperature. The "RAIN" we just had was so light that it only made about 10% of the cardboard surface area wet with spots. So that rain was a "Ten Percenter".

My main goal for this afternoon is to take a nap very soon and then be alive at the end of that process. Most of the time that task is quite easy, but today feels eXtra eXTra eXTRa eXTRA Extra special.

I just realized that the word mustache has "must" plus "ache". That is ironic because that is the one thing, the only thing on my body that has never ever ached.

Add Vice: The next time someone gets irritated (or pick another negative word) with you and utters something like, "What is wrong with you?!?!? (..why are you behaving this way.. etc)", just respectfully reply, after a fake moment of contemplation, thoughtfully and slowly, "Because .. I'm .. a .. carnivore(?)"

Pair-Annoy-You: I get an e-mail letting me know that Apple has a new Mac OS called Lion coming in July. I open the web page to read about its improvements on my Apple iPad. It takes forever to load. Then after I start reading, a few minutes later the whole browser crashes on my iPad. Their slogan is: "The World's Most Advanced Desktop Operating System Advances Even Farther" - duh! We can hope.

I met someone who was afraid of prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) simply because they have the word "dog" in their name, and thought they were potentially viscious. If you are less than 2 inches tall and unarmed then I could see how this could be a real problem.

Round objects, round objections. Somebody just put their mouth around a cluster of unripe wanna-be grapes and got in TROU-ble, and wisely chose a basketball to gnaw on instead. After a short break he switched to round bugs. He doesn't know it yet but he is fixing to get a round bowl of milk. Yea! Liquid pre-cheese!

Wow! 49 cents in one day! After earning $1.04 in a period of 47 months writing my blog, I suddenly get half a dollar in one single day from Google ads. Bizarre.

The evil elves at Keebler have been naughty - shrinking the size of my cookie package while creating a new fancier prettier container. Thanks. Thanks a lot, oops, I mean, Thanks a less.

IF you don't know what Paul Revere did, you DON'T need to be president, of ANYTHING, eXcept maybe your own fan club. (maybe)

I need a burqa!!! I have one pesky housefly that was continually bothering me, until I found the perfect solution - my Dyson DC25 vacuum cleaner. It is called the 'Animal' version, and a fly is an animal.

On my phone this morning the #2 "NEWS" story from CNN is dated March 9th (circa early June). At least it was from this year.

Strange Dream: My friend Kim was at the beach with a load of laundry. I walked over to her basket and poured a bucket of water on the clothes. She said, "what did you do that for?!?!?", and I replied, "your plants needed water" - I blame this dream on the recent rain.

Letting the Ethiopians give us coffee? Good idea. Letting them invent their own calendar? Not such a good idea.

Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_calendar

Ah, ... finding one more piece of candy when you thought you were completely out!

Yesterday evening my wife commented that it seemed like it was starting to cool down outside once the sun was right at the point of dipping belO0o^%=_w the horizon with the air conditioner finally working again. I commented after checking the official current value, "Yes honey, its gone from 103 down to 102", she laughed.

Its the wrong side of 4 AM.

.

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Buying Smaller Clothes! *smile* *happy* *yea!*

Pre-supper was quite interesting yesterday. Two female out-of-town strangers, one from Arkansas and the other from Points Unknown USA, very very geriatric elderly women decided that I needed to be cheered up before I could get into the restaurant. They finally forced a smile out of me, but they had their work cut out for them.

We just finished watching a pair of doves battle for position on the teleBision antenna. The loser came a little tOO close when he landed near Cooper getting a little eXtra eXcitement he hadn't planned on.

I saw an interesting picture: someone [in Poland] wrote "Nirvana Forever" in the snow

I checked the spelling, and it was 4ever instead of forever, so that changes everything, slightly, maybe to the left about four inches, and down one.

Actually, there was an implied level of eXcitement too, because the letters were uppercase and I left off their eXclamation mark, so "4EVER!".

Q: Do you see the world as half empty or half full?

A: Oscillating between 51% full and 51% empty using a discontinuous sine wave function at 1 Hz

I think the decision to move anywhere should be based on the answer to the question: "Is there Dr Pepper there?"

Just when Arnold S. thought his political career might be over and have to go back to being a movie star, it now appears he is qualified to be the head of the IMF.

Today's major activity was digging post holes for our small vineyard. I had to use water to soften the dry hard dirt/semi-rock. As I was making the rounds I noticed something strangely shaped in the water. Cooper had put a chew bone in hole #1 and then later I noticed one right beside hole #3 on top of fresh dirt. I don't know if he thought I was helping him bury dog treats.

Don't bother me right now, I'm busy learning the proper etiquette for labeling Pie Diagrams! (Can you sense my level of eXcitement?)

The alarm went Off On my phOne fOr the secOnd time sO I suppOse I shOuld get Out Of bed, yawn. (in case you are a bit slow this morning, all the O's are uppercase to indicate a yawn situation in progress)

Actually, the only-est thing that I figured out is when you have an exterior label for a pie chart segment then the connecting line/arrow back to the pie segment from the label should make contact at the middle of the arc of the pie piece. Well, no, there were two other things, the first is to start the rotation at a consistent positon, say "3 o'clock" and the second is to shade from dark to light in the rotation of the segments going clock-wise, preferably with a sorted largest to smallest segments. But really the fourth thing I figured out is that these design parameters are only for picky pi people who prefer perfect pretty perimeter pie pieces.

CNN Headline today:

"Cuba Studying Ways To Allow Residents To Travel Abroad"

Here is my suggestion: A Ticket, A Door, A Ramp, & An Airplane

Oh, its worse than I eXpected, they aren't yet "studying", they are still stuck at the "planning to study" stage.

At The Intersection of Slumber Street and Empty Avenue

My wifey said something to me and I woke up on the couch but my legs had hung off just a little bit making them fall partially asleep. She repeated that the dog wanted outside and there he was across the way by the backdoor, so I slowly & carefully headed to the back door.

BUT when I made it to the spot where he had been I turned around to see that he had repositioned himself to almost my former spot near the couch, and I asked him if he wanted to go outside. But he didn't move or say anything, he just stood there and smiled. Then Tamie said, "you dumb dog, Ernie went over there to let you outside!" - BUT then I looked and saw that his water bowl - empty - was positioned almost eXactly between us, both times, ah! And so I filled his water bowl, he drank and was happy, now back at his chew bone by my side.

(Sometimes it takes awhile to train these humans, you just have to keep trying,

CtD

[Cooper the Dog])

The Dazzling White Bull

FROM STUDYING GEOGRAPHY THIS MORNING: In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull.

I thought, wow, that sounds just like my whirlwind romance with Tamie. (ha ha - [that's ancient Phoenician for 'ha ha' from the earlier Middle Kingdom Egyptian 'ha ha'])

I am working on learning where all the countries of Europe are located, which one borders which, and how their languages are similar. One of my groc store friends is going to Hungary soon and I told him that I had been focusing on Poland and Polish just recently. It was good to see him, and it has been a few months since we have chatted. He just hasn't been in the deli section when I have gone by, or he has had too many customers, so all we've been able to do is wave a 'hi' in passing.

TODAY ONE OF MY FRIENDS IN JAPAN WROTE: Not that I pondered the possibility all that much in my earlier years, but I never thought I'd actually ask anyone in all seriousness: "What does this banana say?"

MY REPLY: A banana when viewed from the right angle always says, "smile!" in any language.

Please visit his blog, I enjoy it very much:
PURELANDMOUNTAIN.COM
VIEWS FROM A JAPANESE MOUNTAINSIDE

The Zombie Equivalency Law

My air conditioner repair man showed up for work the other day without his ladder(s). It seems they had been stolen and cut up for metal scrap by drug addicts. This is similar to the several incidents of air conditioner units in our area that have been stolen for their scrap metal content value, mainly to buy drugs.

So an $8000 HVAC unit gets stolen from a CHURCH for a few hundred dollars worth of scrap metal so someone can get high? I think there should be a change in the law. Certain criminal acts should have a "Zombie Equivalency", so just like you can shoot a zombie without worrying about prosecution, you might even get a reward, metal thieves are pretty low down there on the scale of WPP, worth-per-pound. You could just tell the police, "Sorry, he was trying to steal my cool", to which the police would reply, "Gee, thanks, we've been trying really hard to catch that particular one. Here's your Z.E. voucher to pay for your bullets. Would you like your lead back?"

GET OFF THE BLACK!!!

I got coffee and a blueberry muffin this morning at the C-Store. I asked a clerk over by the microwave oven if they had forks, and she said to ask at the front counter.

I asked, but The 2nd She didn't appear to hear, so I asked again. This time the response was a loud "GET OFF THE BLACK!" -confused- I looked down towards the cabinets for a fork where The 2nd She was pointing, saying, "I? need? a? fork?" but I think I only got the "I need ..." articulated before the next wave of

"GET~TOFF~TH~EBLACK!!!"

unhappily happened and I looked farther down following her index finger for a fork dispenser and saw that the floor where one half of one of my feet had entered was a very dark zoned tile place. Of course I didn't realize I had crossed a boundary into a forbidden Ernest No-Go zone. I eventually got a fork and I think there was possibly a third GOTB!!!

A simple "please move, you aren't supposed to be right there even though there isn't a sign to let you know that, and here is your fork, oh dear regular customer, who indirectly furnishes me with a paycheck" would have been nice.

There will always be a potential mixture of Friendlies and Unfriendlies no matter how small a town gets in Texas, no matter how often you frequent a joint, until you get down to a population of two, then its pretty solid in the Camp Friendly category, especially if I am the other half.

A & A - The Answer to the Question: What Are Sarah Vowell's Vowels

My idea for a T-shirt message: Sarah Vowell went to Hawaii on vacation and wrote a book about the place, and all I got was her boring book instead of getting this cool T-shirt which I had to make myself.

Message for the back side of the T-shirt: Actually, I haven't read her latest book yet, there are just other people telling me its boring, but I was wanting her to bring me back something cool, like an artificial pineapple or a fake birth certificate.

Her latest book, "Unfamiliar Fishes", has a rating of 3.8888 on Amazon with their 1 to 5 scale, with 36 reviews.

Hmmmm, that rating of 3.8888 is comparable, and slightly better than her previous book, "The Wordy Shipmates", which got a rating of 3.75 with 161 reviews.

Oh, I actually did the rating calculations myself because Amazon has them rounded off to zero places, so both books are a "4". You just have to perform a weighted average of the customer review data, which is available in a cute little chart with horizontal yellow bars.

At least I now know what to ask for my next birthday present, because I think I have a complete collection of her previous books. Somewhere.

Actually, I messed up the title, because I didn't include her middle or last names. Since her middle name is 'Jane', Sarah Jane Vowell's vowels are "AAAEO&E". If your question is, "Did you really write this just so you could have a sentence with the homonyms 'Vowell's vowels' in it?", the answer is "maybe maybe".

WHAT Kind of Unicorn?!?!?

This is from a hand written "missing" poster in the Seattle area. It cheered me up considerably this morning.

HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

[picture of a burrito with short stubby legs, eyes and nose on one end, no mouth, with what appears to be toothpicks stuck on each end]

3 year old burrito unicorn

he got off his leash while we were at Urban Light Studio

last seen around 85th and Greenwood

dearly missed by his family

his name is Juan-Antonio

if seen please call 253-315-[I omitted the rest of phone number]

[end of poster]

I found this link to the art studio: CLICK HERE

I looked carefully at the art studio website, but sadly, I did not find the burrito unicorn, at least no lost Juans, oops, I mean, lost ones.

UPDATE: According to my research it is a cellular phone in Auburn WA

I just sent a text message, "I hope Juan-Antonio has made it safely home"

Reply back 4 minutes later: "He showed up on our doorstep last night. He was a little bit thin. But a meal of jellybeans and a salad fixed that up real quick. He is really happy today"

UPDATE: I found a tremendous amount of burrito unicorn photos at Flikr, please check out this content, with some of the content going beyond the normal G rating of my blog contents.

Link to Burrito Unicorn at Flikr

My friend in London is deciding to make a Burrito Unicorn, a long lost cousin to Juan-Antonio and the Pablo of Flikr fame. She asked for suggestions, and knowing her favorite food, I offered the following advice.

My Response to London Friend: I suggest a superstructure of steel reinforced bacon covered with rainbow colored cloth soaked in bacon grease coated with plaster that is at least 3.5 percent bacon (by volume, not weight). Yes, the Flikr site is amazing, I haven't even got to the end of his photos yet, cracked up laughing at several, I think the piece of advice to never cut a burrito unicorn in half is very sound advice. I did find it interesting that a burrito unicorn has a ring structure similar to a tree. Have you thought of a name for your BU yet? 'Kevin' might be a good choice, due to a high Bacon content.

2nd Item: My recommendation for building a burrito unicorn is to "borrow" a horn from a real unicorn to add that eXtra bit of realism, otherwise people are just going to say, "that doesn't look real"

Update: A friend of my London friend also decided to construct a burrito unicorn and said she would follow my advice to look for a real unicorn horn.

My Response Concerning Unicorn Horn Gathering: Due to the size difference (0.1 kg vs 348 kg) between the typical burrito unicorn and typical European unicorn, it would probably be advisable to only use the tip of the E. unicorn horn for use with the B. unicorn. I recommend general anesthesia -OR- an old Barney (The Dinosaur) tape to lull the E. unicorn into a gentle sleep before performing the semi-dehorning. Contrary to popular belief the central nervous system of a unicorn eXtends into the horn. You might be surprised that most people don't know this.

Update 2011.06.14 - I found an ANT UNICORN on my sidewalk!!!