Different Meal, Different Amelia

2010.12.18

From now on through the rest of my life when I see a bone I am going to say, 

"that might be Amelia Earhardt !!!" 

- even if its a turkey bone that came out of my refrigerator, just in case she reincarnated and that was her as a bird. And when someone says, 

"Her last name didn't have a 'd' in it", 

I will say, "Different meal, different Amelia"

[ I chose a bird for this humorous spin on one of today's 'news' stories because Amelia Earhart was an aviator ]

This prompted me to get a sandwich. While preparing my bird meat sandwich I suddenly remembered that episode of the TV show "WKRP in Cincinnati" where they release turkeys from a helicopter as a Thanksgiving publicity promo. They don't actually show that happening, its an off camera fictional event. The TV character replies, 

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." 

Episode titled 'Turkeys Away'

Wikipedia article on WKRP

Original News Story Reference:

Bones found on island might be Amelia Earhart's

Nobel Pizza Prize

Norway has a Nobel Peace Prize which has upset China to such an unpeaceful state that they have created their own prize in protest, the Confucius Prize. So I have decided to create another prize in protest to China called the Confused Too Pieces Prize. To add to the confusion my prize award will be Pizza Hut coupons which are no longer valid.

As a form of support to Norway and the incarcerated Chinese winner I will not be attending Nobel Peace Prize ceremony either and I ask them to designate an empty chair for me as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be at the ceremony site, just an empty chair somewhere in Norway. If there aren't any empty chairs in Norway, then one in Sweden will be okay, but not Finland, no, no way am I going to accept an empty chair in Finland, that would be totally unacceptable. Oh, and it can't be a chair imported from China.

Ate Point Oh

I learned today that a Chinese person had given herself the middle name of "8." when she was a teenager. If you don't have a middle name, I would suggest the number zero, "0.", then when people wrote your name with letter "oh" as "O.", you could tell them they spelled it wrong. When they ask what's wrong, say, "Oh, n0thing"

Jennifer Lee was not given a middle name at birth, but instead chose "8." as a teenager. For many Chinese, the number eight symbolizes prosperity and good luck. She is also the author of a famous cookbook, so "ate" (eight) was a good choice.

I suppose you could have trouble with "1." and "Juan" as well.

If you were German, then "9." would give you "no" trouble.

[I like writing in bed. I haven't moved one foot in distance since I started this Facebook status and comments, turned it into a blog entry, and already two people in Bangalore, India have read it. Well, I did move 2 feet, my left one and my right one are now crossed and closer to me in a futile attempt to get warm]

The Law of The See

'Bermuda Triangle?' - I think a more effective way of dealing with Somali pirates would be to have them quietly and mysteriously disappear FOREVER. When they don't return it will make their remaining buddies on dry land think twice about getting in a boat. "Beyond this point there be dragons, Matey, argh"

I kinda like the idea of building a gigantic mechanical jaw to make bite marks in the pirate boats and then set the empty boats adrift. I would nick name the device 'McGruff'.

This would become part of the Law of the Sea, - "Boss, we have looked everywhere, but we don't SEE them"

Another idea that popped into my head: How 'bout sending them to Myanmar and put under house arrest for 23 years or longer ??? ...

So you thought that you'd go steal a boat

Or anything of value that happened to float

Too bad you can't read the English I just happily wrote

Now dear pirate you are of little note -

Burma Slave

Update 2010.11.18

I saw this particular item while Google searching and just died laughing:

Somali Pirates Disclose They Are A Subsidiary Of Goldman Sachs

A Cookie Rule

I have a new rule: If I forget what I am looking for in the middle of my pursuit, then I can just get a cookie. A cookie is something I rarely forget. I hope I remember this new rule.

I also realized that if I want a cookie but don't deserve one then all I have to do is pretend to look for something then pretend that I have forgot what I was looking for.

Bigger. If you just want a cookie you can always ask for something bigger, like Danish. When they ask for a clarification of which Danish, indicate that you want everything in the country of Denmark, to be it's absolute ruler and owner of all things Lego and non-Lego. Then negotiate for a cookie, maybe even one from Denmark, ah, a Danish cookie.

If your favorite cookie is not available, then it is required to eat two cookies simultaneously stacked on top of each other. I prefer chocolate chip macadamia nut.

&^)

Update 2010.12.06

My cookies [cashew sandies] were on sale so I sell-a-brate by eating two at a time instead of one. At 35% off, think of the money I'm not saving. The dog's portion of a tenth of a cookie hasn't changed, so I have actually increased from 0.9 to 1.9 cookies per treat session, more than doubling my mea$ure plea$ure trea$ure. If I include this in my resume I should easily land a job working for the IRS.

Conned by Contrails

Contrails:
The sky is filling!
The sky is fooling!
The sky is fueling
fools full of falling fears
who need some atmos-fear-ic schooling.

Poetry Link: the next poem in my blog ...

An Al Obama Vacation

2010.11.07

President Obama is scheduled to visit Indonesia on Tuesday but some of the Islamic people are protesting his visit because he supposedly is anti-Islamic from their perspective. Obama lived there as a child. They say you can't go home again, but at least he's trying.

A friend of mine thought the Tea Party People already thought he was a Muslim.

I responded, "Theoretically he could be both." quickly followed by a "maybe Indonesians don't like Kenyans"

So ... if the Indonesians don't want Obama to come there, would that make him a Kendon'tnesiyan ?

Someone else complained to me that Obama's current trip was costing the U.S. Tax payers 2 million dollars a day.

My response was: Yes, but at 2 million dollars a day that might be cheaper to keep him out of the country if he isn't signing even bigger spending bills. So that only works out to ~790 days or so, so roughly it would only cost us about 2 billion dollars to have our beloved president stay out of the country for the rest of his term. Sounds like a bargain! Orbitz? Expedia? Where do we sign him up?

The First Friend responded that Obama was doing the move overseas much cheaper than his predecessors (for which I have no supporting data), moving the White House (implied) overseas is expen$ive.

My cascading ring tones, oops, I mean, responses to First Friend were:

NUMBER ONE: So ... this mobile-home-casa-blanca ... does it have 3 axles or 4? Double wide? Telescoping oval office?

Now thanks to you (First Friend) I have that TV ad jingle "A-1 Is Number One" (A-1: local supplier for mobile homes) just starting its irritating probably all day journey through my cabeza. Hope-fool-y it will soon be echoing in yours as well.

At least for the financial sake of the country, I usually travel alone, in a very used automobile.

NUMBER TWO: Oh, what a relief! Now I have my own cerebral video of Obama mainly in slow motion to the song 'Tik Tok' by Ke$ha meshed visually with the opening of 'The Simpsons' show season 21 , episode 20, where I first heard/saw it, ah, much better than 'A-1 Is Number One'

"cause when I leave for the night I ain't comin' back"

Gonna party like$ it'$ 2011 (already)

NUMBER THREE: Now the Obama video is becoming more animated with B.H.O. simpsonized, mixing in some syncopated Indonesian crowds chanting with signs that have Arabic script on one side and flip around to Tea Party slogans on the other.

"Ain't got no money in my pocket but I'm already here"

Reference for lyrics: 'Tik Tok' by Blanco, Dr. Luke and Ke$ha

2010.11.10 - Update 

Pakistan was irritated because Obama visited India and skipped them. Don't worry, Pakky, he skipped me too! I was even waiting all day with milk and cookies. Guess I will save these for Santa Claus. Of course I have milk and cookies all the time. So I could have easily picked a different pair, say, vinegar and stale crackers.

You and Me and He Make UV3 - The Beginnings of a Boy Band

I am totally despondent. I found out just now that I can never be a performer in a Blue Man Group. They have strict height requirements of 5' 10" to 6' 1". I am outside that three inch gap. At least I have a puppy who loves me. And France is on fire. And sugar is on sale. And its s'posed to rain tomorrow. Somewhere.

I guess I could use a different color with a "shorter" wavelength than blue and create my own group, maybe the 'Ultraviolet Men Group'. Notice how I used a plural 'Men' instead of 'Man', duh, its a group.

There is no entry in Wikipedia for an 'Ultraviolet Men Group'

Don't confuse my group with the 'Ultraviolent Men Group'.

The beautiful part about using Ultraviolet is that it is outside the visible range for humans. So you can be walking along with your friends sometime (in the near future, we have to practice first) and point your finger to some place where there are not any humans, and say,

"LooK !!! Its the Ultraviolet Men Group"

The Maine Thing To Know

One of the main things we lost (temporarily) in the War of 1812 was the main part of the state of Maine, only it wasn't a state yet, but still a part of Massachusetts.

I can fit all of Maine back into Massachusetts if I try really hard. Thinkthinkthink ... They both have M, a, and e, and if you rotate the n of Maine 180 degrees it becomes a u, and you are then just left with i, and you know that I, me, Ernest has a last name of Boston, which is in Massachusetts as well.  

Blink, Breathe, we did it !!! Wasn't that funzies?!?!?

eyePad oN tHe iNcrease (iPad ?)

Some things that only happen very early in the morning . .. ... .... .....

I was reading a news article on my iPad about the growth plans for the iPad market and manufacturing, when I received a "wireless" telepathic plea from my very own iPad, 

"I wanna be bigger too!", 

so I simply held it slightly closer to my eyes and my brain relayed the image back to the astonished device, which responded, 

"WOW ! How did you do that?!?"

.....

....

...

..

.

Two Corndogs Equals Eternal Perfect Love

I have more proof that I am married to just the right person. I got home last night after being away all day and there were two sticks from corn dogs on a plate on the kitchen counter. That was exactly what I had for lunch as well in far away Stinnett, and we rarely ever eat corn dogs. Of course I suffered the indignity of no mustard - I have never heard of a convenience store running out of mustard before.

Gas - they also couldn't pump any gas or take a credit card while I was there because their system was messed up. So the elderly man in line in front of me had quite a shock when he had to pay for his three packs of menthol Marlboros with the better part of a twenty. At least they had an adding machine, a notebook, and a supervisor to tell them how to do the math.

Twenty

I think I figured out what's wrong with health care in the USA. They have been waiting for me to retire to pay for everyone. I found out today that my former employer is charging me more than $20,000 a year for retiree medical coverage for myself and spouse. I thought the "bene" in the word benefit meant "good" ?

I realize that my wife's medical expenses are a little bit higher than mine, but I think my total medical purchases during the last 20 months after my job have been ~10 dollars for one bottle of severe headache medicine, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a box of band aids. And zero visits to see a doctor.

A little later I remembered there would also be a couple bottles of vitamin B-12 at 250 pills per bottle, so that escalates the total into the 20 dollar range, or around a dollar a month.

So I have easily spent slightly more the 10 times that much money on health care for my dog (more than $200) in that same time period, but he isn't covered by the insurance policy.

Philososophy

My friend used the word 'philosophy' yesterday in a conversation. All of our conversations eventually spin horribly out of control into a jumbled pile slash mess of The hilarity and The goofy. In mock seriousness she said that I never let her express her philososophies. In mock anger I replied that I don't mind letting her express her philosososophies.

Then we had a discussion of just how many extra 'so' to include in the middle of The word philosophy and which 'so' syllable should be accented. I mentioned that in the future when she hears a public speaker use The word 'philosophy' she should immediately stand up in the meeting and ask them, "did you mean 'filled with sausages in me' or (if Islamic) 'filled with salami' ?" and then listen to see if the confused person can continue to properly pronounce The word 'philosophy'. She said she would probably get kicked out of the meeting. We giggled our good-byes, ended our run of pun fun, and I wandered away out into the mid day sun.

But this morning I suddenly see the need to have a prepared philosophy of flying sauces. This will come in handy if we are invaded by space aliens. For instance, if you find yourself talking to a space alien while admiring his space craft and you feel the need to attack preemptively, just ask him,  "Do you have a philosophy of the use of flying sauces as weapons?"

The confused space alien will then ask, "Do you mean 'flying saucers' ?"

At this point you can whip out your hidden jug of Molotov Cocktail Sauce that you always carry just for these types of emergencies. In a Randy Quaid Independence Day way you and your glass half gallon of sauce may be the only thing that saves mankind from certain doom.

The Queen and I (Speak At The U.N.)

(From July 7th, 2010 - this got lost)

From the news I read that the Queen of England was going to speak at the UN in NYCNY and it had been about 50 years since she last spoke there. In my entire 50 some years I think the closest I got to speaking at the UN was when I ordered pizza a few blocks away at Sbarro's.

Or it might have been while I was on my way to my hotel in Queens and I was stuck in traffic talking to the stoplight near the UN building. Yes, you read between the lines correctly: I drove in Manhattan and lived to tell about it. But that was along time ago and I am wiser and safer now.

The Most Important Quality To Look For In A Future Wife: Can she smell frozen pizza at fifteen feet?

A friend of mine mentioned ice cream in a Facebook post so I went looking for frozen treats even though I already knew my ice cream sandwiches were gone. I found a small pizza. Frozen. Waiting. Just for me!

But I decided to share anyway - Se~Cret~Ly!

I carefully and quietly unwrapped it in the kitchen with my wife just a few feet away absorbed in a TV show. I wish I would have thought to make all the noises of opening the package and starting the microwave to coincide with the violent moments of the cinematic entertainment, but I will save that for next time.

After I started the pizza, I thought, "this will be a nice surprise for my true love" just as I am fixing to walk past her arm chair.

BUT ... she smiles and says,

"I'm ready for my pizza!"

and I stop dead in my tracks! I'm thinking, "Wow! I knew her sense of smell was incredible, but that frozen pizza has been in the microwave oven for less than 15 seconds and it takes a certain amount of time just to generate a sufficient volume of volatile chemicals and then they would have to escape the microwave oven and dissipate around the corner into the living room ~~WHAT?!?!?"

So I told her, "Well, I found a small frozen pizza in the freezer and I was going to surprise you with it, how did you smell it?"

And her eye brows go quizzically funny, and says, "What frozen pizza? You're cooking a pizza? I was talking about that Pizza Hut pizza that me and Cooper didn't get to have last night"

... and then I remembered that we weren't able to get pizza last night because we called 10 minutes too late. I was so flabbergasted I forget what I said next.

Tamie smiled and said, "We're getting his mental telepathy thing down pretty good, huh?"

&^)

You're In Good Hands and Being Strangled At The Same Time

HAH !!! Here is a funny insurance story: 

Several weeks ago I received a refund for overpayment of an annual policy for a house insurance that had been paid in full probably a month before. Now I get a letter saying they are going to cancel the policy because I didn't pay some membership fee, which I am pretty sure is considerably less than the refund they already sent me.

AND ... I haven't even cashed the refund check for minor legal reasons far beyond the scope of this silliness, so functionally, they still have the money sitting in their account.

A friend responded that I didn't sound like I was too happy with insurance companies at the moment ...

Actually, I am learning to see 'the stupidity of giant corporations' as a form of entertainment. It's what keeps my lawyer busy, well fed, and clothed.

Insurance has been at the top this last year in the Stupid category. I have never built a brand new house and never plan to do so, because the purchase of more affordable older homes has worked out just fine. But they want to constantly sell me policies based on the cost to rebuild versus what I just need to simply buy another house in my local market. They raised my rates about 30 percent in one year. So their greed and insensitivity resulted in a loss of my patronage. I won't mention their name, but it rhymes with 'Stall Ate'.

And we don't want unbusy, starving naked lawyers roaming the streets.

David A Non Letterman

If a man named David who's last name isn't Letterman wrote a letter to David Letterman, would he then be known as a 'David the David Letterman Letter Man non-Letterman' ? Would the 'non' be uppercase? I wonder how large this group is and how many of them know they are part of it.

(OOPS! I noticed a system malfunction in Facebook where I posted the first paragraph)

Update: HELLO FACEBOOK !!! I worked REAlllllY hard on a beautiful 2nd part to the original as a comment and NOW it disk-appeared. Thank you .... I will try again, sad face follows .... (Do you like my new word? 'Disk-appeared' pretty nifty word. It means things that disappear from a computer mysteriously.)

Update: Okay, here we go again ....

Now I am concerned about the use of a definite article 'the' instead of the indefinite article 'a', so maybe 'David A David Letterman Letter Man Non-Letterman' ? - YES !!! - I think that is better lettering.

Update: So if someone defaced 'Facebook' it would be known as 'Book' ?

That would be confusing as people at dinner parties asked one another, 'Are you on Book?'

Update: I almost erased that last comment because I wasn't sure that it fit in well with the previous disk-course, but then decided to leave it in place.

(Do you like my new word 'disk-course' ? It means what people do when they talk about things using a computer as a communication device, but there is a requirement that the information must be stored on some form of disk, such as what I am doing right now. Spooky. There is a server some where col-lect-ing your thoughts and babble. Whhhrrrrrrr, goes the platter ..... magnetism flips the matter, lasers blip the bit. Blink. At high speed.)

Update: [ Oh, golly, I forgot all about women! How on earth did I manage to do that? I even like women really well. ]

So for political correctness, I offer this:

I suddenly remembered the last name of the female Jewish character on the CBS television show 'NCIS' whose last name is 'David'. So , , , think think think , , , there could be women who have a last name of David who have wrote letters to David Letterman as well. So would they be a 'Non-Man David David Letterman Letter Man' ? The final Man is a gender neutral role description, like 'Post Man' or 'Mail Man'.

Update: Now I need to start constructing Venn Diagrams to visualize this giant piece of Non-Sense.

From Wikipedia : Venn Diagram

Update: A friend wrote a comment - "Clearly your brain gets going late at night. Maybe it was that moon-burn that triggered your night-brained creativity."

My Response: Luna, I see.

Her Response: Ah, lunacy...

My Response: That's too funny - I almost started my previous comment with 'ah' as well !

Deer Mommy - A Letter From Camp

Oh,  the  things  I  do  on  Facebook  to  make  my  mother  giggle ...

Deer Mommy,


things are going okay here at camp, but I am homesick and wanna come home. The camp count-sellers are mean and the other kids are mean and the canoes are old and the cabins leak when it rains but I do have a grill friend named Tambo and a pet wolf named Rambo. Please send money and a bus ticket soon. I heard we moved, where do we live now? I love you Mommy,

love,

Urn-ist

Top, Bottom and Right Dakota

One, two and three, there are three Dakota states, not just two! Besides the North and South versions of Dakota, I learned today that the word Minnesota comes from the Dakota language, meaning "sky tinted water". So I propose we change the names of the three states to Top Dakota, Bottom Dakota, and Right Dakota.

I figured that the "old" North Dakota, now Top Dakota, would need to give up its North part because it goes as far north as 49 degrees, while the "old" Minnesota, now Right Dakota, goes to 49°23′ N latitude, which would have made it a 'More Northern Dakota', farther north than 'Lesser North Dakota' or 'More Southern Old North Dakota'. Fourth grade geography students are confused enough having a Washington state, a Washington DC, a Virginia and West Virginia, so that would probably just freak 'em out completely.

I forgot to check on Wish-consin to see if it was Dakota-ish: Nope, looks like it is Algonquin with a French twist (-degradation-).

Gas Prices for Borger Texas

Listing of Gasoline Prices for the Borger TX Area

As I drive by stations I will gather gasoline prices and update this list

Store Name	Location	Unleaded	Date Time
Allsup's	201 W 10th St	269.9	Jul 25th 12:40
Allsup's #41	Wilson & McGee	269.9	Jul 25th 12:43
Allsup's #210	511 N Florida St	269.9	Jul 25th 12:00
Allsup's #244	3309 FM 1551	269.9 (?)	Jul 25th 12:00
Express Lane	1407 S Main St	259.9	Jul 25th 14:52
O J's Discount	1103 S Cedar St	269.9	Jul 25th 14:50
Phillips 66	Jefferson & Cedar St	269.9	Jul 25th 12:55
Taylor's #57	1402 S Florida St	269.9	Jul 25th 14:53
Taylor's #77	3302 Fairlanes Blvd	269.9	Jul 24th 14:20
Toot N Totum	10th & Cedar	269.9	Jul 25th 12:40
Texaco	(on Cedar by China Dynasty)	259.9	Jul 25th 12:40
Valero	Cedar across from H.S.	269.9	Jul 25th 12:45

I am a Lion Man for the County

I posted a Facebook status of my dreamscape:

Had a strange dream. Lots of tiny rocks in my drinking water.

My friend asked if it meant that I had kidney stones.

I thought, "That would be handy, a look-up table that tied strange dreams to medical diagnoses." So I created these ones, which are probably extremely accurate.

Dream: Birds Suddenly Appear Every Time You Are Near But They Don't Want To Be Close To You because you appear to have insect bites all over your body

Medical Problem: Careening Carpenter Ant Bites

Dream: Lug Nuts Keep Falling Off Your Car and you look like Englebert Humperdink only you are compressed vertically to 4' 7"

Medical Problem: You have a cold (I know, it doesn't make sense to me either)

Dream: I am a Lion Man for The County and I drive all over the Maine roads.

Medical Problem: You don't have anything wrong, but several people in Maine have been turned into Purina Lion Food because you are not very good at your job.

Dream: You have a repeat dream with the "lug nuts" only this time you get it right and you look like B. J. Thomas and you are stretched to 7' 4"

Medical Problem: You have pneumonia (now it makes perfect sense, well, compared to the original version) 

Don't worry, I will probably add more "Dream/Medical Problem" combos in the future. Somebody has to keep winning Nobel Prizes in Medicine AND Writing Fiction and it may as well be me, say, I wonder if I would get two for this one article, as it stretches across both medal categories?

Now something for the real world:

Wikipedia Article: Where There Is No Doctor

Jaycee Dugard versus Law Enforcement

I realize that the Jaycee Dugard case is frighteningly sad and bizarre. But at 21.1 million dollars for a single victim compensation when there was not a complete judicial process but a legislative bypass with an almost unanimous vote, I know why the state of California is going, has gone, and will always be broke.

There is a difference between making a claim that the law enforcement system failed Jaycee Dugard and actually proving that it did. This "weak evidence against law enforcement" but high profile case simply opens a flood gate for similar inequitable settlements.

Link to News Story

My expectation of law enforcement is that they perform at best effort for the assets and people they have available. There is an expectation of equal and honest enforcement and services. BUT ... I don't expect perfection. There will always be "should have", "could have", "would have's", and there doesn't appear to be any express violations of law or misconduct on the part of law enforcement from my perspective, and I have dug deep, spending several hours researching this situation.

There will always be crazy, bizarre people among us capable of doing the things that Jaycee's captors performed. The number of times that her kidnapper was incarcerated shows that various police agencies had tried to take care of this individual when he had broken the law. If Jaycee had lived in a tightly monitored police state with informants everywhere, could this sort of thing have happened? Not likely, but then again, I don't think we want to live in a police state. And have there ever been serial killers in Communist countries? Why of course there have been!

Some Russian serial killers:

Andrei Chikatilo

Alexander Pichushkin

 

In the long run, the people who are hurt in THIS situation of the extravagant unjustified  compensation are the tax payers of the state of California. It straps the budget process for services that much more and does nothing to encourage someone to be a law enforcement officer, other than to fight against this sort of fiscal abuse by the legislature. As a society we can't afford this level of compensation to each individual, and therefore it should not be given to any individual. Stop expecting the state to do everything for you, AND watch your children more closely AS WELL AS your neighbors.

I Design An Air Conditioner

I designed an air conditioner. Start with an 85 ft wing turbine in my back yard that generates electricity to run a compressor that stores high pressure air in a 400,000 gallon storage tank, and then at noon on hot days the air is released suddenly straight up out of a giant nozzle forcing the earth to move a little farther away from the sun. 

Global Cooling.

Don't worry, Al Gore, it works just as well in reverse as a heater. The air would just be released during the night when the sun is on the opposite side of the globe.

Rube Goldberg would be proud.

Ooops!!! Typographical Error: that should have been '85 ft wind turbine'

The storage tank could be a little bit larger too, so lets go with 410,000 gallons.

Sorry, I forgot to mention ear plugs for the noise. Get a BIG box of those. You know how loud angry protest crowds can be right outside your front door.

Epilogue

Now that I think about it a few days after writing the original draft to this story, I like the "410" number for the storage tank size, as that is a shotgun caliber. It fits in well as a blasting device! Of course, as I was writing the story I was just picking all the dimensions rather randomly and dumbly, with a great deal of silliness as a guiding principle, go for the extreme, baby, go for the extreme.

Claim: Notice how I didn't make a claim that it works in a significant manner. I just said that it works "just as well" in a reverse manner.

Invention Link: The Next Invention in My Blog

June Really Bugs Me

One of my friends wrote: 

Theres nothin' like goin' outside to smoke and being attacked by june bugs

My Response:

One of the things that it might be like is:

You are standing by your grill flipping a burger in the mid afternoon and just when the burger is suspended mid-way in the air you are abducted by space aliens and transported back to the middle of the previous century where you are forced to attempt an assassination plot on Eisenhower but you fail, are captured and convicted, to face a firing squad. You hear the word "fire!", see the recoil of the weapons but never hear the gun fire as the bullets race toward our face faster than the speed of sound and freeze in mid-air millimeters from your nose (Matrix style) and suddenly you find yourself transported back to the middle of the backyard and your middle aged wife standing right beside you who didn't even notice that you were gone for those 12 nano-seconds and you could have easily caught the burger that was in mid air with your boxing honed cat-like reflexes but you are still flustered by the lead boooo-lits that were just this this this far away from your nose, and that one "female" alien looked pretty hot, and in the confusion you drop the last burger to the ground that was supposed to be yours but then Tigger the Kat swoops down and runs off with it. The last burger. And it was supposed to be yours. You need a nap, even on an empty stomach.

That might be worse than June Bugs. Hold it - did you say you liked or disliked being attacked by June Bugs? That might alter the story ....

Okra Dust In The Wind

The groc store is messed up with their frozen okra. The 1 lb size cost about a dollar, and the 2 pound size costs about $4. So it fits a y = x squared equation. If I could get them to sell a ~5 gram package (1/100 of a pound), 100 of those would only be a TOTAL of one cent for a pound of okra. Ya' just gotta love algebra, huh? (Hopefully I did my math right, its late in the day, I'm tired)

Update a little later in the evening: 

My next calculation is this story problem: If you could convert half of the known mass of the universe into okra, what size would the packages need to be so you could buy that half of the universe for one dollar, using the y=x squared equation from the first okra situation.

Math in  the Morning:

One estimate that I saw has the mass of the universe at 1.3 x 10 raised to the 52nd power, pounds. Half that would be 6.5 x10^51 pounds. My spreadsheet uses "E" for scientific notation, so that is what I will use for the rest of this discussion.

If the package size equals 1.5385E-52 lb, then the price per pound for that size would be that number squared, or 2.37E-104 dollars per package.

Take the half the mass of the universe divided by the package size to get 4.22E+103 packages

Multiply 4.22E+103 packages times the 2.37E-104 dollars per package to equal 1 dollar, U.S.

Which would allow the rock group Kansas to have a new song titled, "Okra Dust in The Wind"

BUT because Avogadro's Number has a mole of a substance with "only" 6.022E+23 "things", half of all the atoms of the universe would have to be reduced to subatomic particles in order to approach a package size with a negative 52 power.

Which might require the Kansas song to be titled "Okra Plasma in The Wind"

So perhaps a next calculation might be to find out what you can do with okra reduced "just" down to the individual carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus, iron and nitrogen atoms, ratio-ed out to their proper proportions in okra.

"Okra Atoms in The Wind"

And why did I choose to only convert half of the known universe into okra for the story problem? Because I have to make room for that Yamaha grand piano I hope to have someday, and I should be able to get one with cheaper okra and live long enough. There we go! Another story problem to see how long I would have to live in order to get the piano based purely on my okra savings.

Update after not enjoying rest time because people kept asking questions and giving me okra advice

I woke up way too early this morning and had to take a nap after all this writing and scientific math, especially all the math. Now my head hurts worse. But it is a joyous day for a whole host of other reasons. A childhood friend of mine expressed concern about the piano being ruined by the massive amounts of okra, so I responded with the following paragraph:

My plan is to convert mainly only the outer half mass of the universe and to leave that okra in place so as to not upset things gravitationally. I would keep just enough okra locally so as to provide a free lifetime supply. Otherwise I could wind up with an okraYamaha mess, and you know how people from Texas feel about things from okraYamaha, especially okraYamaha City.

My Hearing Isn't Always 20/20

June 14th, 2010

As I entered the grocery store this evening there was someone leaving the store that I have probably known for 20 years but most likely haven't seen in 20 months. It was late, almost closing time and she was with two younger people, so we had a brief intense, in-motion interspersed "Hi How Ya Doin' ? Fine" face-to-face-fast-paced-fleeting-greeting-phrase-fest as she walked past, as I was attempting to decide which basket to use. 

Just as she was a step behind my ear and out of eye sight I heard her say a final, "something something Wi-Fi" to me ...

- and -

my confused mind suddenly thought, "Why would this particular woman, be interested in my wireless Internet connection, she isn't in that business, well, at ... least I didn't think she was (?) " - so I repeated "Wi-Fi" progressively slower in my head three times, and the slowest time I heard the words "Wife Hi" - and I cracked up laughing, realizing that she most likely had said, "Tell your wife hi for me". 

I turned around and caught up to her in slightly more than 20 feet and a lot less than 20 seconds since the opening paragraph of this story, right outside the store and told her my Wi-Fi mental missed-understanding and she cracked up laughing as well. Then she said clearly and humorously slow with her hands kind of block forming letters in mid-air, along with a strange impromptu emphatic sign language, "TELL TAMIE HI FOR ME !!!"

So just as my residential N-Class wireless SOHO router reception isn't always reliable, my just so-so hearing isn't always 20/20 either, with things spoken in a slow southern Texas tongue tumble getting jumbled in the ether, bits and pieces twisting twang-ling in the breeze.

My 8th Set of MySpace and My Other Place Headlines

My 8th Collection of 100 Headlines, Status and Moments in Rhyme from MySpace, Facebook and Twitter

Other Collections of 100: 1-100  101-200  201-300  301-400  401-500  501-600  601-700

800: Iran: a country that can't tell the difference between American hip-pies and American s-pies

799: A^QUAFINA has done a marvelous job removing half the plastic from their water bottles for environmental reasons, only now we are left with a flimsy bottle that won't stand upright. It is closer to being a bag of water, something I would call a 'bagtle'. Perhaps a better engineering goal would have been to first try for a 25 percent reduction by removing half the plastic from the top section and leaving the bottom alone.

798: Ernest to the RESCUE!!!! I just learned that the lid for a 30 gallon plastic water container is a very effective helmet for hail. It would have helped to have been wearing a belt though, as I have lost weight lately, had one hand on the helmet, another clutching a pepper plant while trying to use it to open the sliding door and the third … wait, there was no third hand, that explains my embarrassment.

797: I saw a vehicle advertising a company named "Industrial Pest Management" today, and I thought to myself, "I wonder who's side they are on? Bugs need managers? Like, show-biz agents?" and then I thought of my praying mantis. And then I thought how Michael Jackson turned out. And then I decided, "No, I'm not going to tell Polly anything about this"

796: Dear President of Mexico: I just bet if you can convince your citizens to stop sneaking into our country and throwing rocks at our border patrol agents, then our border patrol agents won't be shooting and killing them.

795: Last night it was rather dry and lightening bugs were attracted to the cool damp concrete underneath my air conditioner. I wonder if I flashed the front porch light sporadically if that would attract real lightening and its friend Mr Rain?

794: While thinking about the Gulf of Mess-i-co, I came to the conclusion that it is our Chernobyl, only the breakdown of the word, the slow separation of the sounds 'cheer' and 'noble' ring hollow; BP = Bleed Petroleum

793: I think the person who wins the gubernatorial election should be called "The Guber"

792: I'm not sure what to think about President Obama's televised public statement about him "knowing whose ass to kick". When I actually see a video of him Chuck Norrisingly in motion, foot flying, making glut-max contact, a look of actual pain and embarrassment on the face of the recipient, maybe then. Until then, its just political posturing, Walker Louisiana Ranger.

791: I get on a plane headed to Africa. I find a nice comfortable fold out bed-chair combo. There is a bit of tobacco smoke hanging in the air. The cabin is dark and crowded. A woman in a row behind me leans forward and asks, "Ernie, did you forget to bring your food?" The worst part of this dream is I wake with a dry mouth and there is no hot coffee waiting for me in the cold real world.

790: I've known for a long time there isn't really an A&TT 3G network, its more of a 3g notwork in my suburban neck of the woods, with 60 thousand people within 40 miles of me deceptively overcharged and underserved.

789: You can functionally copyright the title of a book by having its contents be the title of the book, but then this would lead to books being twice as large and people getting to what they think is the middle of the story only to have it suddenly start over. Just think of the severe suicidal thoughts this could induce in someone who started reading the book originally titled 'The Never Ending Story', which would now never end twice. (I'm sorry if this seems twice as long as it should be, its just that the ink ran out in the ribbon of my typewriter and I had to switch from the IBM Selectric to the Smith-Corona and once more to the old Underwood I keep under my wooden desk just for emergency, oops, I mean emergencies, just like this one. Duck and Cover) I almost forgot to mention the effect this would have on card catalogs at the library and the table of contents on the computer screens of a list of 'book titles', and this would wipe out the remaining forests of the earth with Kindles mysteriously suddenly exploding as society shuts down in a Vonnegut Cat's Cradle like manner, the Druidly Decimated System still hanging in there in spite of the attack of incoming ISBN's. My thumbs are sore and the keypad to my phone is threatening revolt as my coffee goes undrunk and I dehydrate in a cold dark silent room.

788: The latest Apple iRobot disguised as a phone, was announced just today. It has a gyroscope. Goodie!!! That will come in handy, adding a touch of realism for when I am playing the game "Help! I'm a nuclear submarine trapped under the polar ice cap" with my dog on the living room floor in the blast of freezing air conditioner. (Is there an app for that?)

787: I just now learned that digital saxophones exist, the Yamaha WX5 - for $550

786: Abu Dhabi of the UAE claims to have the world's leaning-est tower, beating Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa by almost 5 times as much. But I think they have failed in this distinction: There is a difference between something that ' leans ' and something that is initially built ' cr^ooked '.

785: I wonder if Eqyptian law makers have ever heard of the concept of "ex post facto"? My children understood it's importance quite plainly at about age 4. This puts a big NOT on my #1 birthday wish (from my list of ten impossible items) of "Everybody Be Nice To Israel for At Least One Day Day"

Item #2 on my list of ten impossible things for my birthday: RAIN

784: I am down to a few gallons of rainwater left for my garden and vineyard so I wanted it to rain. It didn't rain HERE but most likely rained way too much somewhere else on the planet. My fault, I should have been more specific, "oar" because water is involved, I could have been more "Pacific". As an emergency basis I have a bucket catching the condensate from the air conditioner.

783: While I was cleaning up the kitchen I noticed that the vegetables from last night (potatoes, beans and carrots) looked drier and darker than normal - and when I picked up the fork in the pan - warmer than normal. They had been "simmering" for 20 hours. I turned off the flame.

782: While looking at a map this morning I saw they have a 'New City' near 'New York City' in New York state. OR, to state it mathematically, that is just like New York City, just York-less, whatever that means

781: yEA! NeW Free ToY !!! Learning to program in Visual Basic 2010 Express

780: Its the first day of the summer for filling the puppy pool. I take a look at this big wet dirty bouncy happy tail-wagging dog outside, and give him a new nickname: "E.V." - I can envision there will soon be Extra Vacuuming inside.

Ooops! Had to patch a hole. - > Six hours later - > Duct Tape appears to be working on the swimming pool - so it can double as Duck Tape as it appears to hold water, at least 6 hours anyway. Quack!

779: Proud owner of an almost new roll of industrial grade duct tape. Same old color, same old sticky.

778: Back of Milk Carton Notification Amber Alert: Polly Gone (Sadness Prevails) Why do you always have to wait 24 hours before filling out a missing person report with the authorities? It is longer or shorter when it comes to insects?

777: 18, Not 10 !!! When I bent down close to the ground to weed the blueberry bush, I was pleasantly suprised to see a new branch at the base, almost doubling the leaf population. But Cooper was helping me rip out the weeds with his mouth and bumping his head into the top branch, so I had to keep reminding him that, "this one is Ernie's"

776: You try and try and try to have nice things ... and ... I just saw the first worm eating on an okra leaf! Off to my battle stations ....

775: No wonder its such an extra bright morning, convincingly directing me to jump outta bed, the moon is contributing a nice big slice of white light directly overhead.

774: I experimented with ordering an Apple MacIntosh computer online to see how expensive I could make one .... about $21,000 if you get *eVerYthIng* .... of course that includes a nice warranty.

773: There was no T at our S_arbucks today - the bulb slash innards were missing from that particular letter, just an empty metal hollow box T

772: For historical purposes I try to keep track of how old certain things are compared to South Dakota. Charlie Chaplin (today's subject matter) is slightly older being born in the early part of the year 1889, about a week before Oklahoma City was created, with Adolph Hitler squeezed in between those two. It was a busy week, especially for an April.

771: If you have doubts about the BP CEO claiming there are no giant plumes of oil UNDER the sea, then go to the grocery store and buy yourself a bottle of Italian salad dressing. The oil is the TOP layer in the bottle.

770: China doesn't seem to wait very long to take action - 30 days from violating the law to capital punishment.

769: As my wife and I were leaving a restaurant there were three law enforcement officers waiting near the door for a table. I asked why they weren't out chasing bad guys, and pointed at my wife, saying, "Look!, there goes one now!" They laughed and the trooper said, "You can't beat up people on an empty stomach"

768: I finally figured out how to get my TV remote to work by pointing it at the opposite wall at just the right spot to reflect the signal beam to sneak around the DVD player. Its a complicated piece of minimalistic real estate. Now what I am really amazed about is that my phone's built-in dictionary has the word 'minimalistic' but not 'DV', 'VD', or 'DVD'

767: Fresh volcan-ick activity from South America with this one measuring 5 on the syllable scale.

766: So I wonder if A&TT is going to give me a 1/31 discount on my next cell phone bill for today's outage? I would rather doubt it ..... .... ... .. . . .

765: Advice for Candidates 101: Its a free country, but if your children are the ones who are managing your financial affairs, then you probably shouldn't be running for City Council.

Advice for Candidates 102: If you are running for office mainly to protect your right to keep a herd of goats inside the city limits, that might not be a good enough reason. It just depends on how much you like goats.

764: "i" wonder when Apple is going to reveal their iParent, and whether it will come with 3G networking and true multitasking operating system as standard features.

763: I told my wife today that she is no longer a mere cosmetologist, but a 'cause-a-magic-ist'. (She smiled at her new title.)

762: &^( goodbye, Art Linkletter. Thank you for so many smiles, giggles and laughs during my childhood.

761: . .. ... .... ..... I was with someone today who started talking about all the problems in the "Gulf of Lousiana" - and I had to stop to think for just a split second - oh, Gulf of [mental italics start here] "Mexico" [mental italics stop here] - based on several factors, I didn't offer a correction ..... .... ... .. .

760: Today's Favorite Screwdriver

759: Human kind and unkind is made up and down of so many millions of neighbors neighborhoods hoods overlapping and looping and lopsided and loosely defined and confoundingly confined. Tell me this, is 'Coke' the real last name of the cocaine drug lord Robin Hood of Kingston Jamaica and one way he has maintained power is by handing out sandwiches and hospitals?

758: I just saw someone who looks just like my son's father-in-law, but when he looked at me only one of us was surprised, unless of course, he was thinking the exact same thing about me, but that sort of event rarely occurs on Mondays.

757: I had not eaten at Popeye's in a very long time and couldn't remember why. The substandard chicken in today's jambalaya was the first clue and the second was the 2 inch chicken bone that showed up on my 1 inch spoon for which my throat has a zero tolerance level of acceptability.

756: First blooms happening for the tomato and okra, with both peppers, red bell and jalapeno, having hanging fruit.

755: I heard a rumor there is freshly cut pineapple at my house. Time to explore a frig with a fork to find a treat!

754: I think I'm going to faint OR I proof I have entered a parallel universe OR I'm dreaming: My wife just uttered these words "I think I like your soup" - a gumbo ! - Children, your mother actually said that about a gumbo !!! AND here is the other olfactory modern minor miracle: She prepared it for me! (Well, the vent hood was running at the time as well, so that probably helped)

753: I saw this declaration today: "Williamsport, PA once had more millionaires per-capita than anywhere in the world." I find this to be a rather dubious claim. I tend to think that depends on how you define the word "anywhere". 'This country', 'this state', 'this city', 'this neighborhood', 'this room', 'this moment' ....... ... .. .

752: I stopped for a break in the shade while mowing my front lawn and turn the mower around facing south. At that same moment a black cat crosses in front of me three yards away (houses) in my line of sight. Does that count for any theoretical partial degree of bad luck on my part, or because I have the lawn mower, a weapon of grass destruction, bad luck for the cat?

751: Do you remember that scene from the motion picture Con-Air where the dead body falls from the plane with the secret message from Cameron Pogue and lands on the car at the intersection just as it is fixing to take off? The instru-mental music from that scene is playing in my mind this morning.

750: I wonder if my dog understands my use of pronouns?

749: Now that I kicked my black shoes off and just sitting here in my white socks on the back step, I realized I look kinda like a Texas state flag, well after (YUCK!!!!!) being licked on the lips by a very happy dog and walked on by the same beast, a dirty wet Texas state flag.

748: Gee, today I noticed that the only difference between aspirin and aspiring is a 'g'.

747: From CNN: "The White House promises enhanced security to keep out the uninvited" - This was a reference to the 2nd state dinner for the protection of the Mexican president while at the White House, not a reference to securing our borders from illegal aliens.

746: I smile. A lot.

&^)

Chicken & Dumplings & Chicken for break-fast slow-ly sim-mer-ing

745: I noticed that tomorrow would have been my 30th anniversary at work which would have given me 6 weeks of vacation per year, instead of my current 52 weeks.

744: Being an an-i-mal whisperer is fun. I have a pet dog, a pet wife, and most recently a pet praying mantis.

743: I wanted to try the new Object A at Taco Bell along with my favorite carbonated beverage Object B but it was going to cost more than getting their Triple Combo that has Object C, which I detest. So I agreed as long as they promised to give away my extraneous Object C to the next poor person that came into Taco Bell. (Then I thought that could usually just be the next customer.)

I also requested no yuck-ah-molie sauce. So it pays to stalk me, especially if you are hungry. And like yuck-ah-molie.

742: What a day! So many robots to repair and so little time ....

741: As I am dying from hypothermia in the middle of the night because someone has too many fans running in the bedroom, this will be the last thing I see.

740: I think it is okay to ride a motorcycle, IF you never exceed 10 mph, AND you always stay at least 100 yards away from every other human and vehicle on the planet, AND you install an injection seat from a decommisioned jet fighter aircraft AND wear the appropriate safety gear for the injection seat.

739: I think we have a basic right to expect honesty in dealing with government. It is wrong for the government to offer amnesty by direct invitation to a select group of people and then use that merely as a ruse to lure people to be arrested and reincarcerated.

The government at all levels expects and demands honesty and truthfulness on the part of citizens with fines and incarceration as a penalty for failure to comply. The Department of Corrections of the State of California should act accordingly and they have crossed the line of it being a 'sting operation' by offering amnesty. I haven't fully examined their claims of saving the tax payers money just yet, but as a preliminary reminder, ends do not justify means, and we have a huge body of law that explains and provides for proper course of action.

738: I am wondering when they are going to rename the 'Gulf of Mexico' to the 'Engulfed of Mexico'

737: You know your high deaf-ignition TV is working well when the man in the movie on the screen bangs on the side of the metal building and your sleeping dog in real life wakes up, getting upset and begins barking.

736: I think boycott is a slippery path to activist mob rule. A primary tenent of democracy is one person one vote. Boycott seems to want to use the freedom of expression, assembly and action while upsetting the one-to-one ratio of representation.

735: Time to wander in some light rain

734: These aren't bifocals, they're try-focals.

733: Yea!!! Police dogs in Oklahoma are getting bullet proof vests. This makes me very happy especially after the terrorist shoot out in Detroit and canine death.

732: Dear NYCNY Police Department: There is a gas can in the back of our pickup. Please don't blow out any of the windows trying to get to it. I also promise not to park the truck in your city. Ever.

731: Uh-Oh, I think I just saw Obama and Pelosi kissing in public and people were clapping in the audience, and with it now being in the middle of the night, CBS news is just re-re-re-cycling through a handful of stories. At least I have a whole new set of lyrics gelling in my mind for the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"

730: A miracle has happened in Shoe-dom: My new pair of New Balance MX-622-AB has the shoe laces strung correctly from the factory just the way I like them with the lace coming in from the outside on top. Joy. ЯR ЯR ЯR ЯR ЯR

[A friend asked if I could spell 'obsessive compulsive']

My response: I can, but don't. OCD? No, OCO - Obsessive Compulsive Order (not DISorder) - besides, OCO is the same front-to-back, back-to-front, prettier. Organic Chemists like symmetry. [Smile, wink, giggle]

[… the same friend responded: I rest my case Judge!]

729: I think some people stay married purely for the entertainment value.

[My sister responded negatively with doubts]

My response: My main fun key funky function in life is a humorist and I just pass along some (and thankfully not all) of the thoughts that be-bop through my brain in hopefully an entertaining manner. There is typically a fine mix of dumb with wisdom, stirred and not shaken.

728: Based on the number of people who get automagically stripped from my followers list in Twitter, I am starting to get serious doubts about it

727: Iran: a nation clearly hell-bent on a subterfuge ruse through the use of a nuclear enrichment centrifuge

726: My waitress just sneezed and then quickly said, "Bless me"

725: I noticed a color similarity: Iron Man could fill in for Lobster Man, but could be easily defeated by hot bubbly boiling water and warm butter.

724: Oh, my, LOL, I just heard an Amarillo TX weatherman pronounce 'Yucatan Peninsula' with an initial sound of YUCK

723: I love it when the weatherman is wrong - come on cumulo clouds, you're almost here, almost, come on, RAIN !

722: Here is some proof I need help. Not sure which kind, mental or charm school. As I was dragging/carrying an armload of something to the washing machine, I accidentally knocked a piece of cardboard off the table. I apologized in an automatic manner with an "excuse me". What made it such a worthless endevour is that I was fixing to throw it away.

721: If you got a prescription for medical marijauna for joint pain but then after you smoke it for a long time and get lung problems, isn't that just a new form of joint pain?

720: MEG - My new nickname, the latest one, for My Wifey. It stands for "My Evil Genius" She laughed and loved it (You had to be there to understand and appreciate.) I asked her, "Well, what are we going to do today, Brain?" she had to be prompted to say "The same thing we do every day Ernie", she said, "What's that?" I continued, "Try to take over the world" NARF!!! (Hopefully this gets smoother; acting lessons maybe?)

719: Famous Last Words: "This 2 terabyte hard drive should last awhile"

718: It is important to properly distinguish between disease and dis ease

717: So, what happened with the weather? I need a report so I can get out of bed safely.

716: I discovered what caused my computer to literally crash - the heat sink and the fan for the microprocessor FELL OFF - that was the thud pop that I heard. It must have been held on all this time by the fortunately adhesive force of the heat sink compund. Thanks Gateway Computer for giving us a new diagnostic question for tech support: "When you shake your computer, does it rattle or BANG?"

715: "Name Non-Recognition" - I noticed someone running for office who has placards in lawns and billboards which emphasize a large BOLD last name with a tiny showing of the first name. The great part of American society is that practically anyone can run for political office. The sad part is when thieves do, people who have personally stole things from you.

714: BP has a large 4 story tall containment dome to put over the top of the ruptured deep-water pipe at the oil well site, which will allow the leaking oil to be sent to the surface to a collecting ship. I gave it a nickname: 'The Trojan Hose' - with visions of John Wayne from the 1968 movie about oil well fire fighters - 'Hell Fighters'.

713: New Oil-eans, News-weak magazine

712: Just checking around my house this morning to see if I have any long lost Picasso I can sell ... nope, no Picassos.

711: I tried to use a customer service telephone number just now obtained from connectmyphoneDOTcom so I could make a payment. I listened carefully to the choices and hit the "2" option for payments. But then it told me that it was unavailable to help me. I love phone robots. A real human would have been glad to help me knowing that I wanted to give "it" some money.

710: Today's wikipedia piece of furry confusion funny - I liked this title for an article:

"West African Dwarf (sheep)"

709: Our city gets a new Bennigan's but the menu looks chopped. Where's my chicken sandwich?

708: Why is the device driver for my HP printer 123 MEGAbytes big? Because it isn't really, there is most likely 122.5 MEGAbytes of Hewkard-Paclett fluff. [Strained smile - It automagically downloaded the version for a different operating system, thank you for wasting my time. The *correct* one is far smaller, but still massive "driver only" software at 41.9 MEGAbytes. Again, I suspect massive amounts of fluff. Just for spraying ink.]

707: I don't have one of those fancy loud whiny high pitched electric or gasoline powered air blowers to take care of my lawn debris. I have the atmosphere of the Texas Panhandle, almost always on the move. Thats why we have wind farms.

706: Today's Set of Empty Google Searchs:

a) "i want to be hugged by the Internet"
b) "Tall French People are stupid and invisible"
c) "My right big toe hurts why?"

[Be sure to include quote marks around your Google search to have it look for an exact string of words. You have heard of abstract art, right? This is kinda like 'abstract writing'. I am having too much fun and silliness today too soon.

Time to find a treadmill and do some banking.

Oh, and feed the dog.

And me!]

705: Thank you, Lance Orton

704: spokeo.com is a web site full of personal misinformation. I haven't done the exact math yet, but probably half of the info is wrong, out of date, or the display is misleading. Free speech is one thing and should be supported to a reasonable proper distance. This doesn't seem to fall under that category. This is wicked-pedia.

703: NYCNY T-shirt vendors - you just never know what you are going to wake up to on a nice bright lovely spring Sunday morning with birds singing outside your window, a fresh warm cup of coffee in your hand, a dog whining, a spouse with wild morning hair, and then read about who gets to be the latest hero as a first line defender in the global war against terrorism. I am ready for my second cup.

702: There are federal laws enforced to keep states from seceding, and a bloody civil war as a result and reminder. There appear to be plenty of federal laws in place to keep states from succeeding, as well, when the federal government blatantly has failed in its basic duties.

701: I just kicked Abraham Lincoln in the head. He was just laying there in the parking lot as I walked by. He went rolling and flying but probably not in that order. So did some gravel. It was most likely an accident and he was metallic.