Absent For A Bit ....

I am away for a little while working on a few or more episodes for The Adventures of My Space Alien Alter Ego story ... will return (to Earth) soon!

Notice: Blogger has screwed up and lost a bunch of photos out of my blog! They are replaced with a gray silhouette of a human head. I will eventually get them replaced with the correct photo, it may take a while to find and fix everything. So some of my stories don't make much sense without their photos, sorry for the inconvenience.

esbb

2013-03-14

Pi e Day



Several people, mainly numerical geeks, celebrate today March 14th as Pi day because of the first significant digits of the number pi being 3.14, matching the day and month.

But I thought of another number in math called e, the mathematical constant that is the base of the natural logarithm which has an approximate value

2.71828182845904523536028747135266249775724709369995... out to fifty places.

So combining pi & e gives you pie, a most delicious treat. I plan to eat pie today at sometime after 2 PM using the whole number part of e. For the eXact minutes I used the fractional part 0.71828 times 60 minutes per hour, which gives me 43 minutes plus 6 seconds.

So at eXacty 2:43:06 PM is when I plan to take the veRy first bite. Now, for the fruit fiLLing, do I choose appl-e or ch-e-rry? Ch-e-rry is my favorite between the two, but the 'pl-e' of appl-e looks so close to 'pi-e' ..... When I work on memorizing pi I only go out to 200 places, because anything beyond that is ridiculous.

UPDATE:


2013-03-07

The I-Paw-d

Inventing an Apple device for my dog: i-Paw-d

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Candy Caution: I noticed that the tips of Hershey's Kisses break off veRy easily when unwrapping the candy. It appears that the size is approximately 0.01 grams or less, which is a smaLL portion of the 4.6 gram candy, but it may cause tiny chocolate stains on your clothing, skin, or leave unsuspecting treats for rodentia.

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I ordered a new toy today. It is an Arduino microcomputer with sensors caLLed the Sparkfun Inventors Kit. It looks like great fun and I might learn a new thing or two about programming, robotics, and electronics.

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I am off to a great day in the outdoors: painting

2013-03-06

Excess Duckage



I have an excess of ducks.

A semi-long time ago (around Christmas) I watched the first season of Duck Dynasty on a DVD that was my son's Christmas present. I enjoyed it so much that I pre-ordered the second season. But then I forgot about this pre-order. Since that time I upgraded my cable teleBision and the second season has been playing several times. Then yesterday I got an email teLLing me that my second season DVD is coming.

What makes this so terrible is that I think the first season was wonderful, but the second season seems a little more fake and contrived. I have enjoyed Uncle Si, though, he is delightfuLLy insane. I know someone in real life who is almost just like him. I won't mention any names, but I wiLL say he is a goat rancher.

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You know it is going to be an interesting day when you mess up counting to five. And the game isn't reaLLy that hard ....

I love it when something that accidentaLLy looks like a plan comes together.

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Another Five: I saw a picture where someone had constructed two large human shaped feet out of snow, maybe a couple meters taLL. There was a caption on the photo: "Another Two Feet of Snow"

INVENTION: So we should start measuring in Toes as a unit of length. Look how easily it allows us to convert to the metric system - 10 toes equals two feet. I suggest TZ for the unit abbreviation. 5x5280 = 26,400 TZ per mile. So the distance to the sun would be 2.455 trillion TZ, and if the number of people on earth is 7 billion times 10 toes, that would be 70 billion toes.

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Good-Bye Mr. Hugo Chávez. It is probably a quite siLLy thing to blame your death on a secret US government plot to kiLL you with cancer. If the White House would have tried you would have been gone a long time ago. Maybe the people of your country can be free soon.

2013-03-04

Soon There Will Be Less Then More Then Less Then More ...

Watching Bolt (Walt Disney 2008) What a movie! Its plot reminds me of The Truman Show, so "The Tru-Dog Show" ? Hahahahaha

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Marrying a princess is reaLLy a two part deal. You have to figure out how to marry them, then after that you have to figure out how to merry them.

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So ... I haven't been asleep hardly at aLL and I have a stupid dream: my cow is stuck on top of a mesa in the far distance.

There is not much light.

Perhaps it has long horns or big ears, I can't teLL for sure, maybe both, or it has a hat on, or ear muffs, I don't know.

It is a long ways away and it is cold and it is winter-fering with my sleep.

I have no cows in real life.

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I am canoeing up life fixing to possibly make a veRy big choice of which tributary to take, that changes 87 percent of everything. Wish me luck.

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My child is suddenly 16 times farther away for most likely several years or in my case, forever. Sad. At least there is Skype and Skype equivalencies.

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Our microwave oven has been broke for several days, but it is not my duty to replace it because my wife wanted to buy the same model that she has at our store AND ... this is the important part ... she is the one assigned (by her) to get it.

So last night she gets a cinnamon roLL out of the refrigerator and asks me this question: How I am to heat this cinnamon roLL?

My answer: Hold it between your hands

She is tired and responds with 10 percent anger-confusion, "What does that mean?!?!?"

I laughed and said, "You asked me how to heat up a cold object and I gave you a technicaLLy correct method for warming it up to maybe 98.6 degrees."

I paused and thought of an improvement, "OR ... you could put it under your arm, that might work faster." Then I said something about moisture content, I forget the eXact wording.

My close way offering is not quite a microwave oven.

Much later I realized that if she simply eats the cold cinnamon roLL it wiLL heat up to her body temperature while also converting its chemicals as fuel heating up the body ... so in effect, a self warming cinnamon roLL. 

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My wife has stolen my iPad most of the time because her new game crashes on her iPad. Her iPad is older and doesn't run the same operating system version. Both operating systems are the latest versions possible for their particular hardware. Strange.
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I left out a veRy good story from Saturday evening simply because I wiLL have to see a particular teleBision commercial again before I can teLL you the tale. Sorry. But I have most of it wrote, just waiting on some details.

2013-03-02

An Egyptian Cat Walks Into A Bar

So I sit down at the counter of the diner and Jesus told me a half story of the Internet, saying that his girlfriend said something about Egypt, the Internet and cats. He couldn't remember that entire saying, so I used the Internet on my phone to google 'Egypt Internet Cat' - and the veRy first item had the saying that Jesus had tried to teLL me.

Saying: The Internet is just like ancient Egypt with people writing on walls and worshiping cats

Jesus got a kick out of me using the Internet to find a saying about the Internet, within about 15 seconds after he told me half the story.

I even risked my sandwich getting cold in order to find him the info. No, that isn't right, I don't think I had even ordered yet, hmmm, confusion.

I asked Jesus if I could blog this cat-Egypt-internet story and he said I could if I used his fake name of Don Juan Santiago de Sebastian ... I think I got most of that right but now it seems like I am missing one more name and now ever so slightly later it seems like I have the order slightly wrong.

I told him that I would give him a pseudonym of ... (and then I semi-randomly picked names using JESUS as an acronym), so his acropseudonym is

   James    (E name that I forgot)    Samuel    Ulysses    Saul

And then after aLL that creative effort he told me that I could use his real name.

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Why am I eXtremely sad today? I went to the McRib location service and there does not appear to be a single McD restaurant in the entire lower 48 that has the sandwich for sale.

Apocalypse Confirmation.

On a brighter note I was able to upgrade the firmware in my TI-89 calculator so that it wiLL properly chat with my PC.

I need coffee.

And Spring.

Spring, where are you?

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I just remembered something about math. I know how to do fractions using Egyptian Hieroglyphs. I should put that on my resume ...

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UPDATE: I just got back from McD for breakfast. Guess what was on the tray liner paper .... that's right, a flow diagram for McRib. Talk about adding insult to injury!

2013-03-01

pope adod ...&... YES!!! - I am old enough

I spent several frustrating hours spread out over a couple days dealing with my Internet provider, even wasting $80 for a new router, and they finaLLy appear to have their system working again. SO ... the very neXt day I get a robotic phone survey asking me (with a kind feminine voice) to rate their quality using a 0-9 scale by the keypad of my phone. BUT ... their system fails to accept the keypad entry ... I am not sure I have ever had this happen before.

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My wife picks me up at the entrance of the maLL. I teLL her that I think I got my eXercise in for the whole month. She replies, "A whole month's worth in one day?!?!?" I teLL her, "weLL, February is a short month."

T-"Did you want to go to Wal-Mart before we leave town?"

E-"No, because we would interfere with eXercise scheduled for the month of March"

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This Is Cool: Use google search engine to balance chemical equations!

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I have a new name for the neXt pope.

pope adod

What is cool about that name is that it is the same when viewed upside down.

This is useful if the pope puts his name tag on upside down.

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Waste what little time I have left on earth.

That's what some people do. I stop at a convenience store on the way home to get a six pack for a get together at my house. I am not actuaLLy drinking this but getting it for others.

The C-store clerk asks me for my ID. I crack up laughing because I am not even close to the legal age limit. I am old enough that when I was 18 that was the age limit, and now I am over THREE times that number! But then I notice that she isn't ringing up my purchase and find out she seriously wants to see my ID. She actuaLLy reads my ID.

I am not sure if I have ever been carded in my entire life. She told me that they card everyone.

I can't wait to turn 18 x 4 = 72 to see if I continue to get carded. ... or 90 ... but hopefuLLy I am no longer driving by then.

2013-02-23

Bizarre Bubble Bug in Blogger

Every once in a while when I try to leave a comment in Blogger the comment form suddenly acts bizarre and doesn't work. When I press a button, a bubble momentarily appears then disappears asking me if I want to Copy or Paste the mail button to the right. Of course I don't and never would. So it just wastes my time and I lose my typing, as copying it to the clipboard rarely ever works in this situation, but as you can see I was able to do a fast screen capture.

2013-02-19

This Old Microwave

To support the glass breakage cleanup after the meteor shattered the 49 acres of windows in Chelyabinsk Russia, I plan to drink a glass of vodka.

My plan is to slowly become more Russian. But Tito's Handmade Vodka is from Austin Texas USA, so Raustin (Ростин)?

A friend responded "Russians understand that anything imported is better than what they have, so that's perfect!"

My response: I wonder if they feel that way about водка and икра.

Same friend responds: "Now, even their rocks are imported."

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How you can teLL you have been married too long: When you say something to your spouse and you can teLL by their reaction that they have misunderstood you AND you already know the incorrect interpretation they think they heard. Does this make sense? If not, let me start over ....

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Here is a sad story

My wife got eXcited when she saw something new growing by one of our pineapple plants. 

I explained to her that it was just a weed.

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My wife ate aLL my smaLL Snickers, but she replaced them with a large bag of even SMALLer Snickers. I think it would be possible to make Snickers smaller than this, but they would have to change the name to Snicker.

I think Snickers could eXist in an even smaLLer form factor, but then they would most likely be in vapor form and highly combustible.

Do you know what is in the middle of a Snickers? ---ck---

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Today's Question: what can I make out of my dead microwave oven?

My Favorite Lawyer responded:   A step stool

A Washington state friend: A dog house for a tiny dog

From me: A bow tanker

From me: Donate the glass plate to Badger from Vienna, as the glass plate of his microwave oven committed suicide this morning.

I need more ideas, please.
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2013-02-15

Wolffalos

In a dream: I was in Stinnett TX working outdoors and Cooper was with me. Then he was suddenly gone. I yeLLed for him. He appeared to be playing with other dogs across the street but when several animals came running towards me they were aLL grey wolves which slowly morphed into a buffalo stampede. About this time I said to myself, "This is a dream." and woke up. Where is my coffee?

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Valentines Disaster! The chicken took too long to cook, I left the flame on under the veggies and scorched them, and the new style of home baked bread was below average .... I wiLL try harder neXt time!

I can usuaLLy manage to do two things at once, but not three. The problem involved baking two things while stir frying. Now I have a mountain range of dirty dishes.

I did manage to find a Valentines present for the both of us. The cooling racks for bread loaves come in a package of two.

2013-02-13

Nyet

So ... the president wants to try AGAIN to reduce our Afghan force, this time by 34,000 in a year. That is roughly less than a hundred people a day, less than one plane full. Um, question, don't we have more than one plane?

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I have a question: the Wall Street Journal has a photo of a Chinese performer putting a SINGLE live snake in his mouth and out his nose. WHAT does that have to do with the business world?!?!? Thank you for grossing me out today WSJ.

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Yesterday I taught my wife about the sand delivery systems that locomotives use to maintain wheel traction. I had read about them but had never seen them in action until we were waiting at the crossing on Wilson Street and happened to be the vehicle closest to the track.

Link to Wikipedia Article for Sandbox for Locomotives

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I learned today that throwing shoes at your opponent is an insult in Arab societies. I wonder if the Pentagon has ever thought about using shoes as a weapon for drone strikes?

As a shoe salesman I have mixed feelings about this practice. I guess if they aren't Vibram FiveFingers shoes that would be okay.

Dirty socks might be considered chemical weapons and banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1929.

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My new hobby: Studying Russian Spies, etc.

I have been busy with math projects. I wiLL publish them soon. I also put up some more photos in my blog Finding The Cute of the Universe

2013-02-05

Double Your Words, Almost

The FX channel schedule displays a movie about reincarnation on my iPad. In the pop-up window for the movie description they put these words:

   Down to Earth
   Thursday February 7, 2013
   After dying before his time, an aspiring
   comic gets a second shot at life...by being
   reincarnated as a wealthy but un-likeable
   businessman. After dying before his time,
   an aspiring comic gets a second shot at
   life...by being reincarnated as a wealthy

Did I see that right? I took a screen shot save just to be sure. After aLL it is 6:25 AM and I am operating on only a few hours sleep.

I found that veRy hilarious. I had to read it carefuLLy three times, not just twice. After the first pass through I asked myself A) I had already seen this movie, right? AND B) Did they reaLLy repeat the same sentence twice?!?!? ... Yes, they did repeat it, but then I noticed they had fiLLed the tiny pop-up box and truncated the last few words. Of course then I had to check it again to be sure it was eXactly same words and same order, yes, same and same, just incomplete. Then there was the whole process of copying it and formatting it into Blogger, so the amount of laughter got stretched out over a long complicated time frame, so it had a feeling of constrained diluted laughter, no, not laughter, there was no boiling, just hilarity, evaporation. Yes, that's it, comedic evaporation.

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Bigfoot

Bigfoot in South Dakota? How come I have NEVER heard of this before ... what a load of crap! Animal Planet channel is getting stupidly desperate for programming material. There are enough people with rifles that somebody could have & would have shot one by now. I think I wiLL start looking for Medium Foot.

Then I thought about the massive number of animals that have become eXtinct through the actions of humans.

Message from my aunt in South Dakota: Big Foote was Indian Chief, My address road named after him, killed at Wounded Knee.

Message to my Aunt: I had remembered your road name & the sign's wrong speLLing at the Interstate 90 exit, but there are people chasing a Bigfoot creature in South Dakota and elsewhere of course. I have seen some of the humans from the teleBision shows "Moonshiners" and "Duck Dynasty", and they could veRy easiLLy seem Bigfoot-ish from a distance, and that distance would not have to be that great.

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I am watching someone walk towards the entrance of the cardiologist office but then had to pause to finish their cigarette.

Then she threw the remains on the ground, nasty.

2013-02-03

In Seconds Place

The online cartoon xkcd is one of my favorite things. It is published three times per week on M-W-F. One episode, number 1047, gave approximations for physical events. One of the items mentioned was the number of seconds in a year. It has a fairly exact value of

60 seconds x 60 minutes x 24 hours x 365.25 days per year = 31557600 seconds per year

The approximate value given on http://m.xkcd.com/1047/ for the number of seconds in a year was 75^4 = 31640625

31640625 is 0.263% higher than 31557600

Today I was playing with differences of factorials on my TI-89 and found a closer approximation.

317! ÷ 314! = 31554200 which is 0.0108% lower than 31557600

Update: After reading Rob's comments I decided to see how long the 0.0108% of a year was in hours, and eXpress that value as a factorial division.

31557600 - 31554200 = 3400 seconds

One hour equals 60 x 60 = 3600 seconds per hour

So 16! ÷ 13! = 3360 which leaves 40 seconds

40! ÷ 39! = 40

But that last step is just cheating to get to an eXact number, because

X! ÷ (X-1)! = X

So one year equals (317! ÷ 314!) + (16! ÷ 13!) + (40! ÷ 39!) seconds

But then I noticed that 17! ÷ 14! = 4080 which is fairly close to 3400, and keeps the equation pretty with translational symmetry, the repeating of the 17 and 14's.

So calculating an approximate pretty value 317! ÷ 314! + 17! ÷ 14! = 31558280 which is 0.0022% larger than a real year

Pretty is important!!!

How To Properly Celebrate Ground Hog Day

Ground Hog Day is February 2nd.

Ground hog meat is sausage. So one way to celebrate is by eating sausage.

Mmmm ... sausage

Another way to think about ground plus hog is to remember what form of ground (The Earth) that hogs like best. And it is ... just add water ... Mud!!! There are so many things you can do with mud such as making mud pies and imitating pigs by roLLing around in mud. But there are a few delicious desserts that have the word mud in them as weLL.

If you are like me and tend to completely forget about yesterday being Groundhog Day, you could celebrate by watching the Bill Murray movie over and over until you have it memorized, or insanity or divorce happens. Another sneaky way to celebrate Ground Hog Day is by waiting until September 21st, which is Bill Murray's birthday.

Another feature of Groundhog Day is the ability of the animal to predict the near future weather with some shadow nonsense. I decided to try directly talking to a hog but I couldn't understand them. They are s'pposed to be rather intelligent. So I decided to try something else. I cooked sausage in a pan and then shook it to see if the pieces would reveal a message. The secret to doing this properly is to aLLow plenty of eXtra skillet space. A pan with bumps on the bottom probably helps.

The words that appeared were "ROB BANK"

I thought this was a bit strange, especiaLLy the part about using the B twice. But then I reasoned that the sausage was being efficient and entropy being what it isn't in this story. I figured the message could be interpretted a couple of ways. One, I have a friend named Rob and maybe the sausage was teLLing me to give Rob eveRything I have in my bank account. But then I remembered that it isn't a bank, but a credit union. So then I thought maybe the sausage is teLLing me to rob a different bank, a real bank. But I decided to shake the pan of sausage again and this time it gave me a dollar symbol inversed. I thought, wow, inverse, veRy creative sausage. So I went to the bank after eating my mystical message meat.

I approached the bank teLLer and politely gave her a piece of paper with this message:

"Please give me aLL your money. I was cooking sausage this morning and it spoke to me and told me to rob a bank."

This particular bank is where my wife set up our commercial account, so the people know me quite weLL. I go there often enough that a few of the teLLers even have our checking account number partiaLLy memorized. The teLLer reads my slip of paper and cracks up laughing. I wasn't being taken seriously! I even showed her the video of the shaken sausage saying and $ symbol on my iPhone. She laughed some more, soon foLLowed by even moRe teLLers roLLing on the floor laughing holding their abdomens. I felt this was veRy unprofessional. I puLLed out my hand gun and fired three warning shots straight up. But then I realized there was office space above me, and I heard screams both above me and the shocked teLLers in front of me. They slowly got off the floor and gave me some money. I thanked them and told them I was just obeying my (now) inner sausage, sorry for frightening you with the handgun.

But I don't know how much money it was because just as soon as I walked out of the bank I was kiLLed in a hail of police buLLets.

Then in true Bill Murray form I woke up in my bed this morning, and it was and wasn't Feb 3rd.





2013-01-30

Followed by Dumber and Dumbest

Today's Dumb Joke: The magician David Copperfield was going down a road when he suddenly turned into a driveway.

Today's Dumber Joke: Do you know where to find Ukraine on the map?

U look right between Tkraine and Vkraine

Today's Dumbest Joke: What are the two hottest days of the week?

Fryday and Sunday

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Yea! I heard the position for King or Queen of the Netherlands is opening up, but I would have to wait until April. Bummer. I could do that job.

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Time is magical on computers. The iOS 6.1 software update says
'9 Minutes To Go'
and I close my eyes to rest.
A few seconds later I open my eyes and it says 11.
I try closing my eyes longer. This time it's 12 minutes to go (!)
I try one more time .... Wait .... wAit .... waIt .... waiT ...... 13 minutes (?)

I must be sleeping wrong.

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I was able to fix a door yesterday. I think that technicaLLy makes me a-door-able.

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They have a local newspaper in Oklahoma that covers four counties. The unique purpose of the "OK Jailbirds" is to give you information about the recently arrested, and fugitives. The issue I photographed at a convenience store in Enid OK covers Garfield, Kingfisher, Major and Noble counties. It is published once a month on the 2nd Saturday.

Then I found out today that there are several local editions for different chunks for most the state of Oklahoma. I found the online site and this map. The western part of Oklahoma is very sparsely populated, so that is my guess as to why they don't have jailbird coverage (yet). Or maybe the people in those counties are better nicer people? After aLL, they do live closer to me and perhaps I am a positive influence on the crime rate in western Oklahoma.




2013-01-28

Almo$t Forever

The reason why the Post Office prints "Forever" on their stamps is because its shorter and takes less ink than "Good Until We Run Out Of Money".

I saw this morning that stamps went up by a penny. But I buy forever stamps anyway. I think any intended first class stamp from the past should be a Forever class stamp.

All my forever stamps are Santa Claus and Reindeer. That wiLL look kinda strange in July. Maybe.

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When I have shotgun questions it makes perfect sense to seek the ad-Vice from the Vice President. Oh, sorry, did I say 'perfect', perhaps I was thinking of a different fect word, say, maybe defect.

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Fact: Less than one tenth of one percent of aLL cottage cheese is manufactured in a cottage.

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Today's Dumb Joke: Do you know why they don't hold the Olympics in Budapest?

Because they would be known as The Hungary Games.

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Sometimes I think I accidentaLLy got some one else's bucket list.

It involves a wide variety of containers.

And surprisingly, lids.

I found a teleBision show caLLed 'An Idiot Abroad'. This episode has an Englishman in Russia. This should not be confused with a different show caLL 'A Broad Idiot'.

I just got finished hearing someone use the term 'Jet Age' to describe something ultramodern. The jet engine has been around for over sixty years, so you could actuaLLy encounter antique items that are 'Jet Age'. 

Considering when I was born, even I am 'Jet Age'. 

Most days I don't feel veRy ultramodern.

I am okay right now, weLL, most of me. The outside of my nose is cold. I am hoping it doesn't spread. It could turn out to be a strange case of progressive frostbite. 

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A Chicken of My Mother
 
 

2013-01-24

A Bridge Adorned

While traveling across Oklahoma I noticed a strangely adorned bridge. It is narrow on the east side, but bra'd on the west.

(Just west of Woodward Oklahoma)


2013-01-18

Goodbye Old Friends ..OR.. My Wife Made Me Throw Away Gold

After a year and a half I finaLLy wore out my Vibram Fivefingers Komodo Sport toe shoes.

My wife actuaLLy forced me to throw the old ones away!

So ... now I have a new pair of Black & Blue ones to replace the Black, Grey & Gold.

The old ones stiLL felt marvelous, they just had a "few" holes.

Holes are slightly incompatible with winter & wives.

I love being a Vibram shoe salesman.

So I took them for a walk in the park almost immediately. But I decided to take a chicken for a walk in the park too.

By chicken, of course, I meant that I had to stop at the diner just a few blocks away from the park to have a griLLed chicken sandwich with bacon.

While I was at the diner I told Shannon the owner that I had applied for a job far away. It was a technician job operating a scanning electron microscope. I told her that I probably wouldn't get the job or even an interview. Then I remembered that I had read an article about a guy who built his own electron microscope.

Normally these things cost a whole bunch of money.

Shannon asked me what would I need an electron microscope for?!?!? I eXplained that I had just read the article and didn't have any immediate plans to build one.

If you google "Build your own electron " ... then microscope shows up as the first item on the drop down box. 


So after my walk in the park I decided that I deserved a treat: chocolate

I headed to Wal-Mart to buy a 6 pack of Hershey's milk chocolate bars.

When I got out of the truck I realized I only had eXactly 4 dollars because the shorts I have on have these horribly long pockets that go aLL the way to the bottom, so anything in the pocket bounces on my knees as I walk, a terrible feeling. I also had bought them long ago at Wal-Mart. I thought, surely 4 dollars should buy me chocolate.

I was wrong.

The price was $3.94, which made me happy until I realized I would probably have to pay sales tax which would be 32 cents, so I was going to be short and 100 yards away from my truck!

The state of Texas usuaLLy doesn't charge tax on groceries, food items, but they have weird rules about how things are packaged which determine the tax or no tax rule.

So I ask the man stocking the candy aisle if he can help me cover my potential tax. We are laughing at me begging for coins. He only has 21 cents which I promise to pay back. He tells me the ladies at the service desk might be able to help me with the rest.

I go to the service desk and eXplain my situation and they (two of them) smile and start digging their change out. So they give me enough to cover the tax AND give me the 21 cents back so that I can reimburse the stocker of the candy aisle, which I returned immediately.

2013-01-16

And Then Something Else Happened

I was listening to Pandora, which gives you randomized selections of entertainment. They also give you a button to skip things you don't like AND things they have already played. BUT it turns out they have a daily limit on the number of times you can skip. SO ... I turned Pandora OFF ... hmm, I wonder if they saw that coming?

-------

I heard the Aflac duck is hospitalized and suffering from mysterious injuries. I think their main suspect should be Gilbert Gottfried.

-------

The local sports coverage was on just now but I wasn't listening too closely. But I did notice something odd in the annoucer's voice as he was narrating the action of the game highlights. Suddenly he said, "Oh, sorry, wrong tape." I think he suddenly noticed the words on his teleprompter didn't match the video being presented.

-------

I am having trouble finding the right frequency to shave. Every ten minutes seems too often, and every ten days seems a bit too gorilla.

-------

It is now 4:30 AM. You may think I am up early but I am actuaLLy down late.

-------

I originaLLy titled this blog post "And Then Something Happened". But that was the second to the last thing that happened, the naming of the blogpost. The last thing was adding the word Else. But now I realized that isn't true, because the last thing I am actuaLLy doing is writing about the titling process. What would be truly horrible is if in the future I accidentaLLy add something near the beginning of this blog post while forgetting that this declared final part being right here, totaLLy destroying my integrity. I think I need a sandwich.

2013-01-15

The Star T B Utton

Diagnosis: I thought the Start Button on my microwave oven was flaky, but it turns out that the "Door Closed Sensor" probably just needs adjusted. My son discovered that pushing against the already closed door while pushing the Start Button makes it start reliably.

HopefuLLy nothing else goes wrong that would require me to simultaneously hold my foot against left side while resting my chin on the top side while pressing my elbow against the right side.

I just want to heat my pancake syrup.

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My least favorite GEICO commercial: Eddie Money Travel Agency

Later: I just saw the GEICO commercial where the gecko is talking about his virtual coffee - which suddenly reminded me about the pot of real coffee I made but then forgot about while watching something interesting on teleBision.

------

Earlier in the afternoon I saw that it was 20 F outside. The F stands for Far in height, but it can also mean Far in length, too. So I set a target of 20 miles for walking at the park. I came within 19.5 miles of my target, but I won't say [weather] I was high or low. I am now safely eating inside, eating a griLLed chicken sandwich with bacon while chatting with Jesus and James. IronicaLLy the first thing James asked me about was Germans going below absolute zero. I doubt them.

Link to Going Below Absolute Zero

Also, the snow in the shadow of the foot bridge at the park was reaLLy neat. Link to PHOTO
------

Oops! I'm in trouble.

It is now 12:18 AM and I believe there is no where in my city that I can buy fresh jalapeño peppers. At least any place that I know.

If you happen to have a spare JP, bring it by, but don't ring the doorbeLL. Because I don't have one. And you might wake up people who are less enthusiastic about satisfying my need to make a perfect soup.

At this point there are probably three of you out there who are thinking, "If this guy can grow pineapples, why didn't he think to grow jalapeno peppers?" (I didn't speLL it with an ñ that time because I didn't know if those three people are comfortable in their use of squiggly n's.)

I wiLL gladly reimburse you two peppers for one later today, that is how desperate I am. I must stir now, good-bye.

No, I Was Not Also Standing On My Head

From Cryptogram Corner:

********************************************************************** 
* KP MA POBH OW GXHHJAB AG WZHHIF BAXH ZXHIOAVW PFKM TFHM K BKM FOPW
*                                                                    *
* FOW PFVBN TOPF K FKBBHX.                                           * 
*                                                                    *
* BKXWFKCC CVBWJHM                                                   * 
*                                                                    *
**********************************************************************

"At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer" - Marshall Lumsden 

This particular puzzle was more difficult than most cryptograms. I finally focused on the three words FOPW FOW and TOPF. I figured it out by looking at a list of common three letter words where I could slide a different letter into the third spot creating a new four letter word where I could then take the first three letters of that word rearranged would be the last three letters of a different four letter word, where none of the letters could be 'a'. Tah Dah! 

FOW -> FOPW -> TOPF
his -> hits -> _it

I carefuLLy eXamined about 40 three letter words, sliding different letters into position three (P of FOPW) before finding 'his'. I was pretty sure that an 'a' needed to be used twice in the puzzle as a stand alone word for K

After that, it was easy.

2013-01-12

Sweet & Smokin'

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

I came to bed only to find I had been replaced by my mate.

There by my piLLow was a large opened bag of Ruffles UltiMATE potato chips.

At least the flavor was Sweet & Smokin' BBQ.

-------

So ... There is a teleBision show caLLed 'King of the Nerds'.

Big Question: Why did they not invite me to be a contestant on this show?

A friend from long ago in high school responds: Because it said King of the nerds, not Lord of the nerds!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I took that as a compliment.

-------

(Afternoon) Cooper and I watch it snow from the comfort of the living room couch.

Just a light amount of snow. My neighbor's house has almost a complete white lauer over the sections of the unheated parts - garage and front porch, whereas the rest of the house has almost no snow.

More importantly, pizza is on its way. I must prepare the fresh vegetables for the meat pizza that I ordered. I add red beLL pepper, purple onions, and jalapeño peppers - aLL diced - to the meaty pizza, mmmm, good eatin'!!!

2013-01-09

No, I Want The McSack Not

It is stiLL McRib season but I show up at the busy lower IQ lunch run for the school kids. I try to teLL the clerk that I want my order to eat at the restaurant, but she is just barely out of hearing range by maybe a half inch (?) and doesn't respond. The young lady at the neXt register teLLs me, "Everything is to go during the lunch run." And I ask her to simply put my McRib on the TRAY that is right in front of me, no sack, please. Her response is, "I'm sorry, sir, we can't not do that."

Yes, a double negative.

I had to work reaLLy hard to keep from laughing during this episode.

When The Sack arrives 15 seconds later I carefuLLy take the McRib package out of the sack, place it on my tray and ask her politely not to throw away the useless sack. She complies for at least the three seconds until I turn around to leave. But when I turned around a second later to check it was no longer in her hand.

2013-01-08

Amber Alert Alert Alert

Sometimes when you are reading a biochemistry textbook it sounds like a sci-fi fantasy: "Kinesin, like myosin, is a relatively large protein (with a molecular mass of 380 kD) and has two large globular heads and a coiled coil tail domain. Each 100 angstrom long head consists of an 8-stranded beta sheet flanked by 3 alpha helices on each side and includes a Tubulin-binding site and a nucleotide-binding site. The light chains, situated at the opposite end of the protein, bind to proteins in the membrane shell of a vesicle. The vesicle and its contents become kinesin's cargo."

----

I just got a text message on my ceLL phone saying there was an Amber Alert in my area BUT it didn't give me any pertinent information, so that was an Amber Alert Alert. This is an Amber Alert Alert Alert because it is alerting you that I was alerted that there was an alert without any real alert info. My s'ggestion is to watch the news later.

----

We are headed into a store walking across a cold wintry parking lot and enter the shadow of the building. The wife is in a merry mood and has been humming some tune when her throat suddenly makes a strange unadorable noise just before we reach the door. I am slightly behind her and could have possibly heard something wrong, so I ask, "What was THAT?!?!?" - and she laughed and said, "I suddenly yawned"

(it is 5 PM - who yawns at 5 PM in mid song?) so ... I thought for a second, and asked her, "So, ... you were yaw-ny-ing?" with three distinct syllables.

2013-01-06

On The Twelfth Day After Christmas ...

Yea! I finaLLy got my Christmas present 12 seconds ago. My wife ordered a set of pots and pans for me. She got off the phone and declared happily and silly-ly that they were for me and not her. I told her that I had figured out her phone conversation. I am smart. Then about the time I had finished typing the previous sentence she squeezed my right hand pinky finger, to which I yeLLed "Ow!" VeRy loud then I asked her why she did that, she said "I felt like it" and then giggled, then annoyingly she started knocking on my pinky finger as if it were a door (because she can't see me writing this on my iPad) but I didn't answer. FinaLLy after the second knock I told her she was disturbing me, but I didn't eXplain in eXact terms how she was bothering me. She eventuaLLy left and I asked her where she was going, and her response was, I am not sure how to speLL it, maybe "pffft". I asked her what that meant and she indicated we must get ready to leave. Why? The most important reason of aLL: We are dangerously close to running out of coffee

-------

If you can't cherish every day, then try for every other day. It wiLL give you an interesting hobby keeping track of cherish and non-cherish days. If that becomes too difficult for you, then try going with an odd-even day scheme. I would recommend picking your birthday as a cherish day when trying to pick odd-even. For mathematicaLLy challenged people who don't know or care what odd and even numbers are, you can just flip a coin at the beginning of the day, heads equals cherish.

-------

Update: I just realized I got two gifts in one - I can use the old large pots for my pineapple plantation!

-------

Update: I have left and right socks. Then tragedy struck this morning. One of the left ones was missing. I thought, "Oh no! This wiLL lead to the remaining left socks wearing out slightly faster than their right counterparts." But then a short while later I found the prodigal sock, and everything is now okay. You may now resume whatever it was you were doing before reading this.

2013-01-05

Take My Sister-In-Law, ... Please

Several minor events ...

My wife asked me to take her sister to the doctor later today, but I accidentaLLy wrote my reminder as "be at her house at 3 to take her to the vet". (Cooper's annual appointment was the neXt day)

------

I am having serious graffiti problems in my dreams. They are mainly blue.

------

"I didn't know we were in communist Sweden" - one of the best lines from The Office (I don't remember ever hearing that one before.)

------

Today's Discovery on The Discover Channel: The Amish Mafia

Plus "Moonshiners", same channel.

I think there is something seriously wRonG with the logic processing of people who commit criminal activities while being video and audio recorded. But then its similiar to having law enforcement agencies and the military bragging about some of their special techniques and processes.

------

What I became aware of yesterday while glancing at New Jersey: There are three state forests in Delaware, but if you want to go to Delaware State Forest you have to go to Pennsylvania.

One friend commented: Peculiar

My favorite lawyer friend responded to him: He is, but you get used to it (Smiley Face)

------

What a siLLy dog. I blow my nose and Cooper starts barking in the other room (thinking its an intruder). At least I hope thats what he is thinking. I hope he isn't just making a general complaint.

------

After eXtensive linguistically archelogical, stellar, solar and lunar research, I have determined the Mayans were off by a month and reaLLy caLLed themselves the June-ans. So the world doesn't end until Jan 21st, 2013.

My best friend simply told me to "Shut up"


2012-12-24

I Should Have Stopped At Fourteen

Oh no! It's 4:50 AM and there is a tiny piece of music running repeating through my head from some movie or teleBision show and I can't seem to remember what it goes to .... I wasn't even trying for anything.

I am going to name this condition "I'll Hum In Error A Show Tune"

I have it narrowed down to one in about 3,247 movies.

(Pause as I dig through my DVD's for the answer after being unable to find it on iTunes)

Its from the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, chapter 19 on my DVD. Its the alternating merged practice scenes where it switches back and forth rapidly between Eric and Harold working with their trainers, and then the music ends just as Harold runs through the finish line and Mr Sam Mussabini clicks his stopwatch.

(An hour later) I actuaLLy figured it out several minutes ago, but then I had to spend time finding a pair of double A batteries for the Blu Ray player remote control device, to confirm it and figure out eXactly how far into the movie the scene was located.

I probably should not have watched this movie 20+ times. I should have stopped at 14.

2012-12-22

A Puzzling Christmas Present

My children liked puzzles and so every year I would try to find them slightly more difficult puzzles to push their minds.

One year I was groc shopping and saw a can of diced tomatoes, and I thought, "Hmm, I wonder if they could do it?" - and sure enough they were able to reassemble a tomato, weLL, the 93 percent of the tomato that actuaLLy made it into the single can.

NeXt year's puzzle took them a little bit longer - I mixed two cans of diced tomatoes.

2012-12-18

Pineapple, Size Seven, Please

Pineapple Plantation News: Several weeks ago I discovered a new pineapple plant growing from the side near the base of my oldest pineapple plant, the one I harvested a fruit from in August. Today I discovered a second plant growing from the other side, so now the size of my plantation is 7 plants! I am going to definitely repot this trio into a larger container. 


2012-12-17

The Lost McRib

[Day Two of McRib Hunting Season]

I decide to do an eXperiment with a McRib sandwich. I don't like the giant pieces of white onion that come with the sandwich, so I decide to swap them with diced purple onions from my own kitchen.

I take my diced purple onions to McDonalds and order a McRib with no onions, but I teLL them that I want the usual pickes.

The process of getting a speciaLLy made McRib with less on it takes over twice as long as usual. But I survive.

I open it up at my table and the onions are stiLL on it like normal, BUT the pickles are not on the sandwich.

So I take it back to the ordering counter and eXplain the situation to my clerk. She takes it back to the kitchen area and eXplains what needs to be done. The tiny short chef appears confused and starts to walk away from me, but then someone says something to her and she throws my incorrect McRib sandwich in the TRASH can! My heart stops and sinks at the tragic loss.

So they give me the new improved pickled sandwich, this time a little faster than before. I get to my table and open it up - yes, the pickles are there, two of them, no onions, BUT this time there is only a tiny amount of BBQ sauce.

So I return the sandwich to the ordering counter and beg them to not throw away my precious McRib this time, but only add some BBQ sauce. So about 5 people gather around a dipping vat as my meat is twirled in a BBQ bath. One person twirling my meat while four watch. Five - if you include me. The sides of the BBQ bath are transparent so I can see it rotated about six times.

Yea! I finaLLy get my McRib to the table so I can put the purple onions on it. The only problem is they put so much sauce on the sandwich that probably 1/3 of my tiny onions ran away with the eXcessive sauce.

Badder luck neXt time.

Future Experiment: Jalapeño Peppers on a McRib

2012-12-16

The Hunt for Something I Read in October

I should probably stop playing Sudoku.

I just woke up from a dream where I am solving Sudoku puzzles verbaLLy, but I am a different person, Michael Weatherly, the actor from the teleBision show NCIS who is the character named Anthony DiNozzo. So I am DiNozzo doing Sudoku instead of fighting military crime, and I am arguing with someone about whether I should help my enemies with their Sudoku problems, and I am against helping them.

Suddenly I am no longer DiNozzo, but now I am the tiny old cranky funny lady from the spin-off series, NCIS: Los Angeles, an actress named Linda Hunt who plays Henrietta Lange. And Henrietta, (the new now me), must have been the one that DiNozzo was arguing with about Sudoku, because she says, "Well, I always help my enemies with their Sudoku puzzles!", and takes a sip from her cup of tea.

Then I woke up.

The worst part of this is that I woke up and my left shoulder stiLL hurts.

And I wasn't even playing Sudoku right before I feLL asleep, I had been studying about bone marrow transplants. So this is the only logical eXplanation I have to offer: don't study bone marrow transplants before taking a nap.

So I grab the telephone book and turn to the M section.

I walk by my wife in the livingroom and she asks, "Who are you caLLing?"

I say, "McDonalds"

She questions, "Why, did they do something wrong?!?!?"

"No, I'm caLLing to get you a job there."

She laughs and says, "NO! You can have a job there!"

I caLL McDonalds and ask them if their store in my town is currently seLLing McRibs. But it is noisy on his end and I have to repeat my question. I said, "Did you say 'Yes'?" and he responds, "Yes", and I echo his yes message.

And my wife just a few feet away asks, "Do they have McRibs?"

I say, "Honey, I said yes twice."

Now I wonder if my wife wiLL faLL back asleep and have dreams about McRibs. I s'ppose that is better than her dreaming about Tony DiNozzo.

Now I am hungry.

(several minutes later)

My wife walks into the kitchen.

I ask her, "WiLL you go to McDonalds and get me a McRib?"

She laughs and says, "You want ME to go to McDonalds and get you a McRib?"

I answer, "No, I want two of them. No french fries."

She walks away from me and says, "Does the back of my head (hair) look okay where I slept on it?"

Without looking I say, "It looks fine."

She responds with a snort, "You didn't even look!"

So she backs up to me and I lightly run my fingers through her hair, s'pposedly making an (hah!) improvement. I make positive affirmations similar to when I am teLLing Cooper how good a dog he is.

She responds, "I'm not Cooper!!!" and begins to laugh but then starts coughing and not so much laughing. So my humor delayed getting my McRibs by a few moments.

She puts on her jacket, "So, two McRibs, no fries, no drink? ... Sorry, Cooper, you don't get anything since you didn't eat your breakfast."

I respond "Yes" and she is out the door.


We eat.

A half hour passes by.

My wife is antagonizing Cooper trying to take away his dog biscuit, its a game they often play.

My wife says that she is leaving to go shop at a store named Maurice's. She asks me if there is anything she can get me while she is gone.

I respond, "Could you get me another McRib?"

She responds with a shocked voice, imagine an unusually loud whisper, "Are you kidding me?!?!?"

I say, "Yes."

2012-12-14

Goodnight

December 14th, 2012

I must sleep now,
there is too much sadness today,
things private and public.

2012-12-08

The Insanity of Albert Ine-stine

Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So I tried flipping a coin and for the longest time (17,453 tries) I got just heads and tails. But then the 17,454th time it landed on it's side and stayed there.

I published the first paragraph in Facebook and I wonder how many of my friends think I reaLLy flipped a coin 17,454 times. Of course the people who reaLLy know me would have realized that I would have built a huge bank of multiple coin flipping machines or robots and then I would have used video surveillence with optical scanning, looking for something besides heads or tails, aLL of it completely automated with a reporting system that sent me an email complete with the photo of the coin on its side.

And then the winning robot would have informed the other robots that they could stop. Then the losing robots would give their coins to the winning robot, after examining the photographic evidence. And that is basicaLLy how the Roman Empire got started.

2012-12-05

Very Pretty

What the kids are saying: It is what it is

What history teachers have been saying: It was what it was

What Australians are saying: Wallabies will always be wallabies



I was having a conversation with my wife about how the word 'pretty' is used quite heavily in our part of the world to mean 'very'. She said that she doesn't hardly ever use the word very. Then she rattled off several eXamples of pretty as very.

... pretty stupid ...
... pretty dumb ...
... pretty long ...

My favorite?

... pretty ugly ...



T: "Can you take $94.11 away from $191.52?"
E: "Yes."


I woke up from a veRy vivid dream that left me in a state of eXtreme agitation. In the dream I had a kitchen drawer that was a couple inches high, but because it was the top drawer there was a higher internal dimension, so there was a larger cooking pan trapped in the drawer that I couldn't get out. So now I reaLLy need to go back to sleep to figure out how to tear the cabinet apart to rescue this trapped pan. I just hope nothing bad has happened to the pan since then, because it was yesterday morning that I had this dream, not today. It would be terrible to go back to the dream to find out that someone else had solved the problem and then not showed me how, or worse yet left me with a kitchen drawer to repair. I have better things to do in my dreams than repair other people's destruction of my kitchen drawers.

2012-12-03

Pie Are Shared, Cornbread Are Square

My favorite attorney sent this joke to me in Facebook:
Not sure why, but I saw this joke and thought of you..

After a minor mathematical error on a routine report, a worker's boss tried to belittle him in front of his peers. 

Angrily she asked, "If you had 4 Apple Pies and I asked for one, how many would you have left?" 

Quickly he replied, "If it was you who asked, I'd still have 4."

My Responses: Lovely. Absolutely wonder-fuLL. Pie are squared, not pie are shared. [Now I have an {un}eXplained desire to drive aLL the way to To-n-To to get a fried cherry pie, why?]

Glossory For Non-Locals: To-n-To is an abbreviation for the convenience store chain Toot-N-Totum, my local spot for fried cherry pies, cappuccino, and diesel.

My Synthetic Sound World

I have been adding new sound toys to my life lately. I have had a Yamaha keyboard for quite sometime, but I haven't been playing it. But I got a Korg Kaossilator Pro synthesizer and fed the Yamaha into it, and use my Bose NR headphones. Then I found two fabulous iPad apps that emulate real Korg devices, the MS-20 monophonic analog synthesizer and the Electribe synthesizer. So now I am making lotza strange sounds and having fun. The two iPad apps were 10 and 15 dollars, and the Kaossilator plus cables and tax was around 500 dollars.

Driving Miss Crazy

My most recent Facebook Status (and almost totaLLy untrue story)

I came to a stop at a 4 way intersection with 3 other vehicles at nearly the same moment. I had wanted to go straight but aLL three other vehicles simultaneously turned right, so I did too. It just felt like the right thing to do.

From my favorite attorney: Steer pressure?

My Response: You are 50 percent correct. The other 50 is peer stress-ure.

New Blog for My Abstract Art ... Come Visit

Click HERE for the Art of Ernest S B Boston

These are pieces that I have generated mainly using computer art tools. Enjoy !

Something New:

I am also in the process of linking my poetry blog entries together. This project is only partially finished. A "Poetry LINK" at the bottom of the blog entry points to the next older piece of poetry.


First poem in the series of linked poems ....

Turn Gold Out of the Darkness

Turn Gold Out of the Darkness

Blog Archive

My Art

These are some of my abstract art pieces. They are available as prints, send me a note if you are interested.

Couch Glow

Couch Glow

Gold As Smoke

Gold As Smoke

Flowing Wood

Flowing Wood