Publius & Co.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. They live about seven miles away, so I didn't have to deal with airports or trains or lost luggage or the hairy fishnuts or something. I did have to deal with traffic, but it was no big deal. Rush hour to the Metro is a lot worse.

Standard dinner, with both a turkey and ham (Dad isn't a big turkey fan). My half-bro and his wife were there; throw in me, dad, and my stepmother, and that was it.

Dull, eh?

In other news, I found this comment from Ted, in response to my disappointment no one noticed I was MIA: I checked every day. Nic didn't seem worried, so I stayed calm.

Oh yeah. Forgot about her blog. I'm reasonably sure if something had happened to me, the gf would've blogged about it.

Dumbass People

This post (the second part) over at LeeAnn's reminded me of Idiot Neighbors I Have Had. My stories don't compare to LeeAnn's tales of woe, but I've lived a pretty uninteresting life. So--my lame Idiot Neighbor story:

I've lived in too many townhouses. One major problem is parking. The developments I've lived in have one (and only one) assigned space per house; of course, a house with one (and only one) car in the Washington Metropolitan Area is as rare as soap at a Nader rally (I've walked by some of those--trust me on this one).

The first townhouse we lived in, my father had two cars: his family van and a Pinto that I drove and everyone thought was mine. My next door neighbor, who was just plain ol' weird, had one car. He parked in his space, my father parked in his space, and I parked in a small common parking area--about eight spaces were available--across the lane. There were usually only three cars in that common area, and more often than not, I parked in the same space.

One day, my father told me that our neighbor, H, had asked if I could move my car, on a day when it was the *only* one there. My father pointed out there were seven other spaces there, and H exclaimed, "But I need that one!" with no explanation as to why. My father, who didn't like this guy any more than I did, told him I was asleep and shut the door.

A few months later, my brother told me the same story--only this time, H was informed by my brother the Pinto couldn't be moved because there was no radiator in it (and there wasn't--my father and I had it in the back yard and we were sealing some leaks that had sprung). Again, there was only one car in that area, and seven empty spaces.

OK, those are lame-ass stories, but I've got to get back into the blogging spirit. I admit these don't compare to Serenity's parking stories.

I'm alive.

I've been involved in The Office Move From Hell. The less said about it the better.

I confess, when I realized I hadn't blogged in quite awhile, I thought about pulling a Collins to see if anyone would miss me, but alas! It seems no one cares about me except for the gf, the rats, and the guinea pigs...and the guinea pigs only care about me because I feed them.

Anyway. Last night, the gf asked me if I had ever heard of a turducken. Being a former Hotel/Restaurant management type in school about a million years ago, of *course* I've heard of a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck that was stuffed into a mostly deboned turkey. I also know it was first created several hundred years ago, during the times of the Grand Banquets in the Great Halls of The Castle, back before America was populated with Anglos and also while someone else was baking four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie as a centerpiece for a banquet.

(Actually, the crusts were baked, the birds put in the bottom, and the top put on. Someone cut the top crust, the birds flew out and probably pooped over everyone's meal. Must've seen like a good idea at the time).

Back then, there might well have been some quail inside the chicken, and they used a goose instead of a turkey. It's actually a pretty old recipe. I'd like to try it sometime.

Eating it, that is. I'm not making it.

BTW, the duck grease helps keep the inside nice and moist. Just so you know.

More inspiration from Ted

Ted posted a seriously funny story entitled "If it isn't true, it should be". I'll not summarize the story; if you haven't read it yet take a few moments to click on the link, then hit your backspace key. I'm not going anywhere.

***

Wasn't that funny? No, he doesn't really owe me a new keyboard. But I had to find out if it were true. And, as it turned out, it's half-true.

I headed over to Google to try to find "wbam chicago" and maybe find the website for the radio station. Immediately, something made the hair on the back of my neck stand up: You know how Google asks, "Did you mean..." if you misspell a word? It asked, "Did you mean wbbm chicago." Hmmm...

Turns out every hit related the story. Cool. But there wasn't the slightest clue of a WBAM in Chicago. . .so I headed over to the FCC to try to track the call letters.

Guess what? There is a WBAM, only it's in Alabama. More searching revealed WBAM is "Alabama's New Country" at 98.9 FM on your radio dial. You can click the link on that page for (what I think is the) official WBAM website, but I don't recommend it, unless you like popup ads.

Suddenly, I had a duh moment. Snopes, the depository of all Urban Legends! (Duh. Why didn't I head there first? Dunno--that's why I call it a "duh" moment.)

Yep. Right here. . .and it's true! Kind of.

Yep again, a similar incident happened on "The Newlywed Game", just as Ted related. Betcha it was misremembered, somehow.

BTW, Snopes has video of the incident, and it's bleeped, but, as Ted said, you can read her lips. Absolutely hilarious!

I wonder if they're still married?

Books you don't need.

Ted found an entire website dedicated to . . . napping. It sells books and napping gear, for cryin' out loud!

(Lord, was P.T. Barnum right or what!)

Fortunately, I have not been able to find a website dedicated to the subject matter of this book . . . but I've no doubt there's one out there . . . somewhere . . .

These are a few of my favorite things...

Rats and beer, all in one fine package! "The taste will plague you," indeed.

Yeah, I've been to the Wharf Rat in Baltimore, too. I think I had their Best Bitter, and I remember it being quite good.

Seriously, guys...

Inter-Munuvian Hockey Whoop-Ass Jamoree

Last night, Ted's San Jose Sharks lost to Munuvian goddaughter Heather's visiting St. Louis Blues, 4-3 in OT. By the rules of the Inter-Munuvian Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, Ted should replace his Sharks logo on his blog with the St. Louis logo, but Heather hasn't posted her Blues logo on her blog (as she is afraid of jinxing her team, and I understand completely, as I'm sure Ted does. Guys understand Jinxes.) so Ted gets a pass.

(I'm just pointing this out--I want to emphasize I am not dissing Heather for her actions (inactions?), just clarifying something. I think Heather wants to participate, but she is, in effect, taking one for her team in her own way. Therefore, I award ten MuNu points for Heather!)

More Bloggers Block!

Whoo and hoo. Nope, can't think of a single thing to post about, except to talk about how I can't think of anything to post about. I'm sure there are some wags who are thinking, "That means you have something to post about, so you're lying! Again!"

No, that doesn't count, on the
twice-nothing-is-still-nothing principle. Heh.

OK, as much as Susie hates weather reports, I'm going to give one anyway: It's fucking cold and windy in the DC area today. This morning I moved my beloved grill against the fence; it hasn't yet been blown over. I stepped in doggy-doo to save my grill, people!

I'm adding some humor stuff to my blogroll. My first offering: x-entertainment. Honest and for true--it's work safe, if it passes thru your filters. Check out the recreation of the Thanksgiving dinner from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Good stuff, you bet.

The gf found a blog by Mala, someone who lives in DC and takes cool pictures. Here I discover she has sat next to me on the Metro. She goes on the blogroll.

I'm adding some other people, too, but I'm too tired to list them all. So I close with this, with assists to the gf and The Hockey Pundits: The Worst Hockey Logos Ever!

So I'm a Geek

Bowing to pressure from the gf I finally took the Geek Test. As someone who has paid the mortgage by fixing computers, you'd figure I'd score pretty high. I guess I did: 26.23274% - Total Geek, but that's third from the bottom on a scale of one to eight.

(Five decimal places? Makes you wonder if the difference between Geek and Total Geek is 23.5201 and 23.5202.)

So I'm not that geeky, and I know that. It didn't ask, "What is your favorite OS?" and offer either CTOS, BeOS, and DOS (yes, DOS!) as choices. A test this limited would've only offered Windows, LINUX, and UNIX (maybe Mac OS, but I doubt it).

(For the record: CTOS. It had built-in peer-to-peer networking in the mid-Eighties, commands were issued by filling in a form, and never crashed. Never. I threw in BeOS just to look extra-geeky.)

By contrast, my gf's score was 27.0217% - Total Geek as well, and a higher score than mine. She argues females get five bonus points right off the bat and they shouldn't; she doesn't see that if you're female and willing to sit thru that furschlugginer fucking long stupid test, five points off the bat is not enough--it should be at least twenty.

Ted's score was 22.49 - Geek and he's not sure if he's insulted or relieved (Ted was the guy who got this whole thing going).

Personally, if I were Ted, I'd be insulted. Dig it: Programmer by day, amateur rocket scientist by night--if that isn't geeky, I don't know what is. I betcha Ted knows Arthur C. Clarke was one of the founders of the British Astronomical Society, and not too many people do. Me, Ted, and Mr. Clarke may be the only people in the world who do know that, except for those of you who've just read it here.

I suspect Ted might've gotten some of his answers wrong. It's like, it's been so long since he's done some of that stuff, he's forgotten he's done 'em, you know what I mean?

Anyway, Ted is totally cool because he launches rockets and knows Arthur C. Clarke was a founding member of the BAS, and I can't wait to submit questions for his interview with Jen.

No Goal!

That would have tied it up, if it hadn't been waved off. Bleah.

You can read my review of the Capitals week at the Sports Blog.

Photograph copyright 2003 by Victor Ramirez. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate without permission.

More random stuff.

My beloved Capitals are about as consistent as...hmmm. Can't think of a comparison, but they're not very consistent. They played well against the NHL's (at the time) only unbeaten team, and spanked the Lightning, 5-1. A few nights later, they played like beginners for forty minutes, then (allegedly--I stopped watching the game in disgust) had their third and fourth lines wake up for the final twenty minutes, and lost to Philadelphia, 4-2. Tonight, they go up against Ted's Sharks in the next round of the Inter-Munuvian Whoopass Hockey Jamboree, and one of us will be putting up the logo of the other guy's team, depending on which Capitals team shows up tonight.

So far, only three people are officially in the Inter-Munuvian Whoopass Hockey Jamboree: Ted, Helen, and myself. I was really hoping my Munuvian goddaughter Heather would put up her Blue's logo (not that it matters to me; the Caps don't play the Blues again this year, and I doubt they'll meet in the playoffs). Jennifer said she'd compete if someone told her when the Blackhawks are playing, but she hasn't put up a logo.

(Yes, Jennifer and Heather, that is a hint.)

Anyway, there were tornados in the area this past Wednesday. I'm at work, the phone rings, and it's the gf telling me there's a tornado warning for Montgomery County. I go to the website of the local all-news AM station, and they've got the NWS bulletins up, including one that started TORNADO CONFIRMED! or something (I remember the word "tornado" followed by one that said it was real: sighted, confirmed, tearing the roof off the building right this damn minute...something like that) and the exclamation point.

She was in the basement with the dog; she had shoved the rats into travel cages and put them in one of the bathrooms, and the guinea pigs went into blue plastic totes and followed the rats into the bathroom. At the time she called, the tornado warning still had about twenty minutes to go (and I had fifty minutes before I could leave work)--but it was pissing a bitch, apparently. And windy. And headed toward downtown Washington, DC.

I left work on time, and even though it's getting darker earlier, the sky looked like twilight:

It was really windy. I made it onto the Metro OK--the rain waited until I was about half a block away before it started. The first half of the trip was underground, so I'd be safe.

It was raining pretty steadily when we emerged from the underground portion of my ride, and when I arrived at my station and was paying for parking, it was still steady, but it pretty much stopped before I even got off of the grounds of the Metro station. Weird.

We thought our house was OK--never even lost the satellite signal--but on Thursday evening, we discovered a casualty: My beloved grill had been blown over by the fierce winds, which made me doubly glad we had dragged it inside when the Estelle came thru town.

Just before it started raining in Washington, I took this artsy-looking shot, of the Dupont Circle Olsson's:

That was with my camera set at the night setting, hence the blurryness and shaking from the DT's because I didn't have a tripod with me.

Finally, yesterday morning at Lulu's, where the Wizards go to party:

No, I don't know what that thing was doing in the front door, either. Maybe the offensive offensive line (no, that's not a typo) of the Marigolds had been there the night before and needed help getting up. Anyway, the operator started it up just after I took the picture, but I didn't stick around to see what was going on.

Another beautiful day in DC town.

I went out and got a buffalo blue sandwich, and I ate it at a little park about midway between cosi and the office. I think the left side of my face is sunburned.

Lunchtime wanderings. . .

It's a beautiful day in downtown Washington, so I'm eating my lunch inside. I'm trying to save some money, hence the home-brought meal, but I was seriously tempted to go to Cosi and get a buffalo blue sandwich. Anyhoo, I found these whilst cruising around. . .

The Simian Alliance is busy in India.

Speaking of India: You think the gf and I worship rats? We've got nothin' on the Rat Temple in Deshnok.

You may know the US Army had a Camel Corps...read more about it here.

Finally: Paooki! Lots of paooki!

Paooki Alert!

Just what Serenity and Mookie need to hear:

Global warming breeding bigger, longer-lived spiders.

The gf isn't real thrilled about that, either.