December 21, 2012 Metaphor

It was the damndest thing. I woke up this morning, let the dog out, and then

I Am Not Spam

Sometime yesterday Blogger (Google's little bitch) posted this apology for locking us all out of our blogs. Go read it if you'd like.

About a year ago, when a lot of people were leaving blogger (starting with Sara Sue's blog so wrongly being classified adult oriented), I debated leaving and going over to Word Press. I tried it, but it felt quite foreign to me so I decided to stay here. In my mind, I even defended blogger a little bit.

Yesterday's fiasco was, however, the absolute last straw. That little episode demonstrated for me that Blogger was no longer that fun little company that it was almost 3 years ago when I started blogging. Now Blogger is a systems driven, shoot first and ask questions later corporate entity without the slightest idea what their customers want or need.

I could go on about this, but there's really no need. It's all pretty much been said before by countless others who have become fed up with Blogger. I am sure Word Press has problems, but for now, I am willing to give them a try. I won't be shutting this place down because I may come back here someday.

In the meantime, I am moving here. I don't have all of the links in place yet because it is taking me a while to get used to how things work over there. It's like a foreign country for me.

Besides, it'll be just like......

If I Had A Hammer

I spent a large portion of the day today trying to put up new soffit material on my garage. Basically, it was a colossal nightmare. It's hard to believe that such a simple concept can be such a gigantic freaking nightmare.

While working away out there in the almost 90 degree heat wishing I was drunk, I was thinking about tools and how far we have come since some caveman picked up a rock and used it as a hammer. Believe it or not, I only recently bought a hammer. Don' t get me wrong, I do have hammers. Several of them in fact, but I didn't buy any of them. My dad gave me one. My father-in-law gave me another one. A half-assed crappy little no-brain dick-wad of a no talent shit head carpenter left one here as he beat a hasty retreat after it was discovered he didn't know how to make a compound miter (further proof that any guy with a pick-up truck and a hammer can call himself a carpenter when times are good). And lastly, some guy who put a roof on my house left one here.

So needless to say, I didn't need to buy a hammer. But I did anyway. I mean seriously, what father worth his salt doesn't leave a hammer to his son or daughter when he boards that cosmic soul train bound for glory?

Of course I didn't just buy any hammer. I bought an anti-vibration hammer with an ergonomic grip. Right about know, I know exactly what you are thinking.

Oh for Christ's sakes, it's a fucking hammer.

And as always, you are exactly right. It's a fucking hammer. But let's think about that statement for a moment or two. See, I went to Wiki to see what they had to say about hammers and I found the most amazing little paragraph. It was so delicious that I am still savoring its beauty.

"The amount of energy delivered to the target by the hammer-blow is equivalent to one half the mass of the head times the square of the head's speed at the time of impact . While the energy delivered to the target increases linearly with mass, it increases geometrically with the speed (see the effect of the handle, below). High tech titanium heads are lighter and allow for longer handles, thus increasing velocity and delivering more energy with less arm fatigue than that of a steel head hammer of the same weight. As hammers must be used in many circumstances, where the position of the person using them cannot be taken for granted, trade-offs are made for the sake of practicality. In areas where one has plenty of room, a long handle with a heavy head (like a sledge hammer) can deliver the maximum amount of energy to the target. But clearly, it's unreasonable to use a sledge hammer to drive upholstery tacks. Thus, the overall design has been modified repeatedly to achieve the optimum utility in a wide variety of situations."

My God almighty, did you read that?

"....the hammer-blow is equivalent to one half the mass of the head times the square of the head's speed at the time of impact."

There's a God damn formula for hammering!!!!

That's the formula for American hammering. If you are hammering in Europe somewhere, you need to use this formula:

X 2.54

To convert European hammering to American hammering, you need to divide by 2.54.

Tomorrow I am going to give you the formula for screwing.

Obviously that guy didn't have the correct formula. I think he forgot to carry a Y or something.

If I Had A Hammer, I'd Nail That!

(My Wife Takes My Hammer Away Sometimes)

Separated At Birth

I think I might have mentioned to you before that we are keeping Jackie's Carmen Wannabe dog Fred this week, but something dawned on me about Fred today. He looks like someone famous, but I couldn't remember who it was.

Then I was thinking about an old friend of mine named Bill who moved to Colorado and I never heard from him again and how his wife once said that I reminded her of Alf and it dawned on me where I had seen Fred before.

Judge for yourself:

Fred

Me Alf

Those noses were definitely separated at birth.

****UPDATE****

Phoebe made a suggestion and I had to go see for myself. My God, the similarities are astounding. It's almost scary.

The Joker

The Bonehead

Thumbing My Nose At You Know Who1

Does anyone really know what can happen when you thumb your nose at the great cosmic organizer in the sky? No, of course you don't. However, as luck would have it, I know exactly what can happen when you tempt fate.

Take a good look at the picture below:



The day after I wrote this post, guess who showed up on my door step? Ladies and Gentlemen of the Blogworld, I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Dusty. Dusty made his appearance along with two other equally minuscule kittens who weren't nearly as friendly or trusting of humans. They are still outside dodging coyotes and hawks while Dusty is inside enjoying the comfort of his new home.


Naturally, Dusty has upset the order of things around here. Some "people" won't even look at me without shooting stink eye death rays from their little bug eyes.


On a slightly related note, we have Fred (Jackie's Carmen Wannabe) for the week while Jackie takes her much ballyhooed bar exam. Why these young lawyers don't just cheat is beyond me, because as we all know, cheating is very much a part of what they will need to do when they "ply their trade." Anyway, as if the applecart wasn't already upset enough with the addition of the evil Dusty, we now get to throw Fred into the mix for a guaranteed double stink-eye treatment.

On a totally unrelated note, my computer is falling apart and I would like for all of you to send me money so I can get a new one. My evil wife won't let me get a new one because she wants to spend all of my hard-earned money on practical things like food, gas, utilities and medical bills. I say fuck the medical bills. What are they going to do, put my diseased kidney back in?

Anyway, here's the thing. My "M" key is gone, my "C" key is going, and my touch pad mouse thingie has a hole in it.



I have a medical question out there for all of the 99.9999% of my readers who are doctors. Before I had my kidney removed, I was addicted to over the counter nasal spray. Yeah, big deal. I get addicted to everything. Right now I am addicted to popsicles and porn. Anyway, the medical establishment had a fit about all of this over the counter nasal spray stuff. Apparently $4.59 nasal spray is bad for your blood pressure so they gave me a prescription for some kind of high tech nasal spray that cost over a hundred dollars for a couple of ounces.

Does anyone besides me smell a racket?

I rarely use my left hand for anything except holding my fork. I use my right hand for pretty much everything.

So why do I have carpal tunnel syndrome so bad in my left hand?


¹ Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle."

A Short History Of Cats

Of course that title is misleading because it makes it sound like I am going to tell you the history of all cats and even I am not that pretentious.

Well that is not true. I am that pretentious.

Here is the whole history of cats:

A dog was born without a brain and it slowly devolved into a cat.

End of story.

Now I will tell you the history of my cats.

I don't remember much about my very first cat except that after I got it I told my dad that I didn't like it. The next day it was gone.

Life has never been that simple since.

My next recollection of a cat happens when I was about 19 years old. I took a semester off from college and I was working at a US Steel plant. I found these kittens living in my girlfriend's dad's garage. I took one and named it Kimba after a popular cartoon of the day.



Only Kimba wasn't white. He was kind of a multi-colored tabby cat. I liked Kimba, but he didn't last long. I let him out one morning and he never came back. As a result, I went for a year or so relatively catless, although I did have a pussy or two along the way which may or may not have anything at all to do with this story.

Anyway, a little while later my new girlfriend gave me a pussy. And then she gave me a cat. I named this cat Blue after a popular color of the day. Blue was a lot of fun but he was also a male and I discovered that male cats like to piss on everything so I got him fixed. It didn't matter. He still liked to piss on everything. I took him home for the summer and my mother stole him. I pretended to be upset about it, but I wasn't really because Blue pissed on everything.

One morning my mom let Blue out and he never came back. Are you starting to see a theme here?

My girlfriend felt sorry for me so she gave me another pussy. And then she gave me another cat. I named this cat Shady after a popular song of the day.



Shady was a female so she didn't piss as much. I kept Shady for a few years. After I graduated from college, I moved back home with Shady.

One morning I let Shady out and she never came back.

It was at this point that I had another revelation regarding cats. Cats must be kept in the house.

By this time, I was with Anne. She wasn't my wife yet, but she was going to be. A few years later Anne gave me a pussy. And then she gave me a cat. I named this cat Cleo after a popular queen of the day. Cleo was pretty cool. She was a Siamese and about as dog-like as a cat can be. She was also an inside cat that lived for 20 years. She got up one morning and couldn't walk so my wife had to take her to have her put to sleep because I was crying like a baby and couldn't do it.

Now that Cleo is gone, I don't have much use for cats anymore. Especially my daughter's six toed cat. That cat, as they say, ain't got no sense.

Anyway, as a loving tribute to cats, I offer up the following:



Oh, and if anyone has a pussy they want to give away, just give me a call.

I don't need anymore cats though.

Long Walk Home

Does anyone besides me find it interesting that the first person to publicly call Barack Obama a nigger was none other than that bastion of civil rights himself Jessie Jackson? Don Imus refers to a bunch of nappy headed hos as a bunch of nappy headed hos and he loses his job. Jessie Jackson calls Barack Obama a nigger and no one even raises an eyebrow.

Honestly, everyone either needs to stop using that word, or everyone needs to start using that word. Either way, as long as it is in the hands of one group or the other, it's a power thing, and as long as it is a power thing, it is going to be misused.

My granddaughter can't say her "p's" correctly yet. She pronounces her "p's" as "f's." So when she has to go pee, she says she has to go fee. Naturally, we don't discuss hockey pucks around here.

I have become hopelessly addicted to popsicles. Seriously. I cannot stop eating them. Interestingly enough, the aforementioned granddaughter calls popsicles foppasiddles. She keeps trying to get my foppasiddles and that is fissing me off.

My little dog is getting old. She seems to spend most of her time laying around and sleeping, and I am pretty sure that her eyesight is going because she now barks at everyone that comes to the door (including me) until she hears a voice. If she recognizes the voice she will stop barking. If not, she keeps barking.

When I went to high school, geeks hadn't been invented yet. I mean we had them, but they didn't have a name yet. Our geeks didn't have computers to get all geeky about, but they did have Heathkits.

I downloaded Firefox 3 the other day and I fucking hate it. Worst thing about it is that it won't let me go back to my old Firefox. Nothing on it works right and my fonts look all messed up. It's taking all the fun out of using this computer for me. The worst part is that the spellcheck doesn't work worth a damn!

I have had a Hotmail account for over 10 years now. Recently though, it has become very undependable. A lot of my emails come up missing and it is starting to piss me off. I am slowly getting rid of that address and moving everything over to my gmail account. Kind of sucks really, but if something doesn't work anymore, there's no sense hanging on to it.

I am re-siding my garage right now. Boy is that ever a nit-picky little process that is not even the least bit forgiving. Being out of level by as much as 1/16th (.0625) of an inch can throw you into a world of hurt a few feet down the road.

Some people act really weird when they find out I've had cancer. It's not contagious and I don't think it makes me smell funny.

My wife and I were just discussing how our lives are at a crossroads right now and we have a bunch of stuff all coming down at once--or at least on the verge of coming down at once. It could turn into a "perfect storm" of sorts with a lot of major changes ahead for both of us. I only hope they are good ones.

My daughter Jackie has been studying for the Bar exam all summer long. The exam is like a week away or so and I can tell it is starting to get to her. It must suck to have to take a test like that with so much riding on it.

I think things are about to go south with my Utah employer. It's okay though. They've paid me to sit on my ass for a year. They are probably going to demand that I move to Utah soon and that ain't gonna happen. Going to have to do something though because Michigan is becoming a vast wasteland as far as finding meaningful employment goes.

For some reason the other day I almost drown in a memory. It's such a vivid memory that I find it hard to deal with sometimes. I was thinking about this one time when I was living in New Jersey. Someone at work had a party. It started on a Saturday afternoon and went on forever. It may still be going on for all I know. I left the party at 5 in the morning in no shape to drive home. There was some kind of bad combination of Gin, cocaine, and marijuana in my system and I had to drive from Middlesex to Somerset and there was no one on the road that morning but me and the cop that followed me most of the way home.

It's not an unpleasant memory at all. It's just a very vivid one. Of course I had to drive home that morning because otherwise it would have been a Long Walk Home.

I think I need a foppasiddle now.

Sorry for all the spelling errors, but Firefox blows dead rats.