Best Text Ever

So what's the best text message you've ever received? I remember being out at a bar with a quasi-random assortment of folks one night when a guy showed one the females hanging with us a text he had just received from a woman he knew (before you ask, this text was not from his wife or girlfriend or anything of the sort). The entirety of the message was, "Sex?" You might laugh and be inclined to answer with an Austin Powers like, "Yes, please." Or even, "Grr, baby! Yeah!" But the thing is you would be right on point. That message wasn't inquiring about whether the guy was currently in the clutch; it was an invitation, and you have to love the casual, if-you're-not-doing-anything-else-how-about-helping-a-girl-out sort of tone. I was impressed and astounded. Unsurprisingly, that guy exited stage left, with a quickness even.

You, being the swave and deboner type that you are, have probably received dozens or even hundreds of those types of texts. (Or should I call them sexts?) I, on the other hand, am not nearly as cool as you, and I have never had such an experience. Realistically, I can't quite fathom it. So it leads me to wonder, in the absence of such cell phone delivered prurience, what the best text I've ever received is. Even though I'm not good at superlatives, I think I have an answer. Last week, I received a message from cancer battler Shawn, and it has to take the cake. It simply said, "NO SIGNS OF CANCER!"

He gives more of the dets in a blog post (I especially like the text from his uncle that he included), but I say goodonya, Shawn! Excellent work and excellent news! That's the kind of news we should all get more often. Maybe we should all start telling each other we're cancer-free, just to remind ourselves of something to be thankful for.

An Unexpected Hosanna

I stopped to get gas on the way to work this morning, and for some reason, I looked over at another woman who was there. She was walking a little toward me, and asked, "Did you hear what I said?"

I shook my head. She said, "It used to cost me 75 dollars to fill up that car. It just cost me thirty-three seventy-five. God is good!"

It's good to be thankful, I guess.

A Newer Perspective

The Chronicles started out way back when as a follow-up to an email about me shaving off my goatee. Since then, I've talked about all sorts of random things, and linked to stories I found amusing and generally bumbled my way about. Sometimes I struggle to come up with something to write about.

Now I have a new piece of news that undoubtedly belongs in the Chronicles of Abs. Not long ago, I talked about how I had played a bunch of different roles in weddings, and I had just added Officiant to the list. Well, it looks like I'm going to able to add the role of Groom at some point because the Girl officially agreed this past weekend to add the Wife to her list of sobriquets.

You read it right; I am engaged! Last Friday, as the Girl and I watched the first exhibition game of the IU basketball season (streaming online because it wasn't on actual TV) in our living room, as the band played the William Tell Overture and the cheerleaders streamed all over the court with flags (this sequence is one of the Girl's favorite things in the entire world), I brought out her favorite dessert from the restaurant where we went on our first date, and I asked her to marry me. As you might expect, trumpets heralded, the clouds parted, we were bathed in a shimmering light, the band was muted behind a Hallelujah chorus, laurels and wreaths and nosegays floated through the air. Perhaps all of those things distracted her, because she said yes!

We are excited! And thrilled!! And I am clearly overdosing on exclamation marks! I just had to share that with you, because you are my one and only, most favoritest Internets. Have a marvelous day.

My Kind of PSA

The Pretty Boy recently pointed me to a PSA that Dave Barry wrote. Despite the fact that I actually wrote one once, I'm not really so big on PSA's. Jenny, eat something. Johnny, go to school. Jeremiah ... why the hell do all these kids' names start with 'J'? It's ridiculous! But I digress. The point is that Dave Barry had a message to send out, and he did it in his inimitable style: by talking about his fear of having things shoved up his butt. I love this kind of PSA. It made me laugh out loud more than once. It had a sweet side to it. And, best of all, it is currently not even the least bit applicable to me. Good times.

Given the subject, it seems a good time to give a shout out to a guy on my softball team. I've been meaning to post this for a long time, but I just haven't managed it. Last December, I got this email from Shawn. Needless to say, it wasn't good news, but I told him I was definitely not betting against him, and his attitude about the whole thing was both inspiring and refreshing. That's been true ever since he was diagnosed, and I'm glad to say that he's still playing softball with us. That in itself is impressive, and his story has been a repeated source of goodness over time. But it's this particular post that I think sums it all up. Sometimes, the Good Guys win.

Have a great weekend!

If at First You Don't Succeed ...

I think you're supposed to try again. That worked for me. Heading back to the polls around 2:30 or 3:00 seemed to be the ticket. There were no lines visible outside the building (at least not for my section of the alphabet), and I had to wait behind only about 3 people. The whole process only took about 10 minutes this time around.

Given the whole hassle with the lines, I'd be all for a completely mail-enabled kind of voting process, but there are some decent arguments against that I hadn't considered. Either way, I hope you managed to do all the voting you wanted (and were legally allowed to do) in this election with a minimum of pain.

Swing and a Miss

So I went out this morning to take part in this representative government of ours by voting. The community center in our neighborhood is our polling place, and I figured I'd swing by the store to grab a morning soda then saunter up to a by-then-diminished line and put my vote in before heading to work. However, maybe other people had the same plan as I -- I don't know, I couldn't see if they had sodas -- and the line was stretched around the corner. So I drove right on to my office.

All these lines are kind of frustrating, although I suppose it's an indication of voter interest. But I'll go back armed with the AbsPod and some other things to entertain myself this afternoon, even though I often argue that your vote doesn't count in the presidential election, both from a purely lottery-like mathematical standpoint and because of the electoral college.

Bah. I hope your voting experience is line- and stress-free.

An Old Campaign

Back in the day, I had a catchphrase, a mantra, a slogan ... whatever you want to call it. I didn't really mean for it to be so prominent, but it just worked out that way. It would always come up in response to someone commenting on me in one way or another. They might tell me I was nice (grr), or mean, or ugly, or funny, or smart, or cute, or fat, or scrum-dilly-umptious, or whatever they opted to call me. My response came out automatically after a while: "I'm just Abs."

I thought it was a simple and effective response. I was just me. That was all I could be. Typically, the commenter would smile at that and go on about his or her business, now secure in the knowledge that whatever else I might appear to be, I was just me. This wasn't some Walt Whitman-esque yawping, mind you; it was just my way of turning aside comments that I didn't otherwise quite know what to do with. Instead of coming up with something relevant and appropriately clever, I would just aver my total yet simple Absness.

After a while people got used to it. Some of them would try to apply the phrase for me, but they would almost never get it quite right. Something was missing. They would either address me as "Just Abs," as in "Hello, Just Abs." Maybe that was because they weren't Abs, and they couldn't possibly be expected to get it right while lacking that certain thing the French call ... "I don't know what." Still, in general that automatic response became part of the fabric of my interaction with a lot of people.

After a while, though, Lawton and the Pretty Boy staged a mini-intervention. "You need a new campaign. That one is not working." I'm confident it was the Pretty Boy who made this statement. Methinks the Pretty Boy is very big on what is and isn't working. Recall that he lobbied for me to shave off the goatee, claiming that it wasn't working. In the face of this particular claim of his, I thought, "First of all, it's not a damned campaign! It's just something I say." I decided to say that out loud, but Lawton, who typically likes nothing more than to wind me up, was prepared for that objection. "No. It's a campaign," he said, almost before I had finished my argument.

I might have argued with them for a little while before giving it up as a lost cause that I didn't particularly care about, especially when there was beer around that was significantly more interesting. As is often their wont, those two guys kept going in some sort of bizarre positive feedback loop, and they talked about it for quite a while.

Over time they came back at me quite often about needing a new "campaign." And their arguments were either effective or I proved highly suggestible or something else, because I eventually stopped saying it. I never stopped really being just Abs, though, even if I stopped pointing the fact out to everyone who needed to be reminded. The truth is that I remain Abs -- and just Abs -- to this day.

Why do I tell you all of this? It's because of a video Lawton sent to me recently. Now that all of the presidential debates are over, mayhap I can add a wrinkle. Even though, as is always the case, the author of this article didn't quite get the gist, I'm willing to say that I'm just Abs, and I approve of this message.

Something We Can All Agree On

Can we just all go ahead and agree that garbanzo beans are the funniest kind of beans?

 

Thank you. Have a nice day.

A New Perspective

I know I've mentioned before that I've been to a number of weddings. Amazingly enough, people keep getting married, they keep inviting me, and I keep going. A lot of people have suggested that everyone I know ought to have been married by now. I would have thought that, too, but it is apparently not the case. I've been to weddings in places ranging from DC to San Pancho, Santa Barbara to Louisville, Chicago to St. Lucia, and several places in between. Ridiculously, I've been to 5 weddings in Roanoke, VA.

After all of that, I often find myself looking for what's new about each wedding I attend. A couple of months ago, I attended an outdoor wedding where the bride and her father rode up to the event in a horse-drawn carriage. Someone suggested that I hadn't seen that before. But I had. That wedding was an easy one to stand out, though. During the whole cake cutting/feeding thing, the bride dropped some of the cake she was supposed to feed the groom (or maybe it was the groom who dropped it -- I'm not sure) right into her cleavage. The groom went right in after it. I definitely hadn't seen that before.

But I digress. The point is that some new wedding things are easy to find while some are harder. This past weekend was incredibly easy. In my time, I've been a groomsman, an usher, a reader, an invited attendee, a Guest (my name wasn't on the invitation), a named guest (my name was on the invitation but I wasn't the primary invitee), a rehearsal dinner emcee, and even a reception crasher. But this past weekend, I served a completely new role. I was the officiant. That's right. I married them. The Girl's brother got married, and he and his fiancee wanted a friend to perform the ceremony. For some reason they asked me. Before you ask, no, I didn't go get ordained on the Internet. I'm not Reverend Abs, as several people kept wanting to call me. I am still just Abs. The Commonwealth of Virginia has a state law that allows pretty much anyone to become a "One Time Civil Celebrant" upon successfully petitioning the court to do so. There are some paperwork hoops to jump through, and you have to post a $500 bond to do it, but it's not all that difficult. I can't quite figure out the $500 bond, other than to think that it's there because we can't have poor people marrying each other willy-nilly. Then where would we be?!

Luckily for me, the bride and groom wrote the ceremony, and all I had to do was read it. Granted, I have to admit that I was disappointed to discover that it didn't start out with "Mawage..." a la the Princess Bride. Aside from that, it was quite nice. I managed to bumble my way through it, and I was lucky enough that most of my bumbling was invisible to the audience. I did screw it up on the very first sentence, and I thought that was an entirely inauspicious beginning. I managed to right the ship after that, and it suffices to say that the bride and groom are officially married and even still speaking to me.

All in all, it was a pretty cool experience, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it. There's another wedding coming up later this month. Who knows what will be new about it? Hopefully, I won't have to resort to making it the first "no pants" wedding I've attended.

How Big Is Your Car Hole?

For a long time now I've enjoyed talking about the size of garages on houses. Granted, some people, like Moe on The Simpsons, don't approve of the word garage, as explained in this exchange:

Moe: Garage? Hey, fellas, the garage. Well, ooh la-di-da, Mr. Frenchman.
Homer: Well, what do you call it?
Moe: A car hole.

Still, la-di-das aside, I think what got me started talking about garage sizes was when I heard someone talking about how their house had a "one and a half car garage."

"A 1.5 car garage?! That's absurd!" I said. "Is that for your extra half car that you have lying around?! Reediculous!"

Had I applied a bit of a filter between brain and mouth, I might have been able to figure out that it kind of makes sense to talk about garages that way. I mean, garages can be useful for holding things other than cars. They're dead useful for storing things like tools, lawn mowers, rakes, boxes full of random A/V cables, fishing gear, and other things that one doesn't use all that often and/or that just don't have a sensible home inside. Anyway, after hearing about a 1.5 car car hole for the first time, I started noticing that the size varied quite a bit.

By way of example, Lawton must have at least a 2.5 car garage, given that it can hold 2 decent sized cars with ample space between them for opening doors and even some room left over for storing some other shit. I've claimed for years that my mom has the biggest no car garage in the world, full to the brim as it is with junk and Emergency Backup Furniture just sitting there hoping that some of the Primary Furniture will break or be otherwise ruined thus leaving an opening for EBF to gain entry to the house.

When the Girl and I moved into the Halfway House, I decided that we have a 1.0 car garage. I suppose there are some shelves at the end of  it that make it a tad bigger, but it's not much more than 1.1 at the most. My car is both long and wide, meaning that I have to favor the right side when I get to park in there just so I can open my door enough to get out. I also have to pay attention to how far I pull in there to make sure there's ample room for the door to close. Still, a 1.0 car garage is better than no car hole at all, and I'm generally glad to have it.

As as aside, I should mention that the Girl and I have differing opinions about the garage door and just how important its status is in our daily lives. Whenever we leave together or come in through the garage together, she is always very insistent that she watch the garage door to make sure it closes all the way. She claims that's important for home security, in that it helps make sure no one can enter our garage as the first step in stealing her. Her insistence on watching tends to annoy me, because the garage door is clearly going to close all the way. After all, that IS why we have a garage door opener, and there can't really be a problem with a piece of machinery doing such a simple job that it has done many times in the past. Never mind the fact that there have been a few times when the door allegedly went almost all the way down, only to change its mind and rise up again. That was due to some rakes partially covering the sensor, a situation that I have since remedied. I suppose to give you a complete picture of our differing opinions about the garage door, I should mention that there are times when I will leave via the garage in the morning well after the Girl has gone off to work (having parked across the street to avoid having to move the car out of her way in the morning, thus giving me some extra snooze time in the AM). We have a couple of locks on the front door, and it's much simpler to just hit the close button on the remote than to deal with the multiple locks. A couple of those times, I have received calls from the Girl asking me why in the world the garage door is not even pretending to be closed, and I have had no choice but to sheepishly admit that not only did I not watch the door close, I never even hit the button to tell it to close. So ... we definitely pay different levels of attention to that garage door.

The other night I came home from work after a pretty long day with several work things bouncing around my brain. I parked in the driveway, hopped out, and came in through the front door, only to discover that the Girl was putting in an even longer day at work. So I went back out through the garage and pulled my car into the car hole, still thinking about work. On my way in, I hit the button to close the door, paying its ensuing activity all the attention I typically think it is due, which is to say none. A while later, the Girl finally made it home, and I heard the garage door start to go. I figured she must have also had her mind on work to open the garage door when she knew I was already home and parked in there. No matter, though. I waited for her to come upstairs. And then I heard the door opener start up again. It seemed to be going on for a while. Something was not quite right. So I hopped up and went down to see what was going on. I poked my head out and asked, kind of smiling, "Why you keep runnin' that door up and down?"

"I'm not. I'm just trying to close it. It was wide open when I came home."

"Whaaaaaattt? Oh no."

And I walked around to the back of my car to see the results of my distracted parking. Apparently, I had not made sure to pull all the way inside the garage. Thus, unsurprisingly, the garage door had encountered my rear bumper and absolutely scraped the shit out of it in an attempt to close before deciding that something was wrong and going back up. That sequence repeated itself twice when the girl came home and tried to get the door to close.

The moral of this story? I think there might be several, most of which I'm probably not clever enough to grasp. In fact that may be one of the morals. But the ones that are apparent to me are 1) don't park distracted, 2) don't think about work when you're at home -- or anywhere else outside of work, 3) in the case of car holes size may very well matter, and 4) the Girl may be right about the garage door opener deserving at least a little more attention.

But 5) don't you go telling her I said so.

300 of the Universe

My TiVo recently received an update that allows me to use it to watch YouTube videos on my TV. That's not really earth-shattering, but it was neat enough to try out. To that end, the Girl recommended that we watch two videos. Specifically, the first was for background. You should watch it now:

I know, I know, that's just a trailer for a not new movie. Granted, it's a pretty cool trailer, but still. That video was just prelude to this one that the Girl's friend did ... Damn! I can't embed it. Sigh. Go and ahead and take a look at it on YouTube. I thought it was pretty cool.

I'll Snarf to That!

The Girl and I spent some time this past weekend working on a toast she's going to give at a wedding in the near future. The Girl finds just the thought of doing this terrifying. If she could go her whole life without ever having to speak in front of more than about 2 people, she would consider it a life lived smartly and correctly. Alas, there's this toast. So we spent some time talking about ideas of what to say and what not to say (although I think I mostly kept coming up with oh-so-helpful examples of things not to say, but that's not the pint right now). While we were discussing it, I couldn't help but recall the single best line I have ever heard in a wedding toast.

One friend of mine married a girl whose maiden surname was Otis. They actually met in the elevator heading into a charity black tie function. I think we can all agree that this is an excellent way to meet people. It has a sort of James Bond feeling to it, given the black tie thing, and a bit of sweetness, given the charity part. I suppose it's topped by the couple who met when they jointly did an emergency field surgery to save the life of a cancerous orphan who had been injured while rescuing baby harp seals from an oil spill, miraculously putting the orphan into complete remission while making a point to buy carbon credits to offset what they used during the surgery. But I don't reckon there are too, too many of those couples out there. Anyhoo ... where was I?

Oh, yes. The toast. At the wedding of the elevator-to-the-charity-black-tie-event-meeting couple, the best man made a shift in the middle to address the bride (née Otis) and said, "you were the girl in the elevator with the elevator name." There was a bit of laughter. Then there was a huge roar of laughter a few seconds later. The delayed roar could have been a second wave, but it's more likely that it took a lot of people a while to get it, as evidenced by the one girl at our table who asked what was so funny. I loved it. Still do. I think the reason you don't drink until the toaster is done talking is for safety purposes. Had I been drinking at the time, the champagne definitely would have come out of my nose. But it would have been worth it.

Quote of the Weekend

OK, so it wasn't originally said this weekend, but that was the first time I heard it, and I had to share it. My brother and I were talking about something we considered endless and futile, and he told me something his friend Seth once said: "You know why salmon swim upstream to spawn every year? It's because they're Sisyfish."

My Phone Sees Things...

... and so can you.

My cell phone has this little camera thingy on it. It takes crappy pictures, but it comes in handy once in a while to take note (well, picture, really) of something that grabs my attention.

For instance, in my office building, I recently came across this:

 

Part of it's a little hard to read, but I think you can get the idea. When I saw this, I couldn't help wondering how in the hell a door can be out of order. Seriously, does that mean it won't open? If so, the sign's pretty useless, don't you think? I mean that would be pretty obvious when it didn't open (although I suppose such a sign would keep people from calling the management, as the sign would indicate they already knew about it). Or does it mean it won't close? No, that's clearly not the case, as the door is currently closed in the picture. I suppose it could mean that, if you do open the door, it might fall on you and possibly kill you. Or it might be broken such that it will only open into another dimension where you are likely to fall prey to the Dreaded Ass Bite of the Evil Buttmunchosaur, at which point out of order doors will clearly become the least of your concerns. If it were one of these last two things (or something else along those lines), doesn't it seem like a more ominous and official-looking sign would be in order (sorry for the pun -- couldn't help myself). Something like "Beware the Dreaded Ass Bite" would likely keep me the hell away from that door. As it was, I opted to pay no heed all the bad things it did to the proverbial cat and indulged my curiosity by grabbing the handle and opening the door and walking right through and watching it close. A few days later that sign went away, and I have no idea what changed.

I was going to put up some others, but I'll hold off on those for now. We'll call this Part One or something. I hope your Monday is as good as can be hoped ... and devoid of out of order doors. But maybe you should Beware the Dreaded Ass Bite, just in case.

Photo Bombing Fun

Non-somnolent reader FJ just emailed this photo essay to me, and I had to share it right away. Just marvelous.

Fast and Loose with Definitions

Driving home from a round of golf yesterday, one of those signs with removable letters on the front caught my attention. I didn't notice the building it was in front of, but I have to assume it was a church. It said:

THE BIBLE HAS A WORD TO DESCRIBE "SAFE" SEX. IT'S CALLED MARRIAGE.

I don't know a whole lot about defining words, and I certainly don't know how the Bible does it, but I'm not sure how exactly the word marriage describes sex -- at least in the context of intercourse -- be it the safe or some other variety. A co-worker of mine (the same one who likes to ride tricycles), upon hearing about the sign said, "That's not describing sex; That's describing abstinence."

Not in My Office You Don't!

A friend recently emailed this rant of his to me, which I have copied here in its entirety:

I’ve decided today that I have had just about enough of people bringing in their damned babies that are too young to do anything but sit there on one parent’s shoulder, make awkward faces, and shit in the doorway of my office.  I’ve had enough of their parents standing there waiting for me to give the appropriate level of praise (“Good job, Chris, you really knocked the bottom right out of your wife the right way this time, huh?”).  I’ve had enough of the weird small talk and not knowing what to say (“Wow, Melissa, you must have some Asian in your family tree somewhere, because your daughter doesn’t look anything like your husband”) or whether to touch the thing or tell them it looks like one or the other of them or whether I should know if they’re old enough to be sleeping through the night.  I’ve had enough of being introduced to random spouses that I’ve met 5 times already and wasn’t impressed with the first 5 times, or who I wondered how the hell you managed to convince her to stick around with you long enough to procreate – maybe next time I’ll ask them how the conversation about you wanting to hire the smoking hot au pairs went.  So please quit wasting my time, take your puke factory home where it belongs, and get back to your office and do your f-ing job.

Thank you.  And if I at some point procreate and drag that child into the office, please forward this back to me.

I very much enjoyed that rant, but as a fellow non-procreator at this point in my life, sending it to me was pretty ineffective aside from its obvious entertainment value. But I'm glad I don't work in his office because a) I would share a lot of his feelings about the baby parade, and b) I might be inclined to visit him sometimes if I worked there, and it might be hazardous -- I don't consider myself a germophobe or anything, but his office doorway must be filthy.

Bitter Much?

The letters have eluded me lately, and I should probably offer an explanation for that, but those letters seem to be eluding me, too.  Instead, I'll offer a link to a fake personal that made me chuckle once or twice.  Hope you enjoy it.

Not Everyone's Like Me ...

... and it's a Good Thing.

Just yesterday, as I headed out from the office, I stopped to tell my co-worker, whom we will call Sam, that I would be working from home today. "My couches are supposed to finally be delivered," I explained. Not that he needed an explanation. We work from home sometimes. Still, for some reason I explained. Maybe I was being friendly.  Maybe I was just Sharing. Since I had Shared Sam decided to reciprocate.

As background, Sam has a young son, whom we will call Jeffrey. Jeffrey is of that age that I can't possibly remember. You know the kind: parents are likely to still talk about it in a number of months to everyone, even though, speaking for at least myself and probably for all people who have never had kids, if it doesn't translate directly into half years it doesn't mean anything and the rounded half years would suffice. Terms like newborn, one half, one, one and a half, two ... you get the idea, are probably enough.

Anyway, in his Sharing, Sam told me that he was about to pull the trigger on a cool tricycle. I responded thusly: "Oh? For Jeffrey?"

Sam just nodded and proceeded to show me pictures of the trike in question, proving that he is a far better person than I. Had the roles been reversed, I'm sure my left eyebrow would have nearly popped off the top of my head as I lapsed into dark sarcasm. As it was, I pointed out that I had just asked a question that at least had to be considered for status on the all time list of dumb questions. When I pointed it out, he grinned and took the bait: "Nah. I just like trikes. They're pretty fun to ride around once you get on them."

Apt Analogues

Not too, too long ago, I was chatting with the BHK, and he relayed to me something that Steve Czaban had said. For those of you who don't know, Czaban is a radio sports talk guy.  Really, he's just a guy.  He likes to talk about sports, women, and HDTV.  He's the rare non-techie talking head who actually knows a few things about HD, and I don't mind him talking about it.  Sometimes, I even enjoy it.  That's not the point right now, though.  The point is that Czabe was talking about femme-o-the-day acress Katherine Heigl. And what did Czabe have to say about her?  "She's not all that." 

I was surprised by that take, but I have to admit that she doesn't trip my trigger in the most impressive way.  She's certainly attractive and all, but I can see what he was saying, and I told the BHK so. I followed up by saying that I was kind of surprised that Heigl's Grey's Anatomy co-star (and putative leading actress in that particular show), Ellen Pompeo, wasn't able to parlay the show's success into more roles on the Big Screen. I first remember seeing Pompeo play the flavor in Old School, and I thought she was, apart from needing someone to give her a sammich, fairly hot.  However, as the BHK pointed out, she's a skosh old to be the new hotness in Hollywood. I countered by saying that I get that, but she seems to have the bigger role, perhaps the more important role, on Grey's. And the BHK came back by saying, "So she's the Anthony Edwards on ER to Heigl's George Clooney."  I don't think it could have possibly been summed up any better.

On Sneezes

Sneezes are interesting things. I've long found it odd that one can "steal" a sneeze by touching someone in the throes of a long sneeze windup. I don't recommend doing so all that much, of course, as it tends to make the victim of said theft quite angry.  In general, I'm inclined to argue about the terminology there, since I think that you're not so much stealing the sneeze as destroying it. It's not like I can steal someone's sneeze then enjoy it for myself.  Not that I'd really want to.  Really, I'm not quite sure why people get angry about having their sneezes stolen.  But they do. OK, I'm not being entirely truthful, I understand why at least one person would be angry.  One of my Former Neighbor Chicas always claimed that sneezes were "orgasmic," a description I could never agree with.  Still, if I thought of my sneezes that way, I would probably be pretty pissed off if someone came along and stole one.

But Stolen and Orgasmic aren't the only kind of sneezes out there. There are also Multiple Sneezes. Another Former Neighbor Chica couldn't sneeze just once. Nor twice. Nor three times. She generally sneezed at least 4 times, and sometimes upwards of 7. (I suspect this tendency made her roommate, the Orgasmic Sneezer, quite jealous, especially since I can't recall having ever seen/heard the Orgasmic Sneezer actually let one fly. But then again, maybe that was something she was only willing to do in private.) Once, whilst Lawton and I were playing PlayStation hockey, the Multiple Sneezer unleashed one, which Lawton responded to with a "Bless you."

Another sneeze followed, leading to a "Gesundheit" from me.

A third one, met with silence.

A Fourth, causing Lawton to say, "Cut it out."

A fifth.  "Gahdam!" says I.

A sixth, resulting in a resounding, "Bitch, please!" from Lawton.

And that was the end of it because we were all laughing. From that day forward, those responses acted as a sort of protocol for handling the Multiple Sneezes, and that particular female always worked hard to stop before getting the dreaded, "Bitch, please!"

That kind of talk wouldn't have been at all appropriate for the most memorable sneeze from my college days. One day in a huge lecture hall (It was a Chemistry class, I think. I can't be sure, though; I had a bunch of classes in that same room.), a dude about six rows down from me brought his hand up to his mouth to restrain an impressively violent sneeze.  It was a good thing he did, too.  At least it was good for the people in front of him. As he slowly and uncertainly moved his hand away from his face, we could clearly see that his hand was completely covered in Ghostbusters-grade slime. It was disgusting. Naturally, my friends and I sitting there engaged in several minutes of that kind of silent but seemingly endless lecture hall laughter.  I don't remember what that guy did with his handful of snot, but I know he didn't have a lot of options. He was smack dab in the middle of the row, and he didn't seem to have a hanky with him. He might have even been wearing shorts leaving him with a much smaller surface area of clothing to wipe it off.

But I didn't really start this post to write about Stolen, Orgasmic, Multiple, or even Voluminous sneezes. The other day I experienced a new kind. Just before lunch, I had filled up a water bottle and was heading back toward my office. As I reached for the door handle, a sneeze sneak attacked me. What to do?! The hand on the door handle was obviously too far away to get back to my face to cover it up.  I had a big water bottle in my other hand, and that wasn't going to be much use for containing the sneeze. It would really be uncool to sneeze onto the door handle. A co-worker was right behind me making loosing the thing into the air in general or especially directly behind me a bad option. So I kind of pointed my head down, stopped, and tried to constrain the thing with my mouth. I don't know if you've ever tried this, but I strongly suggest that you don't.  There are physics involved, see. I remember in elementary school that everyone liked to talk about how sneezes travel at 100 miles per hour and how your heart stops when you sneeze.  I don't know about any of that, but I do know that this particular effort felt like someone had shot me in the gullet with a slingshot. Or maybe as if someone had used my mouth as one of those bomb squad shells to contain an explosion. My throat hurt for a good 30 minutes.

Beware the Bomb in Your Mouth Sneeze.

Spreading the Word

I've been contending for a long, long time that March Madness is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and now I'm hearing the same thing from more and more people.  That's not to say that I came up with the idea or that you heard it here first or anything.  The point is that it's a natural way for hoops and sports lovers to think about the Big Dance. But if you want some serious evidence that the concept is widely adopted, check this out. Even Google is talking about it that way. I don't really use iGoogle, but I would be all about that gadget if I did. Plus, I know a few people whose companies block all sports Internet sites.  I'm thinking this might be a nice way to keep tabs on the tourney from inside one of those Mordac-run shops, because I don't think even they would block Google.  Of course, if you treat the first two days of the tournament as religious holidays and take time off every year, it's a non-issue, but that's not practical for everyone, either.  Either way, I like more ways to keep tabs on the Tourney, and I hope you are as psyched for the Madness as I am.

Melons of the Past

Last night, the Girl related this tale of child-to-child instructions that she had overheard. I thought you might like it.

Three kids were somehow talking about what people eat, perhaps recently having figured out that hamburgers and steaks used to be cows. Regardless of the reason they were talking about "gross things like eating animals and stuff." At this point, one kid, whom we will call the Instructor, decided to impart some knowledge: "A long time ago, there were these people ... and they, they ate people!

"They were called cantaloupes."

Public Service Announcement (cont'd)

Way back when I mentioned that I wasn't exactly fond of Crest Pro Health toothpaste. I hope and trust you have all managed to avoid that stuff since then.  Well, I'm back today to point you to this quasi-related post on the Consumerist.  Apparently the mouthwash will put brown spots on your teeth.  I'm thinking maybe the P&G folks need to rethink this brand, unless they're thinking that ass taste in paste form and brown spot inducers are going to be all the rage in mouth care in the near future.

Madness On Demand ... in HD

In case my last post didn't clue you in, March Madness is very nearly here.  And to make it even better, it looks like CBS is working with cable companies to make HD game highlight packages (along with some other stuff) available on demand for free (yes, free!) during the tournament. That's good work. Now that I'm a DirecTV customer (just so the Girl and I can watch IU games), I've signed up for the Mega March Madness package, but I would have been excited about this if I just had cable.  And if I didn't have my TiVo Series3, which won't do video on demand. And if I had a cable company HD box.  And if my cable company was one that did a deal with DBS.  Still, it's a Good Thing.

Quote of the Night

"Girl Scout Cookies do kinda taste like March Madness."

- The Girl

For Your Edutainment

This is really just entertainment, but it's good times, despite the fact that it connotes a "Skynet becomes aware" kind of thing for me.  A co-worker sent it: Animator vs. Animation.

This is more of the edutainment variety. I keep doing it, and I can't get past level 10 (I think).  My highest traveler IQ? 113.

Circling the Drain

When I got out of college (many, many years ago, it seems), I moved from Indy to the Washington, DC, area. I had both an apartment and a roommate that lacked clever nicknames (I think dwellings should have names, really. In college, I lived in Echols House, the Cave, Mt. Olympus, and Joe Bob's Chicken Lounge. Since college, I lived in this generally nameless apartment -- sometimes generically called the APT -- the LUVR Lodge, the SNC, the Pointe, and the Halfway House). The roomie eventually received a good nickname, but the apartment never got one.  I didn't really fret about it, though, because I thought the apartment lacked something much, much more important: a couch.

As I prepared for my move, my grandmother, who was in her final stages of a slow and ultimately ineffective fight with lung cancer, told me to take whatever furniture I wanted from her by then unoccupied house. And take I did.  I came away with end tables, coffee tables, lamps, and perhaps other things I can't remember. I don't think anyone would be confused enough to call those pieces of furniture stylish, attractive, or even not ugly, but they were all well-constructed, and the price was certainly right.  However, I did not come away with a couch, and we started off our apartment dwelling days with a futon performing make-shift duty as a davenport. I kept in mind that I needed a real couch, but I also figured I couldn't afford one I might want.  I didn't really have much money, and I just didn't think furniture was a good way to spend what little I did have.

A couple of months into our lives in the APT, my roomie decided to purchase a kitchen table off of a bulletin board at work. I went with him to collect it, and the seller asked if we knew anyone who needed a couch. Being the savvy shopper that I was, I told her that I wasn't sure, but I might know someone who needed one. She said she didn't really have room for her divan, but it was a good one, really comfortable, that I should sit on it to try it out. I sat down, and maintained my skeptical, wary consumer posture. At least I attempted to, in that I refused to give voice to the impressive sigh/groan of contentment and relaxation that had welled up from deep within as my butt found a place that it would like to spend considerable time. But I couldn't admit any of this to the seller, lest she try to rake me over the coals.

"I guess it's pretty comfy," I allowed.

She said, "I guess I need to get rid of that chair that goes with it, too."

"I can pass that on [to my 'friend' who might want one, remember?]. How much are you wanting to sell it for?"

She crinkled her brow, and said, "I don't know.  Maybe $125?"

"Each?" I asked. I didn't really have $250 to be spending on furniture.

"No. Total," she replied.

Now that seemed like a deal to me. A celestially comfortable couch and a matching chair, both in good condition, for $125?! Still, I couldn't appear to be too eager. I wasn't some rube who just came in with the last turnip truck. (I had driven my brand new Ford Contour.) I told her I'd pass it on. As soon as we left, I told my roomie that I was going to buy them.  How's that for savvy?

And so began the Days of Soft Couch and Brown Chair. I believe that most of you who read this blog have at least sat on them, and several of you have even spent the night dozing on Soft Couch. When the Girl and I moved into the Halfway House, many of our helpers talked smack about the dilapidated state of Soft Couch, and I told them all to shut the hell up and lift. They were probably right, though. Soft Couch has been great, and I don't know how it would work out in terms of Ass Hours Per Dollar, but it has to be an awfully high number, given that it has often had anywhere from one to four (and occasionally five) people on it over the last 11 years. 

However, Soft Couch has begun it's death march. Not long ago it started making clunking noises on the Girl's end whenever she sat down. We were talking about it the other night, and her brother suggested that we should look underneath because it might be a spring and it might be hurting the floor.  Sure enough, it was a spring, and it had torn hell out of the floor. It was a sad moment for me (and not just because we had torn up a spot on the nice wood floors of our rental house). I had to confess that it's time for Soft Couch to go.

So I find myself once again in the position of needing to buy a new couch and not really knowing how to go about it. Should I spend a lot of money on a really nice one, recognizing that I spend tons of time there? Should I buy something cheap, recognizing that I spend tons of time there, and I'm only going to destroy it? How do I figure out who makes quality stuff that won't be uncomfortable in a year? How can I possibly find a couch that will treat me as well as Soft Couch?! Sigh. I probably can't.

All that kvetching aside, I need to move on. But let's not lose sight of the great times Soft Couch has given us all.

Car Conversation

Overheard during a weekend trip to IN this weekend:

Driver: That guy is going too slow! [Flips on turn signal and moves to the left lane.]

Shotgun rider: Are you gonna race that cop to get around him?

Driver: Is that a cop?!

Shotgun rider: That car up there with all the antennae on its trunk? With the blue and red lights in the back window?! I'm not sure.

Driver: [Moves back into the middle lane.] Shit! I'll stay away from him.  I got pulled over last week.

Shotgun rider: I can't see how.

How to Rant

I just put up a link to a video of a Chris Berman tirade on SaWA, and I think you should watch it. So here's a direct link for your convenience. Have fun.

Timing is Everything

Wouldn't you know it? Just two days after I ordered a new AbsPod, Apple goes and updates the line, now offering a 32GB version of the iPod Touch. The bitch of it is that my new toy has already shipped. Just administratively, though. It is apparently scheduled to be exported from China within a couple of days. One of the things I didn't like about the 16GB of the touch is that I would have to actively manage my media on there because I have more than 16GB of music. 32GB would mean I probably wouldn't have to do that, or at least I wouldn't have to very much. I suppose I could cancel my order and upgrade, or return it, or something like that. However, I'm not positive that I want to pay another $100. Probably not. Still, it would have been better for me if they had announced this last Tuesday. Very inconsiderate of his Steveness.

What is Sarah Silverman Doing?

Or should it be whom? The BHK pointed me to this video, and it clued me into two things. First, Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman are a couple. I had no idea. I bet they laugh a lot, though, and that is good times. The second thing it clued me into was ... well, you'll have to watch the video for that. I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I watched it. That's right, I was actually LOL. Not ROTFLMAO or anything ridiculous like that, but I did LOL. Lesseee, this video is probably NSFW (the sound, not the actual images), so you should probably watch it at home or with headphones.

Luck Runs Out

No, I'm not talking about the Patriots' almost perfect season here. I wouldn't use the word "luck" in any way when talking about their season. (If I were going to talk about that, the title would probably have been "Cheaters Don't Always Win.") What I am talking about is the AbsPod. Almost a year ago, I wrote a couple of posts about leaving my iPod on an airplane. While it seemed pretty bad at first, I ended up lucky, getting the AbsPod back just one day later, after it had made a nice little round trip jaunt to Grand Rapids, MI.

Well, I wasn't so lucky this weekend. I was talking with the BHK when I arrived home after golf (yes, golf!) Saturday, and I had a few too many things going on as I opened the door to enter the house. As a result, the AbsPod fell right out of my hands. I've dropped the thing several times before, but I typically manage to get a foot under it to cushion the blow or something. Not so much this time. It fell straight down and landed flat on its back on the concrete floor of the garage with a sickening smack. I was bummed about it, but I had other things going on, and I quickly stopped thinking about it.

Sunday morning, I grabbed my standard five things (keys, gym ID card, bottle of water, towel, and AbsPod) and went to the gym, not thinking at all about the stomach-turning smack from the day before. As I started into my work out, I fired up the AbsPod to listen to something, and it did it's normal turning on things, then presented me with a cartoon-ized picture of an iPod with a frowny face, along with this message: "www.apple.com/ipod/support." DOH! I messed with it for a while, but listening to it closely revealed that the hard drive was making lots of clicks and grinding noises, which told me that the hard drive was toast.

I guess I shouldn't be too bummed out about it. I could decide that I've been using it on borrowed time for the last 11 months. I could possibly fix it by cracking it open and digging into the actual iPod molecules and replacing the hard drive, and I probably will. But that's not a for-sure thing. That's just the engineer in me talking. In the more immediate future, I ordered an iPod touch to replace it. The upside of that is that it has no hard drive to ruin.

It's not all bad. For a little anguish and a lot of money, I get a new toy to play with. Still, I hope your weekend was luckier than mine.

SaWA

If you know me at all, you know I dig the sports. I generally avoid writing a lot about them here, because that's not really what I had in mind for this blog when I started it. OK, in fairness, I didn't really have much in mind for this blog when I started it, other than that it was a way to share information with a few people about the status of my facial hair without spamming them. But that's really beside the point. The point is that this blog isn't really about sports, even though I've mentioned them from time to time.

I do talk and write about sports, though, often via IM with Lawton or on the phone with the BHK or with some random clown dipping in our conversation as we leave a UVA basketball game last Sunday night. With all that talking and writing, a new blog has been born. I've gone and created Statler and Waldorf Arena, a blog where sports are written about. The beauty of it is that you don't just have to endure my drivel about sports there. Lawton is adding his drivel about sports as well. We're, like, co-bloggers and stuff. So far it would seem that I like numbers and Lawton likes pictures. Really, there are too many numbers in there, but we (I suppose that really means me, since I'm the one throwing up all those digits) hope to clean that up over time.

Take a look if you like. If not, I still plan on posting more of the Chronicles here.

Roy!

Two Saturdays ago, the BHK invited me to make use of his second seat to the Georgetown - UConn game at the Phone Booth in DC, an invitation that I happily accepted.

I should explain that happiness. Sure, I will typically be happy to accept any free ticket to watch college hoops in person, especially when I know both the company and the seats will be good. However, I grew up hating the Hoyas. I'm not sure that I can explain why, other than that they seemed to be the opposite of what I liked in basketball, even at a young age. My perception may not have matched reality, but I thought they can't shoot. No one moves because they don't really run an offense. They play a gahdam zone defense! The Iverson years did nothing but cement my feelings about them, and having Craig Esherick as coach only amplified them. That guy was an awful coach, from my perspective. It was during Esherick's reign that I first accompanied the BHK to the occasional game, and it was perhaps more brutal in person than on TV. On TV, at least I can change the channel. The BHK, a lifelong G-town fan, even discontinued his season tickets for a year as his monetary protest of Escherick. That's how bad he was.

Things started to change once JT3 came along to change things. They still play some zone on D, but I've changed my stance on that over the years. The real key is that their offense is a joy to watch. I've come to root for them, and I generally watch them when it's convenient to do so (i.e. it doesn't conflict with an IU game).

Hmm. Sorry. That explanation got out of control there. The point is that we were watching a very close game, in which I was rooting for the Hoyas. The score was tied as Georgetown got the ball with 39 seconds left. They took a timeout to set things up. They moved the ball around when play resumed, but they couldn't get any open looks. They swung the ball around, nothing. The shot clock was winding down and DaJuan Summers had the ball, saw an open man at the top of the key, and fired it to him. The guy took the ball and launched a 3-pointer. As it went up, I thought we were headed for overtime, because the open guy was Roy Hibbert. Roy Hibbert, the All-Everything center. The 7'-2" All-Everything center. The lumbering, non-athletic, non-explosive, slow of foot, 7'-2"All-Everything center. The buzzer went off, just before the shot hit nothing but the bottom of the net.

The Phone Booth exploded in noise. The crowd went bonkers. It wasn't quite a game-ending buzzer beater, but it was close enough in my book. There's nothing quite like being part of the crowd when the home team hits a huge shot at the end of the game like that. It. Was. Awesome! UConn called a timeout, then came back in and turned the ball over to end the game.

During that last timeout, the Georgetown band started playing Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." In time with the opening sequence of heavy beats, the crowd appropriately chanted/yelled/sang,

Roy!

Roy, Roy, Roy!

Roy, Roy, Roy!

Roy, Roy, Royyyyyyyyyyy

Just excellent, excellent stuff. Thanks to the BHK for the seat. Here's the video (for as long as it lasts on YouTube).

The Case Against Professional Photography

I've never really known what to do with those little pictures I get in the mail of people's kids. I look at them, think they're cute, ugly, or hilariously odd. After that, though, the confusion sets in. Should I frame them? Put them on the fridge? What if people saw them in my house? Would they think I was some kind of perv? I can't be having that. But some people think that throwing away pictures of someone else's kid is a sin on par with carrying on more than 2 oz. of liquid at the airport or ripping off mattress tags or something. So what I typically do is put them in a pile for what I consider an appropriate amount of time (which tends to be until I notice them the next time several months later), after which I throw them away. Still, my discomfort with these pictures doesn't really show the general problem with them, especially with group shots. To that end, I give you this link, sent to me by non-somnolent readers FJ (over a week ago) and the Spaceball (just yesterday). (Really, they emailed me the contents, but we know how to use Google here at the Chronicles.) Go ahead and check it out, and beware the photos you commission.

I will just add one more comment, though. The one that really sticks with me, and not in a good way, is the one with the mousy teenage girl flanked by the two mullet-adorned, bare-chested males. I can't decide if that's a strange, fetishist kidnapper situation, or a perhaps stranger family photo. If it's the latter, can you imagine that girl explaining that picture on the wall when her first boyfriend comes over in high school? I can't either.

Waiting to Explode

This weekend, for some reason, I grabbed a box of Mentos at the grocery store. Finding them in my jacket pocket on the way to work this morning, I ate a couple. They are the fresh maker after all, and fresh couldn't be a bad way to start the work week. However, remembering the video makes me wonder what will happen when I drink the Diet Coke sitting in front of me. So this is a warning to all of you that this may be my last post ever. If you hear a pop in the distance, that might very well be me exploding.

The Season of Not Giving

My family has operated Christmas based on lists for as long as I can remember. If you wanted gifts, you had to make a list. And having those lists was huge for my brother and me, given that we almost never did any Christmas shopping. We always did Christmas buying, and we always did it on or around the 21st - 23rd of December, as that was when we arrived in Indy from our more coastally located homes. (It's really kind of impressive. We're machines when we do that.) Over the years, though, we've had more and more trouble coming up with lists. Part of it is that we don't think we need much stuff. Part is that I went through a traumatic experience when moving out of a house I lived in for 6 years and ended up throwing away enough stuff to fill a small apartment, and, as a result, I try to be somewhat resistant to stuff accumulation. And part is that these days, for the most part, when we want something, we just buy it.

So this year we kind of suggested that our folks not bother getting us Christmas presents. We weren't really lacking for stuff, and it seemed kind of silly for anyone to buy us things that we didn't really want or need. Due in part to some other circumstances, our folks pretty much agreed. There were a couple of gifts that had already been purchased before we negotiated the cease fire, but we really didn't do much gift giving. And that was fine. Really, it would be nice to just get together and relax and enjoy each other's company until we drove each other nuts and then go home.

Now we didn't intend this cessation of gift giving (which was really motivated by a desire to avoid gift receiving, but you can't have one and not the other) to be a far-reaching thing. In fact, before I departed for Indy, I saw that my company was collecting money to give to a local homeless shelter, and I gave the cash in my wallet one afternoon. It wasn't a big deal or anything, and it's certainly not something I should pat myself on the back about. It was just one of those, "Oh. Here you go," kinds of things. So why am I bringing it up, you ask? Good question.

The reason I'm bringing it up is that I got a call from the receptionist today saying that she had some money for me. I thought that was odd, but I'm not inclined to argue when someone randomly says she wants to give me money, so I went up there to collect it. [Notice how I've avoided all tasteless jokes about how certain females had better have my money at certain times lest they experince unpleasantness. The thought never even crossed my mind. Are you proud or disappointed?] It turns out that something hadn't worked with giving the money to the homeless shelter while I was gone, and they were just returning my donation. I guess that non-gift giving thing extended farther than I expected or intended.

I hope you got everything you wanted for Christmas this year, even if it was nothing.