My friend Kevin mentioned yesterday that he and his wife conducted a focus group session to evaluate which posts on this blog suck and which don’t. According to this fair and balanced study - which sought the input from a wide range of audiences, including two sexes (which is the maximum number) - posts containing pictures of Mack are more popular than posts about Dutch guys. I am certain the study is legitimate because it included a graphic. It is a little known fact, however, that graphics can sometimes be misleading. Assuming I was misinterpreting the graphic, I sought clarification. Surely the entries about Dutch guys intersects with the set of popular posts. The response I received was as follows:
Sorry to disappoint, but she does say that the set of entries about Dutch guys doesn’t intersect with the set of entries she likes.
It has something to do with you not being as cute as Mack.
I think anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m not what you would call “smooth” or “coordinated”. Every now and then, though, I can manage a maneuver that surprises me. Let me give you an example.
On Monday evening, Michelle and I made a coconut milk soup. This soup involves jalapeño peppers, and anyone who has used these knows you should exercise caution when deciding how much to put in. I chopped two of them up, added one and a half, and reserved the rest for later in case the soup needed more heat.
We finished making the soup and didn’t need the extra peppers. The reserved peppers were still on the flexible plastic cutting board where I’d chopped them. In an effort to avoid dirtying an additional dish, I decided to carry the board over to the trash to throw the peppers out. The peppers were on one end, and since I picked up the board from the other, I was concerned about the board bending and dumping the peppers onto the floor. Some of you might call this “foresight” and others might call it “learning from past mistakes”; I call it “using the Force“. As the board bent downward and the peppers started falling off, the midichlorians got all on up in my face. Without thinking, I flipped the board up, sending the rogue peppers into the air. I then caught every single one of them with the board and directed the whole shebang into the trash.
I’d like to see what Yoda has to say about me being “too old to start the training” because that was some serious Jedi shit right there.
I noticed an article today that says scientists have found residue on the surface of some stars which comes from planets the stars have absorbed. Or, as one scientist put it, “It’s the cocoa on the rim of a cappuccino.” Let me explain to you how this works.
It has a lot to do with the way planets form:
God wakes up, has a cappuccino
Crap floats around a star
A bunch of the crap runs into itself until eventually a ton of it is stuck together
When enough of it has stuck together for it to form into a ball, scientists call it a “planet”
Sometimes the star the planet orbits gets pissed off and eats the planet. A pretty accurate reenactment can be foundhere.
When God finishes His cappuccino sometimes there’s some cocoa left on the rim of His cup. That’s the stuff scientists can see.
I wrote that from memory, so I might have gotten some details wrong - but that’s the general idea. Being a nervous person already, this is not good news for me. I’m already worried about cars in my blind spot; the last thing I need is to also be worried about waking up tomorrow morning and seeing a gigantic sun in the sky, ready to eat the planet.
In other news, scientists in Mexico City are researching whether it’s possible to grow trees on Mars by injecting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and warming up it’s climate. I like this plan. It’s practical because it’s based on a technology we already have: filling a planet’s atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
A few months ago we were grilling corn and and, because we totally suck at it, we messed it up so badly that we only wanted to eat about half of what we made. What did we do with left over corn? Why, fed it to the doggs, of course. Now, the actual cob is rather unhealthy for a dog since it’s hard to pass. To circumvent this problem Michelle decided to see if Mack could eat corn off the cob like a human. As it turns out, he can. It seemed oddly natural to him, and he approached it as though it was the most normal thing in the world. He must have said to himself, “This cob might not be good for my digestive system; I think I’ll try to bite the kernels off individually. When I am done eating, I shall do Calculus.” Beene, on the other hand, consumed half a cob despite our best efforts to prevent her from doing so.
Naturally, we bragged about Mack’s newfound skill to our friends. Their dog, Bromley, is a prodigy: she can eat watermelon and ring a bell when she needs to be let outside. With their interest piqued, they investigated to see if Bromley’s repertoire could be expanded to include eating corn off the cob. Not surprisingly, it could.
Mack and Bromley rule at eating corn, Beene is confused. Enjoy.
Note: The quality of this version is lower than the Quicktime version available here. For best results, watch the Quicktime verison.
As Michelle and I sat down to breakfast this morning, our appetites were ruined by the unpleasant surprise of Dubyah showing up on TV and giving a speech. Does he really have to do that so early in the morning? I believe people deserve to digest before being induced to vomit by listening to the Presitard talk about things he doesn’t understand. Since I instinctively turn to drink at the sound of his voice, I would like to see these speeches presented in the evenings. Now that I think of it, though, I suppose I could keep a bottle of prosecco on hand and have a mimosa. That’s called “being flexible”.
Getting back to the speech, I suppose the benefit of not drinking is that I can remember the stupid things he said. Today’s speech started out with a few nice words about the departed Lady Bird Johnson.
Yesterday America lost an extraordinary first lady and a fine Texan, Lady Bird Johnson. She brought grace to the White House and beauty to our country. On behalf of the American people, Laura and I send our condolences to her daughters, Lynda and Luci, and we offer our prayers to the Johnson family.
On the surface, it sounds pretty good. His delivery has really improved these past few years, hasn’t it? It looks like those remedial high school speech classes he took recently have really helped out. You remember: glance at your notes, read a few lines, then make sure you finish your thought while looking at your audience. Because that shows that you’re not reading the entire speech from your note cards. Did anyone notice, though, that he looked up while saying “an extraordinary first lady and fine Texan” and had to look at his notes to remember her name? Kinda takes a little “something” away from the heartfelt message, don’t you think?
Personally, my favorite part of the speech was when he condescendingly sympathized with our frustrations of being tied up in a war that we started preemptively over falsified reasons.
First of all, I understand why the American people are — you know, they’re tired of the war. People are — there’s war fatigue in America. It’s affecting our psychology. I’ve said this before. I understand that. This is an ugly war. It’s a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective. It doesn’t surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people.
I’m going to ignore the grammatical genius in his phrasing because I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. I’m also going to ignore the fact that he still doesn’t get that America is a continent, and that our country is the United States of America and that there are other countries here. Countries that don’t start wars for no reason. Instead, I’m going to focus on his recognition that this is an ugly war. Just this particular war is ugly, right? Because most wars are beautiful. Poets write about “beautiful” wars all the time: singing, dancing, and picnics by the light of napalm. I’m also confused about whether he’s talking about us or them when he says, “it’s a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective.”
All that aside, I appreciate that he made a karate-chopping motion towards his head at the mention of the word “psychology”. His satisfied smile after the gesture shows his confidence that psychology affects the mind. He feels good about having clarified the matter for those of us listening who might have been confused.
All this leaves me wishing the real Bush was more like the Farrell Bush.
posts on this blog suck and which don’t. According to this fair and balanced study - which sought the input from a wide range of audiences, including two sexes (which is the maximum number) - posts containing pictures of Mack are more popular than posts about Dutch guys. I am certain the study is legitimate because it included a graphic. It is a little known fact, however, that graphics can sometimes be misleading. Assuming I was misinterpreting the graphic, I sought clarification. Surely the entries about Dutch guys intersects with the set of popular posts. The response I received was as follows:
a maneuver that surprises me. Let me give you an example.
the stars have absorbed. Or, as one scientist put it, “It’s the cocoa on the rim of a cappuccino.” Let me explain to you how this works.
about half of what we made. What did we do with left over corn? Why, fed it to the doggs, of course. Now, the actual cob is rather unhealthy for a dog since it’s hard to pass. To circumvent this problem Michelle decided to see if Mack could eat corn off the cob like a human. As it turns out, he can. It seemed oddly natural to him, and he approached it as though it was the most normal thing in the world. He must have said to himself, “This cob might not be good for my digestive system; I think I’ll try to bite the kernels off individually. When I am done eating, I shall do Calculus.” Beene, on the other hand, consumed half a cob despite our best efforts to prevent her from doing so.
and giving a speech. Does he really have to do that so early in the morning? I believe people deserve to digest before being induced to vomit by listening to the Presitard talk about things he doesn’t understand. Since I instinctively turn to drink at the sound of his voice, I would like to see these speeches presented in the evenings. Now that I think of it, though, I suppose I could keep a bottle of prosecco on hand and have a mimosa. That’s called “being flexible”.
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