Einstien must have had nephews...

make your own at hetemeel.com. It's big ass fun.

Audio.... Again

Inaugural Audioblog Experiment

Gym Pros and Cons

When I was at the doctor's office yesterday getting the Q&A for a medical history, she asked, "Do you like to exercise?"

I shot milk out my nose as I laughed. And I was not even drinking any.

Despite my feelings, I've been going back to the gym at the old alma mater for the last couple of nights, trying to take very seriously this need to put my body into a form that is not killing me slowly through hypertension.

The pros:
1) I get out of the house once a day (which is better than once a week).
2) I occasionally see the sun. Hit or miss since it is February.
3) I will probably get through my current audiobook (Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz) in a couple of weeks, rather than the couple of months it usually takes me to finish one.

The cons:
1) I could be reading blogs or watching old syndicated episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise or playing Xbox in that time. Or writing even.
2) It does nothing for my so-called self esteem to be surrounded by college students that look like catalog models, knowing they see me a warning sign to where they could be going if they live a life of happy sloth.
3) Worse are the geriatric professors and college staff who seem to be in a perpetual Centrum Silver ad. Worst is one of my least favorite professors of yore (who doesn't know me from his elbow) who got on a treadmill next to me today and proved without a shadow of a doubt that he could easily out run me. And I thought he was 60 when I went to school....
4) Sweat. I forget how much I don't miss perspiration in the winter.

Visit to the Doctor

I went to the doctor today for the first time in three years.

Symptoms: Possible  fatness.

Diagonsis: I'm fat!

Treatment: Get less fat, STAT.

Like I needed to visit a doctor for that advice. Tho, now that it's on record, I suppose I have to do something about it, which means returning to the shame spiral and soul crushing of attempted weight loss. Weee. Thrills-ville, '06.

A Celebration of Family

As my house flies to pieces around me in gale force winds today (so far I've lost one window screen, one decorative window shutter, and three roof shingles), I think I'll take the time to write about someone other than me for once, and that is, my immediate family, who all had some nice milestones this week.

My brother got promoted to sergeant at Alfred Police Department this week after one of the other guys got promoted to officer-in-charge. This could even be permanent, though at the moment, it is not. It depends on if the OIC gets bumped up to chief, and if tests are passed, and if the town of Alfred doesn't just do away with the cops all together (that's one theory bandied about, though chances are the townsfolk might balk; another is to just lay off the cops during the summer while the college students that make up the bulk of the population are gone). Here's hoping. The other good thing is that now we can revamp the horrible Web page they have... I say we because my brother is drafting me into helping. Anything to keep my PBA sticker in the car and keep the fuzz off my back. (Not the literal fuzz, mind you.)

My mom was the subject of not one, but two celebrations this week stemming from the fact that the LifeLine program she runs at St. James Mercy Hospital just passed installation of 1,000 (actually, 1,020) units in the field.

It only took 20 years, which sounds flippant, but isn't, because the churn rate on those units--you know what I'm talking about, it's an "I've Fallen, And I Can't Get Up!" program--is incredible. I've seen her put in 10 in a week and take out 15 as customers die, go into the hospital, or decide they don't want all that fancy-pants high-tech machinery around them, dagnabbit!

The folks from LifeLine corporate came out and threw the program's staff and their families a dinner (Squanto and I went because, well, we were invited and, hey, free food!), then held another meeting the next day that had half the hospital staff show up (more free food). The local paper covered it, supposedly, but I can't link to any story they did because all EveningTribune.com decided to post online was a picture of a LifeLine subscriber, and she's not even my grandmother. In the end, corporate will likely get a contract to take over the system call monitoring, which is good, since they're pros at talking folks off ledges when they get made at their science-fictiony talk-boxes, dagnabbit! Even after paying for that, the program will probably make more money for the hospital than any other department (1,020 units at $31 a month? You do the math.)

Will my mom get a raise after all this? Will she even bother to put in an expense report? Probably not. I mean, she's only going on 40 years working there, and that after 3 years of nursing school there and having two babies there, and a husband and two sons working there at various times...

Christ, they should name a wing of the hospital after her, at the very least.

Still, I'm glad she was finally recognized at all for just how much work she puts in after literally being on call 24/7 for the last 20 years.

Oh, and my Dad... he got a new tie. (He's retired, so that was a big week for him.)

Animal vs. Buddy Rich

This may be one of the greatest things I have ever seen in my entire life.

Spreading the News

When a person accomplishes something they wanted to do for a very long time even after they found out it was very very hard -- say, actually completing the writing of the first draft of their first novel -- and they finish it at a very inappropriate hour -- say midnight on the night before Valentine's day -- what does one do?

Call friends and family and wake them? Go get the dogs riled up so the wife has to acknowledge the conclusion of that which made her a widow for the past several months? Send emails? Blog?

I guess I'll blog.

To reach 95,000+ words and finally type "the end" is a great feeling (Mental note to self: Go back into document and type "the end" at the end) , but is tempered by the internal knowledge that the work is far from over. I have only completed the fun, creative part. Now I revise and rewrite and put up with other people's opinions and that's all before I even try to sell this thing to an industry over-run with books, where people are looking for any excuse not to buy another one.

Still... I wrote a book! 50,000 words in the first month thanks to the NaNoWriMo pressure, and then another 45,000 in...well, crap, that's pathetic that it took me 75 days to finish it.

Behold, the power of deadlines. They work wonders.

I guess it's time for me to go to bed and leave my little thaumaturgists alone for a week while I (thesaurus alert!) meditate and ruminate and contemplate and cogitate. I might even mull.

But still... I wrote a book! Weee! Take that, world! It might suck, but I wrote it and it's (almost, sort of, kinda) done!

The Banana Panic

I know that I am not an easy man to live with.

I'm not talking about just the occasional time I've left the seat up, made a puddle on the floor (from snow-logged boots--no relationship to the toilet...usually), neglected to close a cupboard door, put an empty milk container back in the fridge, etc.

I'm talking psychologically. I'm a nightmare of contradiction.

I tend to constantly put my wife--whom, for the record, I call Squanto!-- into an untenable position in that I do not like it at all when she talks down to me. However... I dislike almost as much the times when she expects me to accomplish something. At those points, I expect her to spell out the details so that any mishaps are on her head. Responsibility is just not my bag.

When she talks down to me--and face it, that can happen a lot, because I'm the first to admit, she's got more brains than me, even if she can't operate a snow blower--I get very put out. When she does, I talk like a slow, slow mental patient and refer to myself thusly: "Me no unnerstand! I be Stoopid-head!"

Yet, when she leaves me to my own devices without extra instruction, I'm just as likely to do a half-assed job. Whether I do it out of carelessness or spite probably depends on the situation, and, perhaps, my inebriation.

Ultimately, I want to impress her most of the time, I really do... but I fall short because I'm lazy as a cat in a sunbeam.

Take, for instance, last night.

Here's the back story: We've got visitors coming to spend the night tonight--my in-laws and their friends, who are using our house as a jump point to catch a plane tomorrow to their time-share in the Florida Keys. We asked what they'd want for breakfast on Saturday before going to the airport, and the request for just for break for toast, or bagels, and some bananas.

My darling wife asked if I could get these things at the store today, and I answered in the affirmative. She asked if she should make me a list. I said that would be a good idea, there by affirming the rule of "no list makes it okay for me to forget stuff." Natch.

I read the list last night while puttering around the kitchen seeking snackage. It said:

Bread/bagels
Bananas (ripe)

I walked into the living room and said to her, "Did you really write "ripe" next to bananas?"

She looked at me.

"Because you assumed I would pick the greenest bananas in the store?"

She shook her head and said, "I can't win with you."

"Me am Stoopid-head!" I said.

Flash forward to this afternoon. I am driving about listening to the Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 for the first time in many, many years (thanks to the JeffItoBlog) (a group described as "four rock legends and the guy from E.L.O," which I think is unfair to Jeff Lynn because, hello, Electric Light Orchestra? Great stuff. And my god, Lynne helped score Xanadu! [extra pause while I go here and download soundtrack to Xanadu]) and (now back on track with the story) I go to the supermarket.

First stop, produce. I gotta get me some yellow bananas.

There are probably 1000 bunches of Chiquitas at our local Tops Friendly Market. They take up an entire aisle.

And every single damn one of them is green.

Like, emerald.

Like The Incredible Hulk.

Like my face probably looked.

I knew they had a little banana cart in another aisle where they put the over-ripe bananas, those headed for the black and brown spot stage.

Nope. All green.

Green like a rain forest. Green like a pool table. Green like a chroma-key background. They might as well have been limes or broccoli.

I wandered around the store twice trying to decide what to do. Of course, it not occurring to me until this very moment that there's another grocery store across the street from Tops. (See? Lazy.) Eventually I just picked the bunch that looked the most yellow to me. If you turn them just the right way, they almost look ripe.

So now, I sit here and await our guests, and with far more terror, I await my wife who will savage me with her superior intellect and attention to detail, as I've little doubt she'll sense the greenness of the fruit before she even gets out of the car. Next time she writes me a list, perhaps I'll also ask her to draw me a map of where all the store options are, or perhaps a diagram on how to help me find my own ass.

Just When I Think I'm Finished...

I realize I'm not. Sort of. I mean, I knew I wasn't at the real end, but I did think I was in the ultimate chapter of my book, and then it got to long and I had to split it in half and start a new one. So now i'm in the ultimate chapter. Really. I hope.

Best. Grey's. Ever.

I'm always willing to show when I'm wrong. But c'mon, they had three women in a shower at the opening. Imagine how many people were disappointed when that didn't come back up for the rest of the hour....

Super Bowl Satisfies ABC, Quiets Stones - Feb 06, 2006 - E! Online News

In another example of its strength, the game put Grey's Anatomy, airing right after the Steelers showered their head coach with drink, before 38.1 million, an all-time best for the series, and the most for a post-Super Bowl show since the 2001 premiere of CBS' Survivor: The Australian Outback...

Why It Sucks to Work From Home

When you own Labradors, you get used to a certain amount of adulation just for being you. Entering your home is akin to being the biggest name in the play walking on stage to a standing ovation that goes on just a little bit too long.

Until today. I was out for about and hour (visiting that triple threat of fun, the dentist, the DMV and the grocery store where I was regaled by the middle-aged check-out guy who he might tutor the girl who'd been ahead of me in line in statistics... which I believe to be statistically improbably) and when I got home and walked in the door... nothing.

My first thought: "The dogs have succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning."

Second thought: "They lay in wait to pounce, having smelled the Chili fixing's I bought, as they love cilantro."

I finally had to walk into the living room to find two of the three just sacked out and staring at me like, "Oh. It's you." One of them yawned.

It's all about the love.

A Spam Name to Remember...

Its been a while since I posted one of these, but it's hard to ignore spam-mail from the amazingly named Pissing C. Demosthenes. A great orator and urinator, all in one.