List Tuesday: Peri-haptic Haploid Edition

Words I Would Like To Someday Use In Context Correctly

1. Absquatulate *
2. brimborion*
3. claviger*
4. dipnoous*
5. enchorial
6. facinorous*
7. gledge*
8. holmgang*
9. irremeable*
10. jactancy*
11. kilderkin*
12. littoral
13. muricate*
14. nidorous*
15. ochlesis*
16. palilogy*
17. quadrennial
18. recumbentibus*
19. sardanapalian*
20. tripsis*
21. urgrund*
22. vigesimation*
23. wittol**
24. xertz*
25. yare
26. zocle*

*Not an actual word cccording to The Word (MS)
**I do not want to this to be used in context of me

In Which I Don't Know

So, the other day I’m just sitting around, shopping for jean shorts online, when all of a sudden I realize that nobody wears jean shorts in Michigan in December. I mean, it’s just stupid. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be shopping for jeans, which makes a whole lot more sense. Then I remembered that this is the CHRISTMAS SEASON and that means if you shop for your self at this time of year you are either A) a selfish scrooge or B) forgetful and you forgot that it gets cold in December and you need some long pants but you already turned all your jeans into jean shorts because it was hot a couple of months ago. I won’t tell you what category I fall into.

Anyway, the point of the story is this: I bought some jeans and then turned them into jean shorts! Again! I guess it’s just habit by now. I don’t even remember doing it, but I do have a cut on my knee, apparently from scissors.

I guess the moral of THAT story is this: Imagine a bear lost in the city. Now imagine the bear wandering around inside a Nieman Marcus Outlet. First, the bear stumbles into the menswear section and finds himself a nice silk tie, a monocle and a fine Italian worsted wool suit. He completes the look with a dashing beret and a pair of Ugg boots. Next, he saunters over to the knick-knack section and eats 4 packages of hard-boiled eggs another customer left there on accident. Then, the bear rambles into the women’s lounge, sits down on the couch for about 10 minutes, gets up, washes his hands and walks back to the menswear section. He realizes that he looks ridiculous in his human finery, so he takes it all off. Now, standing unclad in the Nieman Marcus Outlet, he stares malevolently around, grabs a pair of jean shorts and walks out, never to be seen again.

I’m just saying, IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

Uh???

So, I can't really tell. Which one of these is real???

Freakin' Poe and his law.

This is Where The Party Ends

I'm sorry. I haven't been blogging regularly. I looked. There's no blog equivalent of Metamucil. And eating more fiber doesn't help. Trust me.

Just so you know, like most things in the world, my life since my last post can be summed up succinctly with to TFD comics. They are eerily accurate. F'n Drew, man.

List Tuesday

Things to do during the day to kill time

1. Draw weird pictures


2. Read conspiracy theories on the internet.


3. Call somebody


4. Draw even weirder pictures


5. Daydream about bears and ice skates


6. Stare out the window and contemplate the rapidly approaching end of innocence


7. Fill up your water bottle, drink all the water, then fill it up again


8. Repeat


9. Write a post. Or two.


10. Go home early

Oh yeah? Well Emerge from this!

First off, let me say that I really love my church. And please don't be offended.

I think the "Emergent" movement is dumb. For all it's talk about a new "conversation" that is honest and doesn't have the baggage of a built-vocabulary like the "institutional Church," I don't think it's that much different. There absolutely is a set of buzzwords that you need to know, and the buzzwords, at least to me, appear to be synonyms of the horrible, soul-crushing buzzwords that "Fundamentalists(!)" use. But not the same words mind you. The emergent church can't use the same semantics as those they are emerging from, right?

I guess the most frustrating thing about it for me is that, while I agree with many of the things the movement says, I don't want to be a part of no movement. I want to be a part of a church that does things however it wants! I don't care if other emergent churches do things a certain way and go to certain conferences and read certain books. Once we all start doing that, we're nothing but another denomination that'll soon have mega-churches of its own. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just seems that so often we are blind to our own ambitions, our own destiny. Without thinking independently, we'll all become that which we rail against. It's happened time and time again, both within the church and without. So 20 years down the road, don't say I didn't warn the movement.

And here's another thing. Can we drop the criticism of other churches already? Yes, I already know that we do things differently. Please stop reminding me of how stupid other churches are for the way they do things. Stop defining yourselves by what you are not, and start worrying about what you are! I'm not saying we shouldn't look around us, but there is a HUGE difference between saying, "eh, that's not really for me, but if it works for you..." which is what I thought the emergent thingy was all about and saying "what you are doing is different from my church in the following ways and this is why it is stupid and wrong and if I had enough guts I'd say you were going to hell, but that's what a IFB would say so I can't say it but I really think it."

Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places (i.e. Ginkworld and The Ooze). As an example of what I mean, read this article by Frank
Viola (imagine my disappointment when I realized he was not the same Frank Viola that led the Minnesota Twins to the World Series in 1987.) He's trying to be evenhanded, but the whole article is predicated on the fact that we all know how stupid this other person's church is. Grrrrrrr!

Maybe y'all can educate me on how "emergent" is any different in essentials from any other denomination. I already know we do things differently, but are we any less elitist? Do you have a good book I can read? If you tell me to read any more articles or anything else by John O'Keefe, I'll just pretend like I didn't hear you.

Random Thoughts Friday

Now, don't get your hopes up. I'm not starting a whole new feature here, I'm just harnessing the power of my rapidly deteriorating brain. I'm coming down with a bad (based on what the Golden Girl has been going through) head cold, which means that my brain is not functioning at its normal high level. Instead, I can't follow one train of thought for more than a few seconds before it derails. Fortunately, this facilitates the creation of a random thought post. So, yipee!

I think that "blogosphere" is a totally apt word, since it reminds me that the world's collection of blogs makes up a huge, floating cloud of crap.

I'd rather be at Disneyland.

The Frosty may be the world's most perfect food.

I've never been to Spain. I haven't been to Oklahoma either, dammit.

Some days, I just can't figure out how I'm going to make it through. I just want it all to end.........Ha Ha Ha! I had you going there didn't I? Maybe I'll start a new feature in which I impersonate other types of bloggers. That was my self-absorbed 15 year old boy with a mean father style. I can't wait to try out celebrity photo blogging!

How come Blogspot's spell checker doesn't recognize "blog" or "blogger" or "blogging?"

Is it sad that I've spent my whole life living in, if not cities, than at least towns? Should seeing a deer or a rabbit or something really be that exciting?

Have you ever noticed that anyone that has one of those big trampolines ends up calling it "the tramp?" "Okay kids, let's all go jump on the tramp!"

The other day, we saw this really weird bug in our house. It had lots of legs, was flat and wide, and was super fast. I think it was just a centipede, but still, it's creepy.

I know it's stupid, but that Heineken commercial where the delivery guy drops a bunch of beer and then a dude in bed with some chick says "I don't know, I just feel so sad" cracks me up every time.

I think the phrase "jump the shark" has jumped the shark.

I have a fake tooth. Once, it fell out of my head and I had to go to work with a missing front tooth. I told everyone that it was knocked out while I stopped a robbery at the 7-11. This was in, like, week two of the first real job I've ever had.

I thought for a second that I'd be disappointed that the new SAT can have scores as high as 2400. Now no one will be impressed with my score anymore. Then I realized that I took that test 8 years ago, and no one ever really cared about it.

Sometimes I can't help but feel proud of myself for being smart. Oh, trust me, I am.

If you think it's a good idea to let your toddler go down an old-school swingset slide while sitting on the trailer of a big toy semi, you're wrong. It's really, really not. If you are kid thinking that it would be fun, you're wrong too.

I have a crash test dummy bobblehead sitting on my desk at work.

Remember the Crash Test Dummies? Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmmm. Once there was this girl who wouldn't go and change with the girls in the change room. How was that song ever popular?

Remember the Crash Test Dummy toys? Those things were cool. So were the M.U.S.C.L.E toys.

I hate it when it rains here in DC. At the tiniest drop of rain, everybody pulls out these giant, canopy-sized umbrellas and pokes me in the eye. I think they're doing it on purpose.

I used to live in Seattle. If you've never been there, please stop imagining it having rain pouring down all the time. That is so not the case. It's actually just six months of soul crushing drizzle from October to April. In fact, on average, it rains 7 more inches per year in DC than it does in Seattle.

How cool would it be to have a fake eye you could freak people out with?

Okay, here's an experiment for you. Put your iPod on shuffle and just listen. This is a good way to remind yourself how awesome a lot of older bands are. Like the Who. John Entwhistle, Keith Moon, and Pete Townshend are the best rhythm section ever.

Hats off to the new-age hairstyle made of bones. Hats off to the use of hats as megaphones. Speak softly, drive a Sherman Tank. Laugh hard, it's a long ways to the bank.

I've never, ever tried any drugs. I hope I'm not missing anything really cool.

No, I'm not counting alcohol as a drug. Or pseudoephedrine. Or Doritos.

Have you ever seen the movie Straw Dogs? It's really good, but kind of hard to watch. But it has Dustin Hoffman going medieval and some English dudes, so it's cool.

I wish I could be part of a blogger clique.

I wish I lived in an Ivory Tower, because I bet it would be worth a lot of money. I mean, it's ivory!

I think the term "golden parachute" is really stupid. Gold is heavy, so I don't think it would work as a parachute at all. I think the term should be cashmere parachute or something.

The time is right for dancing in the street.

All you anti-Wal-Mart protesters out there, don't you think it would be a better protest if you let Wal-Mart build a store and then just boycotted? It would be pretty embarrassing for Wal-Mart to have to close a store because nobody went to it. Oh, wait. That's right. You all are just an extremely vocal minority that try to prevent everyone else from being able to shop there.

This post has gone on just about long enough.

I think the saying "(blank) is the new black," is really fun to use with completely inappropriate things. For example "Oak trees are the new black."

Okay, on that note, this post has definitely gone on long enough.

Forward and Back

If you are in a good mood today and don't want to be brought down by hateful sentiments and angry screeds, please do not read this post. And especially do not read the poem at the end of this post. Already in a bad mood? Carry on.

If you have a computer and are connected in some way to the internet (hopefully not dial-up, but if so, sucks to be you) and have email, then you are familiar with the scourge of Forwarded Messages. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I can hear you cringing in your seat as you read this and remember all the inane nonsense and FW:FW:FW:FW:RE:FW:FUNNIEST JOKE EVER messages you have pissed away your time reading. Fortunately for me, I get very few of these. I guess most people I communicate with are somewhat considerate. But let's get down to business.

The bizarre thing about forwarded emails is that, sometime, somewhere, someone actually sat down and wrote that list of 15 Ways that Men and Women are different. Actually, just writing it isn't the problem. The problem occurs when they think that everyone they know (be it in real life or over the internet) NEEDS to read their list because it is just so funny! Who are these people? Why do they do this? Are they just playing a practical joke on all of us? Are they trolling? My guess is no. They actually want to share a neverending stream of hilarity with the world. They have taken it upon themselves to ensure our amusement with doctored photos of trees, or heartstring pulling poems of love and loss. We don't want to hear it! Guess what? We don't care if we'll die a horrible death when we don't forward this chain letter to 10 of our friends. We don't want to hear about things that annoy you, or things that make you happy. Aside: You might think I am being hypocritical in saying this since I am a retarded blogger, but think again Batman! I see the similarities myself, but nobody forced you to come to this far-flung corner of the internet and read my lame posts, so just be quiet, Mr. Self-appointed Irony Finder. This applies to bloggers in general, too, not just me. It's perfectly acceptable to be self-absorbed and annoying on a blog, nobody will hear it. It's like swearing in the woods. So in order to combat this information age plague, from now on, I suggest that any time you receive a forwarded joke or poem or picture or whatever, forward it right back to the person who sent it to you. For effect, it's best to add a little text of your own like "You have got to read this!" or "When I read this I thought of you!" Obviously, there will be people with whom you should not use this approach, like family. That will just cause more problems than it solves, so please use discretion.

In keeping with this discussion of forwarded messages, I received one yesterday that I think takes the cake when it comes to being stupid, offensive, xenophobic, small-minded, and ridiculous. You may think that's a lot of heavy epithets, but hold off your judgment until you read the whole thing. The message I received is presented below, in its entirety. Well, not its entire entirety. The original also included a lot of smiley faces and other crappy clipart.

Someday, if my blog is ever listed in google, I want people who search for this poem because they think it is hilarious to be directed to my site.

Enjoy!

FW: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT'S POEM
This can make you think.




Illegal
Immigrants
Poem


I cross ocean,
poor and broke,
Take bus,
see employment folk.

Nice man treat me
good in there,
Say I need to
see welfare.

Welfare say,
"You come no more,
We send cash
right to your door."

Welfare checks,
they make you wealthy,
Medicaid it keep
you healthy!

By and by,
I got plenty money,
Thanks to you,
American dummy.

Write to friends
in motherland,
Tell them 'come
fast as you can.'

They come in turbans
and Ford trucks,
I buy big house
with welfare bucks

They come here,
we live together,
More welfare checks,
it gets better!

Fourteen families,
they moving in,
But neighbor's patience
wearing thin.

Finally, white guy
moves away,
Now I buy his house,
and then I say,

"Find more aliens
for house to rent."
And in the yard
I put a tent.

Send for family
they just trash,
But they, too,
draw the welfare cash!

Everything is
very good,
And soon we
own the neighborhood.

We have hobby
it's called breeding,
Welfare pay
for baby feeding.

Kids need dentist?
Wife need pills?
We get free!
We got no bills!

American crazy!
He pay all year,
To keep welfare
running here.

We think America
darn good place!
Too darn good for
the white man race.

If they no like us,
they can scram,
Got lots of room in
Pakistan.





SEND THIS TO
EVERY AMERICAN
TAXPAYER YOU KNOW

The lady is a champ

I honestly don't know how she does it. I really don't.

The brickbaby and I went over to our friends Mike and Stacy's house for a little socializing and stuff. The brickwife stayed home for a little peace and quiet for once. And let me tell you, being in charge of my son all by myself in a somewhat unfamiliar setting is exhausting. You have to maintain CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Plus, having him there is really isolating. It's hard to carry on a coherent conversation when your son is constantly craving your attention and/or wandering off to check something out.

And she does this every day. Granted it's often at home where things are baby proof so anything he can get into is fine for him to get into. But still, the lack of human contact must be totally stifling. I need a drink (or two) just to recover from three hours alone with him.

Brickwife, you are a totally amazing woman and I really hope our son doesn't exhaust you as much as he did me tonight. I can't even imagine what your life must be like every day. I love you, so please don't go crazy on me.


Finally, an aside on the "cookout" at Mike and Stacy's. I usually go to "cookouts" expecting a few bratwursts, a few burgers, maybe some steak or something. What do I see as I'm walking up to the door of their place? Why it's Mike (in his swimming trunks, but that's a whole 'nother story all together) pulling four whole roasted chickens off the grill. He then proceeds to slice them up and Stacy serves the pieces over arugula salad, papaya, and mango, and then tops it off with a nice mango chutney. What??? That's not a cookout, that's fine dining! I mean, I wasn't upset or anything, it just looked like a lot of work. So guys, next time, if you just want to make some hot dogs and serve them on paper plates, that is perfectly all right by this guy.

On Bandwagon Jumping

Well, the blogosphere (oh, how I loathe that word) absorbed another bandwagon jumper yesterday when the Brickwife decided that she too would like to publish her musings on the internet. Nothing could be more annoying to those of us that have been at this for awhile now. Just because you think it's "cool" to have a blog doesn't mean that you need to have one. Sheesh.

What's even more frustrating is that I expect she will be much better at this than I am.