Return of the Friday Random Ten

That's the nice thing about the Random Ten--it requires nothing but the push of the "shuffle" button and a little copying and pasting.

Trying Not To Think About Time—The Futureheads

Wave of Mutilation—The Pixies

Red Tan—The Raveonettes

Good Day—Dresden Dolls

Caveman—The Cramps

Wagon Wheel—Lou Reed

Religion—Public Image Ltd

You Trip Me Up—Jesus & Mary Chain

There She Goes Again—The Velvet Underground

Wasting My Time—The White Stripes

Lost Weekend

What a weekend.

I mean that almost completely in a good way. Friday night we went out to celebrate our anniversary and had a swell time. Great meal, lots of fun, shacked up in a hotel room overnight. A blast.

We were driving home Saturday morning when my cell phone rang. It was our youngest, telling me that my fellow sergeant was calling our home phone trying to find me. She said he sounded concerned, and that it was VERY important that I call him right away. It was at that moment that I realized I didn't have my Nextel with me. I called him right away, and as we drove along I heard words like "armed robbery" and "two of the offenders had handguns" and "car chase" and "crashed into a parked car" and "in custody after a foot pursuit" and "the midnight sergeant couldn't reach you" and felt like a world class retard. As it turned out there wasn't much for detectives to do except interview the bad guys and work with felony review to charge them. I ended up going in for a couple of hours that afternoon to check up on things, and other than how embarrassed I felt everything was under control.

The most important thing was that we were still able to make it to Club Lago to meet Chris and Megan. What a sweet couple! I gotta tell you, they looked none the worse for having moved halfway across the country. During a lull in the conversation my attention wandered to the TV over the bar, and what came on? Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland. We ended up having a great little conversation about hardboiled novels and pulp artwork with one of the owners, a friend of Chris'. What a good time. MizBubs and I bugged out just before dinner and headed home.

What followed on Sunday was another 14 hour day, some sleep, and another 14 hour day today--so far it's 20+ hours of overtime in the past 5 days, which just heightens the sense of unreality after being blissfully out of contact with the rest of the world Friday night.

Hopefully I'll surface again later this week in time to take the eldest to visit UIC and Columbia College.

Enjoy your week.

21 Years

Our marriage is now officially old enough to drink.

As of June 21 we've been married 21 years. I made it home after working an overtime detail at the carnival just in time to share a toast with MizBubs before the day was over.

We celebrate in earnest Friday night, and will probably still be celebrating when we meet some of you at Club Lago Saturday evening.

I'm a lucky bastard.

Florida, where nature hates us most of all

Thank God for the can-do spirit of the American fighting man. When faced with attack by a rabid wildcat, we'd all do well to follow the example of 62 year old Dale Rippy, Floridian and Vietnam veteran.

When Mr. Rippy was attacked while relaxing on his back porch, he fought back, and he won:

Dale Rippy endured the bobcat's slashes and bites until it clawed into a position where he could grab it by the throat. Then he strangled it.

Back to work, you.

Yep. Vacation is over. Time to get back to my real job:



Fighting crime!

The struggle continues

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, the proverbial turd in a punchbowl, but heck. It's what I do.

In spite of recent victories in New York, Kansas, Florida and California, the alligator has once again proven to be a wily and resilient adversary.

A young gator was captured in northern California, showing the gator's unyielding efforts to scout new territory.

What is it with New Yorkers and their insatiable desire to keep alligators as pets?

Alligators have apparently chosen to open a new front in the rust belt. A young scout gator was captured in a garage near Toledo, Ohio.

In a disturbing development, I've recently learned of another example of a bad cop being compromised by alligators.

Sgt. Warren Nyerges of the Bay Village PD, was placed on administrative leave after being charged with domestic violence and having a prohibited animal--an alligator. The stress and paranoia that results from being a reptile Quisling must have weighed heavily on Sgt. Nyerges. Police confiscated more than 40 firearms from his house.

Oh, yeah, one more thing--drugs were involved. Not the usual cocaine, or weed, or methamphetamine. Steroids. I don't have enough data to determine if Sgt. Nyerges' steroid use impaired his judgment, or if the stress of collaborating with the reptile enemy, and the constant fear of alligator attack, drove him to start hitting himself in the ass with D-bol. But I aim to find out.

For now the watchword remains, as always: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Tasty vices

On today's date in 1987, Ben & Jerry's created my favorite ice cream, Cherry Garcia. It is now their most popular flavor.



Oh, one more thing... I think this breaks up the lull between Father's Day and our upcoming wedding anniversary very nicely, thank you.

According to Tom Fitzmorris of the New Orleans Menu Daily, today is National Dry Martini Day.

Bottoms up!

Adopt an Actor

Hey, Bubs' eldest daughter here.

Well, as soon as I heard about Splotchy's Adopt an Actor program, I just had to take part! I was looking to see if any of my favorites had already been adopted, and amazingly, my top pick has NOT been taken!! Thus, I would like to officially adopt the King of Eurotrash, UDO KIER!! I think he needs a loving home to make sure he doesn't accept any more crap like "Bloodrayne" and sticks to good stuff.

My dumbest question

The delightfully raunchy, funny and smart Katie Schwartz has tagged yours truly. Here are the requirements:

"For this meme, I'm going to ask you to answer three (hopefully not dumb) questions: What is the dumbest question you ever been asked? Why was it it dumb? And, even though it won't help, because answering a dumb question never does, what's the answer? (Or, as I like to think of them: The Big Dumb Question, The Big Dumb Reason, and The Big Dumb Answer.)"

Now, before I get started, I have to say something. After reading Katie's story I believe that it is really unnecessary, pointless, really, for any other blogger, anywhere, to post another response to this tag. Go read her story, here, and tell me if I'm not right. In spite of that belief I'll soldier on and give you this story.

Like anyone else who works with people--food service, retail, any of the "helping" professions--I've had plenty of dumb questions. But the thing is, there's one dumb question that I've heard at least a half dozen times over the years, from different people, but always in the same context.

Here's the setting: an office or interview room in a police station. Picture the usual institutional gray/green furniture, cinderblock walls and air of human desperation. There's a guy sitting in a chair, and you can tell by looking at him that he's spent, physically and emotionally. Sometimes he looks tearful and afraid, sometimes relieved, and other times almost happy because a great weight has just been lifted from him. Sometimes it's not a guy, it's a girl, but almost always it's a guy. He's in the process of signing his written confession, the one I just got from him, or he's already signed it and he's sitting back as I explain what happens next. At some point he looks up and makes eye contact with me, something he hasn't done for a while, and says "can I ask you a question?" And I just know the question is coming.

And then it comes:

"Do you think this is going to hurt my chances of becoming a police officer?"

Now, why was the question dumb, every single time it was asked? Because in each case the person had just confessed to a f*cking felony, that's why, and even grimy shithole police departments in places like southern Louisiana and Cook County, Illinois, generally refrain from hiring felons. (Seriously, they do--most of the bad cops you read about become felons after they've been on the job a while.)

So how do I answer this question? Like this:

"No, I wouldn't worry about it. They'll probably appreciate your honesty in admitting you made a mistake. Would you like to make any phone calls now?"

I tag MizBubs, Dale, Lulu and Johnny Yen. MizBubs because she works at a public help desk at the library and she's married to me, and I know she could fill pages with the stupid questions I've asked her; Lulu and Johnny because they're both educators, and Dale...well, because I get the feeling people just ask him a lot of dumb questions in general.

Whew...

Good morning.

We spent the weekend camping at the farm and I'm still recovering. 90+ heat can kind of wear you out, but at least it was cool and breezy at night. One way of beating the heat was glorious in its white-trashy simplicity: slap on some sunscreen and drag your lawn chairs and your beer into the creek. Then just sit there, not moving much, while the water cools you. Well, cools your feet and your ass anyway. The rest of you is still baking in the sun.

A camping trip usually results in the purchase of some new piece of equipment. I now have an official camping cocktail shaker, made of high-impact plastic, with helpful recipes and measurements printed on its sides. Friday's drink was the Mint Julep, made with fresh mint from our garden. Saturday's drink was the Mojito. The only problem was in each case I had to use cubed, not crushed, ice.

An important part of car-camping (as opposed to wilderness canoeing or backpacking) is the concept of the camp kitchen. To me, eating well in the outdoors is a big deal, and I like to have a good space to prepare food. This is a picture of the official Sprawling Ramshackle Compound Mobile Kitchen. Note the Gadsden flag flying proudly. This identifies you as a potentially armed crackpot in case any Iowa meth freaks wander near your campsite.

Inside the screen house, out of direct sunlight, is a collapsible table, a cooler and a honking big propane burner. Over the weekend this area was used more for drink mixing, but I still made a tasty dinner Friday night: lime & chipotle marinated chicken breasts served on tortillas with fried black beans and corn which had been cooked with green chiles and caramelized onions.

A word of advice for anyone training to run a marathon. If you stay up drinking until 1:30 in the morning, smoke a couple cigars, sleep 5 hours on the ground, then run at midday when it's 90 degrees, running 4 miles on a hilly gravel farm road with no shade really counts the same as running 8 or 10 miles. I'm thinking of including this in my forthcoming book, "Marathon Training for Lounge Lizards".

On Saturday night we experienced an awesome thunderstorm. Not much compares to the feeling of being in a dry tent while the lightning flashes outside and the rain falls in sheets.

Overall it was a fine weekend of doing nothing.

Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel

Southside bureau chief Dena alerted me to this.

Police in Culpeper, Virginia arrested 33 year old Joyce Ann Herbert after she crashed a U-Haul truck into a house. While she was naked. It's unknown why Ms. Herbert was naked, but she had recently been released from Culpeper regional hospital that morning.

Alert readers will remember the story of Mr. Stephen Brewer, who was arrested by Damascus, Viriginia police after leaving his truck and running naked through the streets.

Timid scientists would be hesitant to pronounce a trend or pattern based on two incidents occurring 7 months and 282 miles apart, but as I've stated before, narcozoology is a fearless and expansive new science, so I'll state boldly and with conviction that this is, in fact, a pattern.

From now on Virginia will no longer be known as the "Old Dominion State"; instead we will refer to it as the "Driving Naked State."

_____________

Oh. Hold on a minute.

Washington State Patrol troopers pulled over a Seattle couple. They were naked. Alcohol was involved. The man was charged with drunken driving and one I've never heard of before, "embracing while driving." The woman was charged with possession of alcohol by a minor.

I see now that more research is needed.

Adopt an Actor

Splotchy recently recommended that we all adopt an actor, preferably a character actor, and promote his work from time to time. Lulu and Johnny Yen promptly stepped up, and now I'm announcing my pick.

At first I was going to adopt Strother Martin. He's appeared in hundreds of movies and TV shows, and you probably know him as the Captain in Cool Hand Luke. He's been dead for 27 years. While "adopting" a dead actor was ok according to Splotchy, I decided to go for another character actor whose work never ceases to entertain me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dick Miller.

Dick Miller has appeared in 165 movies and TV shows according to his IMDB entry. I became a fan of his watching him in Roger Corman movies when I was a kid. His most notable roles are the flower-eating guy in the original Little Shop of Horrors, deranged beatnick artist/killer Walter Paisley in Bucket of Blood, and his appearances in the Gremlins movies. He usually has a small role and steals whatever scene he's in. He was the gun shop clerk in The Terminator "Only what you see pal" and the occult bookstore guy (named Walter Paisley!) in The Howling.

He played Monster Joe in Pulp Fiction, but his scene was cut.

What's the deal with the Royal Air Force?

This recent post by Lulu reminded me of a story I saw last week. Lulu has fine taste in pinup art, and she graced her post with some wonderful vintage nose art. Nose art is a fine military tradition going back to WWI, and frequently it's pinup-themed. Cartoon characters are popular too; during WWII the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) asked if they could use a Disney character named Fifinella as their mascot. Americans are widely credited with popularizing nose art during WWII, and the Brits probably adopted the practice from them.

The Royal Air Force has now banned pinup-themed nose art, going so far as to order one unit in Afghanistan to scrub the images from their aircraft. Why? Because it might offend Muslims (in the countries they're bombing?), or women serving in the RAF.

The RAF has not received a single complaint from any of the 5,000+ women serving. I can't believe that all those truck bombers are pissed off about a Page 3 Girl.

It was 37 years ago..

On June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter.

While under the influence of LSD.

The Tom Jones Years have started early

Several years ago, after seeing Sir Tom Jones for the first time at the fabulous MGM Grand showroom in Las Vegas, I announced that when I hit a certain age I was going to:

1) Dye my hair jet black,

2) Get all my teeth fixed so they looked like crazy white chiclets,

3) Fake tan to the color of mahogany,

4) Wear a girdle if necessary, and most important of all:

5) Insist that this was the way I always looked.

I figured I'd do this when I hit 60, and I would refer to this new phase of my life as the "Tom Jones Years".

Well, the Tom Jones Years have started a little early I think.

This is a busy time of year around our household: my birthday, Father's Day and our wedding anniversary all fall within 7 days, and it's always a time for reflection and celebration. This year I'm really happy about my birthday--I turn 45 soon--and I realize that I'm at the halfway point of my life. Not in the typical mopey middle-aged man sense that the rest of my life is a long slow decline. No. I'm at the halfway point in the sense that I have an entire second life to live now. I get to do what a lot of people never get to--leave one career, voluntarily and with a good pension, and start a second. And this time it doesn't have to be something I just fall into almost as a fluke, like law enforcement was. I get to choose.

MizBubs and I are both making plans for college in the fall; at the same time that our eldest is getting ready to visit 4-year colleges this month in preparation for transferring next year. It's fascinating to realize that we are essentially asking ourselves the same question that our daughters are asking: what do we want to do with our lives?

So, as I look around at this halfway point, I'm pretty damn lucky and pretty damn happy. This time last year I was kind of depressed--I was recovering from having been gutted like a fish, I had just lost a 3 year long union organizing campaign, and beyond the de-whitetrashification of our house and yard, I had no focus or energy.

Now, you might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with The Tom Jones Years? Well, I'll tell you. I was feeling pretty good after a visit to the dentist Monday--he complimented me on the health of my gums and the general whiteness of my teeth. I was looking forward to running this week, and especially to our first camping trip of the season planned for this weekend.

But I was tired of looking in the mirror and seeing this:


I decided that it was time for a change. So, after much consulting with MizBubs and our eldest (the youngest was not on board for this) we stopped at Walgreen's and invested in a box of Clairol nice n' easy gray solution #4 (dark brown.) Our eldest, the beauty wizard, applied the dye and walked me through the process.

As of this morning, I look in the mirror and see this:


Yes, I have become a ridiculous middle-aged man with a dye job. I have not done the tanning, and while my teeth are healthy they are not gleaming white chiclets. There is no girdle in my future. I am going to make more of an effort to sing and dance and be generally more suave, pausing at certain key points to ask myself WWTJD? MizBubs was mildly startled upon waking this morning (I think she was afraid, briefly, that she'd gotten drunk and fallen into bed with an Elvis impersonator) but she seems happy with it. This is what my hair looked like 18 years ago.

And you know what? I'm happy with it.

"There was no point in looking back, fuck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger; a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."

--H.S. Thompson

Vacation

Right now my vacation is rolling along nicely. I'm halfway into cleaning out the garage and just came in for some water and to sit a minute. Time to get the shop vac and clean up the bag of leftover grass seed from last year that the mice got into.

Appropriately enough the calypso mix I made is now playing "The Jackass Song":

Jackass will jump and bray
Let him bray, let him bray
Jackass will jump and bray
Let him bray, lordy let him bray

I think tonight will be a good night for takeout food and mint juleps. Now I'm jumping back out to the garage to bray a while.

Tuesday's Top Seven

What the hell. It's Tuesday.

Here's what we're listening to this morning:

Rigor Mortis—The Gravestone Four

Arabia—Siouxsie & the Banshees

Lucky Day—Judy Garland

Hellbound Train—Three Bad Jacks

Outsiders—Franz Ferdinand

Linda Lou—Curley Langley & his Western Allstars

On the Sunny Side of the Street—Keely Smith

Spunky gets pinched

Now here's something you don't see every day:

A clown gets arrested, and the clown is a girl clown, and there's no creepy sex stuff involved. Nope, no computer porn, no sexual assault, just a good girl whose 18 years of clowning has gone down the crapper because she tried smuggling dope into a jail.

According to this story, Spunky the Clown (Manuela Markham) was arrested May 6. Spunky is pictured here in happier times.

Spunky is paying dearly for her lapse in judgement. She's taken her website down, leaving only this anguished and heartfelt apology. Could there be any sadder words than these:

"I cannot forgive myself. I will probably never clown again".

Doing her time...

MizBubs and I were talking about Paris "Rottencrotch" Hilton's return to jail on our way to a birthday party earlier this afternoon. I was telling her that my theory (that Paris' "undisclosed skin condition" was in fact a runaway case of flaming herpes that had rendered her mad) had been confirmed by a number of reliable internet sources.

So anyhow, we were driving along listening to Johnny Cash when the song "Doing My Time" (a cover of an old Flatt & Scruggs number) came on. The first verse goes like this:

On this old rock pile with a ball and chain
They call be by a number not a name, Lord, Lord
Gotta do my time, gotta do my time
With an aching heart and a worried mind

Only MizBubs, who's not normally prone to sing along, promptly piped up with this, deadpan, and in perfect harmony with Johnny's deep rumble:

Gotta do my time, gotta do my time
With an aching twat and a worried mind...

I almost wrecked the car. That MizBubs is a card.

____________________________________

MizBubs has been full of mildly inappropriate fun this weekend. We have always had, shall we say, a satisfying and...enthusiastic relationship. She proved this, once again, by leaving a small yet distinct mark, a bruise perhaps, some might even call it a hickey, on the side of my throat. We got home from the birthday party, and evidently the concealer had worn off. My 18 year old daughter looked at me, grinned, raised her eyebrows and said "oh...that's classy." How goofy is it that I've been reproached, albeit in a good-natured way, by my child? Thank God I wasn't drunk at the time.

____________________________________

For whatever reason MizBubs has decided that she wants to return to the Catholic church. We've attended mass at a couple of different parishes, and found one nearby that we both like. I must say, even after being away for 17 years, it all comes back to you pretty easy.

So, I got the idea that I wanted to go to mass on Saturday afternoon--I always remembered the Saturday mass as being like the casual Friday of worship, and I thought if MizBubs wanted to go to church this weekend, we might as well go on Saturday, and then we could sleep in Sunday morning and go to the farmers market. I talked her into it, and away we went. As we pulled up you could see a number of casually-dressed parishioners walking toward the church. I noted one couple and thought to myself "I hope they're not going in dressed like that." She looked ok, but he looked like he'd spent Saturday afternoon drinking in the forest preserve. He was wearing a B.U.M. Equipment tee shirt and shorts, and looked sweaty and mildly sunburned.

When we go to church, I tend to sit toward the back. I figure the good Christians should get the seats up front. In the past MizBubs has mentioned wanting to sit closer to the altar, so yesterday I thought I'd be a good sport and suggest we sit further up. And we did. A couple minutes after we sat down, a guy sat next to me, with one seat between us. He was wearing short pants, and had a bowl haircut and bright eyes. Big bright enthusiastic eyes. Which he turned on me when he said "HOW ABOUT THOSE CUBS? SORIANO'S REALLY HOT NOW, HE'S REALLY ON FIRE!"

I demurred that I didn't really follow the Cubs, and he went silent. For a while. I shifted in my seat, turned to MizBubs and mouthed "thanks", which she did not appreciate. Then he said, just a little loudly for the usual pre-liturgy murmur inside a church, HEY YOU'RE NOT A SOX FAN ARE YOU? I explained that I don't really follow baseball, then I trotted out the small collection of vacuous sports chat I keep ready for just such occasions. It seemed to satisfy him; he chattered on about Lou Pinella, and then the service started.

When it came time for the homily the priest introduced a missionary from India , who spoke about the good works being done by his charity. When he finished his presentation the parishioners applauded politely, and as the speaker walked away from the podium Mr. Brighteyes Shortpants leaned over toward me and said, loudly and yet in a manner that was meant to be confidential, "YOU KNOW INDIA IS THE LARGEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD."

I looked around and no one seemed to be staring in our direction, which was a relief. Then I noticed the sweaty meatball I'd seen walking in earlier--he was on the other side of the altar, right in the front row, a stocky Ditka-like fellow in baggy shorts and BUM tee shirt. He hadn't taken off his sunglasses and still had that sunburned, sweaty look. He had rolled up one sleeve of his shirt and was vigorously scratching his upper arm. I looked away, and when I looked back he had a large tube of lotion and was pooting a glob of it into one hand. I mean, really pooting--you could tell that anyone within 10 feet of him would hear the sound of the lotion spurting out. Then he proceeded to rub lotion onto his arms while the priest turned the wine and wafers into the body and blood of Christ. I missed the transubstantiation completely, I was so distracted by this guy. He finally finished swabbing himself down and I was able to concentrate on my salvation again.

The rest of the mass continued without incident. Mr. Brighteyes Shortpants left as soon as the priest said "the mass has ended, go in peace" without even waiting for the processional hymn to conclude, so I didn't have to talk any more baseball.

I may need a lot of things, but I'll get nothing and like it

Since I am thoroughly lazy and happy to rip off other folks' good ideas, this is a perfect Sunday morning post. Marni, Lulu and Tenacious S have all done it. As with any trend not involving animal attacks or clowns, I'm way behind the curve.

I typed in "Bubs needs" and googled away, and came to a disturbing discovery. Evidently, somewhere in the English-speaking world, "bubs" must be a common way of referring to a baby:

Sometimes bub's needs will have to come first but remember to think of the other kids and family members.

bubs needs a nappy change

bubs needs to be in bed for a min of 2 hours

I plan on throwing away the books and listening to what bubs needs.

bubs needs the extra iron now

Frankly, I'd be putting the bub's needs first

Finally I got a little further into the search and found a more academic Bubs:

Bub needs to solve the measurement problem (a. problem that Kochen and Specker never discuss)

Bub needs an argument that hidden variable theories that are empirically equivalent to the standard theory are unacceptable to establish his subthesis 1.

I assure you all that I am not a cannibal (unless I crashed on a snowy mountain with a plane full of soccer players, or got lost in the Rockies with some prospectors):

but don't you think bub needs to be eating a person's kidney or something?

Bubs needs a thread. There is alot of love for him. ...Well, ok. I can get behind that last one.

I decided to see how the results would change if I didn't use my nom de blog. BINGO! Now this is a list of stuff I really need:

Joe needs to remember that he is vulnerable to anything that gives an emotional uplift

Joe needs your help to find his broccoli!

Joe Needs Your Help!

Joe needs two cracking matches to avoid going down to reserve and he is capable of doing it if everything is right.

Joe needs to be at this year’s All-Star game in Las Vegas (obviously this person heard about my Las Vegas disappointment earlier this year.)

Joe needs to go.

Joe needs to win it all.

Joe needs to shut his browser when leaving for meetings

joe needs his beauty sleep.

JOE Needs Good Commentaries

Joe needs to get to the other side of the chasm where there are only 2 valves

JOE needs to keep his BIG NOSE out of his life.

JOE needs to give you a can of Italian Whoop Ass (Even if I'm not Italian? Why not?!)

Joe needs $7777 to support 4 months of intensive fund-raising

Joe needs to see a win, and catch a break.

A Perfect Day...

The little canoe that...couldn't

I just sold the little canoe that could. There. It's done.

We bought the skeleton of a 1937 Old Town HW canoe back in July last year. I planned to spend this summer, and most of 2008, restoring it to its former glory. The goal was to have this beauty ready for water by Labor Day 2008.

Well, things change. I called the Chicagoland Canoe Base to see if they had a bulletin board and ended up selling it to the guy who answered the phone. He came out and picked it up today. At least I know it's going to a good home.

The old me of 5-10 years ago would have left this canoe husk sitting in the garage for years, feeling bad about not restoring it at the same time I let it deteriorate year after year. The new, grown up, version of me recognized that I couldn't possibly start working on this for at least another 2 years and promptly found a home for it. Recognizing the problem and quickly removing it makes me feel almost as good as if I'd actually restored the thing.

Oh, I also made a small profit, and the new owner seemed really happy to have it, so I'm sure I sold it at a very fair price.

Life moves on.

Friday random reading

I've just seen this little divertissement from two favorites, Mob and Johnny Yen. Here's how it works:

1) Grab the nearest book once you read this.

2) Open to page 161.

3) Find the 5th full sentence, and post the text, along with these instructions.

Since I'm sitting at my desk on my first taxpayer-funded coffee break of the day, the closest book I had was from a collection of vintage reference books I keep in the cabinet above my desk: Medicolegal Investigation of Death by Spitz and Fisher (2nd printing, 1977.)

"The finely abraded margins of the chest wounds are due to the wedge-like thickness of the blade of this particular type of weapon."

I will survive

I think there a few reasons for this high score:

1) I've always been a paranoid gun nut. Probably from all those zombie movies I watched as a kid.

2) My daughter gave me The Zombie Survival Guide as a gift a few years ago.

3) I've always been a paranoid gun nut.


91%Mingle² - Free Online Dating



From Evil Spock by way of Johnny Yen.

Anyone for camping?

We're going nuts around here because it's June already and we haven't been camping yet.

I was talking with MizBubs and I came up with a bright idea. Wouldn't it be a blast to get a bunch of bloggers together for a camping trip? Nothing too extreme, just a nice weekend spent in the outdoors with a bunch of fun loving characters. There are a number of state parks that have group campsites, and I think that some time in July or August we could find something within a 2-3 hour drive of Chicago. Don't be put off if you've never been camping--you can rent tents and stuff from places like REI, and we pride ourselves on making our friends comfortable in the outdoors.

Would anyone be interested in such an event? Let me know--if there's enough interest I'll find a site and start the planning. And if anyone has any ideas or questions, let me know!

@$%#%&!!

I'll just quote the lead from this story in the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, June 4 — If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can use vulgar language, then the government cannot punish others for doing the same thing on television.

That, in essence, was the decision today when a federal appeals court struck down the government policy of fining stations and networks that broadcast programs with profanity.

In the recent words of GETKristiLOVE from Two Minutes in the Box:

Fuckin' A!

I'll drink to that...

I Can Read!

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Literate Good Citizen
Fad Reader
Book Snob
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Yea, OK, I'm a book geek too. Bubs and I are always stealing each others books. The hard part is remembering which scrap-of-paper bookmark is yours!

In the previous post, Bubs forgot to mention the tadpoles! The pond now has 4 adorable Leopard Frog tadpoles nibbling on algae. There's a good chance they'll hop away when they grow up, if they don't get eaten by a Heron first. Bubs is hoping for a Heron!

I am a dedicated reader

According to this poll I am, anyway.

I ran across this on Write Procrastinator's site this morning as I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Go ahead--you deserve it!

I heard these words, or something like them, several times today. Each time they were spoken by MizBubs, girl dynamo.

Like I said earlier this morning, the past few days have been a blur of yard work and movie rentals. The overall effect, however, was pleasing, not frantic.

MizBubs took me shopping for some new running shoes and a couple of tee shirts. Inspired by a recent post by Justacoolcat we headed to Lurvey's and bought a mock orange shrub to fill an empty spot in the back corner of the yard, and ended up with 3 Spirea shrubs and some water plants as well. Next thing I knew, we were back in the yard digging again.

When we finished I started on dinner. MizBubs decided that we needed a tasty beverage after all our hard work, and the beautiful creation you see above was the result. I asked her what it was, and she called it "A Perfect Day":

Cruzan coconut rum
Mango nectar
Lime Juice

It was perfect.

I got adventurous with a couple of pork tenderloins we had in the fridge, and decided to try a new rub. I must say, it came out wonderfully. The rub had ground coffee, brown sugar, dried chipotle, sage, garlic powder, paprika and salt. It created a damn-near perfect crust on the tenderloins, and I finished it with a sauce I made from chicken stock, chipotle, roasted red peppers and chocolate. It was mighty tasty.

Now it's time to get ready for bed, and the grind of the coming work week.

Sunday morning coffee

Well, here we are again. 8:00 am Sunday morning, just me and my youngest catching up on things during the most quiet and civilized time of the day. Youngest is sitting next to me updating her MySpace page. Just one more week of school...

Training for the Chicago Marathon kicks off next week, for those folks following Hal Higdon's 18-week program. I've been going to Lake Zurich and running with the Alpine Runners--in my opinion the best running club around. Yesterday was my longest run yet this year, 8 miles, and it felt good. Hopefully the body holds up over the next few months.

The last few days have been a blur of yard work, grilling and movie rentals. We managed to watch:

The Departed (What's the deal with this movie? It's like Scorcese suddenly realized he had 10 minutes left and needed to wrap things up in a hurry: there's a series of killings and a typical poignant Hollywood police funeral, and more killings. The end.

16 Blocks (Bruce Willis was good as the alcoholic detective trying to do the right thing, and Mos Def was brilliant as the talkative jailbird witness)

Jet Li's Fearless

Turistas (forget waking up in a tub full of ice with your kidney missing--head for sunny Brazil and lose ALL your organs!)

Night at the Museum (a pleasant little family film. Entertaining mostly, and only a little cloying. It's fun to watch Mickey Rooney as a hateful old security guard.)

Smokin' Aces (Ah, Hollywood...will you never tire of trying to replicate the successes of Quentin Tarantino and the bizarre caper films of Guy Ritchie? The highlight of the movie, for me, was the antics of a trio known as the Tremor Brothers. Then I realized that they reminded me of methed-up versions of the trappers from Cannibal The Musical.)

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While scanning the news this morning I found this item from Canada: another freak on a bicycle, only this time he's grabbing ass instead of asking to be kicked in the nuts. Is it possible the Ontario Nut Buster worked out whatever self-esteem issues he had and then frantically pedalled east to start grabbing ass? I need answers.

Finally Friday Random Ten

This Friday was, simultaneously, long overdue and here before I knew it. I've been on a fierce Elvis Costello kick the past few days and I was pleased one of his tracks showed up this morning. I thought these choices, taken as a group, were strangely downbeat. I wonder what gives...

Bop With Me Baby—Johnny Tate

Poisoned Rose—Elvis Costello

Emotional Abuse—Horrorpops

For Your Love—The Yardbirds

Holiday Hill—Wallace Walters

You Burn Me Up and Down—We The People

n'y va pas manuel—Edith Piaf

Police State in the USA—Anti-Flag

Big Spender—Peggy Lee

Woe—Tom Waits

Career tips for aspiring criminals

Here's a few tips if you're thinking about committing a robbery:

1) Don't get drunk before you commit your robbery

2) Don't use your victim's credit card to buy 3 cartons of cigarettes, less than a mile away from the robbery, and don't do it in a gas station that has a good security video system

3) Most important of all, don't crash your getaway car while you're driving drunk. The police will probably find the fake gun you used, and your victim's wallet, in the car when you get arrested for DUI.

I'm just saying.