Blog Pet Peeve the size of a Bernese Mountain Dog

I will never "dig" a site that wants to be dug.
I will never refer to said site as del.ic.us or whateverthefuck it is.
I will DOT something, but likely not if there is a link asking me to.

I've just been seeing a lot of blogs lately with "Digg This" on it. Not just a small link at the end of a given post either. Nice big ass graphics announcing how many digg's a particular post has. I will keep the particular blog that delivered the last straw that broke this camel's back out of it because I don't want to single them out. It's a good blog. It would be better without that shit.

I know what they want. They want traffic. So? Put up good content and people will dig and dot you til you are off the charts de-dick-lick-us. If not and you just want to promote yourself by imploring your readers to click a link to vote for you then I have two words: Fuck You.

Harsh? yes. If anybody ever sees that shit on my blog please give me a copy of this post right after you slap me silly.

Is it cold in here?

OK so we've got some freak weather. It's cold and clear. This is Seattle. We have rain and mild. RAIN and mild. We've got some serious (well ok it's not actually that cold, just freezing.) cold going on.

I had been waiting for my ginko tree to turn yellow. It's one of my favorite things about my yard. I know pathetic, but hang on. So I keep checking... still green. Still green. Today Green? no. Gone. Green actually but on the ground. We officially missed fall. Hello winter.

I am a freak.

I was going over my notes from the last two weeks. I made the note: "I am a freak."

I thought I'd share.

I had a good blog post this morning about forgetting my card key and having to call someone to let me in, but blogger ate it. It ate it like the chocolate rabbit that killed a big ass dog on easter morning... I was pissed. Can you tell?

Oh yes I did a Ctrl-A/Ctrl-C to copy it, but no... it was quicker than I.

Don't like the weather? Make some chili...

Today started off sunny and nice if not a little bit cold. So sunny I took care of a skinned knee while I made the best vege chili ever (shout outs to Jen for emailing me the recipie) well the best *I've* ever had. The kids came in a reported rain and wanted to go into the neighbor's house. So I say OK while I'm reading geek stuff I hear the weather change again. Hail. Not like getting a cab. Ice falling from the sky. I went out and Max was in the garage and we talked about the risk of running across the yard in the hail. It could get bigger, he could fall. Shut up dad and let me go (no he didn't say that but I might have as a kid. He may have been thinking it.) so I said OK go. When he's almost there the hail has accumulated on the ground in spots like snow. As he reached their driveway it stopped. Just like that. It actually moved down the street like we'd hit the edge of the special hail cloud.

The sun is coming out again... freaky. Well the chili's good and it's the perfect winter food.

Can't you feel that?

OK so I got me a Gyro for lunch. It's this place in Lynnwood near the Lynnwood Convention center. Excuse me? When the fuck did Lynnwood need a convention center? Anyways. I placed my order and yes my number was 69. I was so good I didn't even snicker when she told me my number. Again tangent.

So I sit down and the lady who orders next (she was behind me in line) has a wardrobe malfunction going on. OK I've seen people that have a small hole in some piece of clothing and not notice, but this woman had a fourth of her jeans pocket torn out. It's not like she had undergarmet between her and the elements. Just her butt right there in the restaraunt.

I mean she should have been able to feel that... Don't ya think?

Thursday with Tom

Tom Frank and I had a great conversation yesterday morning while I was driving into work. We talked about systems and sons. It's always nice to catch up with him. I need to do a crazy trip to LA just to hang with Tom and with Aye Jaye.

Best Spam Message

To make it past my gmail filter:

nude midgets message from Abigail Owens...

What a strange collection of words.

Live from the mountain 12

OK I rarely like a CD this much. I guess I'm in the KMTT cult. They make this live compilation every year from recordings they make right at the station. It's a nice sampler of stuff. I don't always want to get a whole album of this stuff. Yes I realize this is a really boring post, but what are you gonna do?

If you live in the Seattle area get this CD. Get it today. The lady who sold me my copies (yes that was plural) said that no sale had been just one. She expected that they would run out that day. I know they aren't sold out yet. So get one while the getting is good.

More voting crud

So I called. Yes in fact my ballot is now fucked. I don't even want to go into how easy it is to make the mistake I made.

I asked how to complain abou the new lack of polling place. The nice lady said that 60% of the population was voting by mail already. Of the other 40% only 10% of those voters were showing. The motivation to switch to vote by mail is to increase the particiaption not save money. She then added, "If you want to ..." She was searching for a word and I filled in "complain" and she went, "well how about give your opinion?" I said, "OK." She said to call the county auditor.

I should get my new ballot by Friday. Doh.

Voting

OK I hate that I don't get to go to the polls anymore. I have to mail it in. I have to also find witnesses to witness me mailing it in. Crazy. I want to go to the polls, sign my name and vote.

Yes this rant is because I fucked up my ballot and got to get a new one.

In other news I got my live from the mountain volume 12 today... yes!

That is feed corn, so don't eat it.

Jen M (signs comments "the other Jen") and I took the kids to the WA State corn maze. At a place called "the farm" and no there isn't anything sinister about this particular "the farm". Armed with major geek toys we went around the state of Washington (redone in corn to scale. I would link it but I'm just too lazy tonight.) armed with GPS's and even a compass and map combo. We never had to crack out the compass because the sun was shining from the south. It was great fun. We ended with some hide and seek in the maze. The kids were stunned at how fast we found them, but I was tracking them with a gps and chasing them with a gps, so it wasn't exactly fair.

Neither is life. They can eat Dairy Queen and I can only look up the fat/cholesterol content on the web and go: "FUCK!" so it all comes out in the wash.

Bits and pieces

First my keyboard is gross.

I won at pool last night, but it was the equivolent of getting stranded on base because our overall team result was not as good. No worries.

Are fig newtons and coke a food group?

Hardware woes at home continue.

Cable TV is a good thing.

Traffic is bad no matter when you hit it.

Last my mouse is pretty gross too.

It rhymes with Theme.. It's a meme...

When you don't having anything else to say, talk about yourself. (Taken directly from Jen.)

48 Things You Could Care Less About

1. First name?
J.R.

2. Were you named after anyone?
Yup. The whole reason for being J.R. is my dad was rather uncreative and just copied his name into both blanks and appended a Jr. after mine.

3. When did you last cry?
Maybe a little during insomnia otherwise it was likely in an airport somewhere.

4. Do you like your handwriting?
um no.

5. What is your favorite lunchmeat?
Corned beef.

6. If you were another person would you be friends with you?
Yes I think so. Isn't that physics paradox... oh no that's if I'm my own grandfather and I kill myself?

7. Do you have a journal?
This doesn't count?

8. Do you still have your tonsils?
Two, but one more case of tonsilitus and they are history.

9. Would you bungee jump?
No. I mean seriously no. I mean when did that become a goal?

10. What is your favorite cereal?
Fruity Pebbles. BAM BAM.

11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Never.

12. Do you think you are strong?
Nope.

13. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Ben & Jerry's Mint Oreo.

14. Shoe size?
8.5

5. Red or pink?
Excuse me?

16. What is the least favorite thing about yourself?
I'm adorkable?

17. Who do you miss the most?
If it means dead people that has to be Ken. Live people who are not with me it depends on the day.

18. Do you want everyone to send this back to you?
Nope. Please no. Seriously don't.

19. What color pants, shirt and shoes are you wearing?
Jeans and a dark green shirt. Off white sneakers.(yes I mean they are not clean.)

20. Last thing you ate?
Bean burrito no sour cream.

21. What are you listening to right now?
A/C as my iPod isn't hooked up yet to this new computer of mine.

22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Silver.

23. FAVORITE SMELL?
I have to take the 5th here.

24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
Jen

25. The first thing you notice about people you are attracted to?
Physical thing? Again with the 5th...

26. Do you like the person you stole this from?
Very much.

27. Favorite drink?
Coke.

28. Favorite sport?
Baseball, then football.

29. Eye color?
Brown.

30. Hat size?
Freakishly large. It's a curse.

31. Do you wear contacts?
oh god no.

32. Favorite food?
Steak maybe.

33. Scary movies or happy endings?
Documentaries aren't listed?

35. Summer or winter?
Winter.

36. Hugs or kisses?
Kisses.

37. Favorite dessert?
Ice Cream on a Brownie.

38&39 deleted.
Who deleted these? Duff? Jen? Anyone?

40. What books are you reading?
Feynman's tips on physics. Best science writing of 2006 and Forgotten calculus.

41. What's on your mouse pad?
The word "Microsoft"

42. What did you watch last night on TV?
Nothing.

43. Favorite sounds?
Rain. Opening a book for the first time. Popping open a can of soda.

44. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Beatles.

45. The furthest you've been from home?
The Bahamas

46. What's your special talent?
I can find the selected cards no matter if you lie, tell the truth and change your strategy in between.

47. Where were you born?
Gainesville, FL.

48. Who sent this to you?
I stole it from Jen.

There ya go. Did you read this far? Obviously.

Look! A Starbucks

I haven't been in a starbucks in a lot of months really. I went in with Sam this morning for a spot of breakfast before school. Max was at band lessons so it was a daddy daughter time. She likes to talk about school and her friends sometimes she goes so fast, that I feel all old and shit. Wait I am all old and shit. I try and keep up and listen because I know just around the corner is this conversation:

Dad: "What did you do in school today?"
Aloof Daughter: "Nothing"
Dad: "Really? Nothing?"
Daughter: "WHATEVER!"

So I'm not complaining about hearing all about her slide show in computer lab. It's better than the adolescent cut off... Besides the banana bread was great and my apple cider no whip was tasty, but very hot.

and we had the insomnia last night

That was lovely. I woke up around 2 then 3 and couldn't get back to sleep. I had an idea for work so I got up and wrote that up however looking back at what I wrote it wasn't exactly coherent. At least I know what it means. Nobody else would. I could probably just make a power point out of it and nobody would notice the lack of clarity. Assuming it had a pretty background.

geek times ten

I've been geekin a lot lately. If you want to know what it is just look at my all consuming.

Also: on demand cable is a bad thing. bad bad bad....

The incredible hoodie suggestion drive

"This is a hoodie!" My kids have heard me say it many times. My blogger hoodie has reached the state of relic I won't wear because I care too much about it. My Halo 2 hoodie which replaced it is no longer with me, but is doing charitable work of it's own in strange and foreign lands far and wide.

So I have a question for you. What hoodie do you think I should get? I need one as the still mild yet a little cooler months of Seattle. Please leave a comment if you have any ideas of what "JR's hoodie" should say. As usual sarcasm and insults welcome. Don't worry if the hoodie doesn't exist, They can be designed and made.

As per the theme of this blog I will choose the one that most amuses me and the person who suggested it will get their very own post here on backtalk (with photos!) in which my extremely few (read single digit) readers will be most impressed.

Today

I consumed almost zero cholesterol. I say almost because there was just a little skinless left over chicken in my stir fry.

You know you're old when...

You find yourself explaining razor burn to your son and he gets it. I don't mean he understands it, I mean he actually gets it. doh.

Is there an 'R' in the month?

Damn I had to turn the heat on today. I guess I was lucky I didn't have to do it in September at all. It wasn't really all that cold, but I want to work the funk out of the system. It's un nasty. Maybe I should clean out those filters, huh?

The stuff nightmares are made of

I was minding my own business. I was not trying to step out of my confort zone. I wasn't crashing anything god dammit. You ever get off on the wrong floor? I mean like one floor too early? Of course, right? So I got off on two instead of the lobby. Lobby on one. Big fat star next to it but the elevator stopped on two.

I got off not thinking. I was on the prowl for a soda. Like I always am. The lobby was not there. Closed doors. A ball room. Whoops! OK fine get back on the elevator.

Then the doors opened. There is nothing scarier than rich white people doing the electric slide. Nothing.

Drives me crazy

You know it's bad enough when there is one loud mouth idiot near you in a restaurant. It's even better when there are two of them playing off each other. Mix in a little this table is usually part of that table but we moved it 3 inches and now it's your table not the loud mouth idiot's table and you've got the making for one long meal.

While waiting to get our table Jen and I were jammed in this little alcove and these four people busted in and not knowing we already put our name in busted a move right in front of me to get to the host stand. No biggie right? I mean my name is in mutherfucker so fine. This guy "John" was loud from the get go. He asked the woman in the party if she was a vegetarian. She responded with, "Well I'm a Pescetarian. Nobody knows what I am. I am a vegetarian who eats fish. Pescetarian." She repeated like she was in a spelling bee. "Nobody knows what that is." I responded, but only under my breath, "I'm from Seattle I know what the fuck that is." She was just so loud about it.

When we got our little table for two. It was like two inches from an empty table for four. I thought "uh-oh" they're gonna be right next to us.

Yup. So we ordered and it was all good then the conversation started in earnest. From here on our we're going to call them She and He. It was really a table for two with accessories known as boyfriend and his brother who couldn't get a word in edgewise if they had to yell fire in a crowded theater. She starts in on the wine. "I ordered a zinfandel and I don't think that's what this is." She was trying to get it replaced and the server wouldn't do it. Nice.

His refrain was, "drives me crazy." He started it when he was talking about his work being too politically correct. There was someone there who belonged to some "groups" that this idiot apparently likes to make fun of so he was going on and on about having to walk on egg shells. In other words he enjoyed making fun of groups that this person belonged to. Drives me crazy, asshole.

The killer was when she said, "Well I like anything that's not American." Does it get any better than that? I mean really. (Un sweetie, let's not forget that everything American is stolen, OK? I mean seriously we were kicked out of every decent country in Europe to start us out. Anything that was already here we trampled with conquest so there really isn't anything American. Anything.) During the "anything not American" rant she did mention how much she loved Indian food.

Jen gives me the look over there head tilt. Our conversation had just stopped because these people were so fucking loud. I look over at miss unamerican loves Indian food and she doesn't know what to do with her curry. She's scooping the rice into the little "Let's share" serving style bowl.

Nobody knows what she is... Except me... Annoying.

I was hoping to fuck up some smart kids, but this is all Cambridge had to offer?

Stuff not true about me I used to believe

I used to think I liked sushi. I don't. I can tolerate it. But why? It's so much money.

Was there english on that?

"Why yes in fact there was." was my response last night in the 3rd and final game last night playing an old friend in my first match of the 8 ball season.

Let's rewind just a lil bit. I was nervous. Why? I'm gonna lose. I can accept that and we move on. I had a nervous stomach and I couldn't focus at work. So I went to the bar early to warm up. The warm up I did made me feel the folks wintering over in Antartica in a particularly bad winter. I sucked. Couldn't cut a ball in. I don't know if it was the nerves or what, but I reflected on where I was "at" last season. I looked back on what I believed and what I thought about myself. Nobody was there that I knew so I could think. I, in contrast to my nerves, felt pretty good.

Then we started and I ate. And I ate. I ended up getting matched with Mike Smith from my Outlook days. It was just nice to catch up. Also when he snookered me it was nice that I knew him well enough to look at him and go: "DICK!" and he just laughed.

First game came down to the 8 ball. I had the shot. It was clean clear and I missed the ball completely fouling and giving up the game.

Game two I won. It wasn't pretty or anything.

Game three I got snookered and I tried something mildly risky that I used to think I couldn't really do. It worked out. People gasped. I had left safe and when he completed his turn I had the shot. I ran out the rest of the table. (not that it was a huge run or anything) The cue came right up to the 8 at the end and I dropped it. It was one of my best games.

Looking back and looking forward, I've never been happier were I'm at and where I'm headed. Never.

Radio won't even play my jam

OK so a few house keeping items on today's agenda.

My feed link changed. Why? I fucking couldn't get it to work with the RSS option so I switched to Atom. It works now, but the link changed a teeny bit and it's like one of those close only counting in hand grenades so if you subscribe to it, it's broke. Of course if you read it only through the feed well you aren't seeing this because it's fucking broke and/or changed so well there you go.

Shout outs to the blue dot folks for changing the feed so the comments show. Now I got me a real live full html side blog for links. Let's go bluedot. "it's US not COM" Of course with the feed being changed nobody is going to read this plug anyways...

So put one finger on each hand up...

I'm sorry what?

OK so back to ortho this morning. They took an impression of my upper arch as they call it. So OK last time I not only puked I also bit the poor woman taking the impression. I'm glad, by the way, that my job in no way gets me into any situation where one might be bitten. Finger given? sure. Yelled at? always. (No not really) Bad food in the cafe. Oh please that was redundant. Bad food... Cafe... duh.

This time they sprayed my throat, and asked me what flavor I wanted for the goop. Flavor? Howaboutanythingbutpuke? (You try to talk right after they spray down your throat with "numb it now!" or maybe it was just Raid Plus, hard to say by the taste.)

I will say that stuff works, she even did the tongue depresser extra goo trick and I didn't so much as gag. She jammed it in. (Sounds like a porno huh?) And I didn't even bite her. (A boring porno to be sure.) Then I managed to take all the air I needed through my nose. I've had a bit of a cold on top of everything so I was worried. Still didn't bite her. She messed with the tray and again, I didn't bite her. yay me.

Then the Dr. came over and admired my stitches. She was pretty impressed with my lack of swelling. So I got that going for me. Lack of inflamation boo ya. She goes, "I'm gonna close that gap." I got "uh what?.. What gap?"

She says, "That gap." Like I know which gap.

I say back, "You aren't going to put brackets on, are you?"

"Nope, just bend this."

She took my retainer (Yes I still say it like Chucky in Good Will Hunting.) and some pliers and turned her back. I'm all "uh oh." She gives it back and says, "Can you get that in?" (again with the boarder line taken out of context things to say) I push it in. (I'm gonna stop bringing up the porno-esque lines, I swear.) "Yeah it's in."

"Is it OK?"

I respond "It's tight." (Porno. OK really I'll stop now.)

So they bent that one, I get a new one this afternoon and I don't have to wear them during the day. I hope this new one glows... Creepy.

Next steps

So on friday I did the next major dental thing in my mouth. (Under redundant it says see redundant...)

I not only had a bunch of "color" fillings to repair the two tonedness in my mouth my favorite and only baby tooth was removed and in it's place a metal pin was put. I had some serious drugs. I don't really remember anything solid from Friday. I did managed to operate the stove yesterday (not well as I scorched the back of one of my pans, but I got that clean today.) I'm having a little memory issue today, but I can at least drive. No more vicodan for pain and the twilight sedation medicine is working it's way out of my system.

Major shout outs to Deonn for driving me, feeding me, watching me and listening to my bullshit the whole day. I owe you one Deonn. To Jen for listening to my bullshit on the phone and making sure I didn't over do the pain meds. Appologies to Jill and Megan for receiving the drunk dialing calls and also putting up with my bullshit. Thanks go to Jeff for calling me and like everyone else putting up with my bullshit. Also shouts to Melanie for IMing me while I was waiting for the oatmeal to be done. (The stove was really hard to deal with in that state.)

Now my teeth are one color all of my friends have had too much of my bullshit and I can't remember a thing... You gotta love it.