I Saved the Planet, Dudes

Minnesota Chronicles, Vol. 3

No seriously. It has been made clear to me that alls I have to do is leave my towels on the rack instead of the floor, and it will save the planet. Well, friends, I am happy to announce: the planet is SAVED. You can thank me later.

I’ve done many things for you guys over the years, but none of them probably had the impact that this one single event did. I’m just wondering though… instead of printing up this cute little sign and going through all that trouble, couldn’t the person who placed the sign just left the towels on the rack? He could have saved the planet back when he hung the sign. Oh well, it’s really no sweat to me, and I’m happy (and honored) to have gotten the opportunity to perform such a magnanimous, philanthropic detail.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:travel diary
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Brew Review: Ricky Gervais – Out of England

What? Another review? Yeah, well the only other things to talk about right now are getting kicked like dead horses, with boots covered in bacon. And the guy doing the kicking has a blister on his foot because there’s a hole in his sock. And his wife is a dental hygienist. So yeah, it’s kind of tiring. I’m already tired of the conspiracy theories about how dude isn’t really dead. Or how he’s been dead for a long time. Seriously? We need another conspiracy to latch onto? :rolleyes:

And plus, too, when I see something great, I like to share it with you guys so you can see something great too. So let’s get this starty parted.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Gray Matters

My red-haired wife and I watched Gray Matters last night. It’s a chick-flick. You see, chick-flicks are not my first picks when I’m looking for movies, and it’s certainly not my favorite genre. But I am an artist, and can appreciate all kinds of art. Which is why I’ll listen to rap if there’s actual talent to be heard in the track. Shrug. I don’t close my mind and avoid watching (or listening) to something just because it falls into a particular genre of which I’m not typically fond. I am also very objective in my reviews of such pieces, because I’m evaluating the art. Not the category. That being said, this was a fine movie.

I will back up a second and admit to you that the only reason I rented this one was because Heather Graham is in it. And so is Bridget Moynahan. And there happens to be a particular scene in it where they… I don’t know how to say it… uh, they, well, let’s just say they kiss a little bit. No, I am NOT shallow. But these two women are pretty close to the top of my celebrity hit list and so if they’re kissing each other, I need to know about it. And I need to see it. And not to ruin the movie for you, but the kissing scene of which I speak was really well done. Tasteful and not gratuitous, surprisingly. Yes, seriously, I was really surprised that it wasn’t just a gratuitous make-out scene the director threw in just to classify the movie. It was cute, fun and – well, very believable. And damn sexy, if I might say so.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

After several years of deliberating and delaying and any other excuses I could find to put it off, I’ve finally finished building my HTPC. To you lay folk out there, that stands for Home Theater Personal Computer. And let me tell you: you need to get yourself one of these bad boys.

Anyway, the point is that since I have finally finished it out, my red-haired wife and I have been watching a lot more movies. And she’s even stayed awake for a few of them. I know, I know, most of what I write on this site is fictitious, but trust me, this is true! And last night she stayed awake through the entire viewing of The Time Traveler’s Wife.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:6 mins read

The Trifecta of Idiocy

Have you ever had one of those days where you just can’t do anything right? Well I haven’t. Everything I ever do is right. Ahem. Okay, well sometimes maybe I make a mistake or two. But… Okay, well sometimes I have those days too. And it seems especially bad when it happens to me because usually when I start messing up, people start getting hurt. I’m not sure why, but it just seems to work out that way most of the time.

For instance, the other day at my nephew’s birthday party, we all went to Blortbortham’s Seafood & Sausage House over on Cooper Street. I was carrying my two-year-old princess on my shoulders, walking around the restaurant so we could see what people were eating. I would stop by a table and bend over to examine their plates and ask them if it was any good. “How’s the squid bladder with octopus semen sauce?” I would ask, for instance. Some of the patrons seemed put off by the fact that I was asking them what they were eating, but come on – you’re in a public eatery! You should expect to have some human interactions with strangers.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Here’s Your Sign

You always hear people asking, “Why do drive-up ATMs have Braille on the buttons? Do they think blind people will be driving? LOL”. But my question is far more simple. Why do ATMs have Braille on them? Do they think blind people will be pulling out cash? The buttons don’t have assigned functions and values, and their purpose changes with every option you select. So how would a blind person know when to hit which button?

It seems we as humans are advancing technologically into areas our parents’ generation only dreamed of. There’s that damn preposition at the end of my sentence again. But at the same time, we’re getting dumber and dumber. Think about it. Do you know any rocket scientists, personally? Do you know anyone who actually has contributed something to the technology revolution? It’s sort of just something that happens when we put our minds together. Yet, I don’t know any single individual who isn’t susceptible to being an idiot sometimes.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:6 mins read

I’m not real proud of myself right now.

For one who considers himself on top of the technology game, I sure did just pull a major blunder. Now I don’t purport to know everything about everything, or everything about all the new tech coming out, but I do keep up with it fairly well. I stay abreast (God I love that word) of all the latest schlit coming out and I’m pretty well aware of the value of technology. I guess maybe I just lost a little of my touch. Or went dumb for a minute.

You remember my talking about getting rid of my iPhone, right? Yeah. I wanted to sell it. Then I decided to keep it. Then I thought maybe I should sell it. I went back and forth like a bi-curious virgin trying to decide which orientation to break chastity with. I know, that was a poorly worded sentence, and I ended on a preposition – but I thought the analogy was worth it. And speaking of analogies… Well, let’s just stick with the story.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read

The Time Traveler Convention

We had a little get-together the other night with a few friends, and I think some of the things that happened that night are worth mentioning. It was a hot summer night, just like every other night has been this year, here in Texas. It’s so hot that when my wife and I sit outside and just enjoy the cool night air after the kids are in bed, it’s actually still over 100 degrees. And we’re talking about after nine o’clock. But there is one good thing about it. At least we’re not in Oklahoma.

So Haycomet and Byronic came over and brought their tinycomet – who (and this is another story, but) installed Open Solaris on one of my print servers and re-allocated a slash 28 from my DHCP scope to serve as her science lab, then delved into some hard coding time, whereupon she ran all six of my computers at 98% CPU usage for over two hours grinding out application for her theory about relativistic dimensional vacillation. So in short, we spent a few hours sipping cognac in a fine 17th century hall surrounded by warpainted women in loincloths and pasties who thought we were Norse gods. Thanks, tinycomet!

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Wait. What birds? What bees?

A few years ago, when my nephew was still just a little shaver, we found ourselves faced with an uncomfortable confrontation when my sister mentioned something about sex. Now it wasn’t something inappropriate, to be sure, but rather something along the lines of “sex in a movie” or something equally as innocuous. So all she did was basically say the word sex. It might even have been something like, “what sex is the child?” or whatever.

Anyway, my nephew, hearing the unfamiliar word, piped up with this little gem: “What are secks?” Well, seeing that a possibly uncomfortable situation might abound, I went ahead and stepped up to the plate with a perfectly delivered response, when I said, “Well, son, let me tell you what secks are.” So as the boy sat on the couch and looked at me, I told him that secks were like different categories into which women are grouped to determine their eligibility. I said, “For example, your mother would be in Seck A. Grandma over there? Well, she’s in seck B. Now Step, my red-haired wife? Yeah. Hi-five. She’s Seck C.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:4 mins read

The Law of Averages

I can’t recall how well I did in statistics class, most likely because of one of the few following reasons: I a) didn’t take statistics class in college, b) spent way too much time between the sheets with girls and not near enough between the pages of schoolbooks, or c) didn’t actually go to college. I can’t even recall which of the answers would be closest to correct, so I shall not bother. And there’s your opening paragraph.

But let’s just say that the odds of some things happening are almost statistically impossible. Like that time when my dad and I were at the driving range hitting golf balls, and we both hit at the same time, and our golf balls hit each other in mid-air about fifty yards out. Un-effing-believable. Seriously, we couldn’t do that again in seven hundred years. But it did happen. I wonder if that has ever even happened before to anyone out there at driving ranges all over the world. Surely it has…

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read