November 2009
Moby Click... →
Happy (almost) 40th birthday, exploding whale story!
Want to know how legendary the blubber-go-boom story is? Besides being the fifth-most viewed internet video of all time, once, lo many hundreds of years ago, I was in a Friday night game, high-school cheerleader toss-back to the station saying, “HEY PAUL. WHERE’S THE WHALE?” See? So famous.
Oregon journalist Paul Linnman was...
Moans Over My Hammies...
OMGS. So much punning before noon. Sorry, kind of.
So, yeah. I hurt, mostly everywhere—and it does sting a little that after all that, I was 12 seconds above the elusive-except-for-that-one-time, Sub-60.
But you know what I AM going to claim? That since 2003 (the first year I ran this race) to yesterday—I cut 17 minutes off my time. Seventeen. Minutes. I don’t know of many...
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I Hate Your Baby Jogger...
You, I love. Your KID, I love. My Achilles tendons, I love. But baby joggers in races has to stop, and my reasoning has way more to do with the second reason than the third. Let me paint a little picture for you:
I’ve seen countless grown adults bite it in the middle of races. Face first, into pavement, bloody head-to-toe, sometimes causing pile ups of runners who can’t dodge around...
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''He wanted to bring attention to what the VA had... →
Chapman had already planned his funeral and demanded it be kept simple. He was buried in his pajamas because he said it made no sense to dress him up after he died.
The family did one thing that wasn’t on Chapman’s list. The funeral home noted he served in the Army and Navy and asked if they wanted an American flag to drape his casket. The family agreed.
I wish this story had a...
“If it’s not the hardest thing you’ve ever done, does it even count?”
– Nah.
This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things...
Mom: You know those shots aren't hunters right? It's just the automated cannon to scare the geese off the grass seed.
Me: Mooooom. Did you see all the nice adjectives I used? I was setting a sceeeeene.
Mom: Oh, it's fine for artistic license. I just thought you'd want to know. For accuracy.
Me: Well, I stand by it. Any gun shot that isn't ending up on the front page or the crime blotter still counts as cozy.
I'll Remember the Little People...
Me: Every single visitor to my blog today Googled "reindeer poop necklaces." Ha. It's on the first page of results.
Colleen: Wow. You've really made it.
Me: I KNOW.
Republicans Considering Ideological Purity Test... →
It’s not even close to the Purity Test I remember circulating in the Iron Age of the Internet (c. 1996), which is a tiny bit disappointing.
Also, surely there’s a working definition of “support” which means, “Oh yeah, totally in theory, like there’s one we kind of haven’t done yet, but super mean to.”
Meh. It seems vague and restrictive,...
Sparkly. Reindeer. POOP. →
It’s jewelry. Allegedly.
OMG OMG they’re calling it a MAGICAL REINDEER GEM. You guuuuyyyyssss. It’s a turd. A bedazzled turd.
The limited-edition Magical Reindeer Gem necklaces will debut Friday at the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington.
The $15 pendant necklaces contain dried, sterilized reindeer droppings — sprayed with glitter — on a beaded chain. They’ll be...
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Holy Cranberry: Six Reasons to Be Thankful You're...
New Vegan Diplomat is up! (True story, a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is centered around my favorite food: toooast!)
I think I saw a live Turducken today. I am as good at ID-ing woodland creatures as a former Ranger Rick reader can be, and that bird quacked like, but was so not a duck…oh, John Madden, what hath thou wrought? Clearly meat-stuffed-meat enthusiasts have figured out a way to grow...
Over the River...
An old guy, walking in the park today was wearing a sweatshirt with “GRANDFISC” on the back of it. I can only imagine that that’s a relational label one applies when one has various step-grandparents, older friends of the families, beloved great-aunts…right? For every GRANDFISC I bet there’s a GRANDMISC out there…
When grandma and grandpa won’t do; a...
The First Rule About Mail Fraud...
He: So I got a weird package in the mail today from someone I don't know...
Me: OH! Your Fight Club poster bar of soap came?!?
He: Uh, yes--you sent this?
Me: Yes! Because I thought you'd think it was funny and it makes bathtime, funtime.
He: I had no idea where it came from, and I got scared.
Me: I hear very few actually classify soap as a biological weapon...
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Jesus Wants Us to Be Prepared... →
And also knows that properly-assembled Ikea furnishings are next to godliness.
I see your Leatherman and raise you an accessory.
“You never want to be the “good pull”.”
– The Anti-Tucker Maxim, I suppose.
"Unfriend" is the Word of the Year... →
I love when words I’ve ne’er heard spoken aloud get their day. And to think I’ve been saying “DeFriend” or; “Make Your Confirmations Carefully, Sillies” this whole time.
Seriously? “I’m going to unfriend you.” Nope. Never happened. Or maybe “DeFriend” is a regionality, like the epic Pop/Coke/Soda debate? (I checked with the...
Teachers vs. Educators
Ah. “Visual” learners.
generic1:
think4yourself: verymuch:
According to a news report, a certain private school in Victoria, BC recently was faced with a unique problem.
A number of year 12 girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little...
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Honored.
You know an experience has touched you deeply when you don’t want to return to your usual consumption of information, people, noise, and chatter, lest the spell be broken and a wisp of conversation or a touching scene be blotted from your mind in the overload. One miracle moment, you can keep in your head—one thousand, and you’ll need a batch of Post-Its. I suppose this serves as...
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He's On to Something Here...
Bro: How many Christmas card lists have you gotten on?
Me: None yet, why?
Bro: You better hurry up. Christmas cards are the new Facebook.
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"Here I am. Send me." →
At the Fort Hood memorial service today, the camera panned the crowd of soldiers during this section:
“It’s a tradition in our special operations unit to go to the Book of Isaiah when eulogizing fallen comrades,” said Gen. Casey. ” At the funeral, they read, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking ‘whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ Then I...
“It’s a serious no-music Oprah episode. No funs today, no one’s...”
– Keith and the Girl, episode 957, Enjoy Yourself.
It Takes a Village...
The whole “Ooh. Seated by a kid on a plane. It’s gonna scream the whole time,” schtick is a little like the old “how ‘bout that airline food?” and quite frankly, I’ve never been on a plane when a kid’s cried the whole time. (And for that matter, what airline food? But, digressions.) Cut to, walking down the aisle looking for my row, 17A, 17A, 17AND...
The equivalent of carrying around two small... →
“A pair of D-cup breasts weighs between 15 and 23 pounds.”
I find it a tiny bit hard to believe, 15 pounds is a lot. It’s the third set of weights on the rack at the gym—they’re usually not even covered in pink neoprene because they’re not meant for girls (and how would we even know without color coding?) Though I shall not argue with science that makes us all...
