How I learned to stop worrying and love my thirties.
I am a thirty-something with stuff to say. Sometimes I'll even type it out.
I'm sitting here at my desk playing with my new toy. A brand new HP. I'm very excited. It's nice to have a new computer, but at the same time a little eerie. I can barely hear the keyboard as I type. It makes almost no sound. That's a little strange to me, I guess. Perhaps I'm just a creature of habit.
The Pub Quiz article(you'll probably need a sign-on) is out today- Q Section of the Chicago Tribune, page 3A.
It's pretty infrequently that I get to use my skills as a contractor anymore, except when I'm doing some mundane little project around my house, like staining bookshelves(which was tremendously different from all the doors I stained, thereby trashing my staining skills). Last night was different. I was watching the end of a movie I started Wednesday night when I noticed that I had a voice message. Hm. I didn't hear the phone ring. Upon research it was my dear friend Jen. She has fuse issues in her apartment building- I'm not sure who wired the thing, but they should be taken out back and shot immediately. She blows fuses rather often- to the point that she has a little list of what appliances, etc can be used simultaneously and what cannot.
Scientists have named an asteroid after one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams, according to this report. I found it on Fark this morning. The tagline was:
Asteroid named for Douglas Adams. Tragically, the Vogons demolished it seconds later to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.
The first country I founded on Jennifer Nationstates has finally hit that all-important milestone: the population has exceeded 1 billion people. I'd say I'm proud, but I'm rather bored with it now. There's just not enough options that make sense on the issues presented. I dunno. I think I would have more fun if I had more options, but I could also be just burned out on the whole thing.
I found this quiz over on Classy Trash this morning. Nice one. My personality, in a nutshell:
I broke resolution number one last night- I was out til all hours on a school night. I didn't really plan on going out- I was content to sit at home, make dinner and watch a movie, until my friend called, asking about getting a drink. A drink turned into many drinks, turned into me abandoning them at the bar and walking home in the snow, only to slip and fall, rather painfully, and crawl into bed. Fortunately for me, I managed to set the alarm on my cell phone, so I wasn't terribly late. Unfortunately for me, I'm still awake and I'm still here.
While I was typing my last entry, my friend J called to tell me that I am pictured in today's Red Eye for the pub quiz I participate in at Ginger's Ale House.
I am honored that the grand-nephew of Archie Bennitz, Jeff Scott has chosen this post as his quote of the week.
At pub quiz last night, I tortured my quizzers with a match round about Norse Gods. I was reflecting on this a few minutes ago when I thought about this post from yesterday when I shared with all of you my recent brushes with all things Nordic, and the Snopes article about driving directions between two Norwegian cities which led potential motor travelers through something like 6 countries to travel less than 500 miles.
Here's another thing that annoys me about people:
I know I've probably beat this topic into the ground, but I don't like coffee. I never have. I don't even injest caffeine, save for the little that enters my system through my favorite recreational drug, Guinness. I have tried it, once when I was maybe 9 or 10, and then again, when I was 19, we were drinking Irish Coffees one night, and I gave it another shot(literally). Of course, neither time was terribly appealing, so things just didn't work out for me and coffee.
We had quite a turnout last night, thanks to one of my regulars, who recruited quite a few people to come to last night's pub quiz. I was very, very happy with everything, including receiving a round of applause at the end of the festivities. The questions were well received, as well.
... is to feed his mother to the Ravenous Bugbladder Beast of Traal.
I found this on Snopes this morning: directions from one Norwegian city to another lead you to take the ferry to the UK. The picture below is the "quickest" route. Even the "shortest" route has to you take the ferry to Newcastle Upon Tyne, then transfer to a different ferry to get back.
If you haven't heard already, and you happen to take the Brown Line, I'd allow for extra time this morning. There was a derailment at Kimball, slowing everything down.
In case you were wondering, the Bloggies are out there and need your vote.
Got this one off of Serial Blogonomy:
I know that my friends further East of me are dealing with the same thing I dealt with this weekend: SNOW. Loads and loads of the crappy white stuff.
Oh, wait.
Dear Archie,
I had this whole sappy thing typed out, and decided to delete it. It's kind of a blog entry for one, I guess. Here's the barebones:
Check out this report from American Progress about how much money the W spent on his inauguration.
This article did two things to me this morning. Made me laugh, and almost simultaneously, made me shudder with terror.
As in, what kind of intelligence does yours truly have?
|
Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence |
You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician. |
I'm still vastly amused that last night's 6pm Simpsons episode(Episode 1521) was all about how ultra-patriotic this country has become. But that's another story.
George W Bush With all due respect, the man is a moronic, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, mindless puppet doing the bidding of his super-rich, neo-con, oil-soaked paymasters while issuing lip service to the concerns of the great unwashed. He's dragged us all into a dangerous quagmire in the Middle East and shafted the planet with his environmental vandalism.
John Kerry Talk about missing an open goal. Kerry had every chance to oust George W (see above). But like, Al Gore before him, he bored his way to defeat.
Last night my friend T, who just quit his job, asked if he could come over to use my computer to do some resume stuff, with the idea that we'd go for a quick beer afterwards. When he got to my house, I was in the throes of dinner preparation. He did his computer stuff, I finished cooking and ate. It was a well-timed operation.
I'm wearing the number one Super-Tie today. Underneath that, I'm wearing the t-shirt exposing my secret superhero identity: Velveeta Man.
I'm wearing the number one Super-Tie today. Underneath that, I'm wearing the t-shirt exposing my secret superhero identity: Velveeta Man.
I hate to keep posting little posties of seemingly unrelated information, but I've got a lot bouncing around in my brain this morning.
Last night's numbers were, plainly, horrible. I know it was cold out and I know there was snow coming but, c'mon, where you wanna be when the weather hits? That's right! In a bar, answering trivia questions!
I'm reading through blogs today in reverse order. I don't know why. I just felt like it. Over on Serial Blogonomy I found this test. My results of this sometimes seemingly endless test? My RealAge was calculated to be 34.7, a full 3.4 years over my actual calendar age of 31.3. Oh well.
I apologize for not blogging, nor being available for IMing today. I was simply too busy at work, and, well, too busy trying to write the damn pub quiz for tonight.
After therapy on Friday, as promised, I went out with friends to celebrate my graduation. All told, I went to 4 bars, and in each one, I ran into someone I haven't seen in at least a month. It was an interesting thing to happen. Needless to say, I did a lot of catchiing up with people. Saturday had kinda the same thing going on, when a dear friend called to say she was coming to town, and wanted to grab a drink and watch football. Yesterday, again, I saw another dear friend who I haven't seen in quite a while.
It's hard to believe that I'm finishing up Physical Therapy today. I'm rather excited about it. I'm also thinking back to that day, some 127 days ago, when I went under the knife for the third time. Then, afterwards, as I started therapy, how big and swollen my poor knee was.
I don't know what cosmic forces are out there making this week seem so horrible, but this has been one of my least favorite weeks to have my job.
I finally got around to seeing the rompish Team America: World Police last night. I have to report that my companion and I spent a great amount of the movie laughing uproariously, even at the frequently inappropriate jokes. I can't help it. I've got a sick mind, and I find sick things funny. Love me, love my sense of humor.
On Tuesday I was going to share with all of you the new low I reached the other night.
Last night, as I was sitting and chatting with a couple of friends from my pub quiz, the bartender, B walked up to me and said: "Dave, the guy down at the end of the bar is here from the Tribune to interview you about pub quiz." I moved down the bar so I could talk to him. We had a nice talk, he had a lot of questions about how pub quiz worked, why I run it, stuff like that. He decided, after talking to me, that the way to really get to know it was to come back and play. I was thrilled, so I brought him back and had him sit on a team. He introduced himself and asked the players questions- it was really fun to have him around. After half an hour or so, the photographer showed up and took quite a few pictures of myself, the players, and the bar. I was told that the article will be in the Q section in one of the Sunday editions in the next 2-4 weeks. More information on that as it becomes available.
I've already finished tonight's pub quiz, mostly because I wrote two rounds yesterday, and I'm liking tonight's- I think it's more fun that usual, but I'm biased.
Brett Favre sucks, Brett Favre sucks!
After so long at home, being able to do very, very little, I decided to do some well-deserved surfing this afternoon. I came across the Weebl Advent Calendar. Of course, not being christian and not liking christmas, I only checked it out due to complete boredom and morbid curiosity. The big payoff came here. It is, of course, a take off of their already hilarious Kenya toon.
I discovered yesterday that people were wondering where the hell I was.
Team mopundow's first ever meeting was last night. We talked about what we need, who's going to be on the team, and how we're going to raise money. And we drank.
Not that I try to make a habit of publicly announcing my New Year's resolutions, I am, for a change.
So, I had a wonderful drive out to the farm this weekend. Turns out that when I left, around 9 on Saturday morning, probably 3/4 of the 8 million people in the Chicagoland area were probably at home, either hungover or having not slept enough. The roads were empty- and it took me only 1 hour 55 minutes to make the trip from my house to my grandparents'. That's not too bad, as it usually takes about 2 1/2 hours to get there- all thanks to traffic.
Translation:This is not a hangover.