Solid Gold S.E.P. (Stop Eating Poop)

The Top 25 Weirdest Items You Can Purchase Through Amazon!

I know what I want for Christmas this year, baby! And it ain't the Owl Puke! book.

What!?!

Ok, what is it with people making bad lipsyncing videos and putting them on the web?

Stop the madness!!!!

-la

PS Apparently, they did their own makeup.

When a Lipsync Goes Bad

I'd comment on this, but I have no idea where to start....

To experience the weirdness, see this link

With bizarre crap like this floating around the net, does society really even need drugs?

-la

A Wedding, a Telepathic Dog, and a Birthday Party

Ok, this is my third attempt at sending this. I'm not typing it to the detail I was before. Actually, I'm typing this in Notepad and then pasting it into Blogger, because the damn interface timed out on me twice and deleted some perfectly good words. Friggin' thing. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for. Which, in this case, is nothing.

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I've been trying to kick it up a notch lately at the homefront. With the wife being in the "family way" and all, more help is required. So, I've got to suck it up and do it. My list of chores includes, but is by no means limited to the following: cooking, doing dishes (ok, putting them in the dishwasher and pushing Start), taking out trash and recyclables, doing laundry, cleaning up cat yak, and scooping the soiled litter boxes (and man, can those cats produce...belee 'dat).

And, occassionally, I'll even take one for the team. That happened this past weekend when I had to turn down a golf invite. Yes, I play golf. No, I don't take it seriously, and yes, I'm piss poor at it. Actually, what I do is more like a long walk with a cold beer. But, it gets me out, gets me a modicum of much-needed exercise, and lets me talk about women with the guys. Before I get flamed for that last statement, I know you women talk about men when you get together to play Bunco or whatever so you're just as bad as we are.

Anyway, back to the show.

As I mentioned, I took one for the team this past weekend. I opted out of golf to go with my wife to a wedding. This was a union between one of my wife's friends who I hardly know, and well, some guy. Nice couple, but it's hard going to these things when you don't know anyone else. We did meet some nice people who sat at the same table we did and we made nice conversation, and had a nice time. (Notice the reuse of the word 'nice' here...?) It was nice, but let me tell ya, these south/midwest weddings ain't got nuthin' on the shindigs people put on back east. Now, before I get flamed by any of you possessive Oklahomans, let me just say that I used to be one of those smarmy wedding DJs, so I've been to literally thousands of wedding receptions over the years. So, I'm not just talkin' out my ass here.

Southern weddings (and I'm not saying all...just all the ones I've been to here) are usually held in a church and have the reception in the church as well. One wedding I went to here was held in the early afternoon and the "reception" had no booze, no DJ, no Chicken Dance, no YMCA, no Electric Slide, and no Uncle Morty captivating the audience with a drunken soliloquy on the time he had to change the groom's diapers. No, these receptions tend to be a bit more sedate. I do have to give credit where it's due. The reception this past weekend did have booze and a DJ. Of course it was just a glass of champage so that everyone could toast Mr. & Mrs. Happy Couple and it was mid-afternoon so the DJ didn't have to do much. I know I didn't have a strong urge to shake my groove thang at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. There were finger foods, of course, and they weren't half bad. And, for drinks, it was water, unsweetened iced tea (unleaded), or iced tea (premium). But people, that was it. Very much unlike Lance Manion's wedding reception. Now there was a party! I don't think Boston has been the same since....

Later that evening, when I got the spawn to bed, the wife had some office work to do, so I sat down to see what was on the ol' telly. Turns out the wife had grabbed a movie on the Tivo called "A Boy and his Dog" based on the Harlan Ellison novel of the same name. It starred a very young Don Johnson (no white suit or fancy Miami Vice stylin' this time) and a telpathic sheepdog named Blood who leads him around scavenging for food and sex. The dog can sniff out women. An interesting talent in a WWIV post-apocalyptic world. It was kind of like Mad Max, but not quite. I say not quite because I don't remember Mad Max having any talking dogs. Or much talking at all for that matter. At first I thought that I wasn't going to like the movie and that it was a hour and 35 minutes of my life I'd never get back. Turns out, it wasn't that bad, in a post-apocalyptic talking sheepdog kind of way.

The next afternoon, the wife started packing for her upcoming business trip on which she was loathe to go. It wasn't the trip so much as the fact that she's very pregnant now and just didn't want to deal with the stress of travelling. Understandable. Coincidentally, our friend K who had taken us to BRUS, invited us on this day to also attend a birth party for her son at a mutual friend's house. So, the wife packed and we headed off to the party for some relaxation before going to the airport.

The party rocked! Yes, the kid is only 3, but they had a blow-up castle! And, they had homemade ice cream! And they had booze for the adults! And appetizers! And, did I mention booze? The host offered me what he calls a "Club Special". Apparently he had pre-made a whole cooler of these things. I'd had one of these drinks some time ago, but I'd forgotten how good they are. It's basically a vodka margarita. I had three. They were awesome.

Then the spawn wanted me to go play in the castle. So, I tossed my shoes and in we went. No other kiddos were in there, so I commenced beating him up with a beach ball that someone had left behind. I'm kind of evil like that. But, I figure a kid has to know his father can whoop his ass at a moment's notice. After much of that and imitation wrestling moves (not for the faint of heart, mind you...) I was drenched with sweat. It was about 95 degrees outside. Hmm...time for a refreshing beverage. Club Special, anyone? Don't mind if I do. I also grabbed some finger foods. Good stuff. But you know, come to think of it, my whole diet this past weekend consisted of primarily finger foods.

If I keep eating like this, I'm definitely going to have to play more golf. Because, you know, I need the exercise and all.

-la

1516.67 cans of Lipton Brisk + You = Death

I never knew that, but I guess it could be true that it would take 1516.67 cans of Lipton Brisk to kill me.

Want to find out how much caffeine you can withstand before you're pushing up daisies? Then hop on over to the site and give it a try.

As an interesting side note, I once gave the spawn a Lipton Brisk when he was about 3 years old. Whoa. Big mistake. He just kept running around the house (literally) cackling with a kind of insane glee. He finally crashed about 3 days later.

Never again.

-la

A huntin' we will go....

Last night I had one of those "snapshot" moments where I look at what I'm doing and can't believe that I'm doing what I'm doing.

I was lounging about on the couch watching the telly (that new show Supernatural is pretty darn good, btw...) and the Mrs. is on the floor reading the paper. Out of nowhere, Jack the Cat comes running into the room and jumps up on the back of one of the chairs and starts chittering at the ceiling.

So, of course, I look up. The ceiling is about 10 feet above where he's sitting and there's a tiny bug crawling...no wait, actually, I take that back. There was a tiny bug just sitting up there minding his own buggy business and from some dark crevasse, Jack caught site of it and was bound and determined to have it, just like the scorpion.

I grab the Tivo remote and pause Supernatural (which I was really starting to get into) to watch Jack, who is getting more frustrated by the minute because he knows there is no way that he'll ever be able to get up there to get that bug...without help.

I know what's coming, but there's no way to get out of it.

I hear the wife say, "Well, help him out..." The next thing I know, I'm up grabbing the cat and holding him over my head toward the ceiling. The problem with this is that even at 6'3" I'm not tall enough. From the wife now comes, "Well, stand up on the chair." So, I crawl up on the chair and it's still no good as I sink into the thick cushion. She says, "Get up on the arms of the chair," as if I should have done that in the first place.

So, I step up on the arms of the chair and thrust Jack up over my head so he can reach the damn bug. All I can see is his fuzzy little ass and his tail which is whipping around as if wielded by some pissed off dominatrix. He makes a swipe at the bug and it falls, without putting up a fight whatsoever, right onto Jack's back paw where it balances precariously. One wrong move and it's going down my gullet, I just know it.

It was at that exact moment, with the cat over my head and me standing on the arms of the chair in my living room, that I realize that all of our window shades are open, it's dark outside, and we have a lot of lights on. Anyone witnessing this at that moment would likely say, in an Oklahoman twang, "What in thee hell is that boy doin' with that cat?"

I slowly lower Jack down onto the chair and step off onto the nice, solid floor. He's lost the bug temporarily, not realizing it came down on his back paw. But, it's on the chair too...not moving. He either had stunned it or it died moments before he got to it because it was out like a fat kid playing dodge ball.

Jack sat there and swiped an errant paw or two at it, but overall, I think he was disappointed. It didn't have any fight in it. And when you're a hunter like Jack, that's just no damn fun.

-la

Road Trip, Baby!

Sunday afternoon I went on a small roadd trip to Babies-R-Us with the wife and Miss K, a good friend of ours. Now, K is very cool. She is about my wife's age and they have been friends for years. She was really excited to escort us as we went to Babies-R-Us to register for gifts. See, she went through the whole baby makin' thing just a scant three years ago, so she knows the drill. My son just turned 9 and I didn't do the whole baby shower thing the first time around, so this was new even to me.

K has kindly offered to donate a TON of stuff (quite literally) to us for the new bundle o' joy, but apparently there were a few things that we didn't have for which we needed to register. So, K picked us up in her little Beamer SUV and off we went.

That's her driving below.

The simple act of walking into Babies-R-Us (BRU from here on out, folks) is quite overwhelming. The sheer enormity of crap you can buy there is mind boggling. So, we went to the nice lady at the Baby Register counter and the Mrs. told her "we" were there to register. She started to pull out two sets of forms for us to fill out, thinking that both the Mrs. and K were there to do the registration tango. When we told her it was just for the Mrs., she said "Oh, you said 'we'," and took the other form set back. K and I decided she was thinking that the Mrs. and K were the actual couple and I was just the gay friend tagging along to help because, in reality, I had donated my sperm to their cause, and dammit, I was bound and determined to have my gay lovechild raised right!

The lady then rambled off a bunch of stuff that she had obviously memorized from years of being on the job. As she did this, she kept rubbing her forehead as if the actual effort of doing this was causing her excrutiating pain. But, she never wavered in her delivery and spit it all out flawlessly. Then, she handed over the Gun.

This is the part I'd been secretly waiting for.

The Mrs. handed it to me and off we went. Now, the Gun, you see, is a bar code scanner. Very cool thing. I felt powerful with and scared by it all at once. Any bar code within my reach was now able to be tagged, scanned, and added to our registry. And man, we went crazy. Did I mention BRU has a bunch of crap? Wow!

The problem is that once you get into the process, you can't freakin' stop. It's addictive. I was scanning for shit we didn't even need. I wasn't paying for it, so I didn't care. And, the place has SO MUCH STUFF FOR EVERY POSSIBLE SITUATION, that you start to think, "Hmm...maybe I ought to get one of those just in case..." The damn store makes you paranoid.

So, about two hours later with 83 items on our baby registry (and this may not sound like a lot, but we only registered for the stuff we knew we'd need...like I mentioned before, K is supplying us with a ton of stuff), we were pooped. The Mrs. needed, and even K and myself, seasoned veterans, were bushed. So, we paid for the some of the stuff K bought and skeedaddled to Chili's for dinner, where I settled into a nice margarita, chips, and queso.

A margarita never tasted so good.

-la

Rumble in the Bronx

Each of the cats has a series of nicknames. Most people would agree that they have a main name for their pet and maybe a few nicknames. On a previous post I mentioned a few that Tiki has. Turns out we've added a few for him since then, but that's another post.

Durango is the wife's eldest cat. I think this thing was Methusalah's house cat back in the day. It's like 160 human years old. Over the past 5 years that I've been in the picture, I can honestly count about three of the lives it's used up. There could be others. Who knows. And, when I came into the picture, none of the cats had any other name other than those they were originally given...except Durango, who received the name Mango as a nickname. Big stretch there.

Lately, the cat has been losing weight. The vet, whom we affectionately call, "Doc" indicated that the cat might have an ulcer and needs to gain some of the weight back. You see, about 6 or 7 years back (pre-Lex, you might say) the cat weighed in...I shit you not...around 21 lbs. The thing is has dipped down to 9.5. So, the picture you have in your head now is likely a cat from a concentration camp or something. Well, it looks like it too.

Doc told us to feed him whatever he wants...no restrictions. So we do. We went out and bought some fancy schmancy deluxe cat food and he gets table scraps, the works. Problem is, with this ulcer or whatever it is (current speculation has that he ate or was stung by a scorpion that got into the house (but we're not sure) is that it causes him to barf. A lot. The worst one was just a week or so ago when he let go on the rug in front of the wife's office. It smelled worse than a sewage treatment plant in Jersey on a hot summer night. It took a half a bottle of Febreeze and Odor Out to simply mask the stench. I was gagging. Gah....

Anyway, he did it last night, too. Down on the rug in the laundry room. At least this was easier to clean, but it wasn't any more appetizing. Gah...!

Since this has started happening, Mango's stomach creates a cacophony of ululations. Man, sometimes you can hear it from another room. It's THAT loud. So, I started calling him Rumble in the Bronx, or RIBbie for short.

RIBbie is spoiled. Hell, all domestic housecats are spoiled...especially those kept inside. All of our cats are indoor cats. And all of them are spoiled rotten. Worse than me. And that's pretty bad.

Well, one of the things that RIBbie likes, is fresh ice water. The Mrs. and I always have, every night, a glass of ice water or iced tea beside our respective beds, and every night, without fail, RIBbie tries to drink from it. Nevermind that the cat has a little fountain of water to drink from...but THAT's not fresh enough, apparently. Damn cat. Damn spoiled cat.

So, he's taken lately to laying in the bathtub. And, one time the wife put a cup of water in the bath tub. Well, it was during one of the periods where his health was failing and she was desperate to get him to drink some water because she felt he wasn't drinking enough. So, she put the cup in the bathtub with him. It wasn't long (like the next day) when she started asking me to put fresh water in the cup. With ice. For the cat.

That was two or three weeks ago. And, it's still there. Every day. With fresh water and ice.

Damn cat. Damn spoiled cat.

-la

Back from the Dead

Ok, I've been away long enough. I guess I was boycotting the site for awhile because Blogger lost three of my posts. Tried tech support and they basically blew me off. I'm past it now. Kinda sorta.

Yo, WTF?

Ok, I posted three...count 'em, THREE times on Saturday and when I looked at the blog this morning, they were gone. Dammit! It was brilliant prose, too. It was the tale of Jack vs. the Scorpion, too.

Grr...

So, what the freak happened?

Dunno, but I'm looking into it.

-la

Rock You Like a Hurricane (NOT A KATRINA RANT)

Yes, I'm trying to play catch up. I've been lax, it's been a long week, and I'm still not feeling 100%. Getting better every day, though. Whatever it was knocked my dick in the dirt there for awhile.

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So, the other night I'm heading down to my room for bed. I walk into my office first to drop something off. When I emerge, shutting the door behind me, it's dark because the hall light is not on. The wife installed some nightlights in the hall so there was a bit of illumination, but much. All of the cats were huddled in the front of the laundry room paying particularly close attention to something on the floor.

Of course, Jack, being the alpha cat he is (because he's SO DAMN COOL), was taking lead. My first thought was, "Houston, we have a spider!" But, when I flicked on the hall light, I was surprised to see not a spider, but a scorpion.

Ok, ok. First, understand that this is a BRAND NEW HOUSE and that I was as shocked as anyone. But, this is, after all, the great South (or Southwest, depending on who you ask). This is where the damn things live. I just don't want them living in MY house.

So, I yelled for the wife to waddle downstairs as quickly as she could. I needed help cat wrangling before one of them got stung. Actually, I was most worried about Jack. He tends to charge in without thinking about things like consequences.

By the time she had arrived, I had grabbed Jack and tossed him into a bedroom and closed the door, but then Teekers decided he'd have a go at it. After all, if Jack can do it, why can't he? (Because you're NOT an alpha cat...you're more like a Tau or Upsilon cat...)

The wife grabs Teekers; Mango knows enough to stay away. He's old and has been around the block more than once. He knows this isn't worth the hassle.

I then grab the closest thing that I can find, which happens to be possibly the worst weapon on the planet: a plastic cup. I use the cup's rim to try and squish the scorpion and succeed in only pissing it off. Luckily, this is a little one. I don't want to use the word "baby", because it conjures an image of me as a giant squishing a baby. Ok, I admit it: that's probably exacly what I was doing.

I manage to scoop the scorpion into the cup. At which point, the wife states, "don't taunt me with it!" Taunt? Well, I hadn't considered it, but since you brought it up: . I then took it to the bathroom and dumped it into the toilet. She wanted to look again at this point. "Hmm...doesn't look too threatening now." Gotta make sure it isn't coming back to bite an unsuspecting toiletgoer in the tushie. (Yes, I know. I've seen WAY too many horror flicks. But it doesn't mean that kind of thing would happen. It would. To me. Ok, you can go away now.)

Aftermath:

I spent the next 20 minutes searching the cracks and crevices of the downstairs with a flashlight looking for scorpion kin. I honestly expected to find at least one more. Don't they travel in pairs or something? Nothing.

Needless to say, I didn't get that much sleep that night. I think the only reason I got some because I knew that Jack was keeping watch. He was ticked off when I let him out of the room and he discovered his prey had vanished. He wasn't about to let another slip by. But, that's just the way he is because he's SO DAMN COOL.

-la

Jack-Jack Attack

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, I've been sleeping in the guest bed downstairs. With Mrs. Magic Fingers still around, I have to or I'm miserable the next day. She admits it actually works out better since she has to get up several times a night in order to go to the watercloset.

However, this split has had an interesting effect on the furry ones. Mango and Teekers von Squeekers have take to sleeping with MF on my side of the bed. Jack has taken to keeping vigil on a large pillow at the foot of my bed downstairs.

Having Jack as a bunkmate, for the most part, is pretty damn cool. Why, because HE'S SO DAMN COOL, as I've pointed out. Still, Jack has a few, well, how should I say, cat-like traits that do bug the ever-loving crap out of me. Take this morning, for example. I'm laying in bed, and, I decide to do this big stretch, because it is morning. Well, when I do that, Jack takes it as I'm playing a game, sees me move, and immediately launches himself and lands right on my crotch.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I'm still peeling bits of fur out of the walls.

-la

Hack

I was browsing the web this morning and happened upon this:

http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_14_2005.asp?pageid=665&co_pageid=3

Click the link to watch the video. Since I'm in IT, this is not real surprising, but it does reassure me that all my proselytizing about keeping your systems patched, your anti-virus software up to date, and running your spyware scanners weekly makes good sense.

Ok, I'm off the soapbox now and a few feet shorter.

-la