Give a Little

Tis the season – no?

For the last few months, or even a year, we have been hearing about One Laptop Per Child.  Or at least I have.  Have you?

The idea is to provide each and every child who needs a laptop – regardless of the socio-economic status, but clearly focusing on the underprivileged.

The idea is the brainchild of an MIT professor.  Knowing that many of the places these folks live do not have internets access or even electricity, the laptop is built with a generator that kids can wind up to well…..generate power.   It also has an built-in antenna for folks to get on-line.  The casing isn’t indestructible, but they make it as much so as possible.

The other idea was for each laptop to cost no more than $100.  They are not quite there yet – but it still is at the somewhat reasonable price of $400.  BUT….get this……purchase one for donation, and they send one to you also. So, that makes them like $200 a piece.  Wicked!!  …..but in a good way.

Denton ordered/donated one.  Mostly because he wants to play with it.  We need another computer/laptop around here like a hole in the head.  I am hoping we only play with it for a bit, but then send it on its way to a family in need.  We’re not that family.

But I think it’s a great idea.  Give the gift of education – if you can.

Song by: Nicolette Larson

Spooky

It may be rude…..it may be crude….but has Eunice Shriver always been the Crypt Keeper’s mother?

I guess it kind of makes sense – her daughter is Skeletor.

Let this be a lesson to all of you:  THIS is what generations of inbreeding will get you.

Song by:  Classics IV

Perfectly Good Guitar

In a Cleveland Plain Dealer article yesterday about some guy who does a lot of recycling, especially after Browns games.

Yeah – I know, not very exciting, is it? But there was one line in the article that made it stand out. Truth be told, I didn’t get that far into the article before losing interest. I have a very short attention span.

However, Denton did and read the following lines to me:

In his off-time, Pickrel can sometimes be seen being pulled down the street on his skates by his dogs. On one leg. While playing his guitar.

It’s funny because we saw it. Once.

Denton was wondering what restaurant we might have been at when we saw this event. I had to remind him we weren’t out – but at home eating breakfast…..with friends.

It is quite possible probable it was after a night of drinking and we were sitting at the dining room table. Those of us facing the window kind of stopped what we were doing, not sure we had seen what we had just seen. Probably weren’t sure if we were still drunk…..though I can only speak for myself, naturally.

It’s nice to know that it wasn’t an illusion, hallucination or just a drunken figment of our collective imagination.

Song by: John Hiatt

Popcorn

I know I have a stunted adolescence. There is no shock or surprise with this fact. But I just assumed that everyone else (over the age of say…14) has seen this. Imagine my surprise when the day before T-giving, I got to show one of my brother in laws (brothers in law?) this trick.

I spent a good 3-4 minutes with a sharp knife making just the right cuts and doing the folds in all the appropriate areas to get a most inappropriate joke.

Naturally you have to preface the set-up with – ‘Why does the Land O Lakes lady hold her butter there?’

Both he and my sister were in hysterics.

This doesn’t actually show it, but what you do after cutting three sides of the held butter is to then fold the cardboard so her knees line up right under that, so she when you pull it down (or up), she exposes her dirty pillows. I like how the shadows of her knees make for a convincing areola.

In my version, the lady doesn’t flip up the held butter but pulls it down. I swear it makes all the difference.

Song by:  Hot Butter

What the Fudge ??

Apparently ‘WTF’ no longer means what I thought it meant. And I guess it’s no longer just an abbreviation for a profanity work-around for television censors and a necessary three letter standard for instant messaging or emailing.

Well, actually it is still used for all those things….and now one more. It is the magazine for Finland. I wonder if the folks from Helsinki know it is just a shortcut to the f-bomb?

So on this post, I break from my title as being the same as a song title. I could not think of anything good with the word ‘Welcome’ (…to the jungle? …to the pleasuredome?), let alone with ‘fuck’ or ‘Finland’.

It’s just so hard to be me!

Eat For Two

Well today is the day – for people who like this kind of stuff. I’m guessing I enjoyed last night more than I will today.

Yesterday, we had my oldest sister and her family over for dinner. Lasagna to be specific….made all by my lonesome. It was ok, but I’ve done better.  Downing a bottle of vino on my own didn’t hurt.

But the company was good and the kids were well behaved – though they just loved being upstairs playing video games and then downstairs with Sophie. The cat is very good with them.

Isn’t the above image just a tad bit disgusting? I snapped it in the store. A half-cake with a turkey made out of frosting – though to be honest, it looks like pâté. Not horribly appetizing when it comes to cakes.

As for being thankful – I’m not an ingrate: I have a job (and didn’t last year at this time), a great partner, two feline friends, many non-feline friends and my health (well….at least more or less). Life is pretty good.

Enjoy the day folks. Happy T-giving.

Song by: 10,000 Maniacs

Basted in Blood

Oh, sure – you’d think the last two days of non-Site of the Month posts would be leading up to an actual Site of the Month. Silly silly people – you!

I do believe I mention this year after year, but I find T-giving to be a bland and boring meal. It’s just not for me. ….and let’s not even get into the family aspect of it.

I wanted to post a video of a song done on SNL way back, but true to form, much of NBC copywrited material is not out there. The song was done on Weekend Update and sung by Sarah McLachlan & Ana Gasteyer (who went under the guise of Wendy Calhoun). It was a hilarious send-up of a vegan T-giving protest song.

I do not have the video, but I do have the lyrics:

BASTED IN BLOOD

We gather together
For yams, beans, and cranberry sauce
But have you given much thought lately
To the turkey holocaust? 200 million noble birds
Slaughtered every fall
Ain’t no difference between Hitler, Stalin
And the folks at Butterball

So set your tables, America
From Birmingham to Branson
But when you carve that turkey
You’re a finger lickin’ Charlie Manson

Enjoy your pumpkin pie
Your buttery Idaho spuds
Grandma’s chestnut stuffing
And a turkey basted in blood

Basted in blood Basted in blood Basted in blood
Enjoy your turkey, enjoy…Basted in blood Basted in blood Basted in blood
Basted in blood Basted in blood Basted in blood

Song by: Sarah McLachlan & Wendy Calhoun

Shakespeare’s Sister

All the world’s a Blobby
And all the men and women merely players.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes: <

Again, this is a URL I toyed as having as my Site of the Month, but decided if I did, then I couldn’t really use the Smiths (g-d, isn’t the web address for them great?!!)  song for the post title (as those are always headed by: Site of the Month.  DUH). What drives me to do such things is a complete mystery.

The reality is, it is not that good of a site. I never went past the first try for this quote and let’s face it – it fits. All the world is a Blobby….or at least about Blobby…….or at the very least should be!

Unlike Will, I don’t think there is any confusion as to if I write my own work! Sad for him. Sad for me. Sad for you.

song by: The Smiths

Ring of Fire

Alas, this becomes a failed Site of the Month possibility.

If they had more choices in their archives, I am almost sure it would have been a finalist candidate. As it is, the movies they have selected and produced alternate endings for, I either have not seen or just not cared enough about.

If you read this blog in any regularity, you’ll already guess that the two that stand out for me are Star Wars IV: A New Hope and the below clip of The Lord of the Rings. ….though the Borat thing is probably as accurate as you can get. There’s 90-120 minutes I’ll never get back!

If nothing else, I knew Becky and Jon would enjoy the LOTR one….which I’ve taken the opportunity to post below. The How It Should Have Ended site made me download some new software to play the movies from their URL. I didn’t think you all should have to do that.

Personally, I like Boromir mooning Sauron. …and the taunt of ‘your mother has cataracts‘.

So, it’s not technically Site of the Month material – but it has its moments.
Song by: Johnny Cash

Everything Is Coming Up Roses

It’s not the national championship, but there’s no real shame in going to the Rose Bowl.

Yesterday the Buckeyes all but sewed up going to Pasadena on the first day of 2008. I know – you’re thinking this is a sports thing and why am I even chatting about it. I can hear you out there ya know!

It wasn’t as much about the game or the outcome as it was spending the afternoon with two friends watching the game.

Tom G – whom has been mentioned many a-time here – was coming to Cleveburgh to watch the game with his ’special friend’ (not me). I got an invite to join. It turns out it was just at a gay bar we were going to. Oh well. How bad could it be at 12 noon on a Saturday?

Tom doesn’t need to prompt me to not act my age, but it’s nice to have the encouragement.

He is the master of the prop – be it for parties, story telling, sporting events or the possibility of stalking a porn star (that’s another post). Jack (his ’special friend’) wanted us to wear tiaras, but instead we traded the above homemade headband. You might have to click the enlarge the image (camera phone, no flash and bad lighting) to see what it is. Go ahead – sound it out. It’s like live pictionary.

Each time we were not in possession of the ball, one of us was required to wear it. We did it willingly and proudly. Oddly enough – we did not get one look from the other patrons. With the pom-poms (g-d, they smelled like my high school gym locker, but worse!) and noisemaker, we tried to draw attention – but to little success.

The Woody cap is mine. It’s my second. Morty got me my first when I was in the hospital with my appendix. I wore that thing all the time, it fit like a second skin. I lost it a dozen or so years ago when Tom and I went to the OSU – Michigan State game in East Lansing (home to one of my most favourite Tom G stories!). I left it at the hotel in a post-drunken stupor. The hotel claims to have never have found it – but you know they just tossed it when they saw the Block O.     Fuckers!

Putting on the headband, I told the crew I felt like Patty Duke. Jack asked if I meant ‘Cathy’, but no….it was Patty and I told him it was because ‘a hot dog makes me lose control’. I love when I never ever have to explain my jokes to people.

After the game, we hung out and I dropped money in the jukebox. I love taking over the music at a place where Whitney Houston is the standard. Ick. They had an ok selection, but I made it better just by my choices: Garbage, the Smiths, Eurythmics, Weezer & a few others.

While making the selections, I had to endure Russ. No, I don’t know him. Just a bar patron who decided to come up and ask me what my favourite songs and bands were. …and then how he should leave because he had just broken up with someone who was expected at the bar and how he shouldn’t be there….or should he just not run away. Oy. I felt like I was pseudo-being hit on and yet asked to be Ann Landers. I wanted neither. Double Oy.

But on this cold, rainy day – I took in warmth by just being with friends.

Song by: Black