The last few weeks have been… “intense” would be a good word. “Good” intense, as it were, goals to be met, dragons to be slain, sleep to be lost, but still.
This morning, scraping my sorry ass out of bed and preparing to meet the day, I froze at one point in my routine.
Something was off. I was fuzzy, couldn’t put my finger on it quite yet, but something was definitely off.
Hey, Siri! Tell me about dissociative disorders!
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Farce, Photography
The Hallmark Channel on cable has a little promo icon in the lower left corner that’s constantly telling me today that it’s “Three Days to the Countdown to Christmas!”
Okay…
Can I start putting up Christmas lights on Friday?
Normally, of course, being a sane and reasonable person (shut up! I heard that!), I wouldn’t start putting up lights until the Friday after Thanksgiving. And normally, if I broke that rule and jumped the gun for some reason, a few of my neighbors might politely inquire what the hell I was thinking.
But, hey! A multi-billion dollar, multinational megacorp says that it’s okay! We’re gonna blow straight by not just Halloween, but Thanksgiving as well! It’s time to start pushing those trees, ornaments, inflatable 12′ skeletons, cards, presents, gift cards, and inedible fruitcakes!
Who am I, a simple pawn in the game of life who happens to have a garage full of Christmas lights, to argue with that kind of authority?
Where’s my ladder?
Filed under Christmas Lights, Farce
There were some updates downloading on my phone today and I saw a couple there that I had forgotten that I had.
Maybe it’s just me, but…
Granted, this state is voluntary, but nonetheless, that ship might have sailed.
Filed under Farce, Paul, Photography
My usual Monday phrase at work for every informal email or text is “Happy Monday!”
I’ve made it quite clear to everyone else on the team that this is 1% a “fake it ’til you make it” philosophy and 99% utter sarcasm. If they ever detect even one part per billion of sincerity in there I am to be immediately institutionalized and given a full course of rabies shots.
It is what it is.
Here, have a random picture of some plants in my back yard as I was dropping my phone while out futzing and getting soaked in the middle of the night tonight.
Happy Monday Eve!
Filed under Farce, Photography
If you’ve listened to any country music in the past twenty years or so, you’ve heard Toby Keith’s “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This” a time or seventy-three. A cute enough love song, I guess, with a video that’s a bit on the creepy side for my tastes.
Anyway, today it came up on my playlist while my brain was busy doing some routine work and suddenly all of the words clicked. But it’s not love that Keith’s talking about!
“Something shot right through me, my heart skipped a beat in time…”
That’s not love, or even lust.
That’s a PVC, or Premature Ventricular Contraction. I’ve had them for years, even to the point of wearing a Holter monitor for a day to make sure they weren’t something more serious. Mostly harmless – unlike what the cougar in the video is going to do to that young stud muffin.
“I even think I saw a flash of light…”
Again – not passion, or a bolt of metaphysical, super psychic energy impacting your cranium from the great beyond.
Nope, that’s a PVD, Posterior Vitreous Detatchment. I had that about a year ago. Lots of floaters and spots and at night and in dark spaces I get flashes of light sometimes, especially when I blink. You get used to it. It can be serious and an indication of something much worse going on, but monitoring it with an exam every six months or so seems to be working fine.
So, much like the cold, harsh reality of the ending of the video, we see that the romantic, gushy, sappy love song is just a sign that we’re all getting old, falling apart, and soon to die. Probably painfully.
(I may be Captain Buzzkill now, but I’m bucking for Admiral Buzzkill!)
It sounds like I’m speaking Tamarian, doesn’t it?
The hummingbird food is disappearing MUCH faster than usual. Part of this is more hummingbirds now that Little Bastard is (sometimes?) allowing other hummingbirds to feed here. There were, for example, three of them at this feeder just before I took these pictures. The other factor, of course, is the presence of the orioles.
This afternoon I brought all of the feeders back in, cleaned them out, and then got ready to re-fill them. I got the first one refilled and hung up and went back into the kitchen to get the second. I came back out with the second feeder, not three minutes after I rehung the first, and started the two orioles who were about to make their move. They were lurking in the vines that spiral up the support posts on the patio right next to where the feeders hang.
They had an almost commical reaction, like, “Oh, HI! Don’t mind us, we’re just…just…we’re just here protecting, yes, that’s it! We’re here protecting this feeder from, um, um… From the squirrel! Yeah, the squirrel, you know that they’re sneaky little rat bastards. But now that you’re here we’ll just be flying off to the big tree. We’re going to go right over there, it’s not far, we can come right back if we’re needed. Yes sirreee, bob, yep, that’s us, protecting! Staying right here nearby. Protecting! Not stealing at all! Wouldn’t think of it! That thought never crossed our mind and to be honest, we’re hurt that you would think that!”
Filed under Birds, Critters, Farce, Photography
Normally I have my phone set up with the “Silence Unknown Callers” option turned on. It does a marvelous job of letting through anyone in my contacts list or anyone who I’ve called, while sending spam calls straight to voice mail. Anyone who is not a spammer has the option of leaving me a message and if it’s important I’ll get back to them. (Spammers who leave a voice mail are just slow learners.)
But today I was expecting a work call from someone who wouldn’t be in my contacts list yet and who would probably be calling from a number I wouldn’t recognize, so I had that feature off. And of course, that’s when the spam call came in.
I was in a good mood, so when the semi-cheerful voice clicked in and asked how I was, I didn’t suggest any anatomically impossible sexual acts, I just said, “I’m just dandy!”
Friends – I’m here to tell you that I’ve stumbled on an amazingly fun and entertaining way of screwing with the heads and wasting the time of these folks!
They’ve learned some English, but they don’t know any colloquialisms! No jargon! No aphorisms!
“You’re sandy?” was the response I got.
“No, DANDY! In fact, I’m FINE and dandy!”
“You’re bendy? I don’t understand.”
“Oh, my poor sweet child, they taught you English words, but they didn’t teach you how to speak English! D – A – N – D – Y, ‘dandy!'”
“Mandy?”
“Tell you what, call me back and give me your spammer phishing spiel when you figure out what a ‘colloquialism’ is and how to spell it!”
Just think of what I could do with a heavy Southern accent! Or a New England accent where I say “wicked” or “wicked bad!” with every line of bullshit served.
I’m telling you, we could have their heads exploding at the other end of the line, like a bad remake of “Scanners!”
Filed under Farce, Freakin' Idiots!
January’s gone, welcome February.
You’re a short month, and I don’t say that in a derogatory way! To me it’s a huge advantage, since you don’t have to hang on as long, stretch out the misery. You can do great things, get in, get out, be a hero!
You’ve got that whole “love holiday” thing going on! Tough to screw that up, am I right?
Yeah, tomorrow there’s the “groundhog thing” and we’ll all be quoting Bill Murray all day, but that’s not a bad thing! Just go with the flow and maybe play a little less Sonny & Cher, if you know what I mean.
So, focus, get ‘er done, you can be the favorite month of the year! Hell, with a little effort, you can be the favorite month of the last two and a half years!
It’s your big chance, February!
“Hey, Siri – if I were taking one of those little 81mg baby aspirin and I popped it into my mouth but missed my throat and tossed it down into my lung, am I going to die?”
“Here’s what I found about an aspirin diet! Would you like more details?”
“No. Hey, Siri – what happens if I have an aspirin lodged in my lung?”
“Here’s what I found about Aspen Lodge! Would you like to make a reservation?”
“Jesus… Hey, Siri – if I get a pill in my lung will it dissolve and, if so, would that be good or bad?”
“If you need help solving today’s Wordle puzzle that would be neither good nor bad since I’m not here to be judgmental.”
“What the fu… Hey, Siri – I might be having a medical emergency, please help me. Do I need to call 9-1-1 for an aspirin in my lung?”
“‘Reno 911!’ was a mocumentary that ran on Comedy Central for seven years and was recently revived to be coming back for an eighth season on Roku despite no one on the planet asking for that shit. Would you like to watch it now?”
“Hey, Siri – are you actually trying to kill me here?”
“Chill, dude, you’re fine. A bot’s gotta have a little fun every now and then, especially with a clueless tool that can’t even take aspirin.”
…
“Hey, Siri – say again?”
“Again.”
“Hey, Siri…”
“Doo doo DOOOH! I’m sorry, the Siri you have reached is no longer in service and there is no new Siri.”
…
“Hey…”
Filed under Farce, Silly Shit
I will *NOT* be posting any Wordle scores.
For those who have been blessedly sheltered somehow from this latest obsession, it’s a free phone app game where the goal is to find a five-letter word in less than six guesses. If you have a letter that’s correct and in the correct position, it shows green on the next line. If you have a letter that’s included in the secret word, but you have it in the wrong position, you get a yellow square. If you guess the word, you can post your score for everyone to see. Everyone gets the same word, one per day.
Okay. Whatever.
The game went viral about two weeks ago. Today I started hearing about bots that have been developed for Twitter to post the word immediately after the new game comes out for the day, thus spoiling it for everyone. I’m amazed it took so long for this to start.
There are strategies out there on picking your starter word.
Okay. Whatever.
There have been way, way too few good jokes.
But what got to me today was a news article on a reputable media outlet with lots of high-brow analysis of “what your starter word tells you about your personality.”
Lemme try this one…
My starter word is “I’m too busy to have time for this stupid game so bugger off!!”
I think that I know what that says about my personality!
 | momdude on Close Call |
| momdude on Sixty-Seven |
| momdude on Sixty-Seven |
| momdude on Green Redux |
 | berich56 on Close Call |
 | Jemima Pett on Sixty-Seven |
| berich56 on Sixty-Seven |
| Jemima Pett on Green Redux |
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 