1.30.2004

Chain Letter: Warning, read at your own risk. Via my brother Matt.

Hello, my name is Amber and I suffer from the guilt of not forwarding 50 billion chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, a poor 6-year-old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her to a traveling freak show.

Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you, and everyone to whom you send "his" email, $1000?

"Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by a model I just happen to run into the next day!"

What a bunch of bull.

Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my house and kill me in my sleep for not continuing a chain letter that was started by Peter in 5 AD and brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower.

If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 10 of your closest friends,and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. Think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out these forwards. Chances are, it's our own unpopularity.

The point being? If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't make people feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth who has been tied to the ass of a dead elephant for 27 years and whose only salvation is the 5 cents per letter
he'll receive if you forward this email.

Now forward this to everyone you know. Otherwise, tomorrow morning your underwear will turn carnivorous and will consume your genitals.

1.16.2004

Theme of the week:

The talk at work has been slang.

As in, "What up, Dog?"

It all started when someone of the hippie generation asked me what "word" meant.

"Word is 'truth,'" I said. "You know, Hallelujiah, that's the word of the lord. And word to your mother is 'really big truth.'"

Can of worms.

"Word up to your diggety dog, yo yo, you can just fasizzle my dizzle, and that sweater is just stupid fresh, yo," she said.

Then we attempted to teach a twenty-five year-old "shazbat."

"Does it mean, like, dude?" she asked.
And the quote of the week:

"People laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it."
--Gracie Allen.
Trivia of the week:

(From my parents.)

A bit of information to help you sleep better now that you know. In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but they had to find a way to prevent them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem... how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others.

The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey" with 16 round indentations. But, if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls quickly would rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys." Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.

Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey".
Contratulations!

Mike (he works with the South Dakota IRS) had his first oral arguements in front of the state supreme court on Wednesday.

The recording is here.

Woo Hoo!

1.08.2004

More Domestic Life.

Warm and fuzzy day. Not a day, just a moment. I sit in a steamy-warm bathroom while my daughter sings a song to a plastic monkey. And rubs bubbles on her face. She can strike a Calgon pose the short length of the tub, still. A couple of much, much, much-abused x-mas tree ornaments, rubber duckie, spitting dolphin and ladybug, a ball, some stackable blocks. She still has chocolate ice cream on her nose.

You tune out everything else.
Domestic Life.

Domestic life is distracting life. Everything has issues. Everything gets broken, tipped over, spilled, scattered, smeared. And of course that's Rachael, doing most of it. You tell her not to break something and she throws herself on the floor and cries. And if you let the place go, it gets worse. More stuff dragged out means more stuff to get dragged out. Some days it drives me mad!

1.06.2004

Stories!

Houston, we have stories!

***Dave and Doyce sent me their stories today.

In one case, I had to beg and plead to get it, but there you go...


...Doyce.