Happy 4th of July Day Eve. As I drove home, I saw wiley parade-gawkers placing their lawn chairs along the curb. They are doing this to reserve front row spaces for an event that won’t begin for another 14 hours.
I consider this practice to be impolitely unsportsmanlike.
It would serve em right if not all of the chairs survived the night.
Maybe if the sets each lost one.
How about just if the sets were scrambled up. Our fellow citizens who have smugly finagled the first-come, first-served principle beyond its intended use would find themselves with (oh horror of horrors!) an unmatched set.
Perhaps they are all colorblind and would not even notice.
But more likely:
They are forced to miss precious moments of synchronized stroller teams and pirates making noise with cap guns as they run around using their barganing skills to try to end up with a matched set once again.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Sunday, May 07, 2006
House (Theme Song)
Sing this to the tune of "Everyone Knows It's Windy"
You need a medical detective
When it feels like there's something wrong
If you're a fan of biting invective
He'll diagnose it before long
When you pet your Pekingese
Watch out for Bubonic fleas
You feel an itch at your knees
And vainly scratch
But they attach!
You cuddle with your main squeeze
Not thinking of STDs
But research with green monkeys
Led to a bite
And a parasite
That rash shaped like fleurs des lys
Might indicate leproses
Or maybe just allergies
It's hard to tell
But you're starting to swell
And nine-day-old porridge pease
Are fluent in Botulese
Which leads to paralyses
You can't take off
Can't even cough
Bacterial colonies
Or scary malignancies
An excess of manganese?
What e'er the spoor
He'll find the cure
You need a medical detective
When it feels like there's something wrong
If you're a fan of biting invective
He'll find the problem before long
Thursday, April 20, 2006
The Little House on the Prairie Theme Song
At first I didn’t care for the Little House series
It seemed extremely preachy
No adaptation to screen can live up to a text for me
And this one seemed smarmy
But friends and family liked to watch it
So I had to too occasionally
I became familiar with its thefts from other sources, its retelling of the books’ story
Mostly with fidelity
The series had a catchy tune as a theme song. But it had never been fleshed out with words. It must have been written with a few lines about a little house, because the meter works perfectly. But wordy songs just weren’t in style. If they had written one, it might be remembered and loved as much as the Gilligan’s Island song. With this post I am correcting the historical oversight. I know that you will each be eternally grateful.
Little House on the Prairie TV Show Theme Song (Now with words!)
Little House on the Prairie
It isn’t big, no siree
The tale of the house
And the lives of the Ingalls family
Is here on your TV
Laura’s a girl with two sisters
Mary and baby Carrie
As the series grows old
An account will unfold of how Mary
Lost ability to see
They have some friends called the Olsens
With a daughter named Nellie
Mayhap there will be
A cat fight or three because Nellie
‘S Laura’s archenemy
Laura’s dad Charles plays the fiddle
He’s just as wise as can be
When he takes a break
From the hay and the rake he drinks coffee
Not historically accurate tea
Mom Caroline wears a bonnet
She cooks and sews expertly
You can tell that she’s pretty
Despite never a glimpse of knee
Because of modesty
Walnut Grove has a schoolhouse
Church steeple and granary
The migration west had cowboys
And farmers and townsfolk
Who were just like you and me
Of course a show this popular and with a song this good should be followed up by reality style spin-offs. How about:
West Eye for the East Guy
International interior decorating
Little House on the Prairie
A design to convey
A sense of Feung Shui you may copy
Rustic simplicity
It seemed extremely preachy
No adaptation to screen can live up to a text for me
And this one seemed smarmy
But friends and family liked to watch it
So I had to too occasionally
I became familiar with its thefts from other sources, its retelling of the books’ story
Mostly with fidelity
The series had a catchy tune as a theme song. But it had never been fleshed out with words. It must have been written with a few lines about a little house, because the meter works perfectly. But wordy songs just weren’t in style. If they had written one, it might be remembered and loved as much as the Gilligan’s Island song. With this post I am correcting the historical oversight. I know that you will each be eternally grateful.
Little House on the Prairie TV Show Theme Song (Now with words!)
Little House on the Prairie
It isn’t big, no siree
The tale of the house
And the lives of the Ingalls family
Is here on your TV
Laura’s a girl with two sisters
Mary and baby Carrie
As the series grows old
An account will unfold of how Mary
Lost ability to see
They have some friends called the Olsens
With a daughter named Nellie
Mayhap there will be
A cat fight or three because Nellie
‘S Laura’s archenemy
Laura’s dad Charles plays the fiddle
He’s just as wise as can be
When he takes a break
From the hay and the rake he drinks coffee
Not historically accurate tea
Mom Caroline wears a bonnet
She cooks and sews expertly
You can tell that she’s pretty
Despite never a glimpse of knee
Because of modesty
Walnut Grove has a schoolhouse
Church steeple and granary
The migration west had cowboys
And farmers and townsfolk
Who were just like you and me
Of course a show this popular and with a song this good should be followed up by reality style spin-offs. How about:
West Eye for the East Guy
International interior decorating
Little House on the Prairie
A design to convey
A sense of Feung Shui you may copy
Rustic simplicity
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Deli Meat Monkey on Your Back
Hu Jintao
Who?
Yeah.
Who's in town?
Yeah, he landed in Everett.
Ok, there's this guy in town. And he's important in some way.
Right.
Well, what is he famous for?
He's the president of China.
Who is?
Yeah.
I didn't know that China had a president. But he's here in Washington right now huh.
Yeah.
What's his name?
Hu.
Who?
Yeah.
So he landed in Everett. Is he going anywhere else?
He's going to Redmond to visit Gates and tour Microsoft.
Who is?
Yeah.
Where is his next stop?
It says that The Seattle Trade Development Alliance is hosting him for lunch. They will be serving traditional American deli foods like corned beef and tongue and dill pickles. There's a rumor that the party elite in his country regard those foods as aphrodisiacs and even shoot them up intravenously.
Husan Tung?
No, not the turn of the century emperor, the current president!
Who?
Yeah.
Who?
Yeah.
Who's in town?
Yeah, he landed in Everett.
Ok, there's this guy in town. And he's important in some way.
Right.
Well, what is he famous for?
He's the president of China.
Who is?
Yeah.
I didn't know that China had a president. But he's here in Washington right now huh.
Yeah.
What's his name?
Hu.
Who?
Yeah.
So he landed in Everett. Is he going anywhere else?
He's going to Redmond to visit Gates and tour Microsoft.
Who is?
Yeah.
Where is his next stop?
It says that The Seattle Trade Development Alliance is hosting him for lunch. They will be serving traditional American deli foods like corned beef and tongue and dill pickles. There's a rumor that the party elite in his country regard those foods as aphrodisiacs and even shoot them up intravenously.
Husan Tung?
No, not the turn of the century emperor, the current president!
Who?
Yeah.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Passover Song
(Sing this to the tune of: The Nanny Named Fran)
They were working in a brickyard mixing straw and clay
An uncompensated worker can't go on that way
Time to make a change
Time to rearrange
Make a plan to earn a peso
So across the path from Goshen to the palace court
Moses wanted an exit visa, or at least a passport
He had snakes
He had rods
He had God
That's how he confronted Pharaoh
Freedom wouldn't come to pass overnight
But it was a case of fight or flight
Now multitudes are leaving (Don't forget your nightshirt)
And the waters are receding (It's a dry desert)
It's the start of a trip that will lead to the promised land
It's the Exodus from Egypt
I'm sure you can understand
Copyright 2006 all rights reserved
They were working in a brickyard mixing straw and clay
An uncompensated worker can't go on that way
Time to make a change
Time to rearrange
Make a plan to earn a peso
So across the path from Goshen to the palace court
Moses wanted an exit visa, or at least a passport
He had snakes
He had rods
He had God
That's how he confronted Pharaoh
Freedom wouldn't come to pass overnight
But it was a case of fight or flight
Now multitudes are leaving (Don't forget your nightshirt)
And the waters are receding (It's a dry desert)
It's the start of a trip that will lead to the promised land
It's the Exodus from Egypt
I'm sure you can understand
Copyright 2006 all rights reserved
Monday, April 10, 2006
Annual Passover Shopping Post
It shouldn’t surprise me but it always does. My local grocery stores order a minimum of Holiday supplies, and if they have anything left when the Holiday actually starts they send it back. I’d planned to shop today. But when I got out of class, I really didn’t feel like going. Then I looked up and saw the moon. Almost full, it was a reminder of the lunar calendar. So, off to Safeway, where I’d seen a seasonal display. But that was three weeks ago. I hadn’t been ready to stock up, and oh yeah, had not gotten my student loan farfel so far.
There’s a Yiddish proverb that I once read in translation: “There’s always money for matzah and shrouds.” It’s a powerful idea that in addition to the basics of biology, there are certain ritual objects that people can’t do without. And that even the underemployed, or the uncharitable, somehow scramble around to make things happen for themselves and their communities.
Even though the Holiday had not yet begun apparently they had already sent back everything. The display no longer existed. Nor had it been moved. I drove to another part of town. It was Ghettoization in action.
So now I have matzah, and I have fishcakes in a jar, and imported grape juice both with and without carbonation. I got the apples and walnuts and honey and butter, also some lettuce and parsley. I don’t have anything for a main course yet, but that should be easy.
For bitter herbs I am going to reconstitute some dried wasabi just like I did last year. That reminds me of another Yiddish proverb: “To a worm in wasabi, the wasabi is sweet.” It does have some sweetness along with the bitter.
Must hard boil some eggs….
There’s a Yiddish proverb that I once read in translation: “There’s always money for matzah and shrouds.” It’s a powerful idea that in addition to the basics of biology, there are certain ritual objects that people can’t do without. And that even the underemployed, or the uncharitable, somehow scramble around to make things happen for themselves and their communities.
Even though the Holiday had not yet begun apparently they had already sent back everything. The display no longer existed. Nor had it been moved. I drove to another part of town. It was Ghettoization in action.
So now I have matzah, and I have fishcakes in a jar, and imported grape juice both with and without carbonation. I got the apples and walnuts and honey and butter, also some lettuce and parsley. I don’t have anything for a main course yet, but that should be easy.
For bitter herbs I am going to reconstitute some dried wasabi just like I did last year. That reminds me of another Yiddish proverb: “To a worm in wasabi, the wasabi is sweet.” It does have some sweetness along with the bitter.
Must hard boil some eggs….
Apple Sauce
This is the first entry from the new LAPPY-APPLE aka the standard student model ibook G4. All of this whiteness would be more suitable for a coffee pot or a toaster. Maybe it should be covered with stickers or original art. Not used to the keyboard, but it beats the Dells that I tested. The track pad is kind of irritating. Nice display, far better than I'd imagined.
The PrissMobile more than recovered. With better engine cooling, the air conditioner suddenly works better. I'm looking forward to non-sticky summer driving. It was very well-mannered of the PM to wait until I was no longer destitute before breaking down. Sometimes that corollary to Murphy's Law about things going wrong "at the worst possible moment" doesn't have time to kick in.
The new glasses are basically hell on earth. I innocently thought that "Progressive" was a harmless slightly socialistic political leaning. It turns out to also be a brand name for a high-tech optical torture device with hundreds of focal points and none of them just right for close-up work. They were great for driving. I could see the frost on the pine needles on the tops of mountains and the cars ahead of me were clear enough. Street signs were a shade blurry, because to look at off-center targets you not only have to chose the right vertical angle, but you are supposed to turn your head a precise fraction to avoid that off-center distortion. After two days I traded them in for a "traditional bifocal."
Dear loyal readers, while it would be nice to pretend to be 24 years old, and while I do sometimes still get carded, I did not pop out the PrissKids as a preteen. It might have been nice to get that out of the way early, grades 9 through 12 being a collossal waste of time, but my parents would never have understood. Besides, while I though that guys were cute, the conception process sounded kind of gross.
So here I am at that age where a single vision lense isn't quite doing the job for me. But the bifocals are so hard to adjust to. There seems to be some perfect distance and angle that works, and it is different for each book. Today I read 300 pages, most of it with the stupid spex pushed up headband style in frustration. You see, without correction, I have perfect focus at about 8 to 10 inches.
The PrissMobile more than recovered. With better engine cooling, the air conditioner suddenly works better. I'm looking forward to non-sticky summer driving. It was very well-mannered of the PM to wait until I was no longer destitute before breaking down. Sometimes that corollary to Murphy's Law about things going wrong "at the worst possible moment" doesn't have time to kick in.
The new glasses are basically hell on earth. I innocently thought that "Progressive" was a harmless slightly socialistic political leaning. It turns out to also be a brand name for a high-tech optical torture device with hundreds of focal points and none of them just right for close-up work. They were great for driving. I could see the frost on the pine needles on the tops of mountains and the cars ahead of me were clear enough. Street signs were a shade blurry, because to look at off-center targets you not only have to chose the right vertical angle, but you are supposed to turn your head a precise fraction to avoid that off-center distortion. After two days I traded them in for a "traditional bifocal."
Dear loyal readers, while it would be nice to pretend to be 24 years old, and while I do sometimes still get carded, I did not pop out the PrissKids as a preteen. It might have been nice to get that out of the way early, grades 9 through 12 being a collossal waste of time, but my parents would never have understood. Besides, while I though that guys were cute, the conception process sounded kind of gross.
So here I am at that age where a single vision lense isn't quite doing the job for me. But the bifocals are so hard to adjust to. There seems to be some perfect distance and angle that works, and it is different for each book. Today I read 300 pages, most of it with the stupid spex pushed up headband style in frustration. You see, without correction, I have perfect focus at about 8 to 10 inches.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Rod and Cones
The PrissMobile blew up today. OK, not really, there was no storm of shrapnel. And the fact that my right hand doesn't know what my left hand is doing is not due to a fragment of hood ornament severing my corpus collosum. What happened was that as I was parking, I observed a cloud of white steam emanating from the grill, and auscultated an accompanying hiss.
Seeing as how I had half an hour to slam out a one-page proclamation or delineation, or whatever this particular class calls the written stuff that we have to write, I locked the PM and walked to the computer lab. Typed, printed, turned in and sat through the session.
Facilities services said that their insurance company does not allow them to help or offer advice about car problems, but they could offer me the use of their telephone book. Surprisingly that did the trick. I found a shop that was not as far away as the one I'd used previously, and the mechanic was able to talk intelligibly. Not wanting to pay for a tow, and especially not wanting to spend hours waiting for one, I decided to brave driving there.
I dumped out what was left of my diet coke, and used the bottle to transfer some tap water to the reservoir. It may have helped, because I got almost all of the way there before the steam started again. The diagnosis is a cracked radiator. It should be replaced by noon tomorrow.
This pushes back picking up my new glasses by a day and means that much longer struggling with the small blurry letters in the Rawls book. Books should include a text zoom feature.
The new frames are very Helen Gurley Brown, very Sophia Loren. In other words, they are huge and nerdy, but somewhat glam.
Seeing as how I had half an hour to slam out a one-page proclamation or delineation, or whatever this particular class calls the written stuff that we have to write, I locked the PM and walked to the computer lab. Typed, printed, turned in and sat through the session.
Facilities services said that their insurance company does not allow them to help or offer advice about car problems, but they could offer me the use of their telephone book. Surprisingly that did the trick. I found a shop that was not as far away as the one I'd used previously, and the mechanic was able to talk intelligibly. Not wanting to pay for a tow, and especially not wanting to spend hours waiting for one, I decided to brave driving there.
I dumped out what was left of my diet coke, and used the bottle to transfer some tap water to the reservoir. It may have helped, because I got almost all of the way there before the steam started again. The diagnosis is a cracked radiator. It should be replaced by noon tomorrow.
This pushes back picking up my new glasses by a day and means that much longer struggling with the small blurry letters in the Rawls book. Books should include a text zoom feature.
The new frames are very Helen Gurley Brown, very Sophia Loren. In other words, they are huge and nerdy, but somewhat glam.
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