I can see clearly now, the rain forecast has dropped to 30%.

By some quirk, it is not hazy this morning. Our campus Weatherbug says the humidity is 87%, and there's no wind. Why, then, can I see the various lights around the valley clearly? Beats me, but I enjoyed that aspect of the walk to work this morning.

Obviously, I'm not Popeye.

Here's an excerpt from an online chat I had yesterday with my friend Gimpius Maximus. (Yeah, I'll call him that, instead of "Gimpy", because he asked me to, but it sounds dippy to me.)

Me: Of course not. I am whom I am.
Gimpy*: If that statement doesn't make that abundantly clear, then they do not know just whom you are.
Me: Precisely.

*Well, it's a lot more concise to call him that, especially when I don't want his preferred nickname to take up more line space than my entire utterances.

You know it's a bad night at the bowling alley when...

...you, your teammates, and your opponents are trading high fives when someone picks up a spare.

The saving grace is that I had neither money nor my debit card in my pocket, so I couldn't stop by the grocery store on the way home for some ice cream. (I fixed myself a cup of cocoa instead.)

It wasn't that great a night for the bowling alley, either. The entire time we were there (about 2.5 hours), there were just two lanes used for individual/family bowling, besides our small league (six lanes) and the other, even smaller league (four lanes). The signboard out front should've read, "28 lanes - no waiting!"

Bleeding head wounds happen in threes, right?

If that's the case, I'm owed one more.

On Saturday, when I was helping Thing One rearrange moving boxes in her basement (and carrying the few with stuff she actually needs and has room for upstairs), I neglected to duck on the way up the stairs and bashed my head pretty good against the edge of the ceiling/wall above the stairwell*. (They should've padded that in addition to all the low-hanging pipes in the basement.)

Yesterday, while removing my groceries from the trunk of her car, I struck my head against the edge of the latch/license plate area. I think there was less blood than on the weekend, but it hurt a heck of a lot more.

Maybe that's what I get for hanging around with Thing One so much.


* If there is an afterlife, I think I will find all architects and contractors who did not provide enough head clearance over stairs, pick them up, and bash their heads against the ceiling. That sounds like one of the circles of Hell to me. (In fact, it might be a circle of Hell for me, too, since lifting all those people sounds suspiciously like exercise.)

Don't worry about me. Everything's vine.

I was shocked to see that I haven't posted in more than a week, but I have nothing witty to contribute.

I could tell you that I've been moving stuff on my own from our current office/shop location to the new location because Skippy won't let me do this on overtime, and my crew has their regular duties to perform (those of them who show up for work, anyway). I could tell you that Froggy asked me to send "someone" (i.e. me, since my crew has their regular duties to perform) to prune branches away from one of the campus fences, so he could have his crew repaint it, but even though I picked up my pruners and loppers and headed over there right away, I saw that the painting had already been done, evidenced by the paint on the leaves. I could tell you that I pruned anyway, but I spent much more time pulling weedy vines off the trees, which is how I received a long (but superficial) scratch on each forearm. I could also tell you that Thing One's household goods are due to arrive in two hours, so I (with three other neighbors, one of whom also works for the school) helped her return the borrowed furniture to three locations on campus yesterday evening.

I could do all that, and be informative and mildly interesting, but it's not anhydrously witty, is it?

In my defense, I didn't choose the radio station.

Skippy's boss visited campus today. Per his typical behavior (identified by Elmer Fudd before I started working here), he had nothing good to say. He's officially on my list of Negative Nellies, those people who never think positively.

During my afternoon workout, the speakers in the weight room were blasting a local, country music, radio station. One of the female singers kept repeating the line, "All you're ever going to be is mean." It seemed fitting for the day.

There's a bit of irony here. Froggy and Miss Kitty have previously complained (yes, I chose that word carefully) that Skippy's boss never has anything good to say. Not only are they on my Negative Nellies list already, that put them on my Hypocritical Harrys list, as well.

At least it wasn't (c)rap "music", like on Thursday, when I quit only partway through my workout. Two of the three songs I endured were (c)rap (the other was hard rock), and they were chock full of profanities. I don't want to listen to sh*t like that, let alone have it forced on me at ultra volume.

Oops, more irony. Now how did that get in there? :)

But there are so many things right with this idea!

Thanks to Occasional Fish, I became aware of a new comic book villain I kind of like: a plant-human hybrid named Goldenrod. His super power according to this link (I am not making this up) is "allergy-ing" people to death. The post argues (soundly) against the name of a fictional drug, but I prefer focusing on the good things that came out of the concept.

1) A plant-human hybrid.
2) The apt name.
3) The first two names of the Development Team shown in the panel.
4) Enough of my friends will agree utterly that allergy-ing people to death is not an unrealistic idea.

For a few years, I have been compiling my ideas for Captain Chlorophyll's super alterego. Some of them are really cool (and that isn't just my opinion). I really need to finalize that list. I wonder if Stan Lee would be interested.

The X Factor

I remember why I didn't blog about this yet. It's because I was hurriedly trying to get everything else done before my business trip. That's when I finally transferred my car registration from NM to TN, but I didn't have time to tell you.

I used to drive a Chevrolet Lumina with the license plate "CORTEX" (which, my mom decreed, was also the name of the car). When I bought my Chevrolet Equinox a couple of years ago, I kept the license plate. However, I kept misremembering the model name of my new car and thinking it was an Excalibur. That's when I realized that my first car's name, the license plate, and the new car model each had an "x" in the name. Hence, my current car's name is Excalibur.

You can imagine I was loath to give up my X license plate (not to mention the fact that it was easy to find a screaming yellow plate in a parking lot full of white ones). However, fate stepped in. The random alphanumeric combination of my new plate has an "x" in it. All is right with the world.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Alas, the retiring staff member held his third book giveaway today. Yes, I took a box with me just in case. Yes, I filled said box.

Wouldn't you know it? Just after I had finally logged my last acquisitions into Library Thing and got them out of their boxes (clearing space on my floor) and onto the shelves, this had to happen. Obviously, I'm not meant to see that floor.

Hail to the Chief

I was overwhelmingly elected as president of the bowling league last night. It happened so quickly, I couldn't tell if I abstained or voted no. Sheesh, the least they could've done was sent me to pick up something at the snack bar. Then they could've elected me completely painlessly.

I don't think I actually have to do anything, since I never saw the past president do anything (it was always the secretary, who takes our money every week). Then again, the past president rarely came any more, which is why a new election was held.

Apparently, my campaign slogan was, "He's here every week." (Nice, but not so convincing, considering my business trip last week.)

Instead of "Hail to the Chief", how about we use this as my inaugural song?



I can't agree with all the lyrics (I've seen cops far more often at my weekly cheesesteak place than my donut shop), but it's still a cool song. I've always wondered, though, who's Annie Jipshun? Is she anything like Little Orphan Annie? If the comic strip was about her dog, it would be Little Arfin' Annie. Although, you could still use that name if you don't find her attractive (a real dog, doncha know?). Or, if she grew up to be like Miss Hannigan (in the movie), whom all the girls thought was a bitch. Of course, the girls probably became jealous after Annie was adopted by Daddy Warbucks, so they could call her Little Effing Annie.

(Annie Oakley was too hard to conjure with.)

Sick and Lazy

That's how I spent my holiday weekend. The sore throat which developed last Monday became a sinus headache on Thursday (which didn't help my airplane flight, thank you very much). On Friday, I was in no mood to work (so I hid in my office most of the day). I left work that afternoon and went home for a nap before dinner.

I slept in (as late as 8 a.m., one day) the whole weekend, which greatly assisted me to get over my cold. (I'm hoping it's a cold, but I either got it from Thing One, whom I took to the doctor who diagnosed her with bronchitis, or by assisting her in cleaning out her attic, which means we might have contracted bird flu or hantavirus or something by stirring up that dust and removing that old nest.) Alas, it also made me lazy.

I decluttered my living room and kitchen a bit (including finally logging the books I got from the library sale onto my Library Thing page), but I stopped short of actual cleaning.

Oh well, there's always next weekend.

Yeah. Right.

And then the cop joins in and shows her how his handcuffs work.

I just got off the phone with the admin. at my insurance agent's office. We have rescheduled my appointment for the umpteenth time. They rescheduled because his dad had emergency surgery. I rescheduled because of my business trip. They rescheduled because of a weekend vacation. They rescheduled again because that appointment conflicts with a doctor's visit.

It's a good thing I mailed in my renewal payments already, so my car is still covered, regardless of our inability to meet face-to-face.

Speaking of cars...

Back in the Saddle Again

I'm back from my business trip. Alas, I caught Thing One's cold (by taking her to the doctor the day before I left), and Skippy picked me up an hour late at the airport last night so I didn't get as much sleep as I could have. I plan to hide in my office all day and read however many dozens of e-mails that arrived when I was gone. Then I want to go home and take a nap.

I know I'm usually more interesting than this, so I'll offer this thought. When I pulled out a sore throat lozenge in the airport yesterday, I saw that I had safety pins in the same baggie. I didn't know I had them in there. I'm lucky I wasn't detained and questioned for having such dangerous items in my carry-on bag.

Speaking of safety pins...