Cerebrate Good Times

To take Sam trick-or-treating, I decided to forgo the politics, so I removed the note from the knife and decided to stick something on my forehead for good measure. Here's a better view. "Has anybody seen my keys?"

 

In a momentary fit of relative normalcy, I decided to post a few pics of Sam at the zoo on his birthday. He was amused by the "fuzzy horns." Almost ready to play jump rope with his arms He would be happy if elephants were the only animal they had there. Gorillattitude

I have more Halloween makeup than many women have makeup period.

Oh, you saucy little spell checker. It wanted to replace the web extension ".org" with "orgy." I can't help but feel that would dampen the reliability of the resource. It got me thinking, though. One of these days I'm going to accept all the spell checker's proposed changes in a document and see what awesomeness ensues.

My thoughts as I read the survey BYU recently sent me (twice, when I didn't return it quickly enough the first time they sent it): Dear Joel, Congratulations on your 2006 graduation from BYU! Better late than never, I suppose. As President of BYU, I invite you to complete our Alumni Questionnaire, which we send to each BYU graduate three years after graduation. I wouldn't have capitalized "president" in that usage, but whatever. Okay, let's see how you close the letter. I express appreciation in advance for your participation. You "express appreciation," eh? Gee, that's almost the same thing as actually saying "thank you." That's like punching someone in the face and saying, "I express my regret." It's also kind of a heavy-handed assumption that I will actually take the time to answer 15 pages worth of questions. At any rate, let's move on and look at some of the content. Indicate how well each of the following statem...

I'm amused when people ask me language-related questions. First of all, they always preface these questions by saying, "Hey, Mr. Linguist…" Then they proceed on the assumption that I have memorized the entire Oxford English Dictionary (all 23 volumes) and am therefore qualified to detail the etymology of the phrase "liar, liar, pants on fire." I should be flattered, although I am torn between annoyance that they presume so much and shame that I don't really know everything.

Recently we ran out of checks (I'd rather not use them at all anymore, but there are occasions when it's necessary) and Katie called our bank to order them. The woman she talked to kept trying to get her to spend more money on multiple boxes and faster shipping. She resisted those but in the end wasn't sure exactly what had been ordered because the woman was a fast talker. The checks came in the mail yesterday and, to my horror and vast amusement, they are pink, with roses on them and a big ol' pink ribbon up in the corner by our names. At least they're better than those horribly inappropriate "Save the ta-tas" car magnets...

Saturday morning we noticed an unfamiliar car parked in front of our house. This is not terribly unusual, given our neighbors . So I didn't give it much thought until I finally realized it had been there for days with the window open, apparently unmoved. Tonight I went out and took a closer look, and I saw that the glove compartment was open, the contents scattered on the seat. So I decided it had been stolen and abandoned. I reported it to the county sheriff's office right as a sheriff's vehicle happened to be pulling in to the neighbors' yard (their son is a sheriff or deputy or whatever). I mentioned it to him and he took a look. Within half an hour it looked like the owner had arrived to claim her vehicle. It was apparently in bad enough shape that they couldn't get it started, but at least they now know what happened to their vehicle. It only took me 3 days to be suspicious enough to be spurred to action...

This afternoon Sam played at a nearby park, and I noticed that he had gotten a sliver in his hand. I ended up having to get out a needle and the rubbing alcohol. He was pretty brave, once I gave him a Dum Dum and put on a cartoon. I remember my dad digging slivers out of my hands when I was a kid. Good times.

As soon as my alarm went off, my first thought was this: Why is waking up so tiring?

Every business has one place where the path through is narrow, and for some reason people tend to congregate there to talk, like a blood clot. It always seems to happen when you’re in a hurry and need to get through. If you dislodge the clot, it causes a stroke, by which I mean a bunch of nasty glares.

To many of my blogging friends on whose blogs I rarely comment: I really do read your blogs. I subscribe to them in Google Reader and read every post. But since, as many of you are painfully aware, my comments tend toward the snarky, I usually refrain from saying anything about your family reunion or birthday party or other family activities, lest you terminate our friendship. It's for your own good, really. I will try to do better. If you weren't linked above, I am probably better at commenting on your posts. It's up to you whether you're relieved or mortified.

Here's what the billboard said; try to guess what it was selling: Finally getting a D is a good thing!

-Having to clean out my gmail inbox because I ran out of space (I'm at 5300 emails and counting) -The day I decide I am bald enough that I need to shave my head to maintain any dignity -Losing my memory -The day I decide I need to go on a diet -Getting bifocals -Losing my memory -The day it becomes illegal to eat seafood due to overharvesting

... I would be tempted to take people's Netflix movies home and watch them before turning them in. One day difference in getting the next movie wouldn't be noticed on occasion.