Category Archives: General

This Is… [holiday] Comedy

Last day of work in 2008.  Can’t tell you how nice it is that this is “Friday”– because yesterday was about the longest Monday in the history of the Gregorian calendar.  Tonight, despite the weather, Michelle and I are off to Madison to meet up with D-Slo and Andrea ((They got engaged, in case you missed it.)).

But yes, so: on the eve of Christmas Eve, I like to have our old friend Steve remind us once again that, while many holiday wishes will remain mere wishes, there’s no harm in dreaming.  Have a happy (and funny) and safe holiday…

Steve Martin – Five Wishes for Christmas ((transcript at whysanity.net))

If I had one wish that I could wish this holiday season, it would be that all the children to join hands and sing together in the spirit of harmony and peace. If I had two wishes I could make this holiday season, the first would be for all the children of the world to join hands and sing in the spirit of harmony and peace. And the second would be for 30 million dollars a month to be given to me, tax-free in a Swiss bank account. You know, if I had three wishes I could make this holiday season, the first, of course, would be for all the children of the world to get together and sing, the second would be for the 30 million dollars every month to me, and the third would be for encompassing power over every living being in the entire universe.

And if I had four wishes that I could make this holiday season, the first would be the crap about the kids definitely, the second would be for the 30 million, the third would be for all the power, and the fourth would be to set aside one month each year to have an extended 31-day orgasm, to be brought about slowly by Rosanna Arquette and that model Paulina-somebody, I can’t think of her name. Of course my lovely wife can come too and she’s behind me one hundred percent here, I guarantee it.

Wait a minute, maybe the sex thing should be the first wish, so if I made that the first wish, because it could all go boom tomorrow, then what do you got, y’know? No, no, the kids, the kids singing would be great, that would be nice. But wait a minute, who am I kidding? They’re not going to be able to get all those kids together. I mean, the logistics of the thing is impossible, more trouble than it’s worth! So — we reorganize! Here we go. First, the sex thing. We go with that. Second, the money. No, we got with the power second, then the money. And then the kids. Oh wait, oh jeez, I forgot about revenge against my enemies! Okay, I need revenge against all my enemies, they should die like pigs in hell! That would be my fourth wish. And, of course, my fifth wish would be for all the children of the world to join hands and sing together in the spirit of harmony and peace. Thank you everybody and Merry Christmas.

Slow But Sudden

I feel like I’ve had enough prep time for the holiday season, for the most part.  Have a few last-minute things to do, and Michelle has had to use my kitchen for cookie baking while her oven is on the fritz, but I’m not too stressed.

Work is going to the slow for the next couple days, and I definitely have no complaints there; might get some miscellaneous personal stuff done…

Over the weekend, our Bock fam Christmas at Jen and Joe’s was nice; the turducken was good for dinner, Uncle Bob bought me and Joe some cigars, I made a quarter or so at Sheepshead, and the Mark-Bock-fam kicked butt @ Guitar Hero.

Hope you all have a relaxing holiday, and if you’re around, we’ll see you soon!

Replacement Prognostication: Week 16

Well, the Packers are out of it.  I don’t *think* that I was what jinxed them ((Since I declared that they could conceivably run the table in Week 12, they have not won a game.)), but one can’t know for sure.  From here on out, for reasons that I outlined last week, I will be rooting for the Jets.

Let’s get this party started and rock out on Week 16.

SEASON RECORD: overall, 63-34; weeklies, 55-25; bonus picks, 8-9

  • Packers – lose
  • Bears – win
  • Vikings – lose
  • Lions – lose
  • Chiefs – lose
  • Seahawks – lose
  • Dolphins – win

BONUS PICKS!!!

  • Cowboys – win
  • Titans – win
  • Patriots – win
  • Giants – win

Hey– have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Fun With Sounds

I think it’s fair to say that Dave and I try to maintain a modicum of weirdness non-normalcy uniqueness in our lives.  We were talking a little this morning about how I’ve updated the ringer on my phone to a naval general alarm you might hear on a surface vessel, and he was planning to use the “Cliff Hangers” song from the Price Is Right on his.  Then Dave struck gold on the UTubes!

Busted Stuff

Kinda funny that it was just last week when I wrote about how satisfied I’ve been with WordPress this year, then over the last couple days, I’ve been frustrated with upgrading to version 2.7.

I should clarify: the software itself works great.  The issues that I’m having are strictly related to plugins that I’m using.  I suppose certain compatibility and seamless upgrading are the trade-offs you have to make when you start using a lot of 3rd-party extensions.  I was willing to roll with the upgrade and let one of my less oft-used plugins remain broken until it’s updated, but I’ve discovered I actually have 2 ((twitter tools and the DB backup plugin)) that aren’t working quite right, so I rolled back to WordPress 2.6.5 for now ((This new footnote plugin I installed seems to work fine, though.)).  Not that it matters much to you, Dear Reader, as everything appears exactly the same on your end.  (But the blog is sort of for my notes, too.)

At work, I was supposed to have a “day off” from seeing students today, but one of my colleagues called in, so I’m filling the gap.  Might prevent me from getting the newest podcast (which we recorded over the weekend) up this afternoon, as I’d intended.  I definitely need to do that today, though, since the rest of my evenings are booked up this week.  Dave invited me to an event at EAA on Wednesday night, and Thursday is our office holiday party.

Time to get some working done…

Something Completely Different

I am not generally one to take cheap shots at people, especially here on the Internet.  But in case you risk missing it, take a look at this video of President Bush in Iraq over the weekend. I was really impressed with the way W ducked that first shoe. Just weird, and funny, and… I don’t know what else to say.

Satisfactory

Not a bad Saturday, even if the rest of it goes to hell.

It’s a rare thing for me to set some goals of wrestling with technology and actually manage to knock them all out in less than a day.  When I got up this morning, I wanted to fix some busted plugins on the blog, maybe upgrade to WordPress 2.7, get my desktop machine with a freshly installed copy of Ubuntu 8.10 fully rokkin with all my favorite software, and also make that second display work just like anyone could expect on Windows.

Finished everything by about noon and still had plenty of time to do some prep for this evening’s podcast, AND create an “album cover” for the Last 80’s Rewind show.

Carry on, and make good on your Saturday…

Some Notes For Your Calendar

So this weekend, Michelle and I will be at a shindig on Saturday evening, and we are planning to go skiing on Sunday (there were some free lift tickets being offered for Cascade Mountain).  December can get booked in a big fat hurry, so here are the dates that I already have plans for:

  • 12/13: “housewarming” party in Bayview
  • 12/14: Day ski trip to Cascade Mtn
  • 12/20: Bock family Christmas at the Mundschau’s
  • 12/23: Evening trip to Madison for visit w/ D-Slo & Dre, and/or others
  • 12/25: Christmas @ Mama Mia’s house
  • 12/27: Christmas @ Grandma’s house
  • 12/28: Abe’s baptism
  • 12/30: Dinner w/ some couples (Wordy & Jessica included) at the Safe House
  • 12/31: New Year’s Eve festivities

Packed, as usual!  If I missed something, or if you’d be interested in joining any of these events, give a holler…

Dodging That Bullet, To the Best of My Knowledge

Caught ‘The Opinionator’ column in the NYT today, which talked a bit about the dilemma of Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (not that Jon Favreau).  Apparently there were some unsavory photos of him on a social networking site, engaged in shennanegans with a cardboard cutout of Senator Hilary Clinton.

My point here is not to weigh in on the electronic vetting process of the upcoming administration, but to wave my flag one more time in favor of STAYING AWAY from Facebook.  Also, if you’ve ever been denied my personal blessing to put pictures of me on the Internet, this story is basically a gold-plated case study to justify my feelings on that.

To everyone under 25 years of age posting idiodic, drunken, stoned, naked picutres of yourself on the web: I know it doesn’t seem like this could ever be a bad idea right now, but believe me when I say that 10 years is going to grant you a tremendous amount of insight.  When I was your age (can’t believe I just invoked that phrase), we had only “hard copies” of those embarrassing photographic moments, and for the most part, they stayed in the trusted hands of friends and lovers.  It was a vastly superior arrangement.  If you can maintain control of those photos, all the better.

So, the next time you’re uploading pics from your phone to Flickr, you may want to step back for a second and think about whether or not you’d like your future spouse, boss, mother-in-law, or child to see that one of you sprawled out on the porch, spread eagle and barely conscious at the end your housewarming party.

Because I know I wouldn’t.  And so it’s not there.

firing from the hip since 2002