In the past, my family has not made a big deal out of Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. Both of my parents have birthdays within a week of their respective holidays so we always celebrated the birthdays and went about our usual Sunday business on the parental holiday. We gave cards, but that was about all. It was never a big deal.
This year, my father mentioned that he would be going to Charlottesville to see his parents. I thought it might be nice if I joined them as well, and we could spend a few hours visiting together.
I went to church as usual that morning, then was a leader in kids church, getting out around 1 o’clock. I then hit the road. And on the way up there I was trying to remember the last time I saw my father on Father’s Day proper. As a kid I would spend summers with him, but would usually get there a day or two after Father’s Day. As an adult I usually tried to see him between his birthday and the holiday, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. And then I remembered the last time I saw my father on Father’s Day. Continue Reading »
Okay, this show continues to crack me up. I managed to catch one today that I hadn’t seen during the season, and here are some great lines. From “The Cushion Saturation”:
Leonard: You know what baffles me, Sheldon?
Sheldon: Based on your academic record, any number of things I would imagine.
Leonard: Are you done?
Sheldon: No. (pause) Despite what the name would suggest, the sivid cat is not a true cat. (pauses again) Now I’m done.
Wolowitz: One way to look at this is that I am getting new equipment and you’re not, and that’s unfair; but a better way to look at it is that I’m getting sex and you’re not and that’s delightful!
Sheldon: Hello Penny
Penny: Hello Sheldon
Sheldon: You’re in my spot.
Penny (regarding Sheldon): You know I love him, but he is one serious whackadoodle.
Penny: No, I’m from Nebraska. When we shoot things it’s because we want to eat them or make them leave our boyfriends alone.
Leonard: We? No, no, no. You had your chance to be a ‘we’ for a year and a half now. You’re on your own.
Wolowitz as phone rings: Oooh! It looks like I’m going to have sex tonight!
Penny in an aside to Leonard: His right hand is calling?
Leslie Winkle, post coitus: You’re improving!
Wolowitz: Thank you! It helps when I get to practice with a real woman.
Last night was the annual concert by my church’s youth group. 160 active kids got up to sing. Normally they also have a fund raiser for their summer missions trip, this year they decided there is enough going on in the world that they can do missions right here at home. So that was the theme–hope, faith, and community. Later this month they are going to have a market in town where people can come and ’shop’ for services (haircuts, medical screenings, etc.), food, clothing, whatever. At no charge. And it will be run by the kids.
They were absolutely amazing. I am always inspired by these kids and hope that if I ever have a family of my own some day that they can be as plugged in and as deeply rooted in their faith as these children demonstrate. How very inspiring.
Tonight I attended a wedding. There was a time about ten or so years ago when they were common. My friend C and I used to go to them together–he was my regular wedding date. Every two or three weeks there was another, and we just had a blast. It’s amazing what can happen when there is no obligation to your date . . . you relax, have fun, and enjoy yourself.
In the last several years, though, the weddings have changed. They’re still fun, though I usually attend alone. Much easier. But they’re bigger hooplahs now. Not quite as easy and breezy but still very fun, and usually more personal. Best friends, family, etc.
Tonight was the wedding of my youngest cousin. She has been with the guy since she was about 15, and is almost 23. She looked absolutely beautiful, but it cracked me up because they were already acting like a couple that had been married for years. In essence, of course, they have–she’s been with him longer than I’ve lived in any singular location.
It’s a weird thing with my cousin. I love her dearly, but when she was about 10 their family moved about two hours away. Her family didn’t visit often, so I really don’t know her like I did when she was a kid and lived close by. Therefore the wedding reception was spent with the immediate family–parents, brother/girlfriend, other aunt/uncle, and the bride’s father/stepmother. They now live in Texas, so I haven’t seen him since my grandfather’s funeral three years ago.
I think that was the best part. I’m thrilled for my cousin, pleased for her mother/stepfather who were happy, and so on, but it was spending a few seconds with my uncle that made it memorable. Continue Reading »
It may be dweeby, but this show cracks me up. And some nights, like tonight, there are lines that have me rolling over I’m laughing so hard. So I’ve decided to start a running list of quotes from Big Bang Theory. From the May 4 episode titled “The Classified Materials Turbulence”
Sheldon: For what it’s worth, my mother says that when we deceive for personal gain we make Jesus cry.
Wolowitz (with amazement): You don’t know what thing thing is?
Stuart/Comic Guy (looking befuddled): No
Wolowitz: Good. Get out!
Koothrappali: Oh get over yourself. It’s a high tech toilet.
Leonard: It must be hell inside your head.
Sheldon: At times.
Wolowitz: We gotta find a way using nothing but this to reinforce this so the waste material avoids the spinning turbine.
Koothrappali: You mean so it doesn’t hit the fan?
Sheldon: You know, I have to say I thought the toilet humor would get less funny with repetition. Apparently there is no law of diminishing comedic returns with space poop.
Koothrappali: Of course you feel terrible, you completely screwed up your karma dude!
Sheldon: You don’t really believe in that superstition, do you?
Raj: It’s not superstition, it’s practically Newtonian. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Leonard pretends to be a friend and acts like a two-faced bitch, therefore he is reborn as a banana slug. It’s actually a very elegant system. You know, what goes around comes around. (Later, after Leonard delays a coffee run to knock on Penny’s door to ask how her date went and apologize for giving bad advice and is rebuffed) Raj: You really want to clean up your karma, go get my freakin’ latte.
Wolowitz: Sheldon, I know what I am doing.
Sheldon: If you knew what you were doing there wouldn’t be a space toilet where my coffee table should be.
Sheldon: That was a joke. It’s funny, because it’s true.
Penny: What the hell was THAT?
Wolowitz: Meatloaf.
Leonard: What was it doing on the ceiling?!
Wolowitz: That’s classified.
80 women
40 hours
6 horses
5 houses
4 hours
3 days
Thus was the total of the weekend I had at Sandbridge. 80 women went away to the beach, where from 7pm Friday to 11am Sunday we were able to worship and learn together. We were divided into five different houses, and while we thought leaving at 230 would give us plenty of time to get there we ran into traffic issues on 264 and it took four hours to get there. Continue Reading »
Here’s part two of the tabs I’ve had open for a week or more sharing bizarre and weird information that passes for noteworthy in today’s society. (I suppose I’m a part of that, seeing as how I actually READ this stuff, but there you go….)
Evidently the key to winning Rock, Paper, Scissors is to not know which of the three you’re going to throw until the final nanosecond, as subtle arm cues can let your opponent know which of the three you are about to play. That philosophy is what led this guy to win a $20,000 scholarship to Syracuse. And for the record, paper won. My question, does the same hold for Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock?
When I was in college there was a guy named Lee that I knew from BSU that got two speeding tickets in one day, at the same location, from the same cop, while driving to and from home to see his father on Father’s Day. I think this lady finally has him beat. Continue Reading »
Haven’t done one of these in awhile, so I figured it would be fun to do. And what a wealth of information to choose from. As usual, I’ll try to keep it to no more than ten news articles per post, but there might be multiple posts. There are quite a lot of stupid people in this world, and I’m sure I’m one of them, but at least I haven’t made the headlines. Yet.
Ah, the cost of beauty–especially in California. This woman was unhappy with her personal appearance, so she visited a plastic surgeon and had a breast augmentation and liposuction. It wasn’t until her $12,000+ bill went unpaid that the authorities were looking for her. She turned herself into the authorities, and was released on a $20,000 bail. The charges of grand theft, commercial burglary, and identity theft are pending, yet my question is this–wouldn’t it have been easier to take the $20K, pay your $12K bill, and still have money left over?
Is it just me, or has Facebook become the new method of blogging for the ADHD Twitter set?
I enjoy my blog. It allows me to be creative in some form, to express opinions on matters that are pertinent at that particular point in my life, and to post items that are newsworthy at that day and time. Basically, it’s a catch all for me to have conversations with myself to pass the time.
I also enjoy Facebook, and have found that it has kept me from losing my mind while unemployed by providing endless sources of thoughtless entertainment.
Yet as I grow more and more obsessed with reading status updates, it seems to me that it is another method of providing instant updates in miniblog form. Photos from Christmas. Photos from the Superbowl party (guilty). Status updates on how it is time to tackle Mt. Laundry. A posting on 25 things you may/may not know (also guilty). A joke that someone told that made those that know you well laugh along with you and the original jokester. Top 5 lists. What people are doing at every second of every day. It is as if there isn’t enough time to form a full thought so I get to learn about J’s consumption of an entire sleeve of Thin Mints in one sitting while simultaneously learning that M is annoyed with the latest American Idol voting results.
So here is the question: has a personal blog become a thing of the past?
So there are hundreds of obscure and odd groups on Facebook. Some funny, some serious, some nostalgic, some for a cause. I was a member of one known as “I Only Know How Many Minutes Are In A Year Because of RENT”. Cracked me up as a monument to the totally overplayed, but still loveable song.
Someone changed the name over the weekend to “JonBenét Ramsey: Good Riddance.” Now tell me, what does that have to do with RENT? Then the group changing continued: next was “I know that God punishes gays with Aids and death only because of RENT”. And heaven forbid that idiot has a typo so they changed it again to “I know that God punishes gays with AIDS and death only because of RENT”. What was a group that was for those of us that loved RENT and yet recognized its overexposure and the fact that we can totally make fun of ourselves has now become something that, I dare say, the majority of the members would never support if they paid attention to the changes.
I don’t care if it isn’t your personal lifestyle, I don’t care if you don’t approve. I don’t go changing the names of Christian groups to say that the Islam Nation is doomed to hell, I don’t switch the group titles from various college affiliations to say that all members are inbred mongrels with ties to communistic beliefs, and I don’t flip the group from a nostalgic love of the Muppets to a furry fetish. So who is this person that takes a group that is laughing over the lyrics to a SONG for Pete’s sake, and switches it to a group that makes light of the disappearance of a small child and then to a group that has no tolerance whatsoever for people that are honest about their own feelings or infected with a horrible illness?
I have watched Saturday Night Live since I was in about 7th or 8th grade. I have seen it through many cast members, highs, lows, stupid pranks, and inspired sketches. I remember when Hans and Franz and the Church Lady made the daily vernacular in high school, I thought the cheerleader skit by Will Farrell and Cheri Oteri was like grating fingernails on a blackboard, and was so thankful to see Rachael Dratch leave. I miss classic 80s performers like Dana Carvey and Victoria Jackson, and mourn the loss of the brilliant talents of Phil Hartman and Chris Farley, even if he wasn’t my particular brand of humor. I think that Dennis Miller and Kevin Nealon did a great job hosting the news, no matter what Lorne Michaels thinks, and I think that Seth Myers should host the news without guests like Snagglepuss and Comic Strip Cathy. I think that the show needs to not have an annual contract with Alec Baldwin or Christopher Walken, and I truly believe that Gilda Radner was singularly the best talent ever to appear on the show.
That being said, I do still watch the show. I think that there are several entertaining minutes that can be found, thus the reason for watching via Tivo so I can fast forward through stuff that is running too long. But there is a new recurring theme that is driving me insane.
I cannot STAND the MacGruber sketches. It was funny–at first. It was a spoof on something that I loved as a kid. After all, who didn’t love a show where an ordinary guy could make a car run on an egg and a rubber band. But the short enjoyment of the sketch was when they first started back in January of 2007. It has been over two years! Get a new gig already! And for Pete’s sake why do you have an entire miniseries within the episode. It’s all about fast forwarding, now, baby! I think the two main characters are very talented, but the theme music alone has me reaching for the remote.
It’s not like there is anything that is much better as a substitute. We have the anal version of breathe right strips, the edible diaper commercials, the Activa/Jamie Lee Curtis spoofs . . . see a recurring theme here? This isn’t exactly a welcome alternative to the MacGruber shorts, but at least they don’t have the awful theme music.
So is the show just in a rut? Does it need fresh writers? Or does America really need to have explosions and bowel movements for entertainment?
there was another, and we just had a blast. It’s amazing what can happen when there is no obligation to your date . . . you relax, have fun, and enjoy yourself.
