The First One Goes Down...

Tomorrow is the birthday of one of my best friends from when I was young. We were a tight knit little group. There were the four of us... from elementary school through high school. We were Millsers through and through, and a part of that proud mini-society, but our small circle was pretty much the four of us... Me, DW, TR, and DR. We went to school together, played baseball and softball together, hung out together, got in trouble together...

Well, tomorrow DR hits the milestone birthday (One I'll never hit because I'm stuck at 28). I still play softball with DW and TR, but DR has kinda drifted away. I'm gonna see him tomorrow, and hopefully we will catch up then... We had a few disagreements that lasted longer than they should have because we are both kinda stubborn, but we were best friends for a long time, and that will always be there.

Elementary school (1st grade):

DR: "Kurt, I dare you to put your hand in this stapler"
Kurt: "Why, you ain't gonna do nothin' if I do"
DR: "Try it and see"

Ker-Chink...

A moment of awkward silence, followed by a pair of eyes quickly growing wide... then a boy realizing two of his fingers and a piece of paper were all stapled together. Next was a piercing hyena scream and the blur of a 1st grader running through the room and into the hall, hand in the air and the piece of paper flapping like a surrender flag in the breeze.

High School:

Setting - 4th of July... the day after we were all caught drinking, doing some stupid stuff, having the cops called on us, etc... At DR's house...

DR's Mom and Dad: "You guys have no idea how much trouble you are in. You were not using your brains at all. Do you know how dangerous it is to be drinking... (Blah Blah Blah... It all kinda rambles together at this point... then back to paying attention)... We are gonna make you guys sign a contract promising to never drink and drive..."

The guys all sign the contract...

DR: (To his parents) "Now that we've got that over with, will you buy us some beer so we can take it to the fireworks tonight?"

DR quite often didn't have his brain attached to his mouth, but that never really slowed him down much...

I could go on forever with stories about the good old days... God a time machine would be SOOOO handy... ;-)

Sorry...

Looks like I won't be able to put up much of a post today :-(

The Weekend (and Holiday) Roundup...

The Lions...

Needed to win just one of those heartbreakers earlier in the season, and they'd be right in the middle of the playoff race right now.

The Patriots...

Need to play to win next week, and play all of their starters for the whole game. Yeah I know the goal is the Superbowl and to not get anyone hurt in a meaningless game, but they have a chance to do something special.

The Weather...

Has been pretty crappy. 50 degrees on Saturday. Alot of snow melted. It's cooled off now, and we got about an inch last night, so let's hope it stays that way now.

The Holidays...

Are here. Everyone, please have a safe and Merry Christmas. Santa rides tonight, and as always, I'll be watching the horizon...

Some Christmas Thoughts To Ponder...

In "The Year Without A Santa Claus", Heat Miser and Snow Miser refer to each other as step brothers, but it is implied that Mother Nature is the real mother of both of them. So does that mean they are actually half-brothers? And if so, who has Mother Nature been banging? I figure Father Time is the dad of Snow Miser, because he's a little more calm and laid back than Heat Miser. You've got to figure he gets that trait from Father Time, who I'm sure can't be in a hurry for anything. I'm guessing Heat Miser is the result of a fling with some cabana boy while Mother Nature was on vacation at a tropical island.

Also, in "The Year Without A Santa Claus"... Kids, if a strange man is ever hiding in the bushes outside your house, don't invite him inside, even if he does look like Santa.

When I watch Rudolf, I wonder if I'm the only one that thinks that Santa and all of the other reindeer are complete jackasses?

In "The Grinch", on the day after Christmas when all of the cheer and goodwill wore off, do you think all of the Who's down in Whoville got out their ball bats and beat the hell out of the Grinch, and then locked him in a cage with a Bumble that had a tooth ache?

Weekend Ramblings...

I Am Legend

I saw it over the weekend. I'll start by saying that I liked it... however, it wasn't as good as I was hoping for. I guess I kinda have my own rating scale...

All Timers - These are my all time favorites... classics in my own little convoluted world
Really Like - Movies that I will buy and watch over and over again
Good - Movies that I might watch again if they are on, but not worth adding to my collection
OK - Movies that were entertaining at the time, but didn't make any type of lasting impression on me
Nothing Special - Just that... not bad, just nothing special
Ugh - A waste of time
Sucked - Self explanatory

This one lands in the "Good" category for me. I'm not gonna try to explain how or why it's in this category for me, it just is. I have a tough enough time trying to rationalize emotional responses, so I'm not gonna even waste my time with it here. I will say that I felt it could have been rated R, even though none of the violence was all that graphic. I'm sure I'm just a little over-protective of my Peanut, but I felt kinda bad when I had to remind her that it was all just a movie, and not real. I like to be able to discuss and rationalize things with her in a little more depth than that, but with a few scenes that was about all I could really do.

Found money

A home owner found $182,000 hidden inside the walls of their house a few days ago...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071213/ap_on_fe_st/odd_house_hidden_money_2

$182,000... I found 72 cents in the parking lot at the movies and thought I was doing pretty good ;-)...

I'm not sure why the contractor thinks he's entitled to the money, or why the Ohio "finders keepers" law would apply here. The person that owns the house owns everything inside the house, don't they? If a painter is painting a house, and finds a ring or wallet under a couch that they moved, are they entitled to keep it? That doesn't make much sense to me...

Danger: Avoid Death

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071212/ap_on_fe_st/odd_wacky_warnings

Our legal system sure is screwed up. Nothing like having to legislate common sense, and hold manufacturers responsible for consumer stupidity. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making sure manufacturers be held responsible for the safety of their products, but there has to be some limit to the level of stupidity that has to be taken in to account from the public. I guess "Danger: Avoid Death" are always good words of wisdom though...

Snow

8" of snow this weekend... Yay!!! That's also 8" of snow to shovel :-(... Now my body is telling me I should have kept working out a little harder after softball season ended, hehehe... I'm such a slug ;-)

PS... Notice I'm not even acknowledging that the Lions played this weekend... When does spring training start, anyways???

Recent Baseball Headlines...

Dateline... Recent baseball headlines arouse intense emotions in fans, while firm members of the baseball community give slow, deliberate, deeply penetrating responses to hard questions posed by the cunning linguists of the media...

For a deeper, more intense look at the details, here are the facts...

---Rangers to sign Japanese RHP Fukumori
---http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=txrangersfukumori&prov=st&type=lgns

---Cubs sign Japanese OF Fukudome
---http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=txcubsfukudome&prov=st&type=lgns

Fukudome... Fukumori...

Hmmmm, with this kind of activity, and a few strategically placed pauses in the pronunciation of these names, I suspect there will have to be a new type of TV contract, most likely a series of late night telecasts on Cinemax...

Ok, give me a second to regain my composure here... Sorry about that ;-)...

Oh yeah, on a side note... baseball also released the Mitchell report yesterday, too..

Clemens hit hard in Mitchell Report; Tejada, Bonds and Pettitte also named
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-mitchellreport&prov=ap&type=lgns

I already addressed this topic earlier, and in general it still applies...

http://chockssquawks.blogspot.com/2007/08/should-we-cut-little-slack.html

However, Bonds' current problems stem actually from the perjury charges, not so much from the drug use, so his problems are a little different from the rest of these guys.

I guess I didn't realize how deeply intense and arousing the off-season hot stove league can be ;-)

noznohog

snossicn
midwives absentia
netekarr
ijnug
Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona
Hermes Watches
rainwater reincarnate
commitment hammock

What do these all have in common? These are all phrases that spammers have put in their subject lines to try to get me to open their email. Who actually opens these things? Someone must, and they must end up buying this crap too, or spammers wouldn't keep sending out these emails. Obviously this goes against my previous theory... it doesn't matter how you market something because someone somewhere will be dumb enough to buy it regardless. On a related note, why do I get so many emails for watches? Are watches that big of an internet seller? I'm used to all the V1@gr@ and "magic growth" spams, but what's up with watches???

I'm waiting to get spam from someone actually trying to sell Spam... you know, the canned, processed meat-like substance... I mean delicacy ;-) At least that would be a somewhat creative spam email.

National Champions

ESPN has a web site that lets you set up your own college football playoff and simulate the games to determine a winner...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls07/bracket?lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

It's kinda cute, but if they want the real answer they can check my post from a few days back ;-) Anyways, I set up my own playoff using their bracket and managed to come up with a pretty cool National Champion...



YAY CLEMSON!!! How AWESOME would that be?!?!?

News Flash...

Pee Wee Herman to expose himself to a whole new generation

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/reuben%20to%20return%20as%20pee-wee%20herman_1053148

I wonder if he plans on getting the whole gang back together... Chairy, Globey, Miss Eyvonne, Cowboy Curtis... Hmmm, I bet it would be a little tough to convince Lawrence Fishburne to reprise that role.


I'm kinda distracted today, but I'll keep plugging along...