Friday, January 28, 2005
Remember, you heard it here first...
No doubt you have all seen or heard about this idiot who decided to commit suicide by parking his car on the commuter rail tracks in hopes that the train would kill him.Then he loses his nerve, jumps out of the car and leaves it on the tracks. The train hits it, derailing 2 trains and killing 11 people and injuring over 150 others. What a jerk.

A discussion cropped up today amongst some of my coworkers about what should be done with this guy, now that he is in custody. The opinions fell along fairly predictable lines, from "String the scum up!" to "Chinese water torture" to "The guy is sick, he needs treatment..." blah, blah, blah. Executiing the guy seems too simple, as he was hoping to die anyhow. It is also obvious that this is not the act of a sane person, yet that does not absolve him of the responsability for this horrible crime. So I struck upon an innovative solotion. The guy is definatly sick. So treat him. Therapy, prozac, self-esteem training, MathLand, whatever it takes. When he is deemed sane, stable and well, we appoint him to be a UN Special Envoy, complete with an arm patch and a bold red, white and blue shirt. Then we tatoo across his forehead "Mohammed was a homosexual" in arabic, and drop him off in Takrit.

Problem solved.
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 11:13 AM
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Thursday, January 27, 2005
Happy Birthday Marg!

We got a picture of YOU this time!
Have a wonderful birthday.
thus voiced Mrs A @ 7:15 AM
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
NEXT WEEK!!??
Today, issued from our national weather service:

THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE OF A SIGNIFICANT SLOW MOVING COASTAL STORM
NEXT WEEK. THE POSSIBLITY HAS INCREASED TO 50 PERCENT. THIS SYSTEM
COULD BE FORMIDABLE. FOR THOSE WHO NEED TO PLAN THESE
CONSIDERATIONS...THIS STORM COULD BRING SUBSTANTIAL PRECIPITATION AND
WIND TO PARTS OF THE REGION.

thus voiced Mrs A @ 4:23 PM
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Saturday, January 22, 2005
Ray Ray can Play
Here's little Ray at his first piano lesson. He's being taught by none other than Beethoven89! Move over Mozart, Ray's found middle C.

thus voiced Mrs A @ 7:09 PM
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We're All Going to Die!
Clipped from a recent news report:



Many people rushed out to stock up on supplies to ride out the storm at home.
"I got a couple steaks, a couple jugs of wine and a couple good books," Walter Trogdash said as he left a convenience store in Toms River, N.J. "I think I'm all set."
North of New York City in Mamaroneck, shoppers stripped the shelves at a Super Stop&Shop of soda, meat, potatoes and beer and the checkout line stretched the length of the store.
"It's awesome," store manager Louis Spinola said of the mob scene.


I ask, "What would you rush out for?"
thus voiced Mrs A @ 5:40 PM
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Thursday, January 20, 2005
Public service
After hearing reports that students in the USA typically score below students in other countries on standardized science tests, I decided to post this heplful link that will assist all of you students out there with your basic science skills. Make sure you have your sound turned on and click here!

(OR get the MP3!)
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 5:10 PM
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Monday, January 17, 2005
Cow chip shirts.
'Nuff said :)

[markedit]
My favorite 'cow chip shirt'
[/markedit]
thus voiced Cyphoid @ 6:54 PM
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Saturday, January 15, 2005
Call me Huck...
Well, in spite of the nightmare of Thursday the 13th, something interesting came of it. I mentioned that my cell phone failed. As my employer provides my phone to me, I contacted our MIS guy who is responsible for all of our cell phones. He gave a most helpful reply:

"Bring it to a Verizon store, there is one in Nashua."

So I informed my boss that I was going to have my phone serviced, and left. 20 minutes later, I enter the Verizon store, and the salespeople come at me like a pack of dogs. This sort of caught me off guard because I have never been in a cell phone store before. So I pull out my broken phone and tell them that I need to get this serviced. The wolf pack instantly breaks up, looking pretty dejected and the Alpha Male looks at his feet, motions towards the back of the store and says "At the desk in the back."

So I go to the back and there is a guy named "Tad" there who takes my info. I find this sort of funny, because way back when I was first learning about electronics and phone systems and such, TAD was an acronym for "Telephone Answering Device". How appropriate. In a few minutes, Tad tells me that he is out of my model of phone, but that he called down and they have one at the store in the Pheasant Lane Mall just a minute or two down the road, and he has had them hold it for me. That is fine with me, so I take my stuff and head for the mall. When I get there, I enter the mall through one of the general entrances, thus avoiding the necessity of setting foot in the Red-Commie-Pinko-French-owned TARGET store. I forgot to make a point of sneering as I passed their entrance. So I go into the mall. Understand that I don't go to malls very often, as they just don't sell a lot of stuff that I care to buy. It has been 8 or more years since I was in this particular mall. It was like being Huckleberry Finn. Well, sort-of. No, it was not before the civil war (or "The War Between The States" as Cassie now insists on calling it) and I was not on a raft on a huge river. And it only lasted 40 minutes. But otherwise, it was almost the same. I saw many amazing sights and it was a great adventure. I did not help out any escaped slaves, but I did see two wage-slaves, behind the counter of the Orange Julius place. I know they where poor and enslaved, because all they could afford to buy was shirts that stopped 3 inches above their navels and pants that stopped several inches below said navels, leaving them to suffer the indignity of having to work with their somewhat distended guts sticking out of their clothes, being chafed by the edge of the metal counter. My I never suffer such a fate.

Anyhow, I found the Verizon mall store, went in, dodged the wolves with a quick flash of my broken phone and made it to the "desk in the back". Tads buddy took my info and my phone, made me sign some stuff and told me it would take about 30 minutes to clone my phone and activate the new one. So I decided to do a lap around the mall and look around. I looked around as I walked but I did not see much that caught my interest. Mostly clothes stores selling clothes for wage-slaves. I walked into a Radio Shack store, (being an electronics guy and Radio Shack Alumni) and was attacked by guys trying to sell me cell phones. So I walked right out. I learned that there is now such a thing as a Thomas Kinkade store. (!) I could feel the hair at the back of my neck starting to stand up as I walked by it. All of that light was blinding, so I elected not to go in. I passed on the chance to pay a buck to sit in a vibrating recliner chair, though it was a tempting offer. I turned down 2 offers (I 'm not making this up) to have the battery in my watch replaced by guys in those middle-of-the-mall kiosk things. I turned down those generous offers because I was not wearing a watch, and if I were, it would probably be one with a good battery. I decided not to buy the dark stained wooden plaque with a beautiful shiny lacquered painting of Bob Marley smoking a joint. I figured I would check out the bookstore, as we love books around here, but they only had maybe 50 books, all boring.

Crossing the mall, I spotted a pet store, "Debbie's Petland". I thought I would go and check out the fish section. Double-digit years ago, I was a mildly serious fish guy, and it has been a very long time since I looked around a fish store. I braved the sad puppy faces in the cages and the mice, gerbil and bird department to the back of the store where the fish where. It turned out to be a pretty disappointing fish department. Not many fish and nothing very interesting or unusual with the possible exception of a tank of sticky-looking albino aquatic frogs. There where a few cool turtles (we are big turtle fans, as you all know). But most of the tanks looked sort of empty and not too clean. Yuck. But while looking at a shelf with an amazing array of ferret supplies, I spotted (right next too the row of FERRETSHEEN brand ferret shampoo) a hermit crab house! Years back we had 2 pet hermit crabs that we were all very fond of. They are way cool pets. They have distinct little personalities, eat anything, are not much maintenance, inexpensive and pretty hard to kill through neglect. So I looked around to see if they had any hermit crabs for sale, as I was ready to buy a couple. I looked around the fish and turtles again and saw none. Checked in the lizard, reptile and tarantula section, but found no Hermit crabs. Disappointed, I headed out of the pet store back out into the mall. I turned to head down the main drag and walked past the big mallside display case that the pet store had, I noticed that it was the hermit crab display! Hermit crabs were the Featured Pet! But my thrill was short-lived, and almost immediately turned to disgust. As I am sure you all know, hermit crabs live in the abandoned shells of other sea animals. That is one of the neat things about them. Well here at this stupid pet store, they had all of the shells PAINTED (!) with bright, silly looking polka dots and stripes and stars and things. There was not one single unadulterated crab. Sad. The once noble hermit crab, made-up like clowns. I turned away so as not to further embarrass the poor things. Feeling their shame, I moved on.

By now it was just about time to go get my new phone, so I made my way back to the phone store. As luck would have it the wolves were converging on a fresh kill so they pretty much ignored me as I zipped to the back of the store. After a few signatures and small talk, I walked out with my new phone. I took a minute and sat in one of the benches in the mall in order to check over the phone and make sure it all worked and as I was sitting there a woman in a "Debbie's Petland" lab coat came walking down the mall carrying a puppy. They apparently send these people out to afflict mall-goers with cute puppy syndrome, and make them buy a dog. It was a black lab, I think. She had its head and front paws over her shoulder, and was hugging its body to her. I found myself thinking that it would be REALLY funny if the dog peed on her right then, but it didn't.
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 8:45 AM
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Friday, January 14, 2005
The nightmare continues...
And now to add insult to injury, my PDA is DOA.
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 7:12 AM
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Thursday, January 13, 2005
I left the house this morning without my pocket knife. Probably the first time I have done that in 15 years, maybe more.
I hope that is not an indicator of how the day is going to be.
I feel slightly naked.

(edit) And now my cell-O-phone is not working properly. The King of Denmark is highly agitated, despite being dead. And my boss pointed out the fact that today is the 13th. Yikes.
I just knew this day was going downhill.
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 8:06 AM
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Room for Rent
After checking my email every hour for the past few days and receiving nothing from Virginia, I have finally come to the realization that I no longer have a daughter. Since times are tight I have decided to rent her room out to a needy bible college student. Looks like I might already have a taker.


There's gonna be a big sale at Goodwill. Tessa got first dibs on the computer.

[edit:size adjusted]
thus voiced Mrs A @ 10:33 PM
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