Bad news is I forgot Wednesday. Good news is you now only have 5 days to the next installment!
Hey, who's that fat kid wrestling a croc? Kinda looks like that Crocodile Hunter guy who was eaten by a swarm of zombie manta rays, but I can't seem to focus on the image. The scrawled web address is so blinding...
On the good side, can't say the Oz national flag even says Aussie Pride! that loudly.
I signed up for the Cincinnati area Freecycle a while back - it's a offer/request board giving people a chance to connect one person's trash to another person's treasure. Dang that sounds dirty.
I've never actually used the service, but do find it interesting. Such was the case today when this list of offerings came across:
1 partial bottle of African Violet Food
Schick Quattro razor (no blades)
$5 Huggies pullup coupon exp.7/09
6? stryofoam egg cartons
bag of gardening magazines (Backyard Living & Gardening How To)
Joking. I'm only 32. And understand that people who lived through Viet Nam think it is AWESOME when someone who didn't makes a joke about it. Sweet.
This post comes to us from the wonderful and lovely Distracted By Shiny Objects over at A Tidings of Magpies. However, I will forgo the obligatory "these guys are tagged!" Or maybe not. We'll see how I feel at the end of this.
1: What is your current obsession? While juggling my own business so we don't end up on the street and home duties so we don't end up on Clean Sweep, while spending quality time with my family and carting around our daughter to half a dozen appointments every week, my current (and ongoing) obsession is wondering where I went and salvaging any scrap of time I can to spend time with him.
2: Which item of clothing do you wear most? On any given day it's a tug-of-war by time. I work from my home office, so if it's a crazy coding day or a generally rough day, my pajama pants wearing tops the 12 hour mark as it is padded by the overnight hours. If it's a good, active, busy, or particularly proactive day, jeans all the way. Today was pajama pants with a Guinness print (fav). Favorite jeans are the dark, soft ones Mrs. Shambles hates.
3: What's for dinner? Kraft Mac n Cheese with Ball Park Beef Franks (those Turkey ones suck).
(For the record, we generally like to cook; yesterday was grilled teriyaki halibut steak with garlic broccoli and carrots with stuffing.)
4: Last thing you bought? Last actual purchase was OJ, 10 cal Vitamin Water (orange), beer, and Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Last thing I bought for myself was Marian Call's "Got to Fly," #405/1000 signed by her. It is delicious.
5: What are you listening to? Sirius Radio Channel 86: CBC Radio 3. A.C. Newman's "Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer" is playing now. How come Canadian Indie is so much better than American Indie right now?
6: If you were a God or Goddess, who would you be? Ideally, Kartikay, son of Shiva, brother of Ganesha, peacock-riding, demon-slaying, six-headed (one for each teat-set of his six goddess nursemaids) scientist god of Hinduism. But I do have a mean Dionysus streak in me as well.
7: Favourite holiday spots? Ireland was fantastic, so that's probably the fav so far, but anywhere I can explore non-tourist culture with or without a plan, funded or shoestring, is good with me.
Antithesis of this answer is sitting on a beach for a week or two, tanning (which I do not do gracefully), tour buses, and buying straw hats and polyester palm tree shirts from the hotel gift shop.
8: Reading right now? No, typing.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I guess it's a form of speculative fiction scifi fantasy, but with some real grit, focusing on a human scientist, his insectoid lover, and a grub that eats psychoactive drugs
9: Okay...what were you thinking about just then? See question #1.
10: Who's your hero/heroine? Ghandi is my hero. Gary Oldman if we're leaning Hollywood. Never tried heroin.
11: First spring thing? Stripping the closets for the Goodwill truck. Then going to the Goodwill store for some tasty retro wardrobe choices.
12: Funniest thing you saw in your life? For me, funny is momentary, always mutable, and usually is on the internet. What keeps me laughing? Angry Alien Productions library of 30-second animated movie synopses featuring bunnies is always a winner. Teen Girl Squad also.
And then there's Kids in the Hall's Gavin.
13: Favourite film? True Romance. "You're so cool."
14: Share some wisdom?
One who speaks does not know One who knows does not speak
-- Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching - Verse 56 15: If you were a tree, what tree would you be and why? Some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around a red maple in my parents' front yard that I used to climb frequently, allowed to or not. Even carved a heart with the initials of myself and my gradeschool sweetheart. If I could provide that joy, that solace, to anyone, that would be it: Red Maple.
16: Fictitious characters who made a lasting impression on you? Walter Mitty, Peyton Farquhar, Billy Budd, Dorian Gray, God
17: 4 words to describe you? I need to live.
Yeah, I'm going to forgo the "8 person" rule. I have to make dinner. #3. If you read this and want it, then just frickin' do it. Comment or email and I'll add your site in an update.
So with all those fancy numbers I spouted last week, I was inspired to make a little coin off the 100+ daily visitors. I signed up for Adsense. Being a web developer, I've done this for a couple clients, but never really for myself.
For those that don't know, you can apply for an Adsense account, get some code to put on your blog, and ads show up on the right and when someone clicks them you get a couple pennies.
Got the official "Welcome to Adsense" email this morning, set up a couple sample ad accounts, added them to a widget on this site and...
Security Error: Content at http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/ may not load data from...
The Google Ads will not display on my blog at all.
First thought it was a Doubleclick issue, an acquisition of Google's that has been pegged in the past for malicious ads that want to put their naughty parts in your computer's secret places. And after further research I think I figured out that it's not that, but Google's terms of enlightenment that have pegged me. From everything I can gather, I swear too much.
To that I say: ....................../´¯/) ....................,/¯../ .................../..../ ............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ ........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') .........\.................'...../ ..........''...\.......... _.·´ ............\..............( ..............\.............\...
Sometimes I forget that everyone doesn't live on the internet like I do and therefore may not keep up with all the floating memes out there. Here's a relatively new one.
I was watching Back to the Future this morning and it occurred to me that if Doc Brown diverted the electricity away from the clock tower in 1955 to get Marty back to 1985 then the clock would never have been burned out, the annoying "Save the clock tower!" lady would never have been begging for money or have handed Marty the pamphlet, never alerting anyone to the exact time of a lightning strike.
I'd go with Lost's personal timeline theory, but sticking to that would also dictate that no matter what Doc Brown did, Marty's timeline contains the past event of lightning going into the clock and the gimmick with the wire wouldn't/couldn't have worked, like shooting Ben as a child.
(How doe something electrical irreparably damage a huge mechanical structure, anyway?)
And then Marty and Doc would've had to become gay lovers in 1955. Great Scott!
I've been hitting a couple new avenues lately and thought I'd let you know a little about them.
Neti Pot
Don't know if you've heard of this natural remedy for allergy symptoms and general sinus discomfort, but - oh, I know, I know. You're saying "Sinus?!? But it looks like a porcelain oil lamp. WTF?!?
And by now you've probably already eyed the picture below, which - barring overly verbose description, basically works like this:
Then, of course, you have to do it like this:
Then you blow your nose and the feeling of sinus clarity will blow your mind. I do it once or twice a week and on those not-so-fresh (sinus!) days. Just close the door to the bathroom when you're doing it, 'cause, gross.
Frittatas
Totally not my frittata
At least that's what I'm calling them. 1/4 T butter, heated in pan, drop about 1/4 C leftover spaghetti into the pan and heat to butter bubble. Drop 2 egg whites, cook almost through, flip. Slide to plate, coat with thin layer of hummus.
Sofa King delicious. And pretty damn healthy too.
"Rolling Chair On Carpet" Pad
This wouldn't be that big a deal, except that the chair I have, with me sitting on it, drops a screw/bolt head low enough to rub the carpet (no joking, please). So after dealing with strings and tears and finally gaff-taping the damned bare seam in the carpet, I got one of these. And it is wonderful. Roly wonder, no snags necessary.
So not all that exciting today, just a couple things that've been on my mind.
This is representative; I would not hold a wild bat.
Yesterday morning I was letting my dog in and I heard a sudden and incessant chirp-like noise followed by a brief flutter. I froze, wondering what kind of god-awful bug had made it into our home, and simultaneously spotted it: out of one of my shoes flopped a single bat wing.
OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod - breathe!
I leaned over and grabbed the towel sometimes used to wipe off re-entering damp paws and as I slowly approached the shoe, towel held up half in defense, half in expectation of capture, it emerged, chirping, and took a couple fumbling flaps towards me. Like a teasing, shaking, fumbling toreador, I let out a sound that must've resembled a groaning dog and dodged the bat, which landed on the floor.
After a quick toss, a careful roll, and a short trip to the deck, I released our previous captive, who took quickly to the air.
Weirdest thing: the dog and cats were not acting weird or prodding at the shoe which - with a wild animal - I would've expected.
And the only thing I thought - and still think: dude, there was a fucking bat in my shoe.
I just took a gander at my numbers and it appears I've been blogging for 3 and a half years (January 2006 start). And I've topped 900 posts. I'll use 1000 as an excuse to get drunk and post my greatest hits (or at least what I think are my greatest hits), but thought you folks, my lovely readers, might appreciate an update of how much wonderful time I spend with you, even if it isn't really "with" you. You know what I mean ;)
Most of my readers blog, so keep doing what you're doing. You make differences in lives every day. Seriously. Every day.
This deserves another view of Sean Hannity, Assclown.
Hey there loyal readers! I promised some statistics a week or so ago and here they finally are!
(if you are not using Google Analytics yet, do it now. Now I say!)
3,005 Visits have been made to this blog in the last 30 days, putting me at a hair over 100 visits a day. In that time, 2,850 Absolute Unique Visitors racked up 3,555 Pageviews which is 1.18 Pageviews on average which does not surprise us with a 26 second average time on site. 88.59% of my visitors showed up, visited no other pages, and left (bounce rate).
By far, the majority of my visitors came from the Good Ol' US of A at over 88%. But the top 5 after that were Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France. In the last 30 days people from 74 countries visited these pages.
And of the people using search engines to find me, the top 25 words or phrases people are using to do so are as follows: andrew wilkow stephanie mohr dungeons and dragons porn wilkow glenn beck is a douchebag naked glenn beck douchebag andrew wilkow wife "stephanie mohr" olivia munn morgan webb andrew wilkow show warcraft pron bad jesus jokes bad photoshop d&d porn scrabble commercial lindsay lohan morgan webb naked ah teens ah-teens jesus dog butthole cause for concern glenn beck shirtless let freedom ring lyrics hannity baman piderman
(I'm particularly proud of the glenn beck / douchebag juxtaposition)
So perhaps you don't give a shit or perhaps it's just enough to wet your willy and squirt funny-juice all over yourself. Or not.
Either way, I do hope you've enjoyed my stats. If anything changes, I'll let you know.
If you have questions about Google Analytics or any of my stats, please hit me up in the comments. Remember: IRL I'm a web developer.
Yesterday, May 26th, 2009, Julianna Rose Mauriello turned 18.
That is all.
UPDATE: The previous picture I had up was a noted 'shop - and I didn't catch it. It has been replaced. I'm not one to back down from controversy, but that's not really controversy, just disrespect. And she's still attractive.
Last week, Rush - based on a "sample" of three people in the studio - proclaimed that all the skinny people he knows drink regular pop and the fat people drink diet. And therefore: diet pop makes you fat.
Today I heard him say that exercise does not matter; if you want to lose weight, you must change what you eat.
There are quarter or eighth-truths here, but it is clearly flawed, borderline retarded logic.
And with this wit he attacks the left, claiming Obama wants everyone in the country to be poor, wants to feed America to blacks for reparations.
How is it that this douche is the voice of the Republican Party? How do the Repubs not see why they're in this situation?
Keep giving them rope. More and more rope. It only gets better.
Last week we introduced Rape Van Wednesday. Unfortunately, I self-defeated by posting the definitive image of a rape van. So from now on, Wednesday will be Van Mural Wednesday, as the standard I set was just too high. Worry not, though. Should I find a more exemplary or worthy (or should you point me in the right direction of an) example, I will gladly post it under the title Rape Van.
For now, we will mix it up with sometimes iconic, sometimes interesting, sometimes horribly shitty murals.
Today, we've got a shitty Star Wars mural on a modded gold van. WTF?
Over the weekend, my father, who works for the mayor of a Cleveland suburb, was explaining that next year in the high school system everything but the state mandated minimum was going to be cut. That means that all the high school kids in the district will go to school for under 5 hours a day, cutting everything except English, Math, Social Studies, and Science. That means no music, art, or theatre.
This, of course, stems from the way schools in Ohio are funded: primarily by property taxes. The state lottery also funnels money into the schools, but as soon as that was instituted the crooked politicians channeled most of the non-lottery money into other projects. And despite a 1997 Ohio Supreme Court ruling that property tax funding of the schools was unconstitutional, in 12 years nothing has changed. Except the installation of No Child Left Behind which provides regulations but no money for implementation, further crippling struggling schools.
This is happening all over Ohio, all over the country. Schools are being stripped of enrichment as budgets fall off from a mix of shitty management and shitty economy. As of right now many children are being pushed through high school without some of the things we considered basics: writing a five paragraph essay, understanding of grammar, basic knowledge of science, history, government.
And then what do they do? They try to get into a college having had a year or two or three of 5 hour days, no extracurricular offered. And if they can get into college, they're looking at $30,000 for an inexpensive state college 4-year degree.
This weekend, as I was soaking in the collapse of the educational system that provided me with quality schooling, I came across this article (or one like it) about how colleges are entertaining the idea of a three-year degree to make college "more affordable." So don't knock down absurd spending levels or sick tuition hikes, but slim down your requirements and push the student through ASAP. That is if it's not a bait-n-switch: "Ooh, sorry, you missed the 3-year degree by 2 credits. Not going to give up now, are you?"
So we're pushing the high school students through at absolute minimum so they can barely get into a college that is too expensive so they can chug through that at the minimum 3 years so they can end up in a work force that - if they can get a job - will devalue their education, paying them much less whilst they sit atop some $20K+ in loans. And that's just the undergrad.
And we're spending trillions on banks and car companies? Where's the education reform? Where's the NCLB repeal? Where's the money for the important things?
Needless to say, it makes me mad. And as the father of a 13-year old, it scares the shit out of me.
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