Publicity

So, the afore-mentioned Michael Berry read part of yesterday's blog post on air. Which is cool and all, as I'm glad to be making a contribution to the public discourse. However, a link or something on his blog might have been nice.

UPDATE: The audio is at this link for a download. It's at about 1:15 in. Go here to get the streaming audio. Way to snip the entire argument, Michael.

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To the consternation of some, the delight of others, and the amazement of all, I have survived yet another year on planet earth.

Yay me.

Send presents.

VD 2008

The official proclamation from the folks in charge of my branch of service is here. I presume similar announcements are available for the other lesser services. One of these days I'll get around to a more thorough discussion of being a veteran. It wasn't going to be this year, for a variety of reasons. So instead, I will impart to you some wisdom I learned in the Army.

• When traveling, anything important stays attached to your person no matter what anybody else says.
  
• You can have too much ammunition if you have to carry it yourself. If you have a vehicle, though, there's really no upper limit.
• You can push off a hangover almost indefinitely by continuing to drink. Unfortunately, once it does catch up to you, it'll be epic.
• Most of the things in life which are truly important are conceptually very simple. Execution, however, is often a bitch.
• Getting shot sucks.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of right now. As always, buy a veteran a drink today.

Lightning Strikes Just Once Not Twice

So, I arrived home last afternoon and let the dog out. I noticed some brick flakes, for lack of a better term, by the pool. Hmm, I thinks to myself, that's odd. Where would brick flakes come from? Anyhow, I filed it away as something to check on and went in the house. Inside the house, the GFCI in the kitchen had tripped and the phone wasn't working. More oddities. While I was contemplating these strangenesses, I had to cook dinner and do some other stuff.

After dinner, I walked back into the other side of the back yard to see if I could determine the origin of the brick flakes. Instead of brick flakes, I found actual bricks. I looked up at the chimney and saw more bricks on the roof, plus chunks missing from the chimney.

Holy sheepshit, Batman. Destroyed chimney + electrical anomalies = LIGHTNING STRIKE! Stately YPS Manor has been attacked by the gods themselves! I guess my continuing blasphemy has aroused the ire of the celestial after all.

Oh, joy. I guess this explains why the phones don't work, either. After checking, the phone ground is not hooked up to a ground. It's just flopping in the breeze. Whether this predates the lightning strike, I don't know. So AT&T has a service call in to come fix my phone and DSL.

I have called the insurance company. The current damage estimate stands at a wireless access point, a 16-port switch, one desktop, one laptop docking station, the Squeezebox, an X-Box, and a television. Oh, yeah, plus a chimney with missing chunks. An appraiser is supposed to call me and we'll go from there.

Post title reference here, if you look for it.

Antibiotics

Levaquin sucks, but I guess it's preferable to remaining a bacteria-laden mucus factory.

Burden of Consciousness

I'm tired and feel much like hungovr cat. Whatever the hell bug I had two weeks ago has returned with a vengeance. I spent most of yesterday in bed asleep. I am mobile, but just barely. Work has done an excellent job of kicking my ass. So in lieu of substantive comment on Obama's speech, (Racism is bad, mmmkay?), I offer skulls. No deep hidden meaning unless you choose to ascribe one from the depths of your tortured unconscious.

Paranoia Fuel

While I while away the hours, conversing with the internets and awaiting the next sordid revelation in the Spitzer saga, I peruse other things. Via Hit and Run, I find a post that not only manages to discuss the possibility of cybernetic insects spying on me but also includes the idea that I might possibly be justifiably concerned about the built environment as well.


Of course, from a purely practical perspective, I would think I'd do better to be concerned about buildings than bugs. One can build all kinds of interesting surveillance tricks into a building. Hell, there's an entire industry devoted to it. Why the author thinks this is unreasonable is beyond me. The questions, as always, are how concerned you need to be and how aware of the surveillance you really are. In any event, I sure don't need more fuel to add to my paranoid fires.

Give Me Money

I want your money. However, as I am not from the government, I can’t just take it from you. Well, I could, but I’d have to get up off my ass and find you, and then you wouldn’t have the amount of money I desire in your pockets. So I’ll have to bow to market forces and offer you something for it.

How ‘bout a house?

Yes, we are selling YPS Manor, nevermore to walk the carefully manicured grounds and enjoy the raucous screams of the resident peacocks while we stroll down the garden promenade. Wait, we don’t have peacocks. Or a garden promenade. And if ‘carefully manicured’ means more than ‘mowed grass’, we don’t have that either. I’m hallucinating again. Someday I’ll get the dosage right on these meds.

Anyhow, if you have the slightest interest in living in a small eastern suburb of Houston, stately YPS Manor is up on the block. Email me. We’ll deal.

Super Tuesday

Actually, it's Super Fat Tuesday. Does that mean anyone you vote for today is more fattening than usual? Or are we voting for obesity at the polls instead of with our stomachs? No, wait, that's not it. I'm so confused. Anyhow, we should get a clear front-runner from both sides after today. Any way this turns out, I won't like it. So we'll say no more about it until tomorrow, when I expect to be slightly hungover and extremely bitter.

The weekend was a little hectic at YPS Manor. The last final push to market the house was underway when the call came that domestic harmony and marital bliss had completely eluded certain others in the universe. So I fired up the truck and went and picked up the nniece* (hereafter referred to as N) and a whole pile of her stuff and moved her into the house.

However, as mentioned, I did manage to smoke the corned beef. I am, so far, not impressed with my electric smoker. The corned beef was looking extremely pallid after 9 hours on the smoker. I brought it inside and threw it the oven at 400 degrees to brown up a little. This had the somewhat unfortunate effect of drawing a lot of the salt to the surface. The last corned beef turned out better, but that was done over charcoal. The smoke flavor is more pronounced, and the meat just looks better. I may see if the electric smoker can be repurposed to something useful, since it doesn't do so hot as a smoker. I will try it again, just to finalize my opinion. So far it's failed with a turducken and failed with a corned beef. I need some other form of meat to try before I can conclusively establish a trifecta of fail and pronounce anathema on the smoker. I have a couple books on sausage making. Maybe I can make some sausage and try smoking it in the electric as final resort...

*Our not-niece. Not technically our niece, but effectively so. De facto as opposed to jus sanguine, I s'pose.

Rejoice!

It is once again the anniversary of my birth. In lieu of presents, links to amusing content are gratefully accepted.

Turkey Non-Fryer

My mother-in-law, always the enabler, gave me this for my birthday. I'm a little dubious, but I can see some potential uses. I'll have to fire it up and see what happens. More details as events warrant.

Long Strange Trip, Indeed

Saturday, the 22, marked the 20^th anniversary of me going on active duty with the U.S. Army. I can honestly say that if you had asked me then where I would be in 20 years, it wouldn’t have been here.

The New Blogger Sucks Hairy Ass