Month: June 2004

  • A brief display of tact.

    Tact, they say, is remembering a woman’s birthday but forgetting her age. So I wish Lilith a very happy birthday… however old she is! (And hey, you should too.)

  • Grey, meet Gray.

    So this guy, he goes Googling for the name of a song he’s listening to at the time. The song’s called “Ball and Chain.” Turns out the top Google result for that phrase is, well, the ex-wife’s blog.

    And then he and his buddy notice something. Namely, that my website domain bears a striking resemblance to, well, his buddy’s own domain.

    And then, and boy do I know how to tell a story, he emails me (and his buddy) about it. We’ve been exchanging semi-snarky email for the last few hours, out of which has come the fact that he works for a radio station cluster in a geek-based role. Who’d have thunk it?

    So what do you think? Does this mean I have a spiritual twin out there somewhere in the wilds of Minnesota? Or is he my Bizarro-world doppelganger? Or is he just another guy who identifies with colorless waterfowl?

    You be the judge! (I’ll be the jury, he can be the executioner!)

  • Virtual cake with virtual candles

    Happy Birthday, Dawn.

    There are all sorts of clever things I want to say here, but I seem unable to choose one. So be it.

    Okay, everybody, get over to her site and wish her a happy day and a great year to come!

  • Easy steps to a good evening with the kids.

    Parenting isn’t always easy, and one could argue that I’m only half a parent now that I don’t live with my kids 24/7. Fine. Be that as it may, sometimes things just come together. This evening’s a case in point:

    • Pizza for dinner
    • Anime on the TV (Fullmetal Alchemist and an episode of the live-action Sailor Moon for Erica)
    • Ice cream after dinner
    • Computer gaming (Age of Mythology: The Titans, three of us teamed against three computer players)
    • Hugs goodnight

    It’s evenings like this that make all those early frustrating years entirely worth it…

  • Best. Song. Ever?

    Here’s a story I like to tell, and I just realized that it’s precisely the sort of slice-of-life material that you crazy “blog readers” eat up with a spork. So here goes

    I work in radio. Not on the air, though, just as the “IT Department Of One.” (Hey, if you can’t rip off US Army advertising copy, what can you rip off?).

    My first five years with the stations was as a part-time board operator, basically an occasionally-multitasking button pusher. The only difference between myself and a DeeJay was that the DJ got to crack the mic and I didn’t. But I still had to take the phone calls from all the drunken crazies and when you’re a rock-n-roll station, the phoners are as crazy as they come. One night/morning early in my career (in other words, “before I knew better”) I took a call from a guy who wanted to know what the Greatest Classic Rock Song Of All Time ™ was.

    Stupid me, I tried using logic. “Well, you know, it’s really a subjective thing yadda yadda.”

    “But, man, what’s the best one ever?”

    “It depends on who you ask blah blah blah.”

    “Dude, I just need to know which one it is!”

    Eventually the utter knob on the phone okay, the other end of the phone managed to convey that he was trying to settle a bet with his buddy: Was the Greatest Classic Rock Song “Stairway to Heaven” or “Hotel California”?

    I hate Hotel Cali, so I settled the bet in favor of Led Zep. The entire process only took maybe fifteen minutes but that was about twelve minutes longer than it should’ve, had I any sense

    And some things never change. Heh.

  • I’ve just had me an apostrophe…

    I’m not the world’s finest user of punctuation (or grammar for that matter), but I’m absolutely delighted by the idea of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Which is, I hasten to point out, on my Amazon wish list.

    Yes. I’m a bit of a language nut. Now you know. Oh, and bonus points for anyone who knows the origin of the entry title…

    (I got 92% Stickler on the game, too. Hah!)