• Weekly Recap IV: Now with 100% less humpbacked whale

    As always, this will be updated periodically over the course of the afternoon. I decided not to start it in the morning to give my fellow bloggers a chance to actually put in some Friday content before I pounced on their sites…

    • Because I’m a schmuck and forgot about her last week, Madame Sinister starts off this week’s parade of superstars. Besides taking her life into her own hands through creative extension of use-by dates on chicken soup, she also had a brush with a local radio personality. (I count as a non-local radio non-personality.) And let’s not forget about the “sheeple.” No, never forget. I don’t watch Survivor so I don’t qualify. Nyah.
    • The good Captain Rooba engaged in a skirmish with a mythological beast. No, really. He’s also job-hunting, missing The Out-of-Country Unexpected and being interviewed. No, really.
    • Sar of Dragon Ink totally loves her brother. She totally loves playing with oil paints, but totally not-loves cleaning up afterward. This would seem to be a running theme in her life. Jacks, the fraidy-cat, escaped and then returned. And no, Sar, it’s not wrong to lounge around in your pajamas if given the opportunity.
    • Phoemeister endured backlogged nagging, bad news about roommates and the discovery of some weird/scary search engine requests. Those nearby endured the singing of strange songs while she decorated her dorm room. Also, like Cap’n Rooba, she shared a strange dream with her readers. Oh, and Phoe, yes it is better than that nasty lime color. Amen.
    • The Melpster treated her readers to a couple of reviews of… old Daily Show segments. I’ve seen stranger things, I suppose. An exchange of emails attempts to track the movements of some band members of some bands that, sad to say, I’ve never heard of. We will probably be treated to a review of Bop Girl Goes Calypso before too much longer. What, you didn’t know that calypso music is the Next Big Thing(tm)? Shame on you.
    • All of a sudden, debris.com got very very updated, thanks in part to business cards with story ideas jotted upon. Sadly, both chinese restaurants and hospitals failed to provide a worthy culinary experience. While Matt did spend probably too much time laughing at his own joke, I admit that I’d be hard-pressed to think of something as clever as he did under similar circumstances.
    • One thing that comes to mind reading Blogatelle this week is that the birthday card is way, way too big. Really it is. Meanwhile, it turns out very likely that power not only corrupts, but drives a man batty. Take the case of fear-the-calico-kitty John Ashcroft and the Turkmenistan dictator with the delusions of, well, delusional things. That sound you’re hearing is that of Samuel Clemens spinning rapidly in his grave. And banner ads are often evil, but you didn’t need her or I to tell you that.
    • Emily pondered the latest in blood-donor fashions, the holy trinity (Holy Water, Holy Semen, Holy Urine) and resisting the urge to break the unbreakable. Her father is not unlike an angry paper clip.
    • The fluttergirl blessed us with two great big fluffy wads of updating. I can’t even begin to sum up the wacky joy to be found there. You’ll have to read it all for yourself. Truck driving does provide plenty of journal fodder!
    • Argephontes is back. We know this because she said so, and because she immediately had a hellaciously bad day thanks in part to double-booking. Because there’s no Friday Five this week she chose to recycle one from a couple of weeks ago. Not a bad idea, though I was thinking of making up my own FF instead…
    • Going into brief hiatus is Snappy the Clam. He can use a break. We’ll see him again in a couple of weeks. Q Daily News isn’t on hiatus, but there aren’t any postings since Monday either. Ah well.
    • Last and very far from least, Jessy has by now moved to her new home. We wish her the very best and look forward to her “return.” She was kind enough to say nice things about yours-truly before she left, which is always highly encouraged here. 😉
  • To coin a phrase

    So we’re drifting slowly down I-5 on our way to check out some dishwashers, okay? Traffic is bad, the sun is baking everything and everyone. (Come to think on it, that might explain this episode.) The wife and I are up front, the kids are on the back-back bench seat. The A/C is cranked.

    We approach the Portland temple. Mormon, that is. “Hey, kids, it’s the temple.” No sooner are the words out of my mouth than we pull up alongside a massive tractor-trailer rig. “Oooo, it’s so big and white!” Giggles from the back seat. Silly grin from the driver. “I didn’t know it was so huge, it fills the entire view all the way up to the sky!” Laughter fills the mini-van.

    Traffic shifts, and now we’re alongside the tractor instead of the trailer. “Hey, wow, now it’s PURPLE!” More delight. “I wonder what you call a purple temple. The Purple Tabernacle?”

    Attempts to say “purple tabernacle” three times fast fail. To be honest, attempts to say it once fail often, and attempts to say it twice simply cause more laughter. As the laughter dies down and Alex sips water to deal with his hiccups, I jot down two words on my Kyocera so I’ll remember to write up a journal entry…

    This is how I keep my family amused. The family that laughs together, stays together.

  • Happy Birthday, Alexander.

    At 10:30am, 15 August 1992 our son Alexander Frederick Kerezman came into the world.

    Ten years later, Alex (a.k.a. “the Spud”) is a healthy, smart little computer gamer and budding golf enthusiast with a clever wit and good manners. Well, sometimes “wit” and “manners” clash just a little, but nobody’s perfect. If we can get him to relax a bit more and learn to truly enjoy life, I think he’ll grow up to be one heck of a neat person.

    Happy Birthday, son. I love you.

  • The Polygeek Test. Not just for Polly anymore.

    According to the Thudfactor Polygeek Test,

    You are 44% geek
    You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.


    Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend.


    You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You’ll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines!


    Geek [to You]: I’m givin’ her all she’s got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals!


    You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

    Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com


    No, actually, I don’t look anything like David Duchovney. Thanks, though.

  • Simpsons Trivia Quiz

    Proving once and for all that interns do have a useful purpose, Sean sent me the Simpsons Trivia Quiz for Idiots. Let’s see how well you score, hmm?

  • I want to stay at work

    I like my job, yes, but that’s not the reason I want to stay at work for the next few days. You see, Portland’s experiencing something of a one-week heatwave, and I want no part of it. I absolutely wilt in 90+ temperatures. Our house becomes a kind of sauna, or perhaps the term is ‘blast furnace.’ From mid-afternoon all the way until well past midnight, our abode is unbearable.

    My office, on the other hand, is tiny but it has air conditioning. Mmmm. I love being cool and comfy. Too bad I don’t have a stockpile of food or a nice place to sleep.

    Oh well. I should just suck it up and be miserable with the rest of my family. It wouldn’t be fair to them anyway, now would it?