PSA

1st vid is a bit enlightening (Toyota: Moving Forward -- hello, Irony):
The 2nd vid is public squirrel amusement -- smart and cute (screw you, bird lovers :)

KD

So, I partook in Miss Snark's First Victim blog contest that mandating sending in 25 words or less of the beginning of one's story. People read the entries and deem whether they're hooked or not. My entry has received favorable treatment, which is great, because, as some of you know, I've been iterating on that sucker for a long time. Even when it posted, I was still worried, confused (and, in general me style, cynical).

But, ultimately, what's the first sentence if the next 10,000 don't back it up? To be fair, the first paragraph or 2 can be the back breakers. Sharon Mayhew is running a follow-up contest of similar styling to MSFV's, but that calls for the first four sentences. The anonymous posting allows for nice, relatively unbiased feedback, IMO. But,   since I'm the consummate shy wallflower, I'm gonna step into the shallow end here and see what you guys think. Any feedback is super appreciated:

When Trish called and invited me to go dragon hunting, I should have trusted my instincts. Now I’m trapped in a car with her and a couple of wannabe farmboys whose idea of Friday night fun is sneaking onto the rez, climbing Dragon Hill, and getting their pictures taken next to Old Man Blue.

While she’s riding shotgun and laughing at Konrad Kline’s lame jokes about tonguing lizards, I’m stuck in the back with Preston Williams, a self-proclaimed dragonologer who spends his time chasing rumors and compiling snuff vids from the net. He’s got greasy black hair and clumps of facial fuzz on his cheeks that are almost as attractive as his beady brown eyes, which seek out my chest as if it were a hunk of cheese.

I Like Stupid Songs

First, thank y'all (I'm getting ready for my move back to Texas) for your well wishes. Though I'm not big into music, it is one of the things that gets me past the rough spots... sometimes it's the deeper type songs (or even semi-deep) like this:

or my fave slow song of all time:

But sometimes it's the stupid songs:

or:

What sort of silly things do you like - whether they get you through the rough patches or just make you smile? I'm already guessing Rick's answer... perhaps one of the best reasons to have kids.

PoD

A couple of years ago, I went to the bank with some treasury notes my grandfather had gotten for me when I was a child. They had the phrase "PoD" written on them. I thought it knew what it meant, but wanted to be sure. The bank teller confirmed my suspicion - Payable on Death... I always joked with my grandfather that I better never be able to cash them.

On March 10, 2010, those treasury notes became cashable.

My grandfather was a son of Greek immigrants, raised a Jew in New York before leaving his religion behind and joining the Army. He received a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for some of the crazy missions he flew as a B17 navigator, before moving into industry and retiring to Texas. He outlived two wives, but even to the end, he maintained a passion that I always admired. He was a tough man who didn't have a social filter -- if he thought you were overweight, he'd tell you, if he thought you were a slacker, he'd tell you. Perhaps that's why I got along so well with him.

And though he didn't admit love easily until the end of his life, he was one of those people who always took care of family no matter what. I wish all of you this sort of uncompromising loyalty -- perhaps a rose with a few less thorns... it's one of those things that's nearly impossible to comprehend until it's no longer there.

It's On

Live from Phoenix (in transit back to Portland): The Alliterati are open for business.

Photo Redux

Going through Yahoo's most emailed photo collection is always fun:

Yahoo's caption: An engineering student soothes Yotaro, a robot which emulates a real baby at Tsukuba University in Japan. Yotaro's face, made of soft translucent silicon with a rosy hue, is backlit by a projector connected to a computer to simulate crying, sneezing, sleeping and smiling, while a speaker can let out bursts of baby giggles.


Bane's: Creepy

Yahoo's caption: A giraffe foal tries to stand shortly after being born at Aalborg zoo in northern Jutland February 11, 2010.


Bane's: Making Bambi feel like a mastodon

Yahoo's caption: Victoria Lacatus, a 25-year-old pregnant woman weighing 528 pounds (240 kilograms), is lifted by firefighters out of an ambulance in Bucharest, Romania on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010. Lacatus gave birth to her first baby on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, at a hospital equipped to treat obese people


Bane's: Seriously?

Yahoo's caption: A white tiger rests inside an enclosure at Beijing Zoo in Beijing, China, Monday, Feb. 8, 2010. There are fewer than 50 wild tigers left in China today, living in Yunnan, Tibet, Jilin and Helongjiang, according to Xie Yan, the China program director of the Wildlife Conservation Society. The organization is working with the Chinese government to help protect Amur tigers from poachers and develop new habits to their survival


Bane's: Dad

Yahoo's caption: Lolo, a black Jaguar, plays with her newborn spotted cub inside their cage at Jordan's zoo in Yaduda February 16, 2010. The two-month-old cub made his first public appearance on Tuesday after being born to Lolo and Falah, who originate from South America


Bane's: Mom

The End of Times

Another sign of the coming apocalypse: A sequel to Phantom of the Opera. Sequelitis runs rampant in movies and books, but now its hitting the bastion of hoity toitiness right between the eyes, and with a title like "Love Never Dies," I'm expecting the phantom's demise to come at the hands of 007. What's next: "Twilight, The Musical: Fear The Sparkle"?

Equivocation.

Coming clean, none of those statements were completely true, nor were they completely false:


1.) Thankfully, I was never called Chiquita -- that was someone else. A shit-eating-grin player sort of guy whose real name was forgotten for several months :). Stork was another engineer's sobriquet... The rest, however, were true... I'm not sure why all my black friends think so highly of me ;)
2.) When I was 5, if you gave me the equation (3x = 6), I could solve for it. Give me something harder (3x+2y=7; 4x-5y=15), and I'd go watch Transformers. Same goes w/ the Calculus bit -- could do simple derivatives, but had no clue what the hell I was doing... Reminds me how my Dominican engineer friend (the fellow cashier) used to say I could do triple integrals in my head... that would have been nice, but not anywhere close to true.
3.) This one very well may have been true, but we weren't the sort of engineers who actually figured out such information. We were blazing fast though... and were usually spot on, give or take 10 cents (we usually erred low, except w/ the pricks).
4.) In high school, I could Erg a mile in under 5:00, not 4:30 -- not sure if Olympic level rowers can do that. Today, though I will clock in at around 5:15

5.) Mark McGwire hit a home run in every game I went to, but I only attended about 10 games... still pretty cool.

6.) I remember my sister drawing the knife, and I remember laughing at her. She remembers me drawing the knife... not sure why since I was twice her size, but perhaps she's right (read: she's crazy :)

7.) While teaching for The Princeton Review, I evaluated more than 25,000 essays. If I'd gotten to 100,000, I think my eyes would have imploded.

PS - I wasn't raised a Jehovah's Witness either... but my brother is a Mormon.

Pathological

Deb, one of the coolest ether people I know, gifted me with this the other day. She's listed some rules, but I can't even color inside the lines, much less follow rules. One I'll take a stab at, though, is telling a few outrageous lies, maybe sprinkled with truth. I do come from a family with a pathological exaggerater (Dad) and a pathological misremberer (Sister -- and, yes, when I say this in my head, I say it like Darth Vader in ROTJ, when he's trying to pull Luke out of the shadows), so the things I might think true might very well not be. And I'm supposed to pass this on, but being born a Jehovah's Witness and having a Mormon brother, I feel bad for trying to make people lie, so I'll award this to anybody who, like my family, likes to distort facts for purposes of self-aggrandizement, for sheer fun of story, or just because they're a little loco en la cabeza.

Here goes:
1.) Some nicknames I've acquired over the years: Slick (Dad), Sunshine (Mom - what was she thinking?), Horsemonkey (high school friend - thanks, Eugene), Aryan Nation (black high school friend), Remi (from Higher Learning - thanks, Q, my black college roommate), Chiquita (that bitch from Mexico), Stork (my fellow college engineers).
2.) I learned basic Algebra at the tender age of 5, and basic Calculus by the time I was 9.
3.) While working as a cashier in college dorms, my Dominican friend and I could move a line of 300 people through the cafeteria in under thirty minutes... that's 1 person every six seconds... math on the fly, baby! Suck it, McDonalds.
4.) In high school, I could Erg a mile in under 4:30. Today I'll clock in at around 5:15
5.) I went to twenty Orioles vs. A's games as a kid and my then favorite player Mark McGwire hit a home run in each one.
6.) My sister once drew a knife on my when we were teenagers. I laughed at her.
7.) While teaching for The Princeton Review, I evaluated more than 100,000 students' essays for SAT, ACT, MCAT, GMAT, and LSAT tests.