Saturday, August 26, 2006

danger & intrigue in the parking lot

Date / Time: Sunday August 27th 2006, mid-morning.

Location: my apartment complex.


Grace and I were heading out for Sunday lunch and errands. As we finished our descent from the staircase that led to and from our second-floor apartment, we spotted a piece of litter in the middle of a vacant parking space in front of our building.

on first glance the piece of trash, a styrofoam to-go dinner box, seemed like just the usual 'hey i'm a jerk who has no respect for public property or my neighbors, i'll throw this on the ground instead of putting it in a proper refuse bin' occurrence, but closer inspection revealed a scenario not so mundane.

written in pen atop the box:

"DO NOT EAT THIS! I AM WATCHING YOU."

possibly the most cryptic thing ever written on non-biodegradable material.

was this box once stored in an office kitchen refrigerator, the stern warning penned to the attention of some repeat office lunch stealer?

or was the box situated in that spot by a lurking resident who placed it there as some sort of twisted psychological experiment and then retired to his window to patiently observe, Grace and I among his unwitting test subjects?

whatever the diabolic cause for the box's existence there, some wild beast chose to ignore (or more likely, could not read) the posted warning and chewed its way through a corner of the box to get to the tasty sausage links apparently housed within.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

my how the times have changed



(click on the image for a larger size you can actually read)

(10/5/06 EDIT: acclaimed blog reader 'person' tells me that this article may be one of those newfangled internets pranks and not a genuine artifact of 1950s U.S.A. misogyny)

Housekeeping Monthly article from the 1950s on how to be a 'good wife'. funny how concepts so absurd today were probably dead-serious sensible back then.

some of the gems:

"catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction"

"remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours"

"never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you"

"don't complain if he's late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night"

"don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment...you have no right to question him"

and of course, the coup de grace:

"a good wife always knows her place"

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

MSNBC - All Access!

as much as i lump Fox News, let me throw a shot at MSNBC courtesy of MediaBistro:

so.....define "breaking news"to me again.....

you blew it, MSNBC, you didn't tell us the style of clothes he was wearing!

priorities are screwed up and the modern media is a mockery, can't we get back to Walter Cronkite giving us the straight story?

Sunday, August 20, 2006

the social bobcat in action

so back on June 8th my good buddy Andre' (from way back, like kindergarten way back) came down to Houston to snap a few in-game pictures of me as practice for his burgeoning professional photography career. here's his website:

AMG Photography

lots of good shots there, some of the Dallas Stars in the sports section (even some rugby, sweet!)

Andre was quick on the subsequent developing and touch-up of my action shots but, as per usual, i have been slower than lazy dirt in actually posting them to this site. allow me to remedy that at this time.

Setting up for the faceoff:


The ready stance:


Solid form on a left toe save:


Frozen in mid-save, going to cover the low areas through a screen:


Covering the left side, vigilant, like a hawk:


Kick save, and a beaut':


Eye of the tiger:


The goalie moonwalk:


Fighting through another screen:


The goalie and the out-of-focus enemy butt:


Believe it or not, this was a save, not a goal:


Some of that old-school stand-up style:


well there you go, pictures of me covered in all sorts of bulky equipment. just what the public was clamoring for.


many thanks to Andre for taking the time and effort to get such great action shots. i'm glad i'll have some evidence to show my kids that their dad was crazy enough at one point in his life to put himself directly into the path of a hard projectile traveling at high speeds.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

more fox news text fun

Fox News' quote of President Bush, on the subject of this morning's thwarted airplane bombing attempt (it's surreal to be living in a time when something like that can be mentioned so casually, but then again i suppose the world's always been a bit, uh, tumultuous from the get-go):

"Bush: They're Better Not Be Any Leaks In This Case"

damn you Fox News for your continued assault on the esteemed pillars of accuracy and grammar. you are a major US news organization, not a second-grader.

seriously, Fox News typemonkey, just slow down before you enter in the message. take a deep breath. relax. then type.

maybe it's not typemonkey's fault, maybe the text is sent down in that shoddy state from the head office or something and typemonkey is merely faithfully replicating it.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

kneel before M. Night, puny mortal

with Lady in the Water having been recently released, the thought has resurfaced that i'd be a bigger supporter of M. Night Shyamalan's movies if he wasn't such a maniacal egomaniac.

every single one of his movies/TV ads/trailers seems required to have his name splashed all over the intro before you even get to read the title. every movie he's made has him in a cameo role of varying length (i believe they have been getting lengthier with each film).

i'm no pyschiatrist but it seems cut-and-dried from viewing his work product that there exists in him some significant personality issues / emotional baggage.

the thing is, i've generally liked his movies and i see enough of the elements of care and hard work in the films that i don't mistake him to be a talentless hack masquerading as a top-tier director; what i don't get is why he can't get out of the way and let his work reflect on his abilities implicitly.

it's not as if every newspaper / entertainment magazine / TV show connected to the film industry doesn't already report extensively on new films and who is directing them. M Night, if you took your name out of the film credits entirely, people who saw your movie and liked it would still go "Good job, M Night Shyamalan"; those who didn't like it would say "Poor showing, M Night Shyamalan".

Rampant egotism, whether the byproduct of some desperate need for attention/acceptance or whatever, is to me one of the most unattractive personality traits a person in civilized society can have.

i only wonder how early it began for him.

i can imagine a young M Night, dripping wet, walking up to his parents in the living room and saying to them: "Mother, Father, prepare for a shocking twist on convention! I give you..... M Night Shyamalan's 'A Poop In the Bathtub'. "