She must be, seeing as she's approaching the 100,000 visitor mark. Then again, that's according to Sitemeter which is notoriously bad at accurately counting visitors. My own unscientific studies show that it gets the numbers right about 40% of the time, making my estimate of Jen's actual visits somewhere near the quarter million mark.
A quarter million, y'all!
Wouldn't it be great to be the 250,000th visitor to Jen's site? You could be the unofficial quarter millionth visitor, as verified by the Sitemeter ticking off 100,000 in it's anemic style. Just think of the glory. The honor. Those little chocolate candies with the caramel in the middle. What are those called again? Oh, yeah - Rolos! I love Rolos. Not as much as Snickers of course, and they're a good distance behind Reese's Peanut Butter Cups but still - Rolos are pretty good.
Where was I? Track back here...Reese's...Snickers...boobs (hey, I don't write down everything I think of)...Rolos...anemia...oh, yeah - Jen's site. She's on pace to get her SiteMeterated official 100,000th visitor (actually around the 250,00th visitor) in a couple weeks but if everybody who reads this post goes to visit her she'll get there in an hour or two. Hehe. Just kidding. More like three hours.
So, to get you over there (those of you who aren't the mindless automatons who blindly obey my every command, damn I love those guys) I present:
Cool Stuff Jen Has Posted Recently*
Been a secret agent.
Interviewed shitloads of notable bloggers including me.
Posted a picture of herself without a stitch of clothing showing.
Identified the progressive stages of insanity.
Sent hope and joy throughout the world.
Out-googled J-Lo's ass.
And that's just the recent stuff. Go see for yourself. Hey, almost 100,000 to somewhere around 250,000 visitors can't all be wrong!
* Okay, the interviews aren't recent. So sue me.
Next week I'll be in Chicago. A business trip, can you believe it? The last time work sent me out of town was three years ago but that was to Atlanta. Since I live in the suburbs of Atlanta and was only there for eight hours I don't think it technically qualifies as a business trip. The last actual business trip I was on was almost a decade ago.
To Chicago.
I lived in Chicago when I was just a lad. In fact, I wrote about some of my Chicago memories a time or two. You can take the boy out of Chicago but apparently you can't stop sending his ass back there.
So anyway, advance notice that there won't be much happening here next week. Hmmm...maybe I should leave y'all with a comment party post. It might help mitigate the damage frustration caused by my absence if I can lock y'all up in a secluded location give you a place to play and commiserate with each other.
I really hate the after-effects of a good hurl. The pieces of vomit and goopy stomach acid that's stuck in your nose and sinuses. The reward for a stomach purge is two days of smelling puke with the occasional chunk of mucous and partially digested yesterday's dinner that works itself back into your throat or nose.
It's hard to look forward to shootin' the shoes when you know what's coming afterward. Makes me appreciate Mary-Kate's fortitude and commitment to bulimia, it does.
Plyorns has posted the missing item in the Atlanta driver's mandatory equipment list. Ooh, I gotta get me some.
Come up with a caption for this one. The person who submits the best one (as judged by a triumvirate of myself, a small child and a nutless canine) shall live in infamy get a handful of points. What they hey - another handful of points will be spread out amongst the losers winning-impaired.
Contest is open until Friday and you can submit multiple entries.
(with apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein)
Democracies flourish and terrorists frying;
Consumers with money and Arafat dying;
Third world nations removing their kings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the news blows,
When the web slows,
When I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.
Moore getting fatter and Dan Rathers' firing;
Peterson busted and WalMart is hiring;
Cutting off deadbeats from our apron strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the French speak,
When my bones creak,
When I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.
Football on TV and boobs in our faces;
Kerry defeated and panties with laces;
Politicians in oceans without water wings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the car stalls,
When the roof falls,
When I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.
...where do you get all this time during the day to post stuff? If I weren't on vacation, I would be WAY too busy to post....
I replied with this short answer:
It all rattles around in my brain and I just disgorge it here. The physical typing happens in the early AM, lunchtimes and sometimes in the late PM.
But my answer has been bothering me because it's really superficial. So now I will entrap you in welcome you into the frightening maelstrom depths of my mind in search of the complete answer.
Clancy sent me a note about a poll in yesterday's print edition of USA Today:
USA Today, print edition (I couldn't find it online, but I only looked for a few minutes) in the Life section - they have a mini-poll. Anyway, the results of the mini-poll say that 60% of the respondents don't hit the snooze button and thus have no idea what your blog is about...
I'm ever the optimist though. To me that says that 40% of respondents owe me fealty as well as numerous presents.
Of course a realist would just say that 100% of the respondents wasted several seconds of their life answering a meaningless poll but we'll ignore the realists but they'd no doubt have a similar comment about the people reading this post.
By the way, Clancy, your blog is looking as empty as Bill Clinton's bag of morals. 60% of your readers want some more stuff from GF. The other 40% are too busy taking polls to notice. ;-)
Maculatus tried to regain his feet but failed. The blow had sent him flying and the landing dazed him severely. He craned his head and looked about him. The scene he saw was vivid but meaningless through the cloud of fog that seemed to have overcome his mind.
Cloud. Yes, that was a cloud there. A deadly cloud of poisonous gas that endangered his town and his beautiful queen. The queen he had been born to serve. Born and bred quite literally, as were all the warriors of Vespulica. The queen was in danger! The urgency of that thought banished the cobwebs from his mind and the last moments came back to him with frightening clarity and speed.
Anna explains her lengthy absense and prepares us for another one.
Anna, you've got my best wishes and hopes pulling for you. I hope you'll be back when things straighten out a bit. We just don't have enough California blondes with yards of golden tresses in the Blogosphere.
All seriousness aside...no, wait a sec...all joking aside, you'll be missed (again) and I'll be eagerly awaiting your return. You make me laugh and that makes the world a little bit brighter.
And don't shit where you drink either. The Georgia Supreme Court denied Gwinnett County's permit to dump 40 million gallons of sewage into Lake Lanier.
Sewage has been dumped there since before there was a lake. This permit was axed because it would allow Gwinnett to dump sewage that was less clean than they already have the capability to process and would allow them to avoid the per instance fines for violating the sewage quality requirements.
Lake Lanier is the main drinking water source for Atlanta and the sole source for the 700,000 residents in Gwinnett County. That number includes the five local members of the Peacock clan. Poop water, ewwwww. Thank god for Britta filters.
The holiday gluttony starts early in the blogosphere. Sate yourself with some crunchy appetizers at the 114th Carnival of the Vanities then pig out on the turkeys at the 73rd Bonfire.
What? No football?
They rape women and children, force people into prostitution, and run sex slave rings. It's all in a day's work for United Nations Peacekeepers.
The United Nations has dispatched two teams to investigate 150 charges of sexual exploitation and abuse by civilian and military personnel serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a senior UN official.The allegations include criminal activity, paedophilia, rape and solicitation of prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), at a press briefing Monday.
And people look to the UN as a proto-governing world body? It staggers the mind. That's like putting Clinton in charge of the secretary pool.
Now after these investigative teams come back with the results of their investigations the UN will issue recommendations. Yes, recommendations! They're not going to actually do anything about it at all. They're just going to go have a look-see and then say "Hey guys, please don't do that any more". Wanna know why? Because the UN has no authority over UN troops! Ain't that grand? There are 10,000 troops from fifty countries and each country is responsible for disciplining their own troops. If the boys from Stickitinmyassoslavia (that's a made up name, don't bother Googling it) don't have a problem with their troops raping kids and extorting sex from women then nothing at all happens.
Wow. Just...wow.
The Georgia legislature has made the Department of Motor Vehicles subservient to the Georgia public school system. Schools may now tell the DMV to suspend student licenses for up to a year. The idea behind it is to give the schools another stick to threaten truant and disruptive kids with. The reality is quite frightening, especially when you consider how existing school legislation, zero tolerance laws and zero tolerance policies aggravate and interact with each other.
Much more on this at Zero Intelligence.
SBD News Service (Atlanta) - American Medical Association researchers have made a remarkable discovery. It seems that some patients needing blood transfusions may benefit from receiving chicken blood rather than human blood. It tends to make the men cocky and the women lay better.
But Flibbertigibbet does. Rather, he needs people to take his survey. It's for one of his school projects. He's going to school for a business degree. If he does well here he will very quickly become one of those mover/shaker type business moguls, supporting and growing our economy by his very presence. So go take the poll. Do it for Flibby. Do it for the USA. Do it because it's just a couple questions and you've got nothing better to do anyway.
Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we? The nominations for the 2004 Weblog Awards are open. Go and let Kevin and crew know what your favorite blogs are.
Incidentally, in case you were wondering, Snooze Button Dreams would be in the Best of the Top 500-1000 Blogs class for the Ecosystem ranking categories. You were wondering, weren't you?
What's cookin good lookin? Head over to Boudicca's Voice to find out. She's hosting the 14th Carnival of Recipes.
Don't mind me. I'm just going to sit here and salivate for a while.
Mmmmm...
Lovely Wife sent me this very cool link: The World Sunlight Map
No more excuses for calling people at 3 in the morning and we can finally tell when Pixy is supposed to be awake without using a calculator or logarithms.
Lovely Wife sent me some gorgeous photos of sunsets and I'm going to use one of them for my desktop here at work. Problem is, I can't decide which to use.
That's where you come in! You get to make my difficult decision for me. Hey, I'm one step from the VP now. I'm learning the secret of delegation.
Take a look at these three and vote for your favorite:
To the fellow in the Mazda this morning: The blinking yellow light means "proceed with caution". It does not mean "yield right of way to side street traffic". And just in case you decided to stop all of the traffic on the main road just to be nice to those folks making a left through their blinking red stop light please let me remind you that you are in Atlanta and during rush hour we are permitted to remove one of your appendages to discourage such displays of weakness.
To the punks using the second floor bathroom: That horizontal handle at the top left of the urinal? Yeah, go ahead and wiggle that sucker after you've taken a piss. We call this "flushing". It makes it much more pleasant for the next fellow plus keeps the urine reek in the bathroom to a minimum. And if you do it while Mr.Happy is still dangling free you'll get a delightful wash of cool air and a free spritzer. Try it, you'll like it.
'Cause that's where I'm going thanks to our viewing selection on the boob tube last night. It was an HBO documentary on dwarfs. Little people, that is. The vertically challenged. I think it was called "Natural Born Carnies" but I can't be sure.
Damn, there it is again. You saw that? That's at least six years in purgatory for that carnie crack. I was horrific through the entire show. I think I'll get a few pokes with the pointy fork for corrupting Lovely Wife as well. Hmmm...maybe I can earn some time off for good behavior if I apologize.
Okay, let's try that. Let's see if I can remember some of my worst offenses here...
Regarding the dwarf girl who had lengthening surgery I apologize for the "Stretch Armstrong" crack. That was terribly unkind.
Regarding the dwarf pediatric surgeon I fully realize that there is really no great chance of him being mistaken for his own patient and I apologize for making that inference. My observation regarding his height compatibility with his dog was likely over the line as well.
Regarding the little person gal marrying the pixie dude, I'm very sorry that my response to Lovely Wife's observation "I wonder if they'll try to have kids" was "Yeah, they'll have midget dwarfs". I'm equally sorry that my response to her query about their future sex life included a quip along the lines of "Oh yeah, you can do a lot of cool things with a dwarf". I'm especially sorry that I gave Lovely Wife a knowing wink after that one. I also apologize profusely for my quip about the gal not needing any kneepads. Hey, at least I didn't make any "flat head" comments. Do I get any points for that?
In my defense I can only say that I am a materialist and there was just too much material thrown at me to resist. Before anybody casts stones please remember that age old maxim "If making fun of midgets is outlawed, only outlaws will make fun of midgets".
The inestimable Anna has resurfaced, just as overloaded with estrogen and injected with testosterone as ever.
(Credit to Nick for the redwings thing. I never come up with stuff that clever.)
Rob is closing in on his 1000th comment, a milestone in the life of any blog. My money says that he'll get there today.
Go and proove me right! (There's a prize in it for one of you.)
UPDATE: Rob tripped his meter this morning. Yay! Now go harrass the Wetwired crew. They're closing in on 2,000 comments and Pylorns has promised to dance naked in front of the Savoy when they get there.
Nine-eye: A delay was caused by non-dog related issues. Nine-eye will be getting his shots next Saturday instead of the Saturday just past. Grooming planned for the Monday after the shots.
Kids: Bacon had the croup Thursday night through the start of the weekend. Thanks to our kick-ass neighbor we didn't have to buy a nebulizer or Albuterol. Burger got it Saturday and is still kicking it. Sleep was at a premium at our house over the weekend.
Pets: I've come to a conclusion regarding the relative evil of kittens and puppies. Specifically, why do kittens do so much more damage than puppies? I believe that both species have the same amount of total evil but because kittens are smaller their evil is much more concentrated. Incidentally when Stitch purrs it sounds like a warthog with asthma. She starts purring at midnight. Every night. Concentrated evil, I'm telling you.
International: Breaking news from the mid-east. Yassir Arafat is still dead! And there was much rejoicing. Yay!
Work: The new job is awesome. Totally and completely awesome. And busy. I'm currently working on four projects, heading two of them.
idiosyncrasy
Pronunciation: "i-dE-&-'si[ng]-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Etymology: "idio" from the French idiote meaning Belgian, "syncrasy" from the Russian synchronous meaning swimming in a group wearing stupid smiles and nose plugs
1 An oddity of manner or temperament : eccentricity : something that other people go "Ewww!" when they hear about it
2 An oddment that generally falls under the category of "too much information"
You know those lists of 100 things about me that are very popular with blogsters? Basically they're just a list of idiosyncrasies. But they are loooooong lists. Who came up with 100 for the goal anyway? Probably a fascist. Those lists must be a bitch to write and who really wants to read 100 things about somebody?
So you get three from me. Three is a number I can get a handle on. I mean, I can count that high with less than a handful of fingers. Plus it's mystical. The number three appears all over the place: the holy trinity, the Three Stooges, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, you get the picture.
1: I take my pants off when I poop. Comfort is king with me and I just don't feel comfortable with my ankles tied together while trying to squeeze out a stink pickle. Spread the legs wide on the seat and you'll be surprised how much better you flow. Trust me.
2: I sleep at the edge of the bed. Well, not right on the edge of the bed but at least touching it. If I don't have a hand or foot on an edge I can't sleep because I lose my orientation and position sense. Basically I have to be near the edge of the bed because if I'm in the middle of it I'm afraid I'll fall off.
3: If I ever get held up in classic style where the robber comes up behind and puts a gun to my head I will be dead. This is because I will totally freak the robber out when I am seized with paroxysms of laughter. The back of my head is so ticklish I will get tremors along my whole body when it is touched. Lovely Wife gets a kick out of this one.
4: I get a fierce enjoyment out of breaking rules, even my own.
It's hard not being a member of a political party. Hard and inefficient. When people talk politics they first establish their stances. This is very easy for a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or Communist. When you know what party they support you immediately have a general idea of their political beliefs. You have an established starting point.
Now it's true that next to nobody embraces all of the party line but when you have that known starting point it is very easy to clarify your positions. "I'm a Republican but I support freedom of choice" or "I'm a Democrat but I think socialized medical care is the wrong way to go" or even "I'm a Libertarian but I have a sneaking suspicion that the complete elimination of government would be a bad move".
For those of us who can't identify enough with a party to claim membership it is very difficult to even get to a conversational starting point. Before our debate can begin we need to essentially outline our complete political viewpoint. How do you feel about abortion? How do you feel about welfare? How do you feel about progressive taxation? How do you feel about government subsidies, social security, proactive national defense, deficit spending, etceteras, etceteras, etceteras. It can take fifteen minutes of this before you're even at a point where you can start discussing issues.
On the commute home today I was pleasantly surprised to hear the radio announcer say "This traffic report is being brought to you by the Island of Aruba".
Can you imagine that? Atlanta traffic is so bad that they've heard about it in Aruba! Not only have they heard about it but the Island (the whole freaking island!) cares enough to sponsor traffic reports for us.
Wow. Just wow. I am so touched I can't adequately put my gratitude into words.
Thank you, Aruba. Thank you so much.
Wishes of a happy Veterans Day to all of the men and women who have protected this great country in past and present. (Lovely wife says thanks too.)
I served in the Navy myself. Eight years as a Hospital Corpsman in the Reserves. A bit over two years of that was spent on active duty.
In the beginning I didn't have a specialty so was basically just a nurse's aide with EMT training. My unit became the foundation for a Mobile Fleet Hospital unit (like M*A*S*H except we didn't have dirt floors) so I was then trained as a Marine. Military logic, don't ask for an explanation please. During Desert Storm I was activated and sent to Oakland (motto: The New Jersey of the west coast) to become an Operating Room Technician. That's the guy who hands the surgeon the sponges and clamps and needles and blades and stuff. After eight years in medicine with some of the most expensive surgical training you could ask for I promptly got into computers.
All of that is a huge non-sequitir to the story I'm going to tell you today: How Jim Ended Up As A Corpsman
Part of the process of joining the military is taking the ASVAB test. That stands for Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery. They put you in a field and shoot cannons at you. If you dodge enough of them they let you join.
I jest. It's actually a fill-in-the-oval test like the SATs and is designed to determine what military billet you could eventually fill. Lots of math and geometry, physics principles, word comprehension, mechanical aptitude stuff, and at least ten or eleven questions that amount to "The answer is A. Darken the oval next to the letter A. No, you dumbass! The one next to that!" Being a math wiz who spent his formative years helping Dad fix cars and planes and only rarely being a dumbass this test was pretty much designed for me to make it my bitch.
And I did. It is an hour-plus timed test. I finished it in fifteen minutes or so and was too bored to double check my answers so I took a nap. My score was in the 98th percentile. Pretty awesome, right? I'd have my pick of billets, right? I could go and do just about anything I wanted to, right?