Tuesday, October 30, 2007

A Real Nice Beer

Crooked Tree IPA by the Dark Horse Brewing Co. of Marshall, Michigan.

Mari-Rose bought me some a week or two ago. Yummy!

Kitty

On my way to work there's this little black and white cat I sometimes see at the edge of town. It seems to be a loose cat - I generally see it around a bar and a car customization shop.

A couple of weeks ago on that stretch of road I saw a smashed animal with black and white fur. It wasn't a skunk; it didn't smell. So I thought kitty had bought the farm.

But this morning I was happy to learn that kitty is safe and sound. I saw her again, walking in the weeds outside the bar.

Just a nice little thing that happened today.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Curious About the News

Here's one thing I've been curious about. You know that news story about Sen. Larry Craig, who was busted in the bathroom for allegedly soliciting another guy?

His excuse was that he has a "wide stance" while using the bathroom, which is why his foot tapped the foot of the other guy in the next stall (an undercover cop, as it turned out).

But something about that excuse has never made a bit of sense to me, and I haven't heard anybody else bring it up: When you're sitting on the pot, you've got your pants and underwear around your ankles. That limits how far you can move your feet, doesn't it? It means your stance can't really be too wide, doesn't it?

Anyway that's my curious thought for the day.

Okay, now I have to go to the bathroom...



Oooooh, This Is a Bad Idea

Homeowners Using Credit Cards to Make Mortgage Payments

Yikes!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

John Raises Eyebrow; Says, "Fascinating..."

I read a fascinating, if very long, three part article, that asked and finally answered what seems an exceedingly simple question:

Two photographs were taken on the same day in 1855, during the Crimean War. The two photos are nearly identical, except one of them might have been staged for effect. Was the photo staged for effect?

It's remarkable how much effort it took to learn the answer.

The question isn't interesting. The quest is.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Here's What I Don't Get

I followed one of those links to a dumb, salacious news story today and I learned this:

The so-called "Preppie Killer," who served 15 years in prison for strangling a woman in Central Park, was arrested Monday on charges of selling drugs and resisting arrest.

Robert Chambers was released from prison on Valentine's Day 2003 after serving 15 years for the 1986 strangling of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin during a tryst in Central Park.

The undercover sting began after police received complaints alleging drug sales at Chambers' residence, where he lived with his girlfriend...
His girlfriend? He lived with his girlfriend?

Can somebody explain to me how a guy kills a woman "during a tryst" and then after he gets out of prison, finds a girlfriend to live with him?

Wouldn't you think that doing 15 years for murdering a woman would sort of take you out of the dating pool?

Monday, October 22, 2007

A Good Quote

From today's Writer's Almanac:

"[Writing a novel is] like creeping along on your belly with shells exploding around you. It's only occasionally that there's a ceasefire and you can get up and run."

Look What the Girls Caught

The girls went down to the creek yesterday afternoon with a babysitter, and look what they found.

Pretty impressive. It was about 2-3 inches long. Not huge, but bigger than any crawdad I'd ever caught as a kid.

This is a picture of it crawling back into the water after we let it go.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Cool Art

I didn't know you could do this to a book.

Kind of shame to lose all those words, though.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

How to Be a Complete Jerk

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the memoirist and novelist Bernard Cooper, born in Los Angeles (1951). His most recent book, The Bill from My Father (2006) is about a bill he received in the mail from his father itemizing every expense he had incurred on his father's bank account since the day he was born. The bill totaled 2 million dollars.
The thing that's hard to believe is that the dad would take the time to compile this list. It had to take hours and hours and hours and hours. And for what?

What a jerk.