Fragmented Fri. - Goodnight, Champ

Since I haven't blogged regularly for quite a while, I thought I'd use today to catch all you blog monkeys up on what's going on in my neurotic little world . . . but then I realized there really isn't all that much to report.

I suppose there is one thing; remember last year when I resolved to start eating better and lose some weight? Well, I'm resolving it again, only this time I'm hoping to stick it out a bit longer. My current goal: to fit back into size 34 jeans while I'm still 34, which gives me about 4 1/2 months to do so. Today marked my 5th day without a soft drink of any kind, as well as my 5th day without fast food. TopGun and I have been working out, and tomorrow I plan to join the gym so I can have access to an elliptical and work on my cardio again.

This past week on Facebook has somehow been declared "Retro Week" prompting people to replace their normal avatars with younger pictures of themselves. I decided to be a good little sheep and follow the trend.

Zinger asked me if this retro-picture would be accompanied by some retro blogging. "Is there something exciting from you past you haven't blogged about yet?" he asked. Sadly, I'm still drawing a blank.

Last night The Lovable PigPen came up to Denton to hang out for a bit. He was about ready to leave around 11 when he decided to challenge me to a quick game of tennis on the Wii; despite my better judgment I agreed, and so it was that "one quick game" turned into several hours worth of game play. I wound up not getting to sleep until almost 3*; it was a lot like when we were still rooming together and would stay up all night playing video games, with the exception that neither of us picked a fight with the other this time around. Oh, well, maybe next time.

A while back, TopGun and I were watching a movie where somebody sent their kid to bed saying "Goodnight, champ!" I turned to TopGun and told him that's what I was going to say from now on when he went to bed; surprisingly enough, I have done this pretty faithfully for several months now, and now "Champ" has become the real-world nickname I use when I text/email him**

I don't normally talk about my friends' relationships here, but I just had to mention that my best bud Li'l Random McEvil is now engaged to be married, so I'll be heading to Florida next year for his wedding. Congrats, Li'l Brother!

*This evening TopGun told me I needed to inform PigPen he's not allowed to come over on school nights anymore
**Much like how in real life Li'l Random is Li'l Brother, Cap'n Shack-Fu is Bubba, and The Lovable PigPen is Ginger Bastage

The Great Texlahoma Blizzard of Aught-Nine

As most of you blog monkeys are probably aware, this past Christmas Eve was marked by an enormous blizzard that shut down highways throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Luckily for me, I headed up to OK on Tuesday afternoon -- stopping off in Tulsa to hang out with Cap'n Shack-Fu before heading on up to Miami on Wednesday -- so I was able to avoid getting caught in the horrible weather. Many of my friends weren't quite so lucky: it took Coronela 16 hours to get from Ft. Worth to Oklahoma City; TopGun's normal 5 1/2 hour trip to his family in Midland took him 19 hours, with people skidding out of control all around him; and the winner of the "longest Christmas Eve ever" award goes to Shack-Fu's sister and brother-in-law, whose 9 hour trip from Houston to Pampa took them over 28 hours due to the highway becoming a virtual parking lot at times.

And then there was The Lovable PigPen, who called me while he was on the road to let me know that if we ever decide to go on another ski trip, we could probably take his car, which was handling fine in conditions very similar to what we encountered on our way home from Breckenridge a couple of years ago . . . of course, then he wound up getting stuck while turning into his mom's driveway about 50 yards from her house, so maybe we should rethink that suggestion . . .

When I got PigPen's call I was out doing last minute Christmas shopping with my parents in Joplin -- my mother was all giddy about shopping on Christmas Eve, and I was along for the ride. The bad weather didn't hit us until we were heading back to Miami, and it didn't really start coming down hard until after we made it home. We did venture out once more that evening, heading to the video store so we could rent some movies for Mom to watch while we were snowed in, but after that Mom and I didn't leave the house until Sunday afternoon when we went to visit my Grandma Ann.

A great deal of my entertainment/exasperation on Christmas Eve came courtesy of my parents' cat, Snitzelfritz. Not too long after we got home, Snitz decided that he wanted to go outside, and so positioned himself by the back door and meowed to be let out. I opened the door, and as the bitterly cold and damp blast of wind hit him he backed up, shivered, looked at me with a baleful stare, and emitted an accusatory meow that I couldn't help but translate as "What did you do?!!?!?!" That was the amusing part; the exasperation started to set in as his tiny cat brain seemed to think that if he waited three minutes the outside conditions would change completely, and so he would be at the door meowing again, only to turn tail and run as soon as the door was opened and the cold hit him. I have no clue how many times we went through this ritual before he had a burst of feline inspiration and demanded to be let out into the garage instead. Of course, my parents have it set up so he can exit the garage and go outside, so probably 10 minutes after letting him into the garage there was some frantic scratching and meowing at the back door as the dummy* desperately tried to regain entry into the house. This, too, was repeated several times, until finally the fact that being out-of-doors was not a viable prospect for him finally sunk in.

The biggest downside to the bad weather** was that it derailed my post-Christmas travel plans; even if the weather was supposed to be okay in our neck of the woods on one day, then it was supposed to be bad somewhere else along the route -- and then the conditions would be flip-flopped the next day. By the time it was all said and done, I didn't head back to Denton until New Years Day, which meant I missed out on the Singles New Years Eve party with its super-hero theme. Luckily, I had thought to drop the stuff I'd promised they could use for decorations beforehand, so all of my action figures were available to guard the DJ from evil-doers.


But unfortunately it meant I didn't get to see all of the super-costumes everyone had thrown together.


Although I'm even more upset that I didn't get to have fun playing with the visual sound effects.



On the plus side, by heading back on Friday, it meant I got to stop off in Tulsa and see my best bud Cap'n Shack-Fu again for a bit, and as he's the closest thing to a real Action Hero I know, it was practically like being at a super-hero party. Only, y'know, fewer girls in interesting outfits.

Yes, they're wearing super-hero boxers; Marvel on the left, DC on the right.

*When I visit my parents, I often amuse myself by coming up with "Weird Al" style songs about how stupid/crazy the cat is. The festive one I settled on this time around was "You're a Dumb Cat, Snitzlefritz" to the tune of "You're a Mean on, Mr. Grinch," which was probably on my mind mainly because Zinger had sent me this link while I was there.
**Besides the fact that there was tons of snow and none of my friends to play in it with

Fragmented Friday - Easing Back Into Blogging

It has now been over two weeks since I last posted, and even the posts I had done before that were quite anemic -- sad state of affairs, I know. I have no really valid excuse other than a hectic schedule and a lack of blogging motivation.

A few of the things that have been going on in the past couple of months

• A few weeks ago, Parkerite GMC got married, which led to a mini-Parkerite reunion. The bulk of the Poker Football League crew made it, as did Coronela and Little Man Stud, although Clan Flunky was unfortunately unable to attend, to the disappointment of all.
  
  
• I started taking Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes the last week in Februay at TXElite MMA here in town. Once again I tried to keep it a secret from PigPen so I could try to catch him off-guard with improved grappling skills, and once again I let the cat out of the bag sooner than I had planned. I'm enjoying the class a lot; it has a more informal structure than my karate and judo classes -- no bowing as you enter and leave, the instructor isn't "Sensei" but "Coach," etc. -- which actually makes it a much more inviting learning environment for me, and most of the guys there have been really cool, helpful, and encouraging. I've gone to MMA class a couple of times as well, and while I'm not as big a fan of the striking as I am the grappling -- the whole "have trouble seeing this far in front of my face without my glasses" affects punches and kicks much more than it does chokes and submissions -- it is a great workout, and I plan to attend it at least once a week. I've taken this week off because I hurt my shoulder a couple of weeks ago and wanted to give it a chance to heal up, but I plan on jumping back in next week.
  
  
• Two weeks from today I will be in Quantico, VA for Shack-Fu's FBI graduation ceremony; can't wait. There will be a few other Denton folk heading up for it as well, which is cool, so I won't feel quite so odd-man-out as I probably would have if it had just been me and his family.
  
  
• Tonight the Singles are hosting another Murder Mystery; the theme this time is "Murder Me, I'm Irish." Like last year, we had more people wanting to participate than we had roles, so I created 9 additional characters with clues, plus my own character who will serve as M.C./host. I will be playing Rick O'Shea, well known spiritual medium and host of the cable TV show "Bouncing Back from Beyond with Rick O'Shea." And yes, I plan to speak in an accent all night long, and no, I do not guarantee that it will be stable.
  
  
• I recently informed Li'l Brother that I was instigating a new policy; for every day that goes by without him returning my phone call/email/text/carrier pigeon/etc., he shall incur a penalty: 30 minutes worth of being practice dummy for my jiu-jitsu and MMA. After first being informed of the policy, he responded very quickly, but it's now been over a week since I left him a message which he has not yet returned, so it looks like I'm going to have to prove to him I'm serious . . .

Fragmented Friday - Who Watches the Watchmen's Man-things?

Latest diet update: as of yesterday morning, I was down 25 lbs since the beginning of the year.

Last night I went to a birthday dinner at Chili's in honor of Sunshine and Trouble, even though Trouble had declared multiple times that she was not having a birthday this year. Because of the timing of the dinner, I didn't get to watch OSU and OU play in the Big 12 quarterfinals, and had to settle for checking the score regularly on my cellphone. It was probably a good thing I didn't get to watch it, as the close score probably would have given me a heart attack. By the end, I had set the ESPN site to refresh automatically every 15 seconds, and so it was that it popped up the following info: "OSU 69 OU 70 FINAL." I sighed and announced it to the table, saying I was sad but was at least glad that the Cowboys had played them close. About 5 or 10 minutes later, one of the other guys said "Hey, Todd -- OSU won." Turns out he had just gotten a text from our former Singles pastor Freezeout who was actually at the game, and who is a big OU fan. I went back on my phone, and sure enough, the score now read OSU 71 OU 70. I later learned that OSU had gotten fouled with only a couple of seconds left and made two free throws to win the game; ESPN.com had just jumped the gun.

It amuses me greatly that most of the complaints I have heard from people about Watchmen have all centered around Dr. Manhattan's penchant for total nudity and the blue CGI private parts that accompany said penchant; who cares about plot, or acting, or direction or any of that jazz, just don't make us look at Dr. Manhattan's special purpose!*

My first time playing racquetball after the night of multiple buttkckings, I had made my first hit of my first game when Trouble said "What's wrong with your racket?" A quick glance showed that the top strings had broken. I went ahead and finished the game as is, since Trouble herself was playing with a cracked racket and had been for a few weeks, only waiting for payday to go buy herself a new one. Later, I emailed Cap'n Peanut to let him now that I had decided that the only possible explanation was that when he had borrowed my racket to play PigPen he had warped my racket with his crazy gorilla strength, and that a bill for a replacement would be forthcoming; he replied that it was nice to know that it was my shoddy racket that had been responsible for his less-than-stellar play that night.

Have you ever found out a piece of information that you were kinda glad to know, because you would hate to have been kept in the dark about it, but at the same time you kinda wish you didn't know, because that little piece of secret information fills you with concern and worry? Welcome to my world.

Last weekend the Singles had a game/movie night at Mei-Mei's parents' house; as always, the movie was shown out-doors, projected onto her parents' garage door. When the email invite went out, Cap'n Cluck urged everyone to remember lawn chairs and blankets. When I saw that, I decided to do one better than bringing a regular blanket, and instead brought one of my Christmas presents from my mom. So it was that about 20 minutes into the movie, as I started to get a little chilly, I wrapped myself up in a nice warm Snuggie**. The rest of the movie was spent with me looking for excuses to move my Snuggie-wrapped arms around for some reason, as every movement would sent Trouble and Lizard into paroxysms of laughter. One of those "you had to be there" times, to be sure, and I know most everyone else was lost as to what the three of us were dying laughing over.

I know I need to start up with the TV Tuesday posts again, but until I actually get around to it, I'd like to take this chance to say that this season of Lost is shaping up to be my favorite season, and I can't wait to see where it all leads. I also want to make sure everyone who is without the joys of TiVo/DVRs knows that Scrubs is moving to Wednesdays at 7:00. I'm also looking forward to the new sitcom which will be on between Scrubs and Lost, Better Off Ted.



Just looks like my kind of weird, doesn't it?

*Yesterday Zinger asked me if I had heard anyone make a "Dongtor Manhattan" joke yet; I assured him he was the first I had encountered.
**For the record: not only did I not request a Snuggie for Christmas, until I opened my present I had no idea that such a thing existed. It was a week or so later before I finally saw an actual Snuggie commercial.

Hanging Out

A couple of weeks ago, Cap'n Peanut mentioned that he and PigPen were planning on going somewhere to watch UFC 96 and invited me to tag along and I, of course, said sure. However, a few days later Peanut let me know that the plans were off because his parents were having a birthday dinner for his older brother that evening. In the end it worked out, since I would have had to have left early from the Singles Game and Movie Night to meet up with them, and thus would have missed out on tormenting Trouble and Lizard with one of my Christmas presents while watching Back to the Future on Mei-mei's parents' garage door*, but I was still a little bummed not to get to hang out with PigPen and Peanut. Since I'm trying to be more proactive in maintaining my friendships and not not sitting around waiting for people to come to me, I emailed Peanut earlier today to ask if he and PigPen had any plans in place for this weekend, or if they might be free to hang out with me. Peanut replied that they were both free, and wanted to know what sort of plans I had in mind.

I really wanted to reply "I already said: to hang out. Duh!" but thought that such a tone might be counterproductive to actually getting them to hang out with me.

Peanut's reply asking what I wanted to do is a pretty good example of a difference in mindset I've noticed between several of my friends and myself, with my friends being much more action/event oriented while I often couldn't care less. It happens often with Peanut, who isn't much of a sit-around type of guy; it happens with Shack-Fu, who is very task-oriented at times; it happens with Li'l Random, who is difficult to pin down even with very specific plans, let alone nebulous ones; and it happens with Zinger and Pooh-Bear, who will often meet my requests to come visit with questions of if I had anything special I wanted to do. And almost every time my friends try to get some solid plan out of me, I respond with a "doesn't really matter to me" sort of attitude.

It's not that I don't want to go out and do stuff; it's just that, for me, going out and doing stuff isn't necessary for me to enjoy myself. When I call someone up and ask if they want to hang out, it's because I want to be around them, talk with them, joke with them, pick on them, etc. To me, it doesn't matter if this happens waiting in line at the movies, in the middle of an amusement park, or just sitting at one of our homes around the TV set. As long as I'm spending time with my friends, I'm content. And, yeah, some of my favorite memories stem from going out and doing stuff with my friends: the birth of Hyper Force 3000; Bumper Bowling; St. Valentine's Day Meal of Doom; any number of trips to Texas Road House with Cap'n Shack-Fu . . . the list goes on and on. But by the same token, I have incredibly fond memories of just sitting around the house with my friends, swapping stories and goofing around.

Once upon a time, such a focus on activities would get to me as, in my usual neurotic way, I would turn it around in my head as a sign that people really didn't want to hang out with me without something else going on to distract them from me. But as I've matured, I've come to accept that this is just another one of the personality quirks, much like the True Colors system or the Languages of Love/Appreciation; I may be content to sit at home and gab, but others need more stimulation, need to get out of the house and experience something. And as long as both sides understand that about the other, things can run much more smoothly, and with luck not devolved into "What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do? I asked you first" territory.

So, which category do you fall into, my blog monkeys? Are you a "go-go-go-go-go!" person? Or a "Stay or go, it doesn't matter as long as I'm with my pals" person? Comment hungry bloggers want to know!

Back to my email conversation with Peanut: I did respond with a crack about how if I had to plan things the deal was off, which followed by some ideas about what we could do -- ideas that I had already come up with before my original email because I pretty much knew that a request for concrete plans would be forthcoming.

Who says I can't learn?

*A story for another time . . . perhaps

25 Random Things

Earlier this week I got tagged in a meme on Facebook by Trouble's new roomie, Lizard (pre-existing nickname, I assure you). Since I was going to fill it out and post on Facebook anyway, I figured I'd go ahead and use it as a blog post as well.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

I'll do the tag thing on Facebook; here, you just get the list

1. I'm generally not a big fan of giving pets common human names like Jack or Pete or the like; I tend to like more eclectic/esoteric/bizarre names. This carries over into my fiction writing, where I tend to give animals names of comic book characters.

2. I've never fired a real gun in my life. Rubber dart guns, plastic disc guns, Nerf guns, paintball guns, yes; actual lethal weapons, no. Cap'n Shack-Fu has eagerly offered to rectify that situation for me, but things haven't worked out so far.

3. I have a horrible head for numbers; they tend to go in one ear and out the other. This also applies to dates, which is part of why I never really liked history in school. I can count on one hand the number of birthdays of friends and family I can remember that aren't linked to a holiday.

4. I have a reputation as a picky eater, which is probably well-deserved. When I was younger it was next to impossible to get me to try new things; my cousin Lori once threatened me with great bodily harm if I didn't try the lasagna she made. I'm much more willing to try new things these days, just as long as it doesn't cost me anything and I know I have something Todd-approved as a backup.

5. I don't know how to drive a stick-shift. I've had many people offer to teach me over the years, but never have actually followed through on it.

6. When I live by myself, it's a struggle not to turn into a bit of a hermit. I get home, change immediately into my comfy, not-going-back-out-in-public-tonight clothes, and am then ready for a night filled with doing absolutely nothing. If I get a call from someone wanting to do something spontaneous, my first thought is "but I'd have to get dressed in presentable clothes!" I am much better about accepting spontaneous invites now than I once was, but there are times when I just have my mind set on staying home being lazy, and nothing is going to change that.

7. I often get impatient waiting in drive-throughs waiting for people to figure out what they want to order, but that's probably because when it comes to eating out, I usually find one thing I like and order it every time. Clan Stoneheart would often joke about having a "Todd special" at Hideaway Pizza, i.e. pepperoni pizza and coke.

8. I stay in touch much better with friends who use IM than friends only email. For some reason, I have no problem just saying "hey" in an IM, but if I start to write an email I feel like it needs to be much more involved. Subsequently, I will often think "I need to email so-and-so" but will put it off because I don't have time at that moment to compose anything substantial enough.

9. When I was six years old, I got to go to Hawaii with my parents. My strongest memories are of standing on the shore letting the waves wash the sand away from around my feet; going to an aquarium and seeing a show starring a fat penguin called Fred; and watching a bizarre Japanese television show. It's the last one that sticks in my mind the most; something about a guy in a rubber squid-man suit shooting off the top of his head so that it flies through the air, knocking over another man, covering him up and transforming him into a small canister, which the squid man this puts into a container revealed in his head when the squid top flew off . . . something about that just stuck with me. If I could ever find out what that show was and somehow see it again, I would be a happy, happy man.

10. I generally don't do well being put on the spot and being asked to make quick decisions. I am a muller; I like to think things through thoroughly before voicing my opinion or advice.

11. One of the organizations I was most active in in high school was the Technology Student Association. My first year, I was part of the parliamentary procedure team that won first place at the national conference. A few months later, we were asked to film an instructional video to be given to other TSA chapters in Oklahoma. Many years later while I was working at OSU, I volunteered to help judge at the state conference in OKC, and was actually recognized by a few people from the video. Makes me wonder if that tape of 8th grade Todd acting as Sgt. at Arms is still floating around out there.

12. I rarely stop a movie once I've started it; there's always a part of me that hopes to find a redeeming moment in the film to make it not a total waste of my time. Sometimes this pays off; sometimes it doesn't. Every once in a while I run into something so painful I can't make it through; this seems to happen more often the older I get.

13. A lot of people I know talk about how when they read it's like a movie in their head. Me, not so much; yes, I love to read, but I'm not generally a "visual" reader. Yes, when I get into a good book I get sucked into it and tune out the rest of the world, but I suppose my focus is more on the writing itself -- cadence, meter, alliteration, dialogue, characterization, etc. -- so unless a writer is very heavy into descriptions, I don't automatically generate a mental movie. This, of course, has led to issues in my own writing, as I have to fight to avoid the "talking head" syndrome and actually write some descriptions and action sequences.

14. It's sometimes hard for me to focus or concentrate in total silence. I almost always have the TV on or some music playing so I can have background noise. Of course, I have to be careful what I use as background, otherwise I find myself watching the TV or, in the case of music, singing along.

15. I am not an overly organized person, as anyone who has ever lived or worked with me can attest. I will occasionally be overcome with a need to attempt to organize things, but I either (a) run out of steam before finishing or (b) succeed initially but then don't keep up with the system.

16. If most of my Parkerite friends hadn't been so gung-ho about moving out of the dorms, I probably would have stayed in Parker until I graduated. For some reason, the "no alcohol" policy and "no member of the opposite sex on your floor after curfew" rule didn't seem to bother me like they did others . . .

17. When I do something and feel guilty about it, I invariably tell on myself

18. I never realized I enjoyed spicy foods until after I went off to college; my parents neither one eat spicy stuff, so I never really tried any until much later.

19. The places I'd most like to visit are Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the U.K. Yes, I primarily want to visit English speaking countries, but the language has nothing to do with it. I've just been fascinated by Australia and the U.K. for as long as I can remember, and have heard nothing but good things about New Zealand. As for Japan, well, I've always wanted to visit someplace that triggered total sensory overload . . .

20. My handwriting is horrible. When I was doing a research paper for my Senior English class in high school, my teacher made me type up my rough draft because she refused to try to decipher such a massive chunk of my illegible writing. And I couldn't even complain to my mom about the teacher since, y'know, my mom was the teacher.

21. I talk to my parents on the phone an average of a couple of hours a week . . . typically all in one sitting. We are a chatty people.

22. When I was in college, I picked up the skill of twirling a pen in my fingers from my roomie Wrath teh Berzerkr; that skill has now become a habit that I do almost without thinking. Over the years, many people have tried to emulate it, and invariable they ask me to "do it slowly," a request that robs all momentum from the object, making the twirling impossible. I will occasionally meet someone else who also does it; so far, everyone who has either (a) learned it in debate in high school or (b) learned it from someone who was in debate in high school.

23. Although I have eliminated or reduced many of my irrational insecurities over the years, they still rear their heads in my reluctance to initiate telephone conversations or instigate plans with others. Part fear of rejection, part neurotic certainty that my random call is an annoyance. I can probably count the number of people I'll call up with no hesitation on one hand.

24. I used to cheat at Candyland; I would stack the deck, and then ask my mom to play. As a cover, I would let her go first. That's one of the few deceptions I really remember perpetrating in my childhood. Yeah, I was a goody-two-shoes, but is anyone really surprised by that?

25. I spent way too much time coming up with this list because I was trying to come up with stuff that I haven't talked about in my blog, and I didn't want it to just be a bunch of one sentence statements. Yes, I have a problem, but we all knew that, right?

Look Who's Back . . .No, Honest, I Mean It This Time

Remember last month when I said I was back on the blogging track?

Obviously, I lied.

Sadly, no really good excuse for my lack of posts, other than a general lack of inspiration and desire. Had planned on getting back into it over Christmas break, but wound up just reading old comics and watching lots of movies. Then I had thought "alright, let's make 'posting regularly' one of my New Year's Resolutions!" But, yeah, that didn't happen either. And while I was trying again and again to motivate myself to post, as usual it fell to a pointed comment from Zinger to get me moving: "Can't believe Rosenberg is only going to be updating Goats three days a week. Next thing you know, he's only updating once a week, then once every couple of weeks, then not at all. We all know how frustrating it is to keep checking a site that never updates, right?"

Point taken, my friend, point taken

So, what's been happening in my life since the last time I actually posted?

CHRISTMAS: Cap'n Cluck and Angel hosted a White Elephant gift exchange at their house the Friday before Christmas. My contribution? A framed photocopy of the picture I had posted at work for the "Guess whose parents these are" game

Gotta love the 70s, right? Anyway, Fluffy was the lucky recipient of my parents' wedding photo, along with a beat up copy of the 2000 Video Hound Movie Guide, added to give the box some weight.

I spent the first week of my Christmas break in Miami, OK where I gleefully introduced my parents to such Odd-Squodd-esque films as In Bruges, Burn After Reading, Mister Foe, Sasquatch Gang, etc. Dad and I also got to enjoy a couple of entertaining horror-comedies The Cottage and Dance of the Dead, which I plan to talk more about on Monday. Honestly, a good portion of my enjoyment of spending time with my folks is introducing them to films I know they'll like but which they would never rent on their own.

The second week of Christmas break was spent largely just sitting around my house watching Netflix and DVRed shows. Man, I love my DVR.

NEW YEARS: I spent the bulk of New Year's Eve fighting with a nasty piece of malware on my PC which not only kept most of my anti-spyware and anti-virus from opening and/or updating, but also blocked me from accessing several web sites devoted to fighting such things. Luckily, I now have WiFi and a laptop, so I was able to download the software needed to clean up the PC onto the laptop and then burn it to disc to get it onto the PC. After about 6 hours or so of messing with it, finally get it all cleared up, and so was able to make it to the Singles New Year's Eve Luau with no problem, especially with the help of the new TomTom GPS unit my folks got my for Christmas.

The Singles party was a lot of fun, even if it did remind me just how horribly out of shape I've gotten in the last few months without PigPen and Cap'n Shack-Fu around to get me off my butt. Dancing can take quite a toll when you're old, fat, and have no endurance. I also about lost my voice doing karaoke. Good times, good times.

I got to try out the TomTom again on New Years Day when I drove out to Van Alstyne to visit Clan Flunky. Flunky's folks had bought around 8 acres there a few months back, and Flunky had spent most of his Christmas vacation helping his dad with landscaping. When he invited me out to visit, Flunky told me I could bring my work gloves and pay for my lunch with hard labor; I opted to just be a mooch instead. I was really glad I got to spend the day with Flunky, Flunky Lover, and their two spawn, since I hadn't seen them face to face in probably two years. The elder spawn is not nearly as hypnotically cute as he once was, but he makes up for it with his mind-bending joke telling ability.

Spawn: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Spawn: Chair! [erupts into gales of laughter] That's how we play this game!

CAP'N SHACK-FU: My best bud Shack-Fu has now been at the FBI academy for a little over a month. The first few weeks were pretty rough as they tried to weed people out, but things seem to have settled down a bit . . . of course, "settled down" for the FBI academy is relative term. He has put down Oklahoma City as his top choice for a duty assignment after graduation, so we're all praying that that pans out, since he'd only be a couple of hours away then. Right now I'm hoping to head up to Quantico for his graduation in May; with luck I can work it so I can also swing by Maryland and see Clan Flunky again while I'm in the general area.

And, for the record, yes, it is still horribly surreal for me to think that my best friend in the world is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged FBI agent.

FACEBOOK: I know I mentioned back in September that there had been an increase in the number of Wyandottians on Facebook, but it has been steadily increasing ever since then. As of this moment, I now have over 50 former classmates from Wyandotte as friends on Facebook. Kind of interesting, seeing where everybody is these days. Plus, I enjoy knowing that some of them who never had much exposure to the "real" Todd are now getting to see a brief glimpse of my insanity as evidence by my random status updates.

In addition to the Wyandottians, I've also managed to reconnect with my old pal from the Stillwater Public Library Days J.D., along with his wife and mother-in-law; now that we're in contact again, there may be hope that we can actually get our schedules to line up so that we can meet up at some point, since I can't even remember the last time I got to see them.

Oh, and earlier today I added CoIM to the Facebook Blog Network; if those of you blog monkeys with Facebook accounts could take a moment to go here and confirm me as the blog author, it would be greatly appreciated. If nothing else, I'd like to get the number of readers to rise above 2.

Fragmented Friday - Suicidal Penguins Complect the Formular

• Second week in a row that I've managed a M-F posting schedule; I told Zinger I'd have to be careful doing stuff like this, otherwise people might start to expect it. He replied that he supposed he'd let me get by with a M-T-F posting schedule; he's quite the magnanimous soul, isn't he?
  
  
• The other day I headed to the post office to pick up my mail, since they still haven't replaced the missing mail box. Having learned my lesson the first time, I made sure to bring a book to read to help pass the time; due to this, I didn't notice that one of my coworkers was in line a few people behind me until I passed by him on my way up to the window to get help. After the postal worker went in the back to retrieve my mail, I turned around to say hi to the coworker when out of the corner of my eye I noticed some weirdo donning the Junior Birdman goggles.
  
  No, not that weirdo; Li'l Weirdo! Which was a surprise to me, since the last I knew he was out on deployment. I went over to say hi and before I could even think to give him a hard time he blurted out "I just got back into town, I swear!" It's like he was expecting me to accuse him of hiding out from me or something; why he would think such a thing I have no idea . . .
  
  
• Last Friday we had our final cook-out at Cap'n Cluck's parents' house. We did most of the usual things; roasted hot dogs, roasted marshmallows, played Mafia, watched the Mafia game devolve into a mass of confusion and chaos . . . y'know the usual.
  
  
• While discussing old TV shows at the cook-out, I mentioned M*A*S*H*, which prompted Angel to ask "Do you know what the name of that theme song was?" I answered immediately: "Suicide is Painless." One of the newer, nickless Singles got a confused look on his face and asked "Did you just say 'Suicidal pandas'?" It does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
  
  
• I'm proud to say that after my Victoria Jackson post, CoIM is now the number one Google hit for the search term "eagleboob." On a related note, this week also marked the first time I ever received a blog hit from someone Googling the keywords "paraplegic porn" which took them to this post. Truly, accomplishments to be proud of.
  
  
• In preparing for yesterday's Amberbama post, I tracked down the email I had originally sent out to family and friends describing the experience at the time, as well as the Essence of Amber message board thread; you can read Rebel Monkey's version of events there. Going back through all the posts I was amazed at what all I had forgotten; six years is a long time.
  
  
• Miss ArkanSass should be flying in to town this evening, and I'm still not 100% sure what movie to pick for her first Odd Squodd movie fest; should I try to introduce her and Li'l Random to horror comedies Murder Party or Student Bodies? Should I pick one of the Netflix that should be here by then, like Run Fat Boy Run or The Foot Fist Way? Decisions, decisions!
  
  
• My favorite spam email of the moment is one which promises me a tax refund from the IRS if I can receive on my credit card if I just, and I quote, "Complect the Formular."

A Saturday Night Surprise

As I mentioned last Friday, I had made plans to go visit Clan Stoneheart on Saturday and they, in turn had formulated some sort of secret evening activity, the only clue to which was the instruction to bring nice clothes to wear. When I mentioned this to some of the Singles on Friday night, somebody suggested that they were going to drag me to the ballet, but I knew it couldn't be anything like that, or else Zinger wouldn't have gone along with it. My thoughts were running something along the lines of a play, but I really had no clue what the night might bring.

I met up with Zinger and Pooh-bear in McKinney for lunchat Scotty P's, and then headed to Casa de Stoneheart where I got to see their puppy Drake and play Guitar Hero for the first time. After awhile we had dinner at Ralph and Kacoo's, an experience which was made especially memorable by the fact that Pooh-bear and I saw a large dead rodent out front as we were walking in; nothing to whet your appetite like a decaying rat, eh? After that we headed back to their place and changed into our nicer clothes and headed out to the mystery event. By this point all I knew was that it was nearby and that they'd purchased tickets in advance. We wound up in downtown McKinney, and headed to the McKinney Performing Arts Center, which is housed in the old McKinney courthouse. It wasn't until we were at the main entrance to the theater that Pooh-bear handed me my ticket and I got to find out what we were there to see: an evening of comedy with former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson.

Yeah, never would have guessed that in a million years.

As we were waiting for the show to start, Zinger and I were discussing our memories of Victoria Jackson. I mentioned how she always used to do handstands during the Weekend Update, usually with some sort of festive pants on; he remembered her wearing something patriotic, and I remembered her becoming a Christmas tree. Sadly, couldn't find pictures of either of those, but I did find her declaring her love for her then-boyfriend/now-husband, a Miami, FL, police officer.

Zinger then mentioned that she is a "close personal friend of Al," and wondered if she might mention this; and if you're wondering just who this "Al" is, then I must stress that if Zinger or I ever mention an Al, the odds are pretty good that it's this Al

I then asked "Hey, wasn't she in that old skit 'Their eyes were on their breasts'? I"m pretty sure she played the marksman, Eagleboob." Zinger agreed that he seemed to recall that as well.

By the time the evening was over each of these memories would in some way be reference in her show.

But before we got to enjoy Ms. Jackson, we first got to listen to the spiel of the MPAC director who talked about the upcoming events and raved about the new McKinney Hilton -- "Where the Stars Stay." Then we got to listen to the warm-up act, a local "comedienne"* named Laura Bartlett. Oh, did I say "got to"? I really meant "had to." Wow, was that painful. Never been so glad to see someone leave the stage in all my life. But that train-wreck was quickly washed out of my mind by the joy that was the comedy stylings of Victoria Jackson. Now, her comedy might not be the most cerebral, but her delivery is golden.

I won't bore you by trying to recreate her stand-up routine here, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least talk about the portions of her act where she addressed the things Zinger and I had been discussing prior to the show

• Early on in the act she recited her poem "The Life of a Gymnast" while doing a handstand; sadly, the microphone placement made it impossible to actually hear the poem
  
  
• While talking about her early days dating her now-husband the cop, she discussed how the first time he came out to see the show was the day after the first time he was forced to kill someone in the line of duty, and how odd it was for him to be coming up to New York in the wake of that and see his girlfriend playing in the skit where she had eyes on her breasts** and how that kind of made them think they lived very different sorts of lives . . .
  
  
• She not only mentioned playing Weird Al's girlfriend in UHF and how it made her actually fall in love with him, she also briefly mentioned her experience filming it in the bustling metropolis of Tulsa, OK, Pooh-bear's old stomping grounds, and how Fran Drescher summed the city up thusly: "There's nothing to do here!"***

There were two other items of notice in her performance. The first was her descriptions of her relationship with her husband, wherein she talked about how she brought necessary chaos into his overly ordered life, and how he had told her that the only possible outcome to their marriage was that whichever one of them slipped into dementia first would be tortured by the other; these and other comments elicited much knowing laughter from Pooh "Necessary Chaos" bear and Zinger "Overly Ordered" Stoneheart.

The other interesting thing was when she stopped in the middle of the set-up to one of her songs to suddenly ask "How many of you here tonight are Christians?" After a good portion of the audience clapped, she exclaimed with great relief how nice it was to be somewhere where people understood her, and how she had been yelled at twice in L.A. for saying she was voting for McCain. She even did an encore where she played not one of her silly songs, but one which she had written for a friend who had just lost her child, a song which was filled with Christian imagery and ideals.

All in all, a very entertaining night, and a very welcome surprise. Muchas gracias, Zinger y Pooh-bear.


*Quotation marks added at Zinger's request; he also would have accepted a footnote of "I use the term loosely"
**When she mentioned this skit, it took all of my willpower not to yell out "Eagleboob!"
***For extra enjoyment, please imagine Victoria Jackson doing her Fran Drescher impression while saying this.

Fragmented Friday - Five for Five

• Earlier today I got a message from Zinger: "This could be your first full week of posting in a long time" Well, despite being nearly overwhelmed by a desire not to post just to be contrary, I finally decided to buckle down and type something up, making this my first M-F posting schedule since last June.
  
  
• Despite the great benefits of the saline nasal rinse, I have been having a horrible time with my allergies these last couple of weeks. I've had to restock on Claritin-D and antihistamines to keep things under control; when I went to watch PigPen and Cap'n Bumper play softball on Wednesday I barely made it through the first game of their double header, and had to bow out of the second one. I'm afraid I might also have to cut short my time at the Single's campfire at Cap'n Cluck's parents' house tonight, which is a shame, since they're selling the house making this our last one there.
  
  
• Tomorrow I'm heading down to Lucas to visit Clan Stoneheart. All through the week Zinger's been asking me what I was wanting to do while I was down there, and my answer was pretty much a consistent "I dunno." Well, a little while ago he called me to tell me that he and Pooh-bear had come up with something for us to do that night and that I'd want to make sure I brought some slacks and a polo-type shirt with me. Haven't the foggiest idea what we'll be doing, but with luck it will help with blog fodder for next week.
  
  
• Speaking of blog fodder, when I was typing up yesterday's post about short films, it dawned on me that, although I've made passing comments about it and have pledged to go into greater detail several times, I still have not done a full-fledged post about my trip to the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, AL back in '02. Look for it next Thursday; if it's not here, then I will have failed in my duty as a faithful blogger. But, what else is new?
  
  
• I mentioned that I'd watched one of my tapes with PigPen and Cap'n Peanut on Saturday, but I didn't mention that although PigPen had originally said they would try to make it up here, I wound up watching it at their place. See, during the heaviest part of the rain dumped on us by Ike on Saturday, I texted PigPen to see if they were still coming up; he replied that it would depend on the weather, plus Peanut's parents were taking him out to dinner for his birthday, and there was no telling when they'd get done, but if I wanted, he could let me know when they were back and then I could come down there and watch it. My first thought was "doubt I'll go," since I hate driving in the rain and I hate driving at night, and I really hate driving in the rain at night. Almost immediately following this thought, however, was a practical question I quickly posited to him: "Did you guys get a VCR?" He quickly replied in the negative, saying I would have to provide that as well. Glad I asked, huh? By the time he texted to see if I was still wanting to come down, it was no longer rainign, and I was so restless after a day of botched plans* that I didn't even let the worry that it might start raining again keep me from hopping in the car with my VCR, which I had stuffed in my backpack to help keep it dry. No sooner had I started the car than I got another text from PigPen reminding me that I needed to bring the VCR. I shook my head at his lack of faith in me and backed out of the driveway, not realizing until I was half-way there that while I had remembere the VCR, I had forgotten its remote control.
  
  
• Only one more week until Miss ArkanSass comes to visit; hopefull Li'l Random will be back from deployment by then . . .
  
  
• There's been a small explosion of familiar faces popping up on Facebook recently, both from high school** and college. Two of the Wyandottians, neither of whom I've seen or talked to in ages, both mentioned that they've read my blog, which surprised me; I have this mental image that my blog only gets read by people I have regular contact with. Of course, one of them mentioned she found it through Redneck Diva, which explains it.
  
  
• One of the Facebook features is a "People You May Know" suggestion, which shows you the names of other Facebook members who have at least two friends in common with you. Most of the time I have no idea who the suggested people are, and so have to look at the common friends to find out why they've been suggested; generally, the common friends will make sense (Zinger and Pooh-bear; Cap'n Bubbles and her roomied Brown-Eyed Girl; etc.), but every once in a while there will be one that throws me, like when I saw that one of the suggested people was friends with my long-time Parkerite friend Coronela and also with my young cousin who's a senior in high school; turns out the suggested friend is classmates with my cousing, and one of Coronela's step-sisters. Last night I had four or five suggestions pop up who were all friends with a Wyandottian who was a Senior when I was in 8th grade and also with my college roomie Wrath teh Berzerkr's younger sibling; not sure where the connection there comes in.

*This was also the day that my movie watching and costume shopping with Li'l Random got scrapped due to his being deployed.
**So far, only two people from my graduating class have joined, one of whom pretty much joined, accepted my friend request, and hasn't been back one since. Was it something I said?

Fragmented Friday - PAC Man Fever

Got the following IM from Zinger yesterday afternoon: "You made a mistake with your blog. Unless you start posting more often, we're all going to have to see that pic of PigPen until you decide to blog again. Hopefully it will not be long." I assured him that I had a Fragmented Friday post in the works.

The other day I was checking my site statistics and saw that CoIM got a hit as a result of the following Google search: destroying shack fu. So, watch out, bubba, apparently someone in New York has it out for you.

I'm slowly adjusting to a PigPen-less household; you know, it's the little things that get ya. Like, how when the new season of Deadliest Catch comes on, who's going to sing along with the theme song with me? And when I watch Wipeout, who's going to laugh so hard at people face-planting that I have to rewind the tape so he can take a hit of his inhaler and get his breath back? And what the heck am I going to do with the vast array of rubber bands, paper wads, and other projectiles I unconsciously accumulate with an eye towards hurling them in PigPen's general direction?

After my Ham of Dogpatch, USA post I was eagerly awaiting some sort of response from PigPen, and was disappointed when none was forthcoming; after all, now that we no longer room together, I have to find other, long distance ways to pick fights with him. Turns out that he did try to post a comment on the MySpace version of the blog, but for some reason it didn't take. From what he said, the comment was pretty much what I expected it would be, first responding to my hairline crack with a "like you have room to talk" comeback, followed by an assurance that if I had hollered that out he would have come off the stage and into the audience to find me, just like I had told Li'l Random and Trouble he would. He also said that the girl trying to get him to take the picture wasn't embarrassed, since he was embarrassed enough for the both of them. Think that was about it.

Along with my lack of drive to write anything for the past month or two, I've also had a lack of drive to attend my judo classes. The first few I missed were because Shack-Fu had just gotten back into town after deployment and PigPen's work schedule changed so he was actually home from work before 9 or 10, and I chose trying to maximize my quality time with two of my Best Friends before they moved on over going to class, rationalizing that I could go back to judo at any time, but who knew how many more chances I'd have to work out with Shack or pick a fight with PigPen? Of course, the longer I went without going to judo, the harder it became to get motivated to return; ironically, the two people who were my initial reason for slacking off were the two voices raised loudest in disappointment over my lack of attendance. This all came to a bit of a head on Sunday when I was at lunch with the Singles and I saw one of the black belts from class coming in with his family. Shack-Fu noticed him too, and remarked that he was one of Shack-Fu's co-workers. I, silly little man that I am, mentioned that he was one of my senseis. Not too long after that, Shack-Fu got up to get a refill on his drink, but was gone for quite a while; the mystery of his extended absence was solved when I suddenly heard his voice uttering my name loudly from across the restaurant. I turned my head and saw him and my sensei both staring at me with manic grins on their faces. Yup, nothing like knowing that I've now been singled out for special humiliation and attention to get me back to class; Shack-Fu knows me so well!

For the record, while I razzed PigPen about hamming it up in Li'l Abner, the fact is that the whole cast was pretty hammy -- at one scene a character literally vocalized a "Yuk yuk yuk!" type of laugh as he skipped off stage -- so he was just going along with the tone of the production. Plus, he made us laugh (on purpose, even), which is what he was there for, so I'd say it was a successful role for him.

Oh, and Shack-Fu's machinations did work, and I did finally make it back to judo on Tuesday; so far out of shape that I thought at one point I was going to keel over and die. All that, and the FEMA sensei wasn't even there. *sigh*

It's the time of year at work where all the librarians have to turn in their Personnel Affairs Committee binders which are filled with documentation of all the work we've performed throughout the year, both in our primary assignments and in our professional development. Since the documentation in these PAC binders are what are used to determine raises, promotions, and extension of contracts, it's a pretty stressful time of year. My joy has been that this is my third PAC binder to prepare, and it's also my third job title, as every year since I've become a librarian my job description has changed drastically. I'm hoping that now that I've become Head of the Serials and Electronic Resources Unit these drastic changes will die down, and I can actually start focusing on that whole "professional development" thing I've heard about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write up my personal essay for the binder explaining why the heck I did what I did this year.

Fragmented Friday - Cap'n Word Herder vs. The Nuclear Man

I have been awake since 3AM for no good reason; cursed insomnia. At around 5Am I decided I might as well go ahead and get up, get some breakfast, and go to work early. When I stopped at the Sonic where I usually get breakfast I was surprised to see the lights were all off, since I was pretty sure Sonic usually opens at 5Am, but since I'm not usually up at 5AM I figured I was mistaken and that they must open at 6Am. Still, since it was only five till 6, I thought I'd just park and wait for the lights to come on so I could order. However, no sooner had I pulled in than a worker came out and signaled me to roll down my window. Turns out my original thought was right and Sonic does usually open at 5AM; however, apparently the person who usually opens didn't show up and so they were way behind schedule, having just started turning everything on, so it was gong to be a bit before they were able to cook anything. I decided to go ahead and wait since I wasn't exactly in a hurry, so I spent the next few minutes just reading on The Bonehunters, the sixth book in Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series. The same Sonic worker came back out before too long and asked what I wanted, telling me they'd go ahead and start cooking my order, and then handing me a couple of coupons for a free drink and free burger. Then, when my food finally came out, the carhop apologized for my wait and told me the food was on them. So, something good came out of my early rise, but I would have gladly paid the 5 bucks for breakfast in exchange for a few more hours sleep.

As I mentioned the other day, I had to go get new glasses because one of my lenses was cracked. On Tuesday I called pretty much every optometrist covered by my insurance before finally finding one who had an appointment on Wednesday; this optometrist operated out of the Wal-Mart building, so after I got my prescription from him I headed into the Wal-Mart vision center to get the glasses made. However, while I was in the process of having them check to see if my insurance would do anything for the frames or lenses I discovered that it would take them 5 to 10 business days to get my glasses in. Since I didn't think either I nor my rickety old glasses themselves could last that long, I instead headed to EyeMasters, whose signs proudly proclaim "GLASSES READY IN ONE HOUR" with the caveat in slightly smaller font "In Most Cases." Hoping that I would me one of those cases I headed inside, handed my prescription to one of the workers and asked if they could get me some new glasses made that day; he took one look at the prescription and said "Maybe." I figured that was probably as good as I was going to get, so I went ahead and let him help me pick out some frames*, as well as talk me into getting prescription sunglasses for practically no cost**. As someone who has pretty much never been able to wear sunglasses, it's taking some getting used to.

Last week was fairly peaceful since The Lovable PigPen was off on a family vacation***; of course, peaceful is boring***, as I no longer had a readily available antagonist****, although Cap'n Shack-Fu did an admirable job filling in for him. In fact, barely an hour and a half after I dropped PigPen off at the airport I was engaged in a wrestling match with the Shack-man, who trounced me, but not without much complaining about the fact that I've improved too much over the months since we last tangled. "Old Todd would have submitted by now!" was his catch-phrase of the day. While knowing that I was a tougher opponent made me feel good, being able to actually beat him would have made me feel even better. Of course, I told him he only won because we were wrestling at his house and he had home-field advantage.

Even if PigPen had been around last week our sparring would have been primarily verbal, as he apparently decided to celebrate the year anniversary of breaking my finger by injuring his own hand. Of course, he chose to injure his left hand and not his dominant right, and probably only chipped the bone on one of his knuckles instead of breaking a finger right on the joint and doing full on tendon damage, but it's the thought that counts. He's currently waiting on a call from his doc with results from the x-rays they took on Wednesday to see how bad the damage is.

I was going to tell the story of The Scottish Fireplug here, but I think that one might deserve its own post; if I don't tell that by the end of next week, someone remind me, okay?*****

I emailed Flunky the other day just to catch up with him since I haven't been able to catch him on IM for a month or so. I of course gave him a hard time about being an uncommunicative son of a gun because, well, that's what I do; he, rising to the bait, replied a few days later thusly:

Flunky Lover is making me write this message because you know I would never respond to you on my own. In fact, I'm making her type this one handed with a baby in the other arm.

In other words, she forces him to do the right thing, and he forces her to be his stenographer and take care of the kids.

The other day while we were driving to pick PigPen up from the airport, Li'l Random was on the phone with B.B.; being the random generator that he is, Li'l Bro made some comment about being the thunder before the lightning, then paused and restated it as lightning before thunder, and then paused again as he tried to make sure which way was correct. I said "lightning before thunder, because light travels faster than sound," but apparently B.B. was saying the opposite. A few days later while we were at the gym, Li'l McEvil brought it up again just to watch us debate******. B.B. stuck firm to his thunder-first stance, I tried to combat it with my logical explanation of lightning-first, which caused B.B. - - who works with the preparedness arm of FEMA that deals with nuclear safety -- to exclaim "Look, I'm a Nuclear Man, I know things! You, you're just a word-herder! Walking around, pushing your carts, shelving your books, herding your words. Don't mess with the Nuclear Man, Word Herder!" Therefore, from now on B.B. has a new nickname:

Wave to Firestorm, everybody. Oh, for the record, oh great Nuclear Man? The Word Herder wins.


*He nixed one pair I tried on saying that another pair didn't make my face look quite so wide; I was tempted to ask him if he was saying I had a fat head, but let it pass.
**Li'l Random, upon seeing my new shades, informed me he's now going to start calling me Morpheus.
***In addition, the Week Without PigPen was really just a warm-up for Life Without PigPen, as it is now only three weeks until he moves out of our place and moves down to Lewisville with Cap'n Peanut.
****His little sister was home on leave from Iraq, so the family decided to spend a week with her down in Cozumel. Feel free to send jealous thoughts his way, I know I did.
*****And by someone I pretty much mean Zinger, of course
******Odds are pretty good that one or both of us was picking on him and he decided to have us turn on each other to spare himself; he's good like that.

Mix-It-Up Monday - Invasion of the Parental Units

Since I didn't put up a Fragmented Friday post last week, even though I promise Miss ArkanSass one was forthcoming, I figured I'd do my rambling summation of last week today, rather than wait until this Friday.

Zinger just got back from a week in Alaska and spent a good portion of his morning getting caught up on all of his daily online reads. Zinger remarked how much he hated trying to play catch up on everything, although he was quick to point out that reading through CoIM was incredibly easy . . .

My mom and dad were in town for several days since they hadn't seen me since Christmas, and my vacation leave balance was practically nil making any potential trip on my part rushed at best. Plus, they never had gotten a chance to meet many of the Singles outside of Maverick, Biz-Z, and Cap'n Shack-Fu, and were really wanting to see just how accurate my descriptions of everyone were. Last time they were down we tried to do quite a bit of stuff, but this time we mainly just sat around, visited, watched TV, and went out to eat. Not very exciting, perhaps, but it was relaxing.

Saturday evening while mom and dad were relaxing back at the hotel, I went out to the park with PigPen, Cap'n Peanut, and Maverick to throw around the football and Frisbee. It was one of those times when something kind of clicked in my head in terms of the mind/body connection, because I wound up doing a better job catching the football than pretty much any other time I can remember -- up until I kind of jammed my fingers, that is. Three guesses which finger got the brunt of it. That's right, the crooked right middle finger caught the ball head on; I tried to shake off the pain and keep playing, but after a few more catches the paranoia of "Oh, crap, did I screw it up again?" was a bit overwhelming and I had to bow out of any more passing/catching. Didn't feel too bad on Sunday, but is a little stiff and sore today; hopefully that will go away soon.

About the most touristy thing my folks did while they were down is stroll around The Square. We went to Recycled Books, had lunch at Denton County Independent Hamburger Company, had dessert at Beth Marie's Old Fashioned Ice Cream and Soda, wandered into one of the antique stores -- surprisingly my dad's suggestion and not mom's -- and then had to come back a couple of days later so dad could take pictures of the courthouse.

A few weeks back Cap'n Peanut and I were wrestling around and I had to take a very literal breather because I had been around too much cigarette smoke that night and was having trouble getting enough oxygen; early last week I sent him a couple of emails clamoring for a rematch, to which he never responded; in fact, we were around each other quite a bit on Saturday and it never came up. Until, that is, we got back from the park; while PigPen went in to take a shower, Peanut calmly walked into the living room, shoved the coffee table up against the couch*, and called me out. He kicked my butt pretty handily of course, thanks to his crazy gorilla strength, but I almost caught him in a choke . . . man, am I sick of almosts. Next time, Peanut, you're going down!**

I was not the only person with parental visitors this weekend; Li'l Random's parents also decided to come to town for a few days, although none of us ever got to see them. I gather that this is because as soon as his folks arrive, Li'l McEvil chains them to his yard, forcing them to weed and plant and chop down trees and such, until he's worked them near to death and allows them to escape back to Arkansas before their next round of enforced labor. . . although, since I never have seen hide nor hair of his parents even after many, many visits, I have started to suspect that they're just figments of his imagination, and that Li'l Random was not born like a normal man but just sprang randomly from some dark and twisty hole in the ground.

I was hanging out at Li'l Random's place on Thursday afternoon as we were both waiting for our respective parental units to arrive in town when a contractor he had called to inspect the hail damage on his roof rang the doorbell. When The Random One answered the door, the contractor asked "Is Li'l Random home?" I immediately suspected that the contractor's question was due to his assuming that Li'l Random was actually the teenaged son of the house's owner; when Li'l Random told him that he was Li'l Random there was a pause before the contractor blurted out "No way you're old enough to own a house." I cried out "I knew it!" at which point the contractor poked his head around the corner to see me, recognized that I was most assuredly not teenaged, and asked if I was really Li'l Random, assuming that we were trying to prank him. Somehow the joy of mocking Li'l Babyface lost a little bit of its luster with the realization that I was visibly recognizable as being "the old guy"; didn't stop me from doing it, though.

That last bit reminds me; my former college roomie The Old Man recently started up a Facebook page; after I added him as a friend I told him that I was now in the same position he was in in college, surrounded by a social circle who are a few years younger and who insist on rubbing it in my face -- I told him I thought that was probably what they called "karma."

I had been planning on introducing Cap'n Peanut to my folks as "one of those bad influences you always warned me about," but dad went up and introduced himself before I got a chance. However, when Li'l Random met them, I was able to reference the fact that a while back mom had asked if my adopting him as my Li'l Brother meant that he was replacing our old cat that we always referred to as my little brother when I was younger by introducing him thusly: "Mom, Dad, this is Itty Bitty."

Last night my parents capped off their visit by taking my best buds PigPen and Li'l Random out to dinner with us; wish Cap'n Shack-Fu could have been there to make the set complete, but at least they got to meet him when he was deployed to Miamuh. As it was, I had a good time seeing two of my Best Friends interacting with the parental units. I really enjoyed seeing just how often my mom was able to fluster Li'l Random; the best was probably when the waitress was about to take his order, and mom interrupted to ask if he'd found anything on the kiddie menu. Don't think she ever really managed to get PigPen, sadly, but he is pretty hard to fluster, and she was on good behavior and didn't bring her full complement to bear.

*Shoving the coffee table up against the couch is pretty much the universal sign at our place that someone's about to get their ass kicked; 99% of the time it's me.
**Note to self: update the will.

Fragmented Friday - Keeping Up With the Spawn

• The other day I noticed that Cap'n Bubbles' roomie, Brown-Eyed Girl, had changed her Facebook status to indicate she had gotten a call-back, leading to the following instant message exchange
  

  ME: I'm out of the loop: what did you get a call-back for?
  
  BEG: The summer musical at Denton Community Theatre called "Lil Abner". My sister got the lead female role!
  
  ME: She gets to be Daisy Mae? Cool. Who you trying out for, Stupefyin' Jones?
  
  

  Stupefyin' Jones in the middle, Daisy Mae on the right
  
  

  BEG: haha, yeah she's Daisey Mae. Stupefyin' Jones doesn't sing or speak, so hopefully that's not my part. I'm amazed that you know about Lil Abner, no one else younger than my parents seems to know
  
  ME: Don't forget, you're talking to someone who is both a comic book/comic strip geek* AND a theater geek
  
  BEG: good point

  Just heard from BEG a few minutes ago, she just got cast as one of the Dogpatch wives.
  
  
• Recently Flunky and Flunky Lover have started up a blog to chronicle the exploits of their two spawn** which is cool because it not only helps me keep up with what's going on with Clan Flunky, but because it also give me ample opportunity to take part in one of my favorite hobbies, which I've neglected far too much as of late: taking pot shots at my best bud Flunky. Flunky Lover posted that she was surprised at how much she enjoyed getting comments, to which I replied
  

  Oh, and I'm with you on the comments thing; I think I was much more inclined to blog regularly when I got more comments from more people; nowadays I pretty much only get feedback from you and PigPen (and Zinger, but only in a "stop being such a lazy bastage and actually write something" sort of way), which makes it feel like I'm writing for an audience of two or three, which saps my will to write.
  
  Well, that and the fact that Zinger is right and I am a lazy bastage.

  A couple of days later Zinger messaged me saying how sad it was that he now had to go read other people's blogs to see stuff that I had written.
  
  
• My biggest regret with being sick this past week is that I missed out on judo twice; I probably could have gone last night, but I really didn't want to push my luck, since it was proving to be a pretty hard illness to shake. Feeling much better today, and am glad that this is one of the weekends when I don't have to help anybody move.
  
  
• A couple of my co-workers are trying to talk me into dressing up as my favorite horror movie character next week for Friday the 13th; somehow I doubt this would go over well with the higher-ups. Plus, since one of the major proponents of this idea is well known for trying to mess with my mind, I can't help wondering if it's all part of a massive plan to shower me with pigs blood, metaphorically speaking. At least, I hope it's only metaphorically speaking . . .
  
  
• My folks are planning on coming down to visit in a couple of weeks. Hopefully this trip will turn out better than last year's planned excursion, which went from "mom and dad coming to Denton for my birthday" to "me flying to Tulsa through stormy weather after a huge delay that occured with me stuck in-between two large gentlemen while nursing a bruised tailbone so that I could get a new car after my old one suddenly bit the dust."
  
  
• Our pastor's son has decided to buck his family tradition of attending Baylor, and is instead heading off to my alma matter, OSU. This past Sunday when they honored graduating Seniors during the service, the youth pastor made sure to mention that Dr. Jeff was wearing orange and black. I was sure to go up to him after the service and tell him that orange and black were good colors for him.
  

*Honestly, when I was a kid I practically read the cover off of the Li'l Abner collection from the Miamuh Public Library; one year mom actually had to make me stop reading it so I could read other stuff for the March of Dimes Reading Olympics.
**Think the second story in this post could be one of my favorite "Spawn say the darndest things" stories ever.

No, That's Not Why He's Called "Zinger"

Earlier I checked my blog stats and saw that someone had discovered CoIM by searching for a quote from How I Met Your Mother's very first episode. I decided to share this info with Zinger via IM, which resulted in this conversation:

Me: Ah, just got a blog hit from a google search for "how's not playing laser tag? because playing it is awesome"
Zinger: nice
Zinger: Have you had any hits for "lazy blogger never updates" yet? ;)
Me: As soon as I sent the message, I began the "how long until I get zinged for not updating" count in my head :)
Zinger: ZING!
Zinger: YOU'VE BEEN ZINGED!
Zinger: I ZING YOUR BLOG! I ZING IT UP!
Me: LOL
Me: better than being pranked, being pranked hard with a tire iron
Zinger: Wowie zowie!

Just thought I'd share that as a nice stalling tactic until my next blog post is ready.

Colors Commentaries

A few more True Colors related anecdotes for you.

During the workshop, one of the Greens I supervise turned to me, pointed out his low Blue*, and said "You're my point of stress, boss." I informed him that, as a Blue, that hurt my feelings greatly, but since I was a peacemaker, I would forgive him.

Speaking of the "point of stress" idea, I did want to point out that, yes, people with the same color scheme as you can also be your point of stress; for example, Oranges tend to be very competitive and crave the spotlight, and can be very put out if another Orange threatens their status as center of attention.

As I mentioned in the previous post, pretty much every cubicle has their colors posted, generally following the standard we used when labeling ourselves for the workshop: four equally sized dots arranged left to right from highest color to lowest. Well, pretty much every cubicle in the two units dominated by traditional Golds; in the Blue/Green dominated Serials and Electronic Resources unit our colors are displayed a bit more creatively; one coworker has a bar graph showing her score on each; another has a donut graph doing the same; I stuck with the circles, but had them arranged vertically, not horizontally, and varied the size of each to demonstrate which colors were strongest; and, finally, one coworker broke out of the chart/graph box completely:


On the individual tests, I often come out showing slightly more Gold than Green, whereas when I read the personality descriptions themselves, the Green feels much stronger in me; I think that may be because so much of Gold behavior is learned behavior, and most of the Gold questions have to do with following rules, and I tend to follow the rules not because I think all rules are there for a reason as because my high Blue leads me to avoid conflict, and why rock the boat when you don't have to?

Zinger turned out to be low Blue, marking yet another good friend for whom I am a point of stress; he was also low Orange, which happens to be the highest color of his wife, Pooh-Bear. Of course, Pooh-Bear also scored a zero on Gold, and three guesses what Zinger's strongest color was . . .

Out of curiosity, I tried out some other online personality exams, particularly the ones associated with Meyers-Briggs style analysis; took five different tests, and got five totally different results, not a single one of which spoke to my true personality as much as True Colors did -- do with that what you will.


*The same Green remarked more than once that the color results were fitting for him because, quoth he, he has "all the emotion of a rock."

Meany Todd, The Demon Blogger Of B. Street

Yeah, the blog title has nothing to do with much of anything below; just feeling random today.

Woke up in a bit of a funk this morning, one of those days where all of my thoughts immediately leaned towards the negative end of the spectrum. And while I've perked up considerably since then -- especially since finding out that Sweeney Todd will be coming to a nearby theater tomorrow so I won't have to wait until after New Years to see it -- my mood is of the type which can only be described as "weird." Kind of restless, filled with a feeling that there's something that I want to do, but I have no clue what that thing is. Hate it when I get like this.

I have officially decided to unofficially adopt Li'l Random as my official unofficial Li'l Brother*. This means that I am overly protective of him while simultaneously tormenting him relentlessly. That's what big brothers are for, right?

Right now it's looking like I probably won't head back to Miamuh until Sunday, due to the forecast of much wintery weather in Oklahoma on Saturday; as much as I want to see the family, I don't really want to mess with crappy weather to do so if I can avoid it.

Speaking of crappy weather in Oklahoma, it apparently wasn't quite as crappy as originally thought, nor was there as much damage as originally feared, which means that Cap'n Shack-Fu's deployment will end tomorrow afternoon, which means that he will actually get to go be with his family on Christmas.

Earlier this week I re-read In a Cabin in the Woods for the first time in a looooooong time. Surprisingly enough, I'm still pretty happy with it overall. Oh, sure, I desperately need to flesh out the first two stories, and clarify some stuff in the last two, but all-in-all, I didn't have the overwhelming "what was I thinking?" feeling that I often get when reviewing my work. Am seriously considering doing some revisions now, but we'll see how long that feeling lasts before I get distracted again.

Blondie Blaarrrgghhh has sorta-kinda relented on her girly naming of Shack-Fu's vehicle, and has now bestowed a more masculine name and acronym: BART, the Bad-Ass Rescue Truck. Not surprisingly, Shack-Fu approves.

And finally, a quick congrats to Zinger for passing his Professional Engineers exam.


*I think of Shack-Fu and PigPen as brothers as well, but neither one really falls into the Li'l Brother mold; The Lovable PigPen, of course, is the pesky little brother that makes you almost wish you were an only child again.

Thankful Thursday 2008

This past year has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for me. Joy over finally getting back into working out was dampened by multiple injuries; despair over the loss of the Blue Beast was tempered by the acquisition of my new car*; pleasure at finally getting a significant raise was strained by the fact that for several months I was the only one of my roommates getting a steady paycheck, and then I had car payments to worry about, and then medical bills on top of that . . . and then the bulk of the last four months I've been fighting to climb out of the downward spiral that my broken digit, subsequent surgery, and ongoing recovery have plunged me into. Yes, over the past year I've suffered through intense humiliation, rampant paranoia, and senseless depression the likes of which have not been seen since my college days; on at least one occasion I was so overcome with hurt and anger that I lost all capacity for speech and could only stand there, fighting back tears of rage. And yet, despite the pitfalls the befell me throughout the year, I am still thankful for many things, most especially my friends.

I am thankful for Cap'n Peanut who has become a really good friend to me over the last several months, and who is at the forefront of the "motivate Todd to get off his butt and get in shape" movement.

I am thankful for Redneck Diva, who went out of her way to make sure that my birthday spent away from the friends I had planned to be with was not a birthday spent without friends after all.

I am thankful for Zinger, and Poohbear, and Bubblegum Tate, and Kookamama, and Cedric the Destroyer, and all of those whose efforts to keep in touch help remind me that, depsite my paranoia, out of sight does not automatically mean out of mind.

I am thankful for new friends like Cap'n Bubbles and Mei-Mei and Doc Jetson and Blondie Blaarrrgghhh** and the other, still nicknameless ones whose presence has added new energy to the Singles group.

I am thankful for my not-so-new friends (too numerous to name lest I be accused of playing favorites) who have been a source of support through unstable times.

And, last but not least, I am thankful that, for the first time in over a decade***, I have added to the ranks of those I consider my Best Friends; it's hard for me to believe that at this time last year I was still just getting to know PigPen and Cap'n Shack-Fu, and barely knew Li'l Random at all and now they're like family to me. I am thankful for the countless times over the last year that they have suffered through one of my neurotic attacks, have patiently talked me through my black moods, have dragged me kicking and screaming out of the realm of negativity, have responded to my crazy ways with nothing but compassion, understanding, and the occasional metaphoric slap upside the head****. I am thankful that, on occasion, I have been able to offer them help and advice as well, although I can't help but feel they're getting the short end of the stick, here. I am thankful because this only child now has four people who are like brothers to him, and that's four more than he ever thought he'd have growing up.

Happy Thanksgiving, my blog monkeys; don't forget to tell those you care about how thankful you are for their presence in your lives.

*No, Li'l Random, I have not named it yet.
**Look, Blondie, I figure out how to spell it!
***Good grief, was college really that long ago?
****And the slightly less frequent physical slap, such as The Lovable PigPen delivered to me Tuesday night every time I'd apologize needlessly "Stop saying you're sorry!" [slap!] Happy Slapsgiving, indeed.