December 15, 2004
dreamTed: "I think I'll start using random punctuation and italicizing on Rocket Jones, just for fun."dreamMookie: "I though you already did."
I grounded her for dreamLife. Did you know there was a dreamChild Services?
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(in the extended entry, safe for work unless you work for Scrooge) more...
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December 14, 2004
Thanks to a career game from Titans receiver Drew Bennett, I beat Daniel in this week's Blogger Bowl matchup. Going into Monday night's game, he was up by 13 points, which was a lot closer than I figured it would be since he's one of the top teams in the league and the Rockets have been hovering near .500 most of the season. Apparently he's on the Santa's 'bad boy' list, because we rose up to righteously smite him. And the horse he rode in on.
What makes this doubly special is that I get to do my happy dance with the lovely, talented and loyal Hot Jets cheerleaders!
Cindy, of Dusting My Brain!
Wegglywoo, of On the Beach at the End of the World!
Sarah, of Trying To Grok!
Kat, of Mostly Fluff!
Big Hair, of Left & Right!
Jennifer, of Jennifer's History and Stuff!
Dawn of Dawn Enterprises!
annika, of annika's journal!
Denita, of Who Tends The Fires!
Gir, of Your Moosey Fate!
LeeAnn, of The Cheese Stands Alone!
Heather, of Angelweave!
Margi, of Margi Lowry!
Nic, of Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax!
Lemur Girl, of... uh, Lemur Girl!
Lynn S., of Reflections in d minor!
Susie, of Practical Penumbra!
Blogoline, of Blogoline's Journal!
Stevie, of Caught In The XFire!
Helen, of Everyday Stranger!
Mookie, of MookieRiffic!
Tink, of Flitting Here and There!
This is it for the Rockets in this year's fantasy season. I finished out of the playoffs in 6th place with a 6-7-1 record. Daniel though, doormat to the Rockets that he is, did make the playoffs and I wish him the best of luck. Victor is in the playoffs too, so march on Oh Mice of Mischief!
I'd like to thank the Hot Jets for their support this year. Victor proclaimed bad juju for recruiting his girlfriend for my cheerleader squad, but I always say that when life hands you bad juju, make jujubees. I appreciate all the folks I've played against too, because the trash talk and back 'n' forth has been fun. Special thanks to Nick for setting it all up.
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06:10 AM | category: Links
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And no, none of us ever put an eye out with one of these. Then again, we were bright enough not to intentionally aim at the face. We also did a lot of target shooting with 'em. That's what I recommend: target shooting at cans or flies or plastic army men. Don't be dumb, and I'm not responsible if you are.
Materials
Wood - length of broomstick or dowel, or a 1"x2" or even a 2"x4". Whatever you use, you need a piece about 12" long (more for a 2"x4" rifle).
Clothespins - tradition says use the wooden spring type, but the plastic ones will work just fine. The simplest gun uses one, we usually used at least two. They come in bags of 100 or more, so borrow from a neighbor if you don't have your own. Or make lots of guns, you politically incorrect brute.
Rubberbands - in our house, we kept rubberbands around the doorknob on the furnace closet, and had plenty because you got one with every newspaper delivered. They're cheap, so don't go mugging the paperboy for his.
How To
Take sandpaper and round off any sharp edges to eliminate splinters.
Use a file to cut a shallow "V" notch in the end of the wood.
Use one rubber band to fasten a clothespin to the wood on the opposite end of the wood from the notch.
That's it!
Here's a picture of a fancy store-bought model that works exactly this way. It's a good view of the clothespin and notch setup.
To Use
Hook a rubber band around the end of the wood so it's in the notch.
Stretch it back with one hand, use the other to open the clothespin and catch the rubberband.
When ready to shoot, press on the clothespin and zing!
You can cut out pistol or rifle shapes from the wood, mount multiple clothespins (and make extra notches), and do all kinds of custom coolness with the basic design. Often we'd grab a piece of scrap wood, use a rock to gouge out the notch, grab a clothespin from the clothesline out back and a handfull of rubberbands from the doorknob. Within minutes you had something that worked, and sometimes the ugliest thing was the straightest shooter (my best was from an old yellow broomstick with two clothespins attached). Showing up with a store-bought rubberband gun was tolerated - barely - mainly because we'd closely examine it to see how they managed multiple shots if it worked that way.
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05:49 AM | category: Build It
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Their primary purpose is to be straddled. Is it any wonder we want to be reincarnated as one?
2. GIRLS FIGHTING
Cursing, crying, pulling hair, throwing drinks, abusing bathroom attendants and being convicted of assault: sexy. A mug shot with a tear-streaked face: even sexier.
3. THE AUTOMATED FEMALE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU DIAL 4-1-1
"I think you said, 'Spank me hard.' Is this correct? To confirm, press 1 or say yes."
4. GYNECOLOGY
Very serious matter, seven years of training, blah, blah, blah...We just want a set of those stirrup things. Think they can be rented for private parties?
5. LEOPARD PRINTS
Because they say, "I really do not care." Just add vodka and Bon Jovi for a down-and-dirty good time.
6. OUR FRIENDS' MOMS
They were hot when we were 13 and didn't know any better. Then we grew out of it - only to grow back into it. We were right the first time.
7. GIRLS HUGGING
Look! Their nipples are almost touching! Damn those blouses!
8. WOMEN DRESSED AS MEN
Either lolling around in our shirts the morning after or doing the full drawn-on-mustache cigar-suit thing. It's like Groucho Marx with a vagina.
9. SHOE-STORE EMPLOYEES TYING YOUR LACES
It was the most mind-blowingly erotic experience of our young lives. Now we have to buy $500 shoes for the pleasure. At least we're smart enough to ask for double knots.
10. FEMALE BARTENDERS
If we passed them on the street, we wouldn't look twice. But put them in a dark room and in charge of beer and suddenly we're babbling idiots. And not just because we're wasted out of our mind. Well, it's not totally because we're wasted out of our mind.
11. FEMALE POLICE OFFICERS
Beneath the stern expression, starched shirt and firearm is the soft, yielding, lightly scented flesh of a woman. A woman who could shoot us if we looked at her the wrong way. Ideally, while we're handcuffed to the headboard.
12. PREGNANT WOMEN
Because their boobs get even bigger. And because they're broadcasting to the entire world that they just had sex.
13. FAT GIRLS
We come for the cleavage. We stay for the sex. We leave in shame - satiated shame.
14. SCHOOLGIRL UNIFORMS
Especially when worn by Japanese girls. White socks optional. Pigtails essential. It's not a fetish if 100 percent of men like it - it's a law of nature.
15. JESSICA RABBIT
If she lets a stuttering bunny take a crack at her, it means we might actually have a chance. But unfortunately, we're not a cartoon. Hear that, Lucy Van Pelt? There's no way that's our baby!
16. HELENA BONHAM CARTER IN PLANET OF THE APES
Yes, a monkey girl. Is that so wrong? Know what? Watch a female ape eat a banana and get back to us.
17. CONDOM INSTRUCTIONS
Not that we need instruction, but the detailed language and explicit diagrams make us want to try it right now. (And don't think we won't.) They're also good for a little light bathroom reading.
18. WOMEN WHO HATE US
Particularly if they've belittled us in front of our friends, called us ugly and/or gay and are going out with much better-looking, manlier men than us. Those girls are as hot as our confidence is shattered.
19. CAROLYN FROM THE APPRENTICE
She's like a female cop, but with an extra dash of fascism.
20. LINGERIE DEPARTMENTS
Not the lingerie itself, but rather the notion that we might get a sales girl so wildly turned on by our blithely fingering the same undies she's wearing that she has to enact her fantasy of raunchy sex with a total stranger in the nearest dressing room. (Preferably, that stranger would be us.)
21. BURQAS
We hear that women who wear them also sport ultrasexy lingerie underneath, reserved for the eyes of their husbands. Now that's all we can think about. Allah, please forgive us! And angry husbands, don't stone us!
22. TAN LINES
The pale parts look even more naked next to the tanned parts. This also works with sock marks and bra indentations.
23. FEMALE COLLEAGUES BENDING OVER
You respect her. She respects you. Then you stare at her ass crack like it's the Grand Canyon.
24. VISIBLE PANTY LINES
Because they're visible! And they're panties!
25. HORSEBACK RIDING
Expert thighs clamped around hard, quivering muscle? Ass-whipping? Steamy snorting? Notorious for giving young women their first orgasms? Bareback and mounting? If that's not sublimated sex, then neither is Kathy Bates' nude hot-tub scene in About Schmidt.
And as an added bonus, in the extended entry are Five Things We Should Find Sexy...But Don't. more...
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04:53 AM | category: Square Pegs
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December 13, 2004
Fifty dollars for the guy to walk in the door to tell us the oven is broken. And I've already done most of the diagnostic work for him, thanks to a friendly and experienced neighbor. Yesterday we checked the gas pressure in the house at the furnace and water heater (it's good), even did a little pre-winter maintenance on the appliances and they're all ok. I took the oven apart a little and made sure the glow plate is working and cleaned out the gas vents, which seem to be working just fine. So it's the thermocouple or a gas valve or something like that, and will probably be hideously expensive and rediculously easy to replace.
Like the old joke about the machine problem that no one on site could fix, so they called the vendor technician. He walked in, watched it for a few minutes, took out a screwdriver and turned a screw 1/4 turn, after which the machine ran perfectly. Then he presented a bill for $600.00. The plant manager threw a hissy fit and demanded an itemized bill, so the tech wrote:
"turn screw - $2.00"
"knowing which screw to turn - $598.00"
We'll find out thursday which screw to turn.
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09:06 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Posted by: Ted at
12:13 PM | category: Links
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Specifically, I won The Underpants Gnome Award (and don'tcha wish you knew why, neener neener). Go me.
In other Jen-related news, she's also pushing her referral contest and the prize is a stuffed bear with a skin condition and a book called White House Wisdom, which is probably one blank page. Ok, I took a second look at the bear and it's not a skin condition, it's covered with red and blue stars. Go me. Doesn't matter. I want it. So go over to Jen from here and leave a comment about how Ted deserves the damn bear so just give it to him and screw the statsmeter.
Plushy bears and Underwear Gnome Award winners. There are certain mysteries in the universe you just don't mess with, and the symmetry there is one of them. Give me the bear.
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12:06 PM | category: Links
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(in the extended entry - more or less safe for work) more...
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05:46 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Mars is going to start to stretch us a bit. See, it takes 687 days to go around the Sun. That's about two of our Earth years. So every other year I'll have two Christmas runs to make, the Earth-Moon run and the Mars run. We'll really have to 'haul Rudolph,' as the reindeer are fond of saying. Fortunately, a Martian day is 37 minutes longer than an Earth day, so we can still do our usual overnight delivery.
There's lots more too. Enjoy!
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04:50 AM | category: Links
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December 12, 2004
Ursula Andress will be forever remembered by me as Ursula Undress, thanks to Mad Magazine and one of their most accurate parody monikers ever. She starred in Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, and became the prototype Bond girl.
When Ursula is in a movie, you just know that at some point she's gonna get naked, right?
Slave of the Cannibal God was a pleasant surprise. Costarring Stacy Keach, there's a lot of plot going on, the acting was better than average for the genre and Ursula manages to stay dressed through more than half the movie. That last might not seem like a plus, but by not taking the easy copout (who needs plot when we can distract the audience with breasts?), the movie manages to sustain interest and when she finally does get naked, well, that just makes it better.
To wildly oversimplify the story, Ursula hires explorer Keach to lead her and her brother in a search for her missing husband, who disappeared on an expedition into the jungle. Shit happens.
There are uncomfortable scenes in the movie. It's about cannibals after all, and what would a cult flick be without some gruesome, eh? A lot of the jungle atmosphere is achieved by stock wildlife scenes, and we're not talking Bambi nibbling grass in a meadow. These are mini-vignettes of mother nature at her most violent and vicious, very in-your-face and disquieting.
Overall, I recommend this movie, especially if you like the jungle/cannibal sub-genre. It's done better than most, and it's got Ursula Andress naked.
Anita Eckberg. Say it slowly, let it roll off your tongue. Ah-neet-ah EK-berg. Sweeeeeet. The second movie unmistakably demonstrates that beauty overcomes talent (or lack thereof) every time.
This time the title is Fangs of the Living Dead. Originally made in Spanish, the half-assed dubbing done here adds to the charm and unintentional hilarity. As good as the other movie was, this one isn't, which is not to say it isn't worth seeing if you love crap movies. Since it is set in Italy and Transylvania, brunette ladies abound, which is worked into the story when the conspicously blond Ms. Ekberg arrives in the village.
You get a double-shot of Anita as she plays both the main character Sylvia and her mother (in a brunette wig) in flashbacks. Sylvia, as far as I could tell, is a fashion model who inherits a castle from the mother she never knew. Or something like that. She travels to the castle to find that she has a creepy and mysterious uncle still living there. He might be a vampire, and the women chained up in the dungeons below probably are too. Her boyfriend follows her across the continent and tries to rescue her until the uncle foils his plans with, of all things, a locked gate. Yep, true love is no match for a good fence.
You can tell that this was meant to be a serious film because there's additional (some would say redundant) comic relief in the character of the boyfriend's best friend, who tags along for the adventure and bumbles his way through the movie.
"I knew your mother. She was very blonde." - Fangs of the Living Dead
One more thing, in a cherry on top kinda way, is the background music. Here's a sample:
Dahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
That's the sound of an organ chord in some minor key, signifying suspense. You hear it about 600 times during the course of the film.
The acting is melodramatic and overwrought (especially Anita Ekberg's) and the dialogue doesn't help matters at all. On the other hand, we get mondo cleavage, vampire women cat fights, shirtless guys chained up (for you ladies), and cheesy special effects. In other words, Fangs of the Living Dead earns Rocket Jones' highest recommendation!
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08:31 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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December 11, 2004
But I might have an acceptable compromise or three (in the extended entry, and it's even semi-safe for work) more...
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07:04 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Astronaut Cathy Clarke opened her eyes and yawned. Mission Control was playing Jingle Bells over the intercom for about the two hundredth time. "OK," she barked into the microphone. "I'm awake and I know it's Christmas!"Cathy, one of the crew of the International Space Station (ISS), was feeling homesick.
Back on Earth, she knew, her family was gathered around the Christmas tree, sipping eggnog and opening presents. Later they would radio from Houston, but she yearned to be with them now -- not stuck in an orbiting laboratory, 350 km above Earth, with no Christmas spirit.
Months earlier Mission Control had turned down her request for a tree. "The pine needles would just float around and poke you in the eye," they said. "It's a safety issue."
"Oh, humbug," grumped Cathy.
Never underestimate Santa Claus!
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06:43 AM | category: Links
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December 10, 2004
Posted by: Ted at
10:29 AM | category: Links
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09:02 AM | category: Links
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Posted by: Ted at
08:28 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Bottom line: Bonds, Giambi, McGwire, Caminiti and all the rest did nothing against the rules. When McGwire took Andro, it was legal, and there's been nothing in the rulebook prohibiting steroids. Change the rules and then start enforcing them, but don't get all righteously indignant because someone looked for a legal competitive edge, found one and took advantage of it. There was a time when spitballs were allowed, but baseball didn't throw out every pitcher's record when that rule changed.
Over at Only Baseball Matters, John has been writing about steroid use and the myths and realities surrounding them for quite a while now. I really recommend visiting and reading his posts, there's an entire section devoted to the subject.
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08:10 AM | category: Links
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December 09, 2004
A nibble? But of course!
Who, in their right mind, would wander into a pet shop, spy one of those birdseed bells and think "damn, if we squarshed it flat, that'd make one fine "people snack?"
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08:07 PM | category: Links
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"The process was flawed," Johnson said. "There weren't enough people in the conversation. And there was little or no consideration of the ramifications of the decision."
In other words, the people who were delegated the authority to hire and fire football coaches did so, but because Willingham is black, that makes it wrong and different this time.
Johnson also said the decision has hurt Notre Dame's goal of improving diversity on campus.
Bullshit. Notre Dame has hundreds if not thousands of applications for each student slot available.
"I think the damage that was done by this decision is irreparable in the immediate future," she told the newspaper.
Yep, doom and gloom. "Irreperable" damage. Whitey is just jumping for joy over this one.
On Wednesday, [University President] Malloy said he was surprised Willingham was not given more time to try to succeed and that he was embarrassed by the firing.
Translation: "A shitstorm has developed over the firing of a non-performing football coach who happens to be black, and I need to cover my ass. Besides, football isn't that important to colleges anyways, especially not to Notre Dame."
I have a dream, when a man will be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the performance of the job he's been hired to do.
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04:47 PM | category: Square Pegs
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"This is the location of one of the biggest battles in Greek history ... where a huge army from the east was assembled against Rome," the official, Vassilis Aravantinos, said.The site near Orchomenos, about 75 miles northwest of Athens, was recorded by the Greek historian Plutarch. But the actual location of the long-sought monument — originally believed to stand 23 feet — was a mystery until last month, when the farmer plowing his fields stumbled upon a buried column that led researchers to uncover the monument's stone base.
When my neighbor digs, he hits the gas line and the neighborhood is evacuated.
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12:57 PM | category: History
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