Sitting here in front of me are two naked oranges.

Not naked as in bereft of rind, but still naked in a way nature never intended oranges to be. There's a story here. It's short, but makes up for that by being entirely pointless and probably boring.

My wife, Liz, works for a rather large medical practice. A dozen doctors, plus nurses of various kinds, administrative staff and auxiliary support adds up to some seventy or so.

On Friday's they'll often do a "theme" sort of thing, good for morale I guess, where everyone dresses in Hawaiian shirts or some such. Often, food is involved. Today's event was bizarre, it was "bring your favorite dessert" day. I suspect that the practice may be secretly planning to expand services into the nutrition field, or perhaps even dentistry, and this is a ploy to jump start the customer base.

So Liz mentions the upcoming "bring your favorite dessert" day, which automatically translated in my mind to "untested recipe on unsuspecting guinea pigs" day.

At home, if I make something new and I'm the only one in the family that likes it (and why would I cook something I wouldn't like?), then I'll eat it Thanksgiving turkey-style, until I can't stand the sight of it and then throw whatever's left away. Then I'm sick of it and don't want it for a long while... until I get a hankerin' and the whole cycle repeats anew.

But I love these office parties. They give me a chance to whip up something new and experimental without worrying about who's going to like it. If the wife and kids enjoy it, it goes into my recipe binder. If not, oh well.

So I made orange cookies. I don't remember where I got the recipe, but it was a long time ago. I know John posted something similar once, and I've seen variations here and there. I'll post my version sometime in the next few days.

They're pretty good, and (score!) Liz and Robyn like them.

But they call for lots of grated orange zest, so for lunch today, I've got these two naked oranges in front of me.

Posted by: Ted at 11:51 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I like Oreo cookies. I don't have them in the house very often, because that would be bad for me.

When they came out with Uh-Oh's a while back, I thought it was cute. White cookie with chocolate creme. Not as good as classic Oreos, but tasty.

Their latest is Golden Oreos. Vanilla cookie and vanilla creme. They even suggest dunking them in chocolate milk. Cutsie, but again, they're pretty good.

But they ain't the original.

Posted by: Ted at 03:24 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Posted by: Ted at 05:06 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Does anyone but me think it would be hilarious to name a pet snake "Ruffin"?

Posted by: Ted at 06:06 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Pass the Pigs. Ever play?

Two small dice-sized plastic pigs that you roll like dice. Depending on how they land, you score points. Kinda like barnyard craps, where you keep throwing until you pass the pigs or Pig Out and lose all your points for that turn. If the pigs touch after the throw, that's an Oinker and you go back to zero for the game. Pigs is clean.

And the pigs themselves are a marvel of engineering. They can land on their feet (called a Trotter for 5 points) or on their back (Razorback, also 5 points). Landing on their nose and front legs is a Snouter, worth a big 10, and occasionally you see a Leaning Jowler, where the pig balances on one front leg, his snout and an ear (15 points). Double 'em up and score big with Double Razorbacks or Double Snouters and the triple-20 of the pigs universe, the Double Leaning Jowler.

As rare as Double Leaning Jowlers are - I've seen four or five in my years of playing pigs, including tossing a couple of my own - the rarest positions are the ones you want to avoid. Piggyback is self-explanatory, and Makin' Bacon should be too. I've seen a couple Piggyback's, and only one Makin' Bacon. The penalty for throwing these is severe: immediate loss of the game. Like I said, pigs is clean.

So next time you're with friends, at home or it a bar, crack open a few beers (helluva drinking game) and introduce them to Pass the Pigs. You can find them at many toy and game stores (Spencer's Gifts used to sell them I know). *snicker* I should've know that Amazon would have them.

And if you wanna get a better idea of what I'm talking about, I found an online version that plays just like the real thing.

Heh, he said Makin' Bacon... heh heh.

Posted by: Ted at 10:15 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Last week, I just happened to be looking out our front door and saw a hummingbird sipping at the petunias growing in a hanging pot. Hummingbirds are not common in our area.

The next time we were at Wal-Mart, we picked up a cheap plastic hummingbird feeder and a couple of packages of nectar mix. I've checked on it periodically, but couldn't tell if it had been discovered.

Yesterday we were sitting in the car, getting ready to run some errands, when Liz alerted me to the bird feeder. Out little friend had returned. We sat there for a few minutes as she (dulled coloration, I'm assuming female) hovered and sipped from the feeder. She's fast too, when finished she zoomed up and over the house like a fighter jet on fulll afterburner.

I just sat there grinning like a little kid, tickled to death to see that our feeder was being used, and maybe we'd attract more hummingbirds to the yard. Liz commented that I was soooo easy to please.

Exactly.

Posted by: Ted at 06:34 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I've noticed a macabre trend lately on the road, where people put large decals memorializing their deceased loved ones on their automobile's rear window. To me, they're nothing more than clear vinyl tombstones. I'm not slamming the sentiment behind them, but the concept itself really creeps me out. Someone is getting rich selling these things to old folks too.

Posted by: Ted at 05:39 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Driving home from the grocery store, the radio station went into it's commercial break. Suddenly this Euro-techno-trance music started playing (not entirely misdirected at the demographics for this station), and after a few seconds, a raggedy-ass rap starts in.

Your front window's broke,

The gutters need cleanin',

Closet door stuck,

And your washer ain't machinin'.

Da roof been leakin',
Carpets need cleanin',
Room needs paintin',
And the hot water's broke.

(that's approximated by the way)

Ok, so the idea here is that you should call a handyman, right? Probably some ultra-cool handyhomey.

Not quite. The music fades to background and a veddy English voice starts to tell you about a plumbing company. Yep, just plumbing. I guess the rest of your problems are trivial as long as you got hot water.

And the company name is distinctly Anglophile. I mean, "White Boys with Monkey Wrenches" would be more 'street' than the actual name of the company.

Incomprehensible.

Posted by: Ted at 09:39 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Good morning, things around here are going all right.

My wife Liz had her sinus surgery yesterday and everything looks good (I'm calling it sinus surgery because they stuffed a camera and laser and bone shaver up her nose). It's too early to tell for sure, but now that the pressures on her optic nerves have been eased, we expect her vision problems to go away. She's also still a few days away from being able to go back on her regular medications - you know, the ones that keep her out of her wheelchair. During the last week or so we were treated to a fast-forward version of the physical deterioration that she went through over the course of about 10 years, before the current generation of drugs were developed and available. Personally, I'm a fan of big Pharma, and anyone who bitches about them ought to pick any three family members and imagine them dead and gone, because odds are they would be without those "evil profit-sucking global monsters".

Me? I'm exhausted and wrung-out and working my way through a nightmare list of things to get taken care of around the house. Happy as hell to do it too, because Liz is gonna be ok.

Thanks too for all the kind words and good thoughts and prayers, they're appreciated more than I could ever say.

Posted by: Ted at 09:27 AM | category: Square Pegs
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In our Fantasy Baseball league, I'm currently sitting in sixth place out of ten teams.
You know what that means, right?

I'm all alone at the top of the second division!

All Half bow before me, for I am mighty.

Posted by: Ted at 07:05 PM | category: Square Pegs
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My provider has informed me that they're aware of an outage in Northern Virginia. I can only occasionally get online, and not for any length of time in any one stretch.

Talk to you later when they get it fixed.

Posted by: Ted at 03:06 PM | category: Square Pegs
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If I have sex with my clone, is it masturbation or incest?

Don't remember where I heard that...

Posted by: Ted at 10:10 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Our nine hour drive took twelve hours and fifteen minutes, thanks to two meal stops, two gas stops and two shopping stops. We had to stretch it out a little bit to make sure we missed the evening rush hour in Baltimore and DC. Everything went smoooooth.

We like to avoid the turnpikes and toll roads (probably $30.00 in tolls each way, I kid you not!), so we take a slightly longer but much more scenic route. I can't recall the precise road numbers right offhand, but we passed Yale University, and I had to laugh at Sodom Road. Who would want to live there?

We also passed Liberty Road, and it was cool that someone had fastened an American Flag to the streetsign post.

I thought it was great that the place where we met for lunch was on Boston Post Rd, aka Route 1. If you follow that road south long enough, you can hang a right in Woodbridge, Virginia and be within a few minutes of my house. Of course, down here Route 1 is known as Jefferson Davis Highway.

A note about the casinos in Connecticut (is that spelled right?): Both are nice, in very different styles. Foxwoods is Atlantic City nice, but Mohegan Sun is Vegas nice. If you've never been to Las Vegas, then you wouldn't understand. I much prefer Mohegan Sun, because there's so much to see and do, even if you don't gamble.

I gambled a grand total of $5.00 in two days at the casinos.

As we neared home, we were listening for traffic and weather reports. Apparently just south of us they've gotten hammered by rain. We heard that trees are down on the interstate and other major roads, and Route 1 is blocked by a mudslide. We've gotten a few sprinkles and that's it. The storms seem to be staying south too.

We have two very happy dogs.

Posted by: Ted at 09:48 PM | category: Square Pegs
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We saw Don Rickles last night (tonight actually, since I haven't gone to bed yet). He's still funny as hell, and I can only hope that I'm half as spry and energetic as he is at that age.

Jerry Vale was in the audience. Cool.

Posted by: Ted at 01:23 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I guess Hicksville was already taken.

(posted from the road, in Scranton, PA)

Posted by: Ted at 07:52 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Since it's highly unlikely that the entire internet has been crashing repeated since last night, the process of elimination leaves me to conclude that I'm having a problem at my end. So begins the "dealing with the help desk" process...

Posted by: Ted at 07:49 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Now that cranking up the stereo has been redefined as torture, and we've all been tragically reminded about what this whole "war on terror" is about, I think it's time to codify our official "torture" response. In ascending order of harshness:

• Christine Aguilara


• Hanson


• Pat Boone


• Tiny Tim


• Roseanne Barr

Yeah, call me barbaric.

Posted by: Ted at 05:16 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Tim Brown will sign a one-day contract so that he can retire as an Oakland Raider.

Brown, who turns 39 on July 22, played the first 16 of his 17 seasons with the Raiders, and always hoped to be remembered as the organization's greatest receiver. He was the last former member of the Los Angeles Raiders and the person young players turned to for advice.

The self-proclaimed "Mr. Raider" holds most of the club's receiving records, and his 240 games with the team are the most in franchise history.

Brown was a first-round draft choice by the Raiders in 1988 out of Notre Dame.

Thank you Tim Brown, you've always been a class act and quietly built your credentials proving that you're one of the all-time greats.

Posted by: Ted at 06:10 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Reports are mixed, with authorities saying some blasts were caused by electrical overloads, yet at least one packed bus was devastated by a bomb. There's no word on the casualty count, except to confirm that deaths have occurred.

This is a police matter only long enough to stabilize the situation and to do the forensic investigations. After that, it becomes a military action to find and neutralize the monsters who intentionally target civilians.

ACLU, obstructionists and revisionists, and the rest of the human ostriches who refuse to acknowlege reality, please crawl back under your rock, slither back into your holes, and rebury your head in the sand, respectively, so that the rest of us can deal with this terrorist threat.

(revised after reflection that this could be an IRA action, although I think that's a rather remote possibility)

UPDATE: Helen of Everyday Stranger has posted that she, her beloved Angus, and her coworkers are all safe and accounted for.

Posted by: Ted at 06:05 AM | category: Square Pegs
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London, England is awarded the 2012 Olympics.

Jolly good, that.

Posted by: Ted at 11:17 AM | category: Square Pegs
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