Next to one of those ubiquitous "How Is My Driving?" signs on the back of a truck, some wag had scrawled in the dirt, "Like Steve McQueen".

Posted by: Ted at 04:57 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Never mind, you've probably already heard it a million times.

Posted by: Ted at 05:19 AM | category: Square Pegs
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A crusty old Sergeant Major found himself at a gala event, hosted by a local liberal arts college. There was no shortage of extremely young, idealistic ladies in attendance, one of whom approached the Sergeant Major for conversation.

She said, "Excuse me, Sergeant Major, but you seem to be a very serious man. Is something bothering you?"

"Negative, ma'am," the Sergeant Major said, "Just serious by nature."

The young lady looked at his awards and decorations and said, "It looks like you have seen a lot of action."

The Sergeant Major's short reply was, "Yes, ma'am, a lot of action."

The young lady, tiring of trying to start up a conversation, said, "You know, you should lighten up a little. Relax and enjoy yourself."

The Sergeant Major just stared at her in his serious manner.

Finally the young lady said, "You know, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but when is the last time you had sex?"

The Sergeant Major looked at her and replied, "1955."

She said, "Well, there you are. You really need to chill out and quit taking everything so seriously! I mean, no sex since 1955! Isn't that a little extreme?"

The Sergeant Major, glancing at his watch, said in his matter-of-fact voice, "You think so? It's only 2130 now."

Posted by: Ted at 12:08 PM | category: Square Pegs
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1 LOL! I'm telling that one at the Christmas party!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at December 21, 2005 09:53 PM (LP4ji)

2 Rimshot!

Posted by: Jim - PRS at December 21, 2005 10:56 PM (njBz/)

3 I find it unlikely that a young lady from a liberal arts college would recognize the rank of Sergeant Major.

I don't suppose it ruins the joke though.

Posted by: Maelstrom at December 22, 2005 09:15 AM (V0o94)

4 Unfortunately, that joke (a variation of which I first heard about 30-35 years ago) doesn't work so well, since the correspondences between time and date would make the protagonist close to 70 by now.

In about 10 years or so (long enough to give a good gap from 2010, pronounced "twenty-ten") it will become viable again.

Posted by: wheels at January 02, 2006 08:53 PM (Q5jXA)

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Did you know that Al Zarquawi was live-blogging the Iraqi elections?

Thanks to Transterrestrial Musings for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 05:47 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I'm happy to announce that until further notice, Rocket Jones will now be a group blog.

I'm still the only writer, but I'm trying to shame myself into losing these extra pounds I'm carrying.

Posted by: Ted at 05:02 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I got pulled over this morning on my way to work. I was on I-395, less than a mile from my exit, when the blues started flashing behind the grille of an unmarked trooper car.

I pulled out my wallet and license, opened my glove box and pulled out the envelope full o' stuff that came with the car (just bought it last week, remember?), turned off the radio and rolled down the window, and waited.

Me: Good morning.

Trooper: Good morning. Do you know why I pulled you over?

Now, seriously, is there any answer to this other than "no"? How many people actually admit that they were doing something wrong?

Trooper: You didn't realize that you were speeding and passing people?

Me: No sir.

Ok, now we've established that I'm a liar and we both know it. In this situation, it's expected. I've handed him my license and and going through all the paperwork that came with my car. I know that there has to be some sort of registration in there. I find *three* different ones for my old truck, but nothing for this car. The whole time, he's talking to me.

Trooper: You didn't see me? You passed me and I pulled in behind you and paced you for a while as you passed that whole string of cars.

Me (still riffling through papers): No sir.

Trooper: You were travelling at speeds up to 75 miles per hour.

Me (all surprised): Really?

Finally, I find something pink that looks official, and it's my temporary registration. I hand it over, he tells me to stay in the car, and goes back to his troopermobile. I do a little mental math (yeah, I can afford the ticket), and laugh at the situation. I'm pissed at myself for being stupid. Did I notice him back there? Of course I did. Did I know he was a cop? Nope. Now, I have a question for him as well. Did he realize that he was my wingman as we strafed that line of fighters parked on the enemy tarmac passed that line of cars? I think not. A wingman wouldn't treat his buddy this way.

The trooper came back and handed me my license and registration. He didn't write me a ticket, just told me to be more aware of what I was doing and what was going on around me. It probably helped that I've only had one ticket in the last fifteen years, and it wasn't for speeding (you don't have to go fast when chasing down feral grannies).

I hope that the kindness was because he was filled with holiday spirit, because it's a little frightening to think that being a clueless idiot excuses that kind of driving. I didn't ask, because sometimes I *do* know when to keep my mouth shut.

I wished him a Merry Christmas and was on my way.

Posted by: Ted at 05:35 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Quote from an editorial by Mark Steyn:

Dean arguing that America can't win in Iraq, Barbara Boxer demanding the troops begin withdrawing on Dec. 15, John Kerry accusing American soldiers of terrorizing Iraqi women and children, Jack Murtha declaring that the U.S. Army is utterly broken. Pepper 'em with a handful of "Praise be to Allahs" and any one of those statements could have been uttered by Zarqawi.

Found at Transterrestrial Musings.

Posted by: Ted at 12:18 PM | category: Square Pegs
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I've seen a new headache remedy lately on commercials. It looks a little like a stick deoderant, and you rub it across your forehead to deliver whatever anti-headache medicine it contains.

A few questions arise:

1. Headaches occur within the brain, correct? How is rubbing medicine on your skin going to help, since even after being absorbed there's that little barrier called your skull between the medicine and your brain?

2. If it absorbs into your bloodstream, wouldn't it make more sense to rub it in under your arm or on the inside of your thigh, where major arteries lie? It seems that the medicine would be absorbed and distributed quicker. Even along your jugular makes more sense.

Ok, so "few" = two. Got any answers?

Posted by: Ted at 06:03 AM | category: Square Pegs
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1 Ted the only thing I can think of is that it may be some sort of direct acting sinus headache med.There is an empty cavity in your forehead between the outer flesh and the skull.This is known as the fifth layer.The other four are behind the face starting right behind the nose.Sinus headaches are caused in the forehead when this layer of sinus swells.Perhaps it is some sort of direct absorbing steroid med much like Flonase or something.
Of course it could just be a direct acting blood thinner like Tylenol of Advil and the whole forehead vs. underarm thing could just be a psychological thing.Remember that the only reason we still fly the shuttle instead of something like the DC-X is because public opinion dictated that the shuttle with it's wings just "looks right".
Of course all of this is just a guess,too.

Posted by: Russ at December 19, 2005 07:53 AM (ObxzR)

2 Oddly enough, there's a direct correlation between tension in the facial muscles and some kinds of headaches. My sainted aunt, who retired after 40 years of teaching high school English and somehow kept her sanity, has been troubled with headaches all her life. Drugs never helped. She even went to the Mayo Clinic and had no luck. She was getting some relief from acupuncture, then she tried this lip-balm stuff. For her particular type of headache, it really works.

I read somewhere that a cosmetic surgeon who was doing facelifts noticed that moving the facial muscles around over the eyes tended to improve his patients' migraines. I guess there is some research underway on this. I hope so. Life's too short to hurt all the time.

Speaking of which, I jut got out of the hospital after another bout with kidney stones. Lemmetellya, when you get better from stones, you're BETTER. I hope all of your tribe are having a great holiday!

Posted by: Doug Pratt at December 19, 2005 09:21 AM (D6ZyB)

3 If you are attempting to affect the vascular system (problems with is can cause headaches) then application in odd areas may still be effective.

Posted by: Princess Cat at December 19, 2005 11:03 AM (leeb2)

4 Still smearing Prep H in weird places, Ted?

Princess Cat, I can succesfully not make a bunch of really crude jokes about "odd areas." Maybe.

Posted by: Victor at December 19, 2005 11:33 AM (L3qPK)

5 "What happened to Preparations A through G?"

--Steven Wright

Posted by: Doug Pratt at December 20, 2005 02:29 PM (D6ZyB)

6 Headaches occurring within the brain are very rare, as the brain doesn't "feel" pain. If membranes around the brain hurt, then you've got a very serious problem, too.

Vascular (if superficial) and tension headaches *may* benefit from a topical analgesic, but I'm a much bigger fan of aspirin taken orally (with a tad of caffeine mixed in). It wouldn't help migraines, because those are due to blood vessel constriction deeper within the head.

I'd also be concerned about what additives were used in the preparation in the commercial to make it penetrate the skin.

If it even works at all, that is.

)

Posted by: liv at December 20, 2005 05:59 PM (L+sQi)

7 Well, my understanding was always that your run of the mill headache was in the muscles in your forehead, upper back of the neck and/or temples, but that migraine headaches were in the brain itself. I could google it to be sure, but, y'know.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at December 20, 2005 09:13 PM (mgNeU)

8 Migraines are believed to be initiated by constriction and then (sometimes) dilation of blood vessels which supply blood to the brain - so that's certainly correct, TS! But the brain doesn't feel pain in and of itself; that's what I was getting at - it's the release of certain chemicals that cause (among other things like stomach upset and visual disturbance) what is clinically termed "head pain."

But it's all semantics, heh? Head pain's head pain!

Posted by: liv at December 20, 2005 09:45 PM (L+sQi)

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Yesterday:

Wife: They cleared another patch of woods on Minnievale.

Ted: What?!?!? Jeeezus, what are they building now?

Wife: Another church.

Ted: This area is going to hell.

We looked at each other and started giggling.

Posted by: Ted at 05:38 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Rachael had one of her college friends up for the weekend while Liz and I were out of town. When we got back this afternoon, Rachael matter-of-factly mentioned that they'd had a few more friends over yesterday and had wound up with a stripper's pole set up in the living room. I chuckled and the conversation moved on to other things.

Later, while putting away luggage, I found a large container leaning in the corner of the living room. It was a stripper pole set that was given to Rachael's friend as a belated birthday present!

So yeah, in Rocket Jones' living room were pretty teenage college girls doing some pole dancing. And I'm not posting pictures. Neener neener.

Posted by: Ted at 08:23 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Daughter Rachael (aka Mookie) is home for Christmas break, so my wife and I decided to take advantage and left her to take care of the remaining children dogs while we got the hell outta Dodge.

Liz had some free hotel nights saved up, so this morning I find myself blogging from Martinsburg, West Virginia courtesy of the free WiFi offered by the hotel.

"Almost Heaven" is a whole 'nother world compared to the DC metro area. We pretty much finished off Christmas shopping yesterday at a couple of malls in the area, and it was mostly pleasant and painless (aside from the constant bells - I'm beginning to really hate the Salvation Army). Even the lines were short.

Mental note: Never enter another Old Navy. They're assholes and ripoff artists playing the bait-and-switch game. We were polite and pleasant and got great satisfaction from leaving a heaping pile o' clothes at the register and walking out. We weren't going to let that spoil our good mood.

I did say "mostly pleasant" though, because as the day wore on, people were notably more aggresive and you could tell that nerves were frayed. After a late lunch/early dinner, we went to a super WalMart for stocking stuffers and such and I saw what happens when grannies go feral.

Two elderly ladies were racing (for elderly ladies, that is) for the short line from different directions. As the last second, one cuts off the other one with a bold move and drags her cart into line and snags the coveted spot. I watched, fascinated, as the loser of the race began repeatedly banging her cart into the other lady's cart. I was conflicted, because these two frail women could have really hurt each other, yet I was hoping they'd escallate and really get into it. I was tempted to run back into toys and grab a couple sets of clearance-priced talking Hulk Hands and letting them duke it out. But, alas, I lost my wife in the teeming throng again and had to begin the search pattern to find where she'd wandered off to.

At one point, some sales lady laughed at me as I waited in the cosmetics aisle and said I looked like I didn't want to be standing there. I told her she was crazy, that I *loved* that aisle, because it was occupied by me and my wife alone, we were out of the milling crowds and I wasn't dodging forty other shoppers just to get from one end to the other. One young lady did try to enter our refuge, but she left as I started fanning my ass and loudly appologized to my wife for having such horrible gas.

It's a jungle out there, and I'm not above a little chemical warfare. Truth be told though, it was psychological warfare. Purely a decoy move.

So yes, I loved my blessedly empty little cosmetics aisle, my oasis of calm. I was inspired enough to wonder why nobody had ever done a WalMart of the Living Dead movie (redundant?).

But we survived the day with our sanity and cheer, and I'm reminded once again why I've never shopped during the month of December for at least the last ten years.

I hope all my Secret Santa buds like their gifts. They're all getting makeup.

Posted by: Ted at 08:12 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I can see why people might confuse Aspercreme with Preperation H.

Posted by: Ted at 08:23 AM | category: Square Pegs
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This came from the December issue of our local Community Connection Magazine:

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" casually, think about whether you want the politician spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases.

• A billion seconds ago it was 1959.


• A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.


• A billion days ago our ancestors were living in the stone age.


• A billion years ago no one walked on two feet on earth.


• A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes at the rate the government spends it.

No, I haven't checked the figures. I can get the point without being anal about it.

Posted by: Ted at 12:09 PM | category: Square Pegs
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1 A billion seconds is 31.7 years. A billion minutes is 1902.6 years. The first two can't be both be right, even if the thing was written in 1990.

2.7 million years ago, Australopithicus afarensis was just going extinct. That would actually be before the stone age.

A billion years ago, there were ostriches and emus and whatnot.

According to something I saw on the web today, the government is spending something like $78,000 a second. Which puts a billion dollars just shy of three hours and thirty-four minutes ago.

Posted by: buckethead at December 14, 2005 02:08 PM (ztNrs)

2 LOL

Posted by: Ted at December 14, 2005 02:25 PM (blNMI)

3 A billon years ago there were no ostriches or emus or whatnot as birds are prolly less than 100 millions years old. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there were no vertibrates in the oceans a billion years ago, let alone on land.

And 2.7 million ago was about 2.6 million years before the stone age.

Jus' sayin' is all...

Posted by: Tuning Spork at December 14, 2005 10:37 PM (fB4nj)

4 Thanks for the point about the Emus. My fact checking apparently needed fact checking.

But notice I just said before the stone age, not how much before the stone age.

Posted by: buckethead at December 15, 2005 09:37 AM (ztNrs)

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Not really, but I like the way that title rolls off the tongue.

Playoffs begin this week in the Blogger fantasy football league. Mostly by managing to stay healthy, the Rockets finished the season in second place with an 11-3 record. One loss was to the first place finisher, and two were to the team that ended up in third.

I get a bye in the first round of playoffs (go me!) and then we'll see what happens. My biggest challenge all year has been deciding which pair of middling receivers to play each week, because on any given Sunday some random two of them will have a great game, and as often as not I've left them on the bench.

Celebrating and/or whining forthcoming.

Posted by: Ted at 05:45 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I think it's funny that there's a baseball player named Merkin Valdez.

The "merkin" part, anyways.

Posted by: Ted at 05:40 AM | category: Square Pegs
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I was asked to DJ for my wife's office Christmas party last night. Christmas music during cocktails and dinner and then dance music afterwards. Because it's a rather diverse group of people ranging from their 20's to 60's, putting together a playlist for dancing was a challenge, but one that I'd dealt with before when I used to DJ at the American Legion for "family night" dances. I assumed that the older people would leave earlier, so tried to front load the playlist towards them. Towards the end, I set up a bunch of commonly requested songs. Also, so that I could enjoy the party too, it was suggested that I just bring some CD's that I could put on and let play, rather than sit there and work. So with that in mind, I put together a few dance CD's containing everything from country to funk to rock. It went well enough, but I was reminded of the DJ rules:

1. Never leave your equipment alone, because people will play with it.

When the dance music started, a few folks decided that it was too loud and turned down the volume so that they could talk. In turn, the folks who wanted to dance would crank it back up. It got to be a silly little pissing contest.

Later, the people dancing wanted more volume, but since I'd brought a limited setup rather than the whole system, we had the volume maxed out. It wasn't bone thumping, but it was good enough. Well, except for the yahoos who managed to shut the whole thing down *three times* by fiddling with buttons at random.

2. In a mixed group like this, everyone is going to hate something you play.

The younger group wanted more fast rock, the older folks wanted more country and slow dance music. Of course, everyone tells the DJ how lousy his music choices are, at different times depending on what's currently playing.

3. The DJ is always the last to leave, and nobody helps haul the equipment back to your car.

Oh well, I had fun anyway, and there were several couples dancing. For all the griping, I did notice that most everyone knew the music too and there were plenty of people "dancing" in their seats.

The playlists are in the extended entry, for the bored and/or curious. more...

Posted by: Ted at 11:21 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Youngest daughter Mookie is home for Christmas break, and of course she brought back most everything she owns. I went out to help haul her crap from the car to the house and slipped on the ice. There are two knots on my right shin from where that leg slammed into the car tire, my leg is throbbing and I think it's going to turn a nice Christmassy blue and greenish as it bruises.

Ho.

Posted by: Ted at 12:30 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Found this in an out of the way folder. I'd forgotten all about it.

Posted by: Ted at 04:40 PM | category: Square Pegs
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The subject line said:

Excercise a little patience and read through my letter

I hate exercise, especially when the "delete" button is right there. Buh-bye Spammer.

Posted by: Ted at 05:27 AM | category: Square Pegs
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1 I hate the ones that start out with "I love your site! Excellent work, I'll be coming back again soon!" or some such thing. You're never sure you're getting a new commenter or a link to some wretched porn site. It's disgusting!

--TwoDragons

Posted by: Denita TwoDragons at December 02, 2005 01:49 PM (oYKn3)

2 wretched porn? what's that?

Posted by: Ted at December 02, 2005 02:19 PM (blNMI)

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The headline reads "Bush fails to allay Democrats' doubts about US Iraq policy", and in the story we hear about (surprise, surprise) Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy and the usual gang of idiots bitching and moaning about nothing that makes actual sense.

I think I'm looking forward to the end of President Bush's term in office, just because it'll be interesting to see what happens to this cult of hatred that the Democratic party has embraced once their only apparent reason for being is gone.

Suggested alternate headline: "President's Speech Fails to Stimulate Testicular Growth in Sheep"

Posted by: Ted at 05:41 AM | category: Square Pegs
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