But then, I'm rounding up, so it's not totally accurate

A conversation last night (Cheryl was out shopping):

Emma: "Do you love me, Daddy?"
Me (pulling her close and whispering in her ear): "More than you'll ever know, sweetie."
Emma (excitedly taking a guess): "61 inches?!"
Me (smiling): "Much more than that!"
Emma "62?!"
Me: "Even More!"
Emma (taking one last shot, taking time to think about it a little this time): "65?! Cuz that's how old I am?!"
Me: "More like 65 thousand million thousand million!'
Emma (putting her hands up to her mouth, eyes wide): "Whoaaaaaa!"

OK, do it for me...and Al Franken

News Item: Police Departments are asking people to display blue lights in their Christmas decorations to "show your support for the service given everyday by our law enforcement officers".

Along these same lines, I would like to ask that people display white lights in their Christmas decorations to show support for me and what a wonderful person I am, and if you really, really like me, then put a white candle in each window and leave them up all year long.

This can serve two purposes: One, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about how complete strangers support and appreciate me, and Two, it may get people to STOP USING WHITE LIGHTS IN THEIR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS! :-)

Life really is just a big Fairy Tale for me

I realized the other night that drinking beer has a different effect on me depending on whether I'm drinking at home or with others in a more social setting, and furthermore each beer takes me to impersonate a different one of Snow White's Seven Dwarves.

At Home:
The first beer makes me Happy.
The second beer makes me Sleepy, and
The third beer makes me Grumpy.

When I'm with other people, before I have my first beer, I'm kind of Bashful, and after 4-5, I probably act kind of Dopey.

And if I were allergic to hops, I'd be Sneezy.

In any case, when I have too much beer, I make more like Snow White...unconscious for a long, long time, tho not as pretty...and if I really have too much, I'd probably need a Doc.

Or a dessert topping...maybe a floor wax?

This has to be recorded for future reference...Just Palinizing:

"My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars."

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

But have YOU ever seen them both in the same place?!

When people ask how anyone could possibly still think Sarah Palin is qualified to become President, it reminds me of the question - Why is Paris Hilton famous? And I suspect the answers are very similar, as, come to think of it, are the two of them.

If they made Dustin Hoffman look like a semi-attractive woman, what could they do to Paris Hilton? To make her look like Sarah Palin, I mean!

Isn't it though?

Have I pointed out before how ironic it is that today's common use of the word "ironic" has come to mean something completely different from what it actually means?

I told you we live in a Glass(es) house

What do you have most of in your house:

1 - TVs
2 - Computers (PCs & Macs, not like the computer your DVD/Blu-Ray (whatever that is) uses to confuse you)
3 - Phone numbers
4 - Pairs of reading glasses

I just today realized we (and by we, I mean I ) have more of #4 than the other 3 put together, which is about 10.

Jamie's getting adjutated!

Sometimes I have questions I just really don't want to know the answer to. I'd rather just wonder. Like what exactly is an adjunct professor? And is one an "Adjutant" anything besides General? And I'd ask if they can live adjacent to each other or if there are adjectives to describe the person who came up with such titles, but then people would think I was just thumbing through a dictionary and got stuck on adje and adju. (G'Bless me!)

People have wondered what we're going to do with our time now that the World Series and the election are over. Well there's my answer, I'm going to come up with such contributions to the world as the fascinating thoughts encased herein.

Bizzarro World Indeed

"You know who I blame? The Large Hadron Collider. It is the world's largest and highest particle accelerator. You may remember we were warned that it could create a black hole and destroy the Earth. Consider this: it launched in mid-September, when John McCain was leading in the polls. I believe it jolted us into a parallel universe that was exactly like our own, only Barack Obama is president and the Phillies are world champions." ---Stephen Colbert

Educational Advances

I think we all owe an apology to President Bush. Turns out the No Child Left Behind Program must have been a success. The 18-25 demographic went about 65% for Obama.

Talk about your Motley Crews

Westtown School: About Westtown » News » Photo of the Day

...like gophers

3 more words that can go:

- cruel
- rural
- gruel

Bad Theatre

Worst TV shows ever - not open to discussion:

- The Jeffersons
- Murphy Brown
- Golden Girls

...and pretty much any show having anything to do with lawyers, doctors, detectives and/or police, well, since Adam-12 and Car 54 went off the air anyway. Oh yeah, and pretty much all British Comedy - which may be the all time oxymoron.

If you nab it by the nub, will it go numb?

3 words that should be eliminated from the english language:
- Nab
- Nub
- Numb

In fact, you can throw niblets in there too.

Num-nums are okay though.

Except for me, of course!

I wonder why it is that the most sincere things, both complimentary and not, that we say about anyone is said to anyone but the person we're talking about.

Don't read this, Dad!

I like to learn the meaning of a new word as much as the next guy, but there are some words, like one I saw in the New York Times this morning, that I just don't need to learn. So I'm going to start a list of words that I just don't want cluttering up my head, lest it force me to forget important things, like the name of the only Phillies pitcher to wear sunglasses while he pitched (Lowell Palmer, duh!) :

- solipsism
- rubicon
- Machiavellian
- epistemological (see k8's comment) Any other suggestions?!

And that's how a TRUE patriot feels!

I like to tell people that it's okay for Eagles fans to criticize the Eagles, but if a New York Giants fan does it, they are looking for a fight.

It strikes me that two recent Supreme Court decisions follow an odd parallel to that. The conservatives argue that the ruling on the Guantanamo Bay detainees guarantees that more Americans will be killed by foreign terrorists, but the same conservatives were thrilled that gun laws were relaxed to allow all americans the right to bear arms.

So if I am boiling it down correctly, they're saying they'd much rather be killed by their fellow americans then by a bunch of funny-looking foreigners.

Emma-ese

Cheryl said we should write down some of these conversations we have with our kids:

Emma: "Daddy, are we allowed to give you things, even when it isn't Father's Day?"
Me: "Sure, Emma, Mommy and I love presents from you guys anytime!"
Emma: "No, I mean just to you."
Me: "Sure, that would be great, Emma, but you guys are already really good at that."
(pause)
Emma: "But I don't even know how much milk you like on your honey-nut cheerios!"

Gungula gungula

Is ogling ALWAYS followed by googling? Or is it just me.

Has anyone ever said this sentence out loud before? Go ahead - you can be the first:

Does googling follow ogling just as obladah follows obladee?

Keep that mirror away from me! No, give it back.

I realized an uncomfortable truth in myself last night that I don't understand: When I hear Obama supporters claim that people are voting against him for racist reasons, it makes me like him more. When I hear Hillary supporters claim people are voting against her b/c she's a woman, it makes me like her less. I don't know what that means about me, but it makes me a little uncomfortable.

UPDATE (a few hours later): I just heard that the Manager of the stinkin' Mets said he's getting extra criticism because he's black and it made me like him less, so I guess it has more to do with my feelings about the person before I heard the comments than anything else, so feel free to skip over this post completely.

They Shoot Horses Don't They?

Seems to me there is some sort of weird parallel between the discussion of which is worse - to sentence someone to the death penalty vs giving someone a life sentence and what my parents have experienced.

My Dad got the death penalty 5 years ago, dying of aspiration pneumonia. My mom got the life sentence and she spends a few hours every night banging on the windows of her apartment, screaming, trying to get the attention of someone walking by so she can warn them about The Man.

I just hope the stinkin' liberals don't tighten up the gun control laws before I get to that age, when I'll scan the gunshows looking for the End-of-Life Special - a handgun...and one bullet.

Top 10 Obama List...give or take a few

Is one allowed to do a top 10 list if:
a - it makes no attempt at humor
b - there aren't ten reasons...yet?!

I've been jotting down reasons as I think of them, although I don't know if I have ten good ones yet, but here they are - My Top 10 Reasons I decided to vote to Barack Obama:

1 - Diplomacy - As he said at the appearance we went to on Wednesday, quoting JFK, "We must never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate." If your neighbor is throwing rocks at your dog, or spraying pesticides on your flowers, which will get the best results - to do the same thing to him or to knock on his door and ask if you can talk about what is happening? Maybe there is an easy, peaceful way to work it out once you understand what is causing him to do what he's doing.
2 - A Different kind of Role Model - I saw a 20-something black man the other day walking toward me. He had a baseball cap on tilted sideways. His pants were down past his hips with his underwear showing. His clothes were all baggy and he had gold chains around his neck. After weeks of following Obama so closely, it struck me that this young man looked like an anachronism. And I felt sorry for him, wishing he had a better role model to look up to then rap stars and basketball players. Maybe not an entirely PC reason, but it’s what I was thinking at the time.
3 - Anti-Groupthink - I remember from 30+ years ago Social Psych class, that JFK used to appoint someone in his cabinet meetings to play devil's advocate. He didn't want yes men (yes people?) on his staff. From what I've read in 2 separate accounts, Obama will call people he knows who have opinions on things that don't agree with his. He wants to know both sides of an issue before he makes his decision on where he stands on an issue. He will even warn the person he's asking that he probably won't agree with what he is saying, but he just wants to know all there is to know so he can take both sides into account.
4 - Validation - The students, the "Young People", are so energized by Obama, I would hate to see them feel like all their energy and excitement was wasted. And I would especially hate it if they felt disillusioned by the Democratic Party. What would make it many times worse would be if after all their hard work, which gave Obama the clear lead in delegates, popular votes and states won, if a bunch of fat cat politicians came in in the form of super delegates and told them basically. "That's cute that you all got so excited, but we know better what's best for you, so we're going to put someone else in place."
5 - From a strategic general election-winning standpoint, it will be a lot easier for the R's to attack Hillary than Obama. Partially because he's black, but also because there's just not a lot there to dislike, I think the R's will look all the worse for going negative on him.
6 - Somewhat related, do we really want the next 7 months to be all about travelgate, and all those goofy things they threw at Hillary for 8 years? Let's just get all that Clinton stuff in the rearview mirror...including Bill himself. He just looks worse everyday, every time he gives a speech. It's enough to make one wonder if the R's weren't right about him.
7 - With Healthcare such a pressing issue, we would hear all about "Hillarycare" and socialized medicine instead of the real facts and approaches to best attack the issue of our terrible healthcare system. Let's start from a position of working together instead of Hillary's legacy of telling everyone what we're going to do.
8 - The Lies - The Bosnia Sniper lie doesn't seem like that big a deal. I have a hard time remembering details of things that happened to me 10 years ago, though if it had to do with people shooting at me, I'm thinking I'd probably remember that a little more clearly. But she messed up so many parts of the story, even when she'd told the story repeatedly and then claimed to be sleep deprived, (and if she's easily affected by sleep derivation, do we really want her answering the phone at 3a.m...and can someone please tell me why she is wearing a pearl necklace and bright red lipstick at 3a.m.?!). I just don't want 4-8 more years of the lies and obfuscations and of Bill defending her and making things up himself (she didn't tell the story at 11 at night, she told it at a luncheon speech).
9 - It's not all about Obama - Beside the #1 reason at the top of this list - diplomacy - I think the biggest reason I want Obama to be the nominee is the effect he'll have on the rest of the races. So many R's and independents will come out to vote against Hillary, that they'll also then vote for the other R's on the ballot. If those types stay home, not only does it give Obama a better chance to win, it gives all the other D's on the ballot a better chance to win. The best chance the R’s have to win isn’t John McCain, it’s Hillary.

(I guess I had more reasons than I realized!)

10 - The impact around the world of not only voting a black man, ok half-black, whatever, as President will be huge, especially in Mexico, Africa and South America, but even more so, how angry can teenage male suicide bombers get against a country with a President named Barack Hussein Obama. There is a huge cleansing effect on the world and, even more so at home, where he is not as polarizing a figure as Hillary is.

But wait, there's more!

11 - Truth to Power - there was a great article in Time Magazine some months back that listed all of the speeches Obama has given where he has told his audience the exact opposite of what they wanted to hear. The example I remember best was about merit pay - the teachers very much oppose the idea. Obama is for it. He has done the same thing in speeches he's given to unions.

And finally...for now:

12 - Don't you want your daughter to be the first Woman President?!

And here are some other articles I've bookmarked through the months as evidence of why I'm such an enthusiastic supporter. The top 3 are written by the conservative columnist for the New York Times, David Brooks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/opinion/04brooks.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html?th&emc=th

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/opinion/10cohen.html?th&emc=th

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/04/04/notes040408.DTL

Obama as a professor at U of Chicago:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/20/12119/122/324/424784

I had a nightmare last night that I was lucky enough to be at a party with all kinds of important people and I saw a friend who was talking with Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, and when the friend saw me, he called me over and said to them, I'd like to introduce my friend:

(turning first to them and then pointing to me, he said) Obama? Lama?...Ding dong.

Ok, you find a better way to make it into a joke!

A weekend about...nothing

I did something last week that I don't remember doing since I got married, or since Cheryl and the kids moved in with me. And no, it's not that! Cheryl and I went away for the weekend, by ourselves, and we rarely left Audrey and Dave's cottage, except to go eat. So when we weren't, uh, you know, we did a lot of nothing. We read. We did...nothing. And specifically, what I did, that I haven't done since about August of 1998 is, while Cheryl was sleeping in the other room, I laid on the couch, and just stared at a wall and thought about...nothing. I didn't have kids climbing on me. I didn't feel guilt for not getting something done. i wasn't planning what I needed to accomplish by the end of the day. I wasn't thinking about problems at work. I wasn't thinking about politics or sports. I was just thinking about well, whatever popped into my head, some of which involved thinking about mom and how I need to spend more time with her before she's gone. But the cool thing is, I did that for a half hour or more and an hour or 3 later, when I told Cheryl about it, I couldn't think of just about anything I thought about except mom, and how cool it was that I had nothing I had to think about! I miss that...but I sure wouldn't trade my current life for it.

loving you and hating that pencil!

There were things I knew to expect about growing old, memory and physical well-being related, tho it still amazes me when I am in the shower and can't remember whether I washed my hair yet, but I didn't expect this: The older I get, the more patience I have with people and the less I have with inanimate objects.

More and more when people say or do things that previously would have made me angry, now I just sort of shake my head and feel sorry for them. But if I bump into something, or drop something, ARGH - it makes me nuts! And I am pretty sure both those things are age-related, and I have no idea why.

See?

I wish this were an original thought. Well, come to think of it, it was by someone, though not by me, but I like it so much , I don't want to forget it:

Can you see farther in the daylight or at night?

And now, I have literally sat here for about 5 mimutes waiting as if to give you enough time to think about it. And maybe, though I suspect you've guessed that the easy answer - daytime - is wrong, I can help you get the right answer by illustrating the reason why that's wrong, with this: Put a flashlight up in your face about 6 inches from your eyes and turn it on. Can you see anything behind it?

Of course you can see farther at night - look up in the sky tonight and tell me what you see.

And here I didn't even know the ladder was a suspect

Now that I have sufficently dumbed down this blog with observations as pointless as the one below this, I am now officially freed up by the blog-gods in my head to post more frequently about matters equally germane...and bland...such as this:

I wonder if more people are influenced to vote for Hillary because she's a woman or against her for the same reason.

And furthermore, I don't know know which would be worse, though I suspect it's the latter.

little help!

I just realized the word is accompanist, not accompany-ist. And here I had embarrassed myself by mis-pronounciating it all these years.

I don't but does it ever!

I don't love rocks, but love rocks!

plus sa change...

Things that never seem to change, and that's a good thing:

1 - Joe Paterno as coach at Penn State
2 - Springsteen's awesome excellence

Things that never seem to change, and that's a bad thing:

1 - a Bush or Clinton running for VP or President...for every presidential election from 1980 to 2011, and possibly beyond.

And yes these are your only choices

Which feels less natural?

1 - the way you felt pretty much every day of middle and high school
2 - monogamy

And as a disclaimer of sorts, monogamy is not really a challenge for me, but it just doesn't feel right somehow.

I was going to say monogamy comes easily for me, but somehow it just didn't sound right.

And after an hour or two The Sounds of Silence seem pretty nice too

If I'd been asked, and I wasn't, my favorite sounds, up until recently, I would have said:

- rain hitting our roof
- skates cutting on ice
- the solid crack of a bat hitting a baseball or even a softball
- the swish of a basketball going through a net

But I realized not too long ago that my really favorite sound is when I get home from work and I hear Trev and Emma running out of the house yelling, "DADDY!!!!"

I have a bad feeling about this

Have you ever felt badly?

I think if you asked Paige Elmore about the summer of 1972 she would tell you that I had. But it sure didn't feel that way at the time.

I suppose I should tell her that I'm sorry that I don't feel bad about feeling badly.

Thank me very much

Cheryl likes to make fun of me when I seem to seek some sort of congratulations when I have accomplished some relatively small task. "Nice job, Sweetie, you did such a great job taking out the trash!" And although I like to think I'm not that bad it struck me that in the same way we sometimes repeat the punchline of a joke after everyone has finished laughing the first time they hear it so we can laugh a second time, part of the enjoyment one gets from being told they did a nice job at some little thing, comes from getting the same feeling of accomplishment one had upon finishing it in the first place.

Really, really fascinating observation, eh?

Just take care of each other

Don't feel bad for me when I die, cuz I'll be dead.