Blogger announces Hindi transliteration? The hell? I'm just not down with that. Sorry.What I am down with right now is some tasty Piper Heidsieck that I'm enjoying with my spouse before checking out on this final day of 2007.At the time of this writing it's just a little before 10:30, which means the missuz and I will be retiring a good hour and a half before midnight. Oh well. I'm old and fat and can't stay up as late as I used to, nor can I remember the last time I was up at midnight on New Year's Eve. Call it Jungenheimer's Disease. I...
Monday, 31 December 2007
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Insomnial musings
Posted on 20:09 by Unknown
Earlier today I was dead tired and couldn't wait for my daughter to lie down for a nap so I could do the same. Unfortunately our evil cat (his picture on mycathatesyou.com) foiled that plan by constantly trying to either curl up on my neck or, after I attempted to avoid him all together by pulling the covers up over my head, wriggle his way under said covers to stick his nose in my ear. Most annoying.Now for whatever reason it's 11 o'clock at night and I can't sleep. Funnily enough my wife doesn't respond positively when I roll over and whisper...
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Resolutions for the next solar revolution
Posted on 12:24 by Unknown
I foster enough guilt throughout my daily life without piling on the self loathing that comes from not having achieved hastily made resolutions for a new year, but since tradition dictates such behavior, and frankly, last year I made so such undertakings and have come to regret the decision, I’ll humble you the reader with a few promises I have made to myself for the upcoming 2008. Please note that these are not decisions I’ve made to you per se. As such these are not things to be thrown back in my face when, if again I am struck by tradition,...
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
Merry Crimmas
Posted on 11:23 by Unknown
Time is a precious thing on a day that demands traveling over the meadow and through the woods to both parents and in-laws with a dog, new tube of badly needed foot scrub and ample amounts of stuff in tow, so I'll make this brief. Merry Christmas to all including those who have not yet accepted Santa as their lord and savior. My yuletide celebration is only half over and already it's been wonderful. The only thing that beats celebrating Christmas at the parents' is Christmas as a parent. Meryl, thanks to you and your mom for making Dad's Christmas...
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
What became of Grandpa George?
Posted on 11:08 by Unknown
Last night around four in the morning, I awoke from some weird dreams in which I went to bed with several of our friends. I don't mean I had sex with them (if you're a friend reading, sorry for the suggested visualization.) I mean sort of like a camping trip or a slumber party or something, Elaine and I crawled into bed with some of our friends and went to sleep. The friend next to me was wearing a frumpy nightgown. Weird.Anyway, the first image that popped into my head of several people in the same bed was from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate...
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Too much stuff
Posted on 11:58 by Unknown
For the most part, I do not find happiness in stuff. Sure, I own things that bring me pleasure. I just don't like stuff for stuff's sake. I think that stuff equals stress. The more stuff you have; the more stressful your life becomes.Think about it. If you have a lot of stuff, you then have to find a place to put the stuff. If you have too much, you have to step around the stuff. When people come over you have to say to them Careful, don't break my stuff. The momentary happiness that comes when acquiring new stuff quickly fades when it is...
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Kevin' Bootleg Peppermint Patties
Posted on 17:10 by Unknown
When I first blended belongings with the woman who is now my wife, I found myself surrounded by new kitchen toys I had never before played with. I'm talking about a vegetable peeler, an apple corer, a basting brush, a nice mixer, a cheese grater, parchment paper, and cutting boards just to name a few. In return she got a collection of 1980s Smurf figurines and a tattered chair from Rooms to Go. Isn't cohabitation grand?With all these new accouterments I took to baking. I especially enjoy making cookies or cakes or pies or brownies or any other...
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Food allergies for thought
Posted on 11:34 by Unknown
I am not one to adopt causes and then try and convince others to hop on my band wagon. I especially despise these ax-grinding awareness ribbons that are still littering people's bumpers. For the most part, I prefer to stay unaware. That having been said, I just came across and left a comment in response to a blog post dealing with food allergies, something my family deals with, and thought I'd share. I won't preach. This blogger says it better than I could. Just click if you care. If not, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled banter sh...
Sunday, 25 November 2007
Attack of the foot shaver
Posted on 10:41 by Unknown
I am slowly recovering from an injury I sustained last week. I have been limping since the day after Thanksgiving because I managed to wound myself with a foot shaver. Twice. Dangerous things, those foot shavers.If you've never seen one they work kinda like a vegetable peeler only for the soles of your feet. Ideally they're to be used to remove dead skin cells from around the heel or big toe or wherever else extra poundage and footwear friction have turned soft skin into alligator scales. The trouble is that because the tool is basically a...
Friday, 23 November 2007
Dining out with a baby
Posted on 09:19 by Unknown
Meryl shows us how to use a lemon wedge as a utensil:Meryl poses mid-dip for the camera:Mmm, Mexican cheese dip...
Monday, 19 November 2007
Commodore 64, my old friend
Posted on 17:47 by Unknown
Have you ever thought about how much we use the innerweb, a modern technological tool, for satiating our hunger for nostalgia? You really need not click much further before you stumble onto sites that allow you to find a lost love, look up information on childhood tv shows, or even listen to your favorite song dating back to 8th grade year. Aside from corresponding with family, catching up on news stories, and ridding my inbox of pleas from financially displaced Nigerians, I spend a lot of my online time looking for information on people or things...
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Cyber pilgrims seek fashion advice and enlightenment
Posted on 10:55 by Unknown
Every blogger can tell you that one of the simple pleasures to be had when you have a site meter at the bottom of your blog is to click and see how various readers found you on search engines. Because of the way search engines work, a site that contains a lot of text, such as the one you see before you now, might come up as a result of searching on any number of word combinations. Obviously because of the name of my blog, people who search for COCKTAILS along with any other number of words often find their way here, probably to their dismay as...
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Mousetrap: a mystery blog entry in one act
Posted on 17:56 by Unknown
Today I spent a large portion of my day chasing down a mouse, only this wasn't one of those pesky rodents that the cat drags in and drops at your feet. I was looking for the mouse to the computer. We have a wireless optical mouse for the desktop and the table it sits on is just the right height for my daughter to reach up and grab things off of. I know this sounds cute, and I guess it is if you're not the owner of the mouse, but crawling around the house on your hands and knees looking for a pointing device is no way to spend an afternoon.After...
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Georgia governor praying for rain?
Posted on 10:26 by Unknown
I had vowed to myself that I would try and make my blog more uplifting from now on and not be such a Negative Nelson. I will revisit that ideal at some time in the near future, but I just can't go without sharing my views on this new hullabaloo going on at the Georgia Capitol building. Governor Sonny Perdue and some other muckety mucks along with a number of bible thumpers who have cashed in their common sense in exchange for piety are gathering together in order to pray for rain. Sadly, I am not making this up.Many protesters have shown up claiming...
Monday, 12 November 2007
Reading is fundamental
Posted on 18:36 by Unknown
My 18-month-old daughter loves to be read to. This is reason to rejoice of course because it means that instead of turning on the television to entertain her, she brings me books to read , climbing up into my lap while wearing a big smile across her face. Sometimes she likes to be read the same books over and over several times in a row.If you've not had the occasion to read children's books recently, specifically those geared toward toddlers, I can assure you that there are some old favorites from way back when that still remain. Margaret...
Friday, 2 November 2007
Rome and Tuscany: an outsider's perspective
Posted on 17:11 by Unknown
Still caught up in the last throws of jetlag, wife and I have returned from a ten-day sojourn to the birthplace of Western civilization. When I say Western I don't mean like Bonanza. I mean like people whose ways aren't backward and strange.Anyway we went to Italy, and as you can possibly imagine, my stories are many. Because I could go on for days about how wonderful the trip was, I'll try and limit myself to only a brief epistle and hit the highlights.Our journey started with Alitalia. I wanted to like this airline. Really I did, but the cabins...
Language lessons for travelling abroad
Posted on 16:57 by Unknown
In less than a week now my wife and I take off to Italy. As with any international trip I try and learn a few key phrases before I go so that I don't come across as a dumbass to everyone under the Tuscan sun. With a little practice anybody can learn to fake a few phrases well enough to get what he wants provided expectations are kept to a minimum. Czech and Hungarian were each a real doozie , but Italian seemsto me to be less problematic.When I was teaching French I once had a band director come up to me and ask what tape series he could use to...
Friday, 12 October 2007
Monday, 1 October 2007
Toddler speak: repeatedly saying the same thing twice again over and over
Posted on 11:13 by Unknown
Parenting a toddler is no easy chore, and now that words have started to come out of little Meryl's mouth, I find myself somehow devolving into a monosyllabic caveman whose vocabulary bank has been robbed. Yesterday I dropped my wife off at the airport and the conversation in the car on the ride home with Meryl went something like this:Mama?Mama's going out of town?Mama?Mom's getting on her plane, Sweetie.Dada?Dad's driving.Mama?Mama's going to Washington D.C.Shoes?Yep, you've got your shoes on.Mama?Going out of town.Dada?Driving.Pizza?No pizza...
Monday, 24 September 2007
Project961.com
Posted on 11:30 by Unknown
I suppose since I watch a minimal amount of television and listen mainly to AM radio that it should be acceptable for an FM station to try and target their advertising to me via a mailed postcard, but come on -- at least make it appealing to the reader. A local station is apparently running a promotion where they're giving away fully restored muscle cars to their listeners. Huzzah!On the front of the postcard are three cars deemed "muscle cars" by the ad folks at Atlanta's WKLS 96.1. Recognizable to me is the 60-something-model Mustang, mainly...
Monday, 17 September 2007
County Seat presents The Philadelphia Story at the Aurora Theater
Posted on 20:42 by Unknown
My feet are of clay. Do you know it?Or shall I say Do you know what having feet of clay means? I didn't, so I axed the Google.Having feet of clay means to have some weakness that your admirers weren't aware of before but have only recently come to discover. One innerweb reference sites James Joyce, that dead Irishman, as the source but I think somehow the expression dates back to the Bible. I don't know for sure that it came from the Bible. I'm just guessing. Hell, I went to public school.I don't get to say the line; the lead actress does....
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Zoo Atlanta panda turns one; Human baby not amused.
Posted on 11:37 by Unknown
Meryl and I went to her first marsupial birthday party today. Oh, sure, she's been to a human birthday party, but today was the day that Atlanta-born panda, Mei Lan, celebrated her first trip around the sun at our zoo. There was much ado.The guest list included such dignitaries as Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, Georgia's lieutenant governor, and various muckety mucks from Delta Airlines, the city of Chengdu in China and Zoo Atlanta.To make a long story short, Meryl, who recently turned sixteen months old herself, started to break down shortly...
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