Put Me In, Coach. I'm on Steroids.

That's right, I have entered the world of dubious superstars, as I am on rigorous regiment of steroids.

I went to the doctor last week with persistent flu-like symptoms and learned that nothing is wrong with me. So, just to appease me, the good doctor put me on some cough medicine. A few days later, I was covered in nasty, all-to-familiar, red bumps that itched to no end. I have quite a mysterious history with hives in that I had them everyday for about 18 months a few years ago, and never figured out what caused them, where they came from or ultimately, why they left.

With the hives, a lot of things have changed in my life recently, from shampoo, Yes to Carrots!, to Jack LaLanne's PowerJuicer Pro among other stuff, so the doctor just put me on steroids to knock them out and then worry about it if they come back... which seems to be backward logic, but who am I to question someone who's a doctor.

Steroids are crazy though. I strongly doubt that my Prednisone is very similar to the stuff that bulks up ball players, but it has had some pretty incredible side-effects. First off, it gives me head aches right when I take them, but they fade. More importantly, I feel better. For the first time in months, I actually feel close to healthy, which is a good feeling. Also - and this one I'm struggling with the wording - I feel motivated.

At work, I'm doing tasks that I almost never bother with, thinking outside my normal routine, and everything's moving smoothly. At home, I feel like helping out more, which I'm not going to get into because I'm not sure if I actually have been helping out. Also at home, I've been playing a mean game of NCAA Football lately. I'm winning every game! I'm driven... focused... energized. Maybe I'm just healthy for the first time in months.

Now, if I could just stop getting these hives I'd be in good shape.

My Man-Crush

I haven't written for awhile for various reasons, and most folks reading this might think it's weird what brings me to writing another post.

When Tiff and I first moved in together we didn't have much. We had so little furniture that the living room of our one-bedroom apartment was empty for close to six months as our brand new bed was also our couch, kitchen table, card table, and bathroom... wait, no. We had so little money that we chose not to get cable TV for a year and a half and struggled with bunny ears to watch our favorite shows. That first spring there was more than one "emergency" trips to Tiff's parents' on Tuesday nights to watch American Idol, which we consciously aren't watching this year.

It wasn't long before we decided to get a DVD player and a Blockbuster card - ah, the days before Netflix. We watched a lot of movies, but owned very few. One of those few, in fact one of the first two was A Knight's Tale. This brilliant movie cleverly merges the sport of jousting with classic rock music. You know it's a winner when the medieval royal horn section plays "We Will Rock You." Tiff got it for me because she caught me watching it repeatedly on HBO before we moved out on our own.

The movie's leading man is one Heath Ledger, whom Tiffany convinced me that I had a man-crush on. It wasn't anything sexual, it's just that there was something about him I liked. He seemed down to Earth and just a cool guy. Pretty soon, I embraced the idea of this man-crush and freely mentioned it if it ever came up. Then he was a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, and I felt like a public man-crush took a different tone. So I switched my man-crush to Clive Owen. I guess I got a thing for guys with accents.

Anyways, in a world of Britney Spears media and Hollywood cellulite gracing magazine covers, I liked Heath Ledger and I'm sad to hear of his death. He was great and surely would've been even greater in time.

PS. How cool is it that he's going to be the Joker.

Happy Birthday Tiffany!

Today my beautiful wife celebrates her birthday. My gift to her: carrots.
She has recently discovered Yes to Carrots, a line of lotions and shampoos and stuff made from everybody's favorite orange food that grows underground. Well, maybe second favorite after yams. I'm not sure where she learned of Yes to Carrots, perhaps an infomercial, but she ordered a bottle online, I think to get past the $25-no-shipping-fee mark and now she's suddenly all about it. "Golly!" she'll exclaim, "I love my Yes to Carrots! Carrots are the future of health, food, and alternative energy."

So I got her some of their stuff, and I'm finally reading about carrots. She's right, carrots are pretty amazing. They actually do improve your eye sight, they're high in all sorts of good stuff, and are good combatants of tonsillitis! They even reduce the risk of breast cancer. Nature's candy does everything but put hair on your chest.

I have a feeling that if I typed in any other fruit or vegetable a similar list of benefits would emerge. That's not to take anything away from the carrot, it's just that every so often you hear about the amazing effects of whatever. Cranberries, pomegranates, starfruit, blueberries... there's been a list recently of the "new" miracle food that will ensure the survival of the human race.

So if they are all really good for you, I will celebrate them individually. This year carrots get the nod, so join with me as I sing on high, Yes to Carrots!

And next year let us embrace Yes to Yams!

Big TV

I'm thinking about upgrading a few of my home appliances. Right now, I've got my eye on Panasonic's new 150-inch plasma TV.
I hear it's so clear that it's like you're actually there. You can visit places you really want to go, like Moraine Lake, Canada (note the date), from the comfort of your own home. Although with a TV like that, you'd need a pretty good sound system.

Happy New Year!

It's good to have New Year's Resolutions. I have one, although secretly I have at least four or five. I figure it's best to have several stashed away that you're quietly working towards, that way a few months down the road when all but one have fallen to the wayside, you can pull it out from secrecy. You can tell people, "You know, it's the one thing that I set out to accomplish this New Year's and I'm quite proud of myself for sticking to it."

This year I'm trying my hand at sharing my resolution with the world. So is China's national soccer team. They vowed on New Year's Day to qualify for the 2010 World Cup. "I pledge to advance to the World Cup, which is the professional goal that we strive for," they said in unison as a team. This is very noble goal, reaching the top of your career, and while I will support Team USA, I wish them the best of luck.

I have started watching more and more professional soccer. It started after the last World Cup in 2006. Maybe it's because I use to play as a kid when, alone in the yard, my daydreams were usually of the World Cup, but I got really into watching the games in 2006. A lot more so then watching any football or baseball game. It's not quite as exciting, mainly because the crowds aren't as large, but I like that DC United games are broadcast on TV here... actually over one of the C-SPAN channels. Maybe this year I'll get to go to a game.

The second part of China's national team's pledge read like this: "We swear by death to kill along the bloody road of defending the honour of the motherland and realise our youthful dreams." Ah yes, I use to have those bloody... I mean, youthful dreams. Best of luck, China, best of luck.

My Dancing Debut

Should old aquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind:

That's a married man on stage. Yep, that's a married man.

Wii Have Fun!

Tiffany's sister was one of the countless lucky ones whose Santa was able to find a Wii this Christmas. It's much more fun the Magic Bullet. Nintendo's newest offering is amazingly revolutionary with the remote control wand in lieu of what I think of as a regular controller, and after just a few hours of practice I feel like I'm ready to give a major presentation complete with laser pointer.

I should say that my idea of a regular controller is one that is first and foremost tethered to the game console. Moreover, it has a directional pad and an A button and a B button, which is almost always used to jump. Since then there have been some pretty big upgrades. A C-button, but that fell out of favor when X and Y came along. The top L and R trigger buttons were added too, but I don't like using those, because it changes how I hold the controller, then there was the directional pad and the joystick and a trigger and an A, a B, and six C buttons for a while. Then there was a second joystick on the same controller along with a directional pad, which I still don't understand why. But this is something entirely different.

All of those were attached. There was a wire running from you to the game box to the TV. Plus, they were all the same basic idea, they were just getting more and more complicated, not unlike an old one bedroom house that grows room by room as the family inside grows until you wind up with this strange amalgamation of a house that belongs on the pages of Mother Goose, with kids running all over the place.

In fact, I had a friend with this theory that today's kids will possess a much more greater mental capacity as a direct result of all those extra buttons. Growing up using 18 buttons is definitely more complicated than using three that I started out on.

The Wii just scraps the whole idea and forces you to actually swing a bat or roll a ball or shake a soda can or punch your friend. I probably could get into the idea that it's not the same as actually swinging a bat or rolling a ball or punching your friend, but I won't because it's just too much fun! I love it.

I love it so much that I'm afraid I've played it too much. Like the first days of summer growing up, after spending hours upon hours, heading to bed with a sore thumb, the beginnings of a necessary callous, I am holding my arm and wincing in pain from the beginnings of tennis elbow and a sore shoulder, but am eager to return and start up a game.

In honor of my friend, I'm going to take a moment to wonder how the Wii will affect the growth of little minds. They will probably all be experts at giving major presentations with laser pointers.

The Magic Bullet

I've finally succumbed to the power of the TV. I think I mentioned that we downgraded our cable significantly and we know only get somewhere around 15 channels. Of those two are fuzzy, three don't speak English, three are "community" channels, two are titled C-SPAN, and one brings the message of the Roman Catholic faith 24-hours a day.

With our old cable package, it was easy to find nothing to watch. There'd always be some rerun of some celebrity reality show or some movie that was on enough that you probably seen it all, just not in the right order. Our limited cable requires some work and finagling to find nothing to watch. You have to really know where to go and wait for nothing, and as a result I watch a lot of PBS concerts, and okay, my fair share of C-SPAN, which isn't very much.

Then there are infomercials, 30-minute gems of advertising. The crazy thing is is that they almost always get me. I start thinking to myself, well, I'm not much of a cleaner, but if I got that super clean spray, the stuff would stay clean longer. Or, I wonder where I could store a collapsible ladder. Or, I bet it would feel great to have all the build-up flushed out of my intestines. The winner though is the Magic Bullet. Make meals in 3 seconds... one, two... ... ... three!
So for Christmas, our first as Man and Wife, Tiffany got the Magic Bullet. While the name doesn't quite scream kitchen appliance, it's the greatest of it's kind that I've ever come across. The first night, we made excellent omelettes, just put in the eggs, the cheese and a couple slices of ham and in one, two... ... ...three! It was fully blended and poured onto a frying pan. It really was the best home-cooked eggs I've ever had, which is saying something! And to wash it down, Tiff mixed up some coffee and warm chocolate milk into a nice frothy mocchachino, or machiatto, or frappelatte, or something like that.

So I've officially entered the world of teleshopping, even if I found the Magic Bullet at Kmart. It's a pretty slippery slope, as I've already got my eye on another infomercial, and I'm starting to wonder just how much money I'm actually saving with my downgraded cable.

Merry Christmas

Here's to wishing you the best this Christmas.

Fresh from Jamaica, Tiff and I looked a bit too hard for music that would gap our beach-lovin', no worries reggae vibe with the Christmas carols and stumbled upon this... there's no good way for me to do it, so go here and switch the music player to the "12 Days of Christmas."

It's a great song as it has what is truly important in life, whether you're a Rastafarian or just some white guy in Virginia. I would gladly take five songs to sing over five golden rings any time of the year.

UPDATE: The singer is Peter Broggs... here's the album that he's on. You can listen to thirty seconds of it. Tiff found it on myspace, usually a great place to find music, but I guess it was taken off, which happens all too often.

The Three Finger Theory

I have long held on to the belief that mankind is evolving. Not so much in the superpower sense that Heroes promotes and not so much in the two paths sense of HG Wells' Time Machine. Both of those could happen, I'm not contending that. I would love to be able to fly or shoot laser beams from my eyes or whatever. I'm thinking of something far more subtle, but potentially just as significant.

I developed this theory in the prime of my brain activity years, college, and grasped onto the idea immediately and have let it percolate and bubble over as time has gone by. As I was deep in thought studying the back of my hand one day, I noticed something about my fingers.My fingers naturally stay with a gap between my index and middle finger and another between my ring finger and pinky. It only makes sense that the result of this one day in the not-so-distant future will be a generation of babies born with only three fingers. Yes, it is my belief that the future will bring a joining of the middle and the ring finger in what will undoubtedly be known as the middling finger. Or the ringiddle finger.

But then recently, something happened that made me rethink that. I looked down at my beautiful hand to ponder my future middling finger and this is what I saw:Complete and catastrophic heartbreak slowly sank in. How could I have been so naive? My wedding ring throws the entire Three Finger Theory out the window. It is a defenestrated theory! Not only is the ring a physical barrier to the blissful union of middle and ring, it's done so forcefully and painfully as I become accustomed to wearing the very symbol of blissful unions!

As I must slowly recover from the shock and grief brought on by this startling discovery, I will turn to my shiny new ring to brighten my day and my shiny new wife to tell me everything will be okay.

Skittlers

We, at the Muted Guerrilla, would like to introduce to you the greatest game in all the world. The game is simply called skittlers. We stumbled upon this addictive game of skill and precision while on our honeymoon in Jamaica's beautiful Runaway Bay. It's look reminds me oddly of the old cigarette vending machines, but I don't have any pictures suggesting that.

I am confident, however, that you have never seen anything like it or even near it's demanding level of pure enjoyment... for it demands that you have a good time. How can I be so confident? I challenge you to look up skittlers on the internet... you can't find it. Of course, if you type in "skittle" and "Jamaica," you might find the website of our honeymoon destination, but that's asking too much.

Skittlers is similar to billiards in that it's a table game with a green top with holes and you use a cue stick to swat at balls, but the similarities end there. In fact, a better example is golf. But imagine, if you will, if golf were played for speed, and if you have a bad hit you have to start all over, way back at the beginning. That's still not quite right.

So you have yourself a starting point, like a tee, and you have to hit the balls into any of nine holes in order to score points. Each hole has a different value. Every time the ball goes in a hole it rolls down the inside of the machine and out a slot that is worth points. Standing in your way are four menacing wooden posts, guarding the front four holes. If one of these precariously balanced sentinels topples over, which they will undoubtedly do, you lose all your points and start over. The winner is the first to 500.

Oh!! It is so much fun. Tiff and I became pretty good at it too.. We still had our share of start-overs but it never lost its fun. I'm bummed that I probably won't find it here in Virginia, but I guess that's another reason to go back to Jamaica.

And I Didn't Even Get a Toothbrush

My writing and posting seems to go in spurts; it was about this time last year that I trailed off only to reemerge in the summer. It must be something to do with the shortened days... it must be.

Last spring, as I was in writing hibernation, I came close to posting something all of one time. I envisioned it in letter format:

Dear Mom,
I finally made it to the dentist. They cleaned my teeth really well. I only have nine cavities!
Much love,
John Duffy

I'm not sure why it was a letter to my mom, I don't even think she reads my blog.

Anyways, nine months later, I'm finally cavity free, although the dentist said five of them could potential become root canals. Great! More trips to the dentist!

It took two trips to the dentist to get all my cavities worked on; I'm beginning to figure out the proper dentist chair etiquette, if there is any. I haven't experienced stuff like colonoscopies, but the regular dentist visits are surprisingly awkward. I mean the dentist's face is maybe ten inches from yours and they are staring at you the whole time, with their rubbered hands wedged into your mouth. Getting cavities done, I had a second face near mine, with a third and fourth hand working in my mouth.

With two faces right in front of me, I had a hard time finding something to look at. I closed my eyes for a while but that made me swallow more, so I tried to keep them open. I can report the ceiling was a dreary cream color. There is a TV in the office, but it's at my feet so I couldn't watch it. The dentist surely did though, occasionally making comments that I responded to through grunts with hands in my mouth. The second time I went I was unusually tired and felt myself drift off to sleep once or twice. I twitched and jumped and couldn't explain, as I had hands and drills in my mouth.

All in all, I'm done with the dentist for a while... at least six months or so. Hopefully, I'm not done with the blog for six months or so. We will see though.

The Goat Race

So I got married... Tiffany is now my wife. Jamaica was amazing, absolutely amazing, and we had a truly wonderful time. There are many, many stories to tell, including some of actually getting married, but Tiff and I agree that the first one shared definitely needs to be the Goat Race.

I was in the fourth heat of racers. The three heats before me were all very close match-ups, where it was anyone's race right down to the finish line. My heat was extremely intense from the beginning. Here's me at the starting line getting pumped up along with all my competitors.

I hope you can see the focus and determination on everyone's face but mine. Here's the actual race:

So I didn't take home the grand prize but I feel I gave it all I had... I'm not sure if the goat put forth all his effort though.

I'm Getting Married!!

Tomorrow I head off to the Caribbean, where I'll be getting married on Friday!! I'll be back next Thursday with a ring on my finger and a wife on my arm. And I'll eventually share a story or two, but for now... I'm off to this gazebo: And I'm getting married!!

Christmas Convoy

The federal government has quite a few resources at their disposal.

The other day... over a week ago now - the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Tiff and I drove up to a long line of cars and trucks on the highway all blinking their hazards. They were driving way too slow for I-95 and were really making heavy traffic become dangerous traffic. I muttered more than one word that I shouldn't repeat.

With the first five or six cars we saw, along with a blue-light police car, we assumed we were passing a funeral, but a funeral procession on the highway? Hmmm... a little peculiar. When we went over a hill, things became a little clearer, albeit a little stranger. We didn't see many at first, but we did see one of them. A giant flatbed truck was just ahead covered with no less than 75 Christmas trees. We soon caught up to it and noticed it was a U.S. Forestry Services truck.

The federal government always gets the best. These trees, judging by their liscense plates, are hauled down from Vermont. I guess that's where true authentic Christmas trees are born. The Christmas tree farm just up the rode from where Tiff grew up, maybe an hour outside of DC, aren't quite good enough. The federal government deserves the best.

We passed maybe ten more trucks each with Christmas trees stacked high and then we caught up to the lead one. An equally large flatbed truck with one giant Christmas tree wrapped up in a traveling coat fully decorated with lights with a big sign reading:
I'm not sure about that dog there. We stopped at the next rest stop to rest and as we were getting ready to go, in comes the Christmas Convoy, one after the other. I got to take a few pictures.Looking back on it, I probably could have gotten some better shots. Just to note, these are not the National Christmas Tree. That tree is planted in the ground outside the White House. Even though it's there year round, it was a gift by the state of Vermont... it's authentic.

Suddenly Seventeen

I promise my lack of recent posts has nothing to do with the Writers strike.

I've had a cold for a few weeks. That's not all that uncommon for me. A few days of a bad cough turns into a few days of a runny nose turns into a few days of just not feeling good and then the cough comes back. It's pretty minor and I've never gone to the doctor for it. It's just a cold. A doctor's visit would be a waste of time, mine and his.

I took two days off from work this week mainly just to take two days off from work. My boss asked that I bring in a doctor's note. A doctor's note for a common cold. By the time I got to the doctor's, I felt fine, my one symptom, a runny nose, being completely cleared up, and I was rehearsing how I would justify to the doctor coming in. "My boss needs a note," was about the extent of it.

I'm losing track of my story. It turns out, while I felt healthy, I had a temperature, 99.1, and she said my glands were swollen and then said I had a sinus infection, which I think is just a fancy word for a cold. It all happened very quickly and I forgot to ask for a note.

The weird part is at the pharmacy. As the pharmacist handed me my meds, she says to me, "You may want to call your insurance company." I'm not sure what it was but I knew I was guilty of something and turned bright red. She explained that the insurance company has my birthday as May 6, 1990. Each part is pretty close, but altogether, it's way off.

So, while it's nice to be ten years younger, I think I need to make a phone call. I'm curious though how my doctor's office didn't pick up on it.

Happy Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day everybody and thanks to all the veteran's everywhere... or at least all the ones on our side. Today is also significant as it marks the 37th anniversary of the exploding whale.



Yes, the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds. The next line's great too... "alright Craig you can take your hands out of your ears."

Ratings

If I ran a blog empire I would want people to rate my posts as easily as you can rate articles on Yahoo!, CDs at Amazon, or determine the fate of fallen gladiators. I wait... I do run a blog empire! I do want people to rate my posts! Now, if blogger just let me do it I would be a happy camper.

Yahoo! lets you rate each article with a 5 star option. Amazon does the same thing with all it's products. On Yahoo!, you can give movies grades A to F and you can give people the thumbs up or down on their Answers feature. All these are great and wonderful, and would be a great addition to my blog. Well... either a great addition or a short-lived, highly depressing experiment.

Personally, I don't think a five point scale has the range to get a true sense of your opinion towards something. And a ten point scale is too over-used and ten is an arbitrary number anyways, so I am introducing what is to my knowledge the first ever 30 point scale. Thirty points will eliminate ugly decimals, while giving you a broad range to choose from.

It may sound crazy, but it's not - it's revolutionary. Think of the best movie you've ever seen - say it's Home Alone. You think Home Alone is the greatest movie ever made. You especially like the one scene with the old guy in the church. Home Alone would then score a 29. That's right. Nothing ever gets a 30, because something better will always come.

Now let's think of the worst movie ever - say, for whatever reason, you hate the movie Jaws III. Simple enough... it gets a zero. Why can there be a zero and no thirty? Why can there be a zero on a 1 to 30 scale? Because things can always suck.

Anyways, I fear if I drag this on any longer I will start to lose points... even more points than I lost for mentioning that I would lose points for dragging this out. So with no further ado, I urge everybody everywhere to use my new and improved ratings every second of every day.

Or at least until I can convince blogger to give me some sort of rating scale option of its own.

Not-So-Scary Halloween Costumes

I'm a mechanic!

I'm a baker!

The Scariest Costumes of All

Politicians. A few weeks ago, there was a knock on my door. I jumped - I jump at sudden noises. Tiff grabbed our illegal cat and fled to a darkened closet. I opened the door to find my friendly State Delegate, or maybe here in Virginia, Commonwealth Delegate. He told me what he stands for - he's against illegal immigration. He told me what his challenger stands for -she's for illegal immigration. He even gave me shiny flyers as he showed his shiny teeth. I told him I would vote for him.

Yesterday, there was a knock on my door. Tiff grabbed our illegal cat, fleeing to a dark closet. I opened the door to find my friendly State Delegate's friendly challenger and her assistant. I knew the second one was an assistant because she had a clipboard and didn't talk, or even make eye contact. I asked them if they wanted to watch Smallville, we're on Season 5. The challenger told me what she stands for - she's against immigration. She told me what her challenger stands for - he's for immigration. She showed me pictures of her family; I don't know why. I told her I would vote for her even though she didn't want to watch any Smallville.

I live in Prince William County, VA. They've started cracking down on illegal immigration. Apparently, it's a pretty big deal here. If I'm against illegal immigration, it's just because it's illegal. Otherwise, how'd this become the major issue.

I want to buy a house. If either one of them had lied and said, "Once in the State House, or well, Commonwealth House, I will see to it that you own a house," I would vote for them.

Even if they had to tax pumpkins to do it. When all else fails, tax the pumpkins.

Using my Head

Hey look!

I'm a caryatid! well, except I'm a man... details.

Sales Pitch

It wasn't too long ago that Tiff and I finally put our name on the no-call list and the phone more-or-less stopped ringing. The no-call list is great. Our phone rings so little now that sometimes I'm even inclined to answer it. It isn't fool-proof though, and with this being a political season, we've been getting quite a few calls lately. I don't mind surveys or even automated campaign calls, as long as they're not asking for money, they're alright with me.

Last night, however, the Fraternal Order of Police called reminding me to buckle up for safety. Then they said they were going to send me a window-sticker boasting of my support for the Fraternal Order of Police. Then they asked for fifty dollars.

Now, I'm all for buckling up. I think safety belts are great. So are the police. But are there any other organizations out there cold-calling folks for donations? I understand the need to support the police and I am in no way undermining the bravery and citizenship of police officers everywhere. Maybe I'm out of line, but I don't think that equals some moral impetus to give them money.

I don't want to say flat-out "I do not support your cause" because that wouldn't be true. I give him my brief line about how it's a good foundation but I don't have any money to give away right now, and like a good salesman, he pushes on, not for the last time. He tries $35.

In the end, despite all my efforts to be polite and hear him out I just hung up on the guy. I wasn't sure what else to do. I've also been getting a lot of calls from my bank offering me accidental death insurance. I have to fight these off too, explaining that I've already got something similar... a tip jar on the right. Clang, clang. It's my own Fraternal Order of John Duffy. Clang, clang.

I had a different sales encounter recently, too.

Shout Out

End to Batteries!

I made a twenty-five dollar investment yesterday morning at Tuesday Morning. I bought a rechargable battery recharger. It comes with both AA and AAA batteries! Not only am I personally saving the world from Global Warming, but I will never have to buy batteries ever again!

That's right. I will never buy batteries again!

A Better Waste of Time

Just in case anyone else is bored of Bounce Out - I have pushed my high score up to 235,268 - here's another game that's twice as interesting. Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 is 100% strategy... making it 50% fun and 50% frustrating. I will admit there is an end to it, so once you figure it out, it's not quite as exciting. Unlike Bounce Out however, you can see how your score stacks up against other bored dorks.

Desktop Tower Defense is by far the best game that I've tried from the website, but it boasts that there are 1,879 free games to play. It's a site where game developers can put their games online, I believe for free, and share in the ad revenue. It's kind of a cool idea. Maybe not as cool as my block market idea, but genius isn't found everyday.

Lend A micro Hand

A few weeks ago, Bill Clinton was on Oprah talking about giving. I remember I was pretty impressed with the whole notion, but I keep thinking about a five minute segment towards the end about a microlending website. It took me some time to track it down, but I found it, Kiva.org. Here, you can put as little as $25 into an account and donate it to any of a number of poverty-stricken entrepreneurs from around the world. They have to pay it back and then you can donate your money to someone else. Maybe it's just my International Affairs degree speaking, but I think this is the coolest. And you should at least check it out.

For a long time, I've been saving up my change with the noble aspiration of donating a llama to someone through Heiffer International, but I think I like the idea of Kiva better. Despit the note:

Due to a recent surge in support ignited by viewers of the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today Show, and readers of President Clinton's newly released book Giving, there is
currently a shortage of businesses in need of loans. The Kiva.org staff and our
Field Partners are working overtime to get more businesses on the website. In
the meantime, thank you for your patience!

I almost got out my credit card today, but luckily I checked my horoscope first: "Taurus - Take some time today to review your accounts and make sure you are prepared."

Good thing too, especially after the damn locksmith! They don't take anything less than $25 though, so if you got the urge to donate less, you should donate to the best website on the web on the sidebar. All my thoughts that's fit to print. Clink-clink-clink.

Last One, I Swear...

I didn't want to write anything else about the squirrels on the balcony, but right now I'm being serenaded by one angry momma. She's been satanically barking for over an hour. It's driving me nuts.

Last week, as the baby squirrels had grown big enough to do this:

I decided it was time to say goodbye. I cleaned up all their stuff while momma squirrel was out one day. The next day they had descended into the real world. No more luxury-balcony-tree-house anymore. I saw one of them yesterday on my way down the stairs... our eyes met and communicated what I can only assume was a nod of gratitude, a "thanks for letting me grow up on your balcony and destroy your cat's nervous system". It made me happy. I've done my part in the universe.

The babies haven't been back, but momma squirrel comes back every day to yell at me. It's frightening. If she were a person I'd have a restraining order by now. If you've ever actually heard an angry squirrel, you know what I mean.

At least someone else out there shares in my pain...

Dyn-o-mite!!

I'm trying to keep away from commenting on news articles, but this is my second in a row. The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded today to this lady. I'm not quite sure who she is either.

The part about it that gets me is actually an article that I had copied-and-pasted and emailed to myself, but the link takes me to the same article so I can't link it... sorry. The article though is all about speculation on who will win. Ms. Doris Lessing was not a top pick. Bookies had three names of possible contenders.

This got me thinking, do people actually bet on the Nobel Prize? I think it fits in well with the spirit of the prize. I can just picture a bunch of British guys at a bar, "Hey Barkeep! Turn the channel, they're about to announce the winner." And then the nervous guy in the corner, "Come on Judy Blume. Come on Judy Blume."

Jungle Fever

Here's a crazy story about an orangutan who shows no interest for female orangutans but has got a thing for tattoed blondes. Monkeys make me laugh. Or apes... whatever.

It's not quite the same, but it reminds me of a wikipedia entry I once read. The Panda is having a modest resurgence in its population. Last year there were a record number of pandas being born under the watchful eye of researchers and zookeepers. Part of the reason is the use of a new technique to instigate the mating dance, showing the pandas videos of other pandas having sex. They may call them "educational" videos, but dim the light, cue Kenny G, and education gives way to natural instincts. Wikipedia even has an entry now titled panda pornography.

Somebody Save Somebody

With my blood. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!! I figure it’s close enough to Halloween to pull out the scary laugh.

I gave blood yesterday for the first time in four or five years. If you haven’t done it in awhile I suggest you give it a shot as there have been some serious advances in blood-letting. After the initial interview and blood test, the lady asked me if I wanted to do the red cell retrieval method, which she claimed isn’t much different, just takes a bit longer, and it is a much bigger help to the Red Cross. I hadn’t told Tiff that I was going to give blood so I considered asking to go tell her where I was (we were at an art show together), but it’s for a good cause. I gave a typical non-committal “sure,” and she led me past the reclining cot-like chairs that I’m used to and introduced me to Alyx.

Alyx is not short for anything, I asked. It’s just to make the scary machine look friendlier. So they sit me down in the same sort of chair, smear iodine all over the better part of my arm, just as always, and they ask me to sign a death waiver. Seriously.

They explain a bit more before I sign my life away. Alyx takes blood out of the body, puts it through a centrifuge which divides the red blood cells from the rest of the stuff that’s in blood, and then it takes the red blood cells and gives me back the rest. The fact that they are putting stuff back into my body requires a death waiver. My thought process went something like, “Wait, there’s a centrifuge! Sign me up!”

They stick me with the needle and Alyx kicks on, and the little tube turns red just as always. It’s different than how I remember it though. It hurts. Afraid that I’ve grown into a wuss in the past few years, I don’t say anything, but when I grimace, the attendant, nurse?, explains that unlike the old system that just waits for your heart to pump the blood, Alyx pulls the blood out of you. As disturbing as that sounds, the knowledge that it was working properly was comforting at the time. At least nothing’s wrong, although I did sign that death waiver.

The centrifuge kicks in and sure enough blood filters into a darkening red bag and yellowing clear bag. Then the process gets reversed, the first of four times that Alyx pushes the good stuff back into my arm. The red tube turns yellow as I feel the pull dissipate, and it doesn’t hurt as bad. The nurse says, out of the blue, “it’s okay to ask for a blanket.” I said something to the effect of what, and she explained that the yellow stuff would be returning to my body at room temperature. I might feel a chill. Great, I thought, and I signed a death waiver.

About halfway through, my hand falls asleep. Usually when a body part falls asleep, you try to get blood to it to get some feeling back in it, but with a giant needle sucking all the blood out, there’s no relief. Soon, I start moving my fingers with concern. I have to watch myself do this because I cannot feel my fingers moving. Yep, I signed a death waiver.

On the last round of yellow stuff returning to my body, I start to shiver. It’s very odd though; I’m not cold, I’m just shivering uncontrollably. My teeth are chattering, my arms are shaking. Just as I’m starting to feel the cold, Alyx turns off, the needle comes out, and the nurse wraps a tourniquet around my arm to hold the cotton ball in place, and keep me from bleeding to death.

I spent my obligatory ten minutes drinking juice and eating the six cracker sandwich pack talking to a frightening one toothed lady who told me that this was her first time giving blood because every other time she tried they thought she was drunk. I wanted to get away from her, and I knew Tiff would be worried, so still a little woozy, I grabbed a water and another cracker pack and went back to find Tiff.

I told Tiff the above story without as much detail, then I start feeling pretty bad. I wish we had brought the camera, because Tiff says I’m turning blue. My lips, around my eyes. I feel cold, and the water and crackers are gone too quickly. I send Tiff off to find food, assuring her that I’ll be okay. She comes back empty handed, there’s no food that will work, stupid Vegetarian Challenge. She agrees to go to a grocery store that’s a good walk away.

While she’s gone, things get fuzzy. I get up from my chair and stumble over to a patch of grass where I sit down, lie down, start to sweat. I start feeling better and somebody comes by and gives me a flag of Annandale, the town we were in. Tiff returns with food and water. I eat and drink and get some color. Pretty soon I turn blue again and have to repeat the process on the grassy patch. As I’m lying down sweating, undoubtedly drawing in customers, little kids are watching, and Tiff suggests I go back to the Red Cross people. I walked away from the blood-thirsty phlebotomists feeling better, but under orders to get a good meal. “There’s six dollar ribs!” which I can’t eat, stupid Vegetarian Challenge, but that’s okay, and there’s nothing I can do, because I signed a death waiver.

A few hours later, the color back in my face, we break down our tent, shows over. It’s usually not that tough, and it isn’t today, but I’m relegated to the sidelines, watching my young fiancé do all the heavy lifting, all the packing, and more or less all the work. So in the end, I didn’t die and didn’t even have to work. Plus, I saved a life, I hope, because it was not a fun process - somebody had better be saved.

Complete and Utter AdSense

Blogger allows you, or well me, to have ads on my site. through AdSense, which I think is because they have special powers to sense out of evil. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Smallville. What it does do is look over my sight from time to time to see what I'm writing about, then it puts up what it thinks are relative ads. Right now, it thinks this blog includes a lot about the Hurricane Katrina Fund, which it suddenly does.

So, I encourage everyone to make me a true sellout and visit whatever it is that I'm advertising for, even if it is little blue pills or specific-use pumps, and therefore make me rich beyond my wildest dreams! Actually, I mainly put it up there just to see what some computer program thinks I'm talking about.

And that's why: President Bush's live-bait helped propel the on-line gaming world of credit cards and virus protection software, while earning $700 a week from your living room!

Words are Fun

Upon suggestion from a fan, hey Ann!, I am changing the format of my word list. I have been putting the words into my own little sentences, perhaps as a way to help remember the word, but more just because it is kind of fun. Now, I will use the actual text and source it.

I think growing up the only regular homework that I was ever truly eager to do was something similar with our weekly vocabulary list straight off the pages of Wordly Wise. Each week we had to create a sentence for each of the twenty vocabulary words, and my memories of it are trying to come up with the strangest sentences possible that still made sense. At the beginning of the year, I would try to have the sentences go together as much as possible, but towards the end, my running internal monologue would award me extra points if I was able to make each sentence as unique in subject and tone as possible. I guess I never really thought about liking the homework, and it hadn't translated into reading yet. That year the class read a book with a pink cover about a kid on a farm. I didn't read it. I never even tried.

I just started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's an Oprah's Book Club book! I am not very far into it but I'm guessing that Mr. McCarthy name will be used quite a few times. I just saw a list of the greatest modern novels, from 1900 on. James Joyce tops the list with Ulysses. It is not an Oprah's Book Club book. I can only assume that reading it would be one hell of an odyssey, but it uses over 30,000 different words. I'm not sure what kind of sacrifice it would make, but reading it may be worth the challenge.

James Joyce also came in at number three on the list with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I was suppose to read for a class in college. Never even tried to read that one either. I was quite the student.

Cable's Out

A little over a year ago we signed up for cable, getting a good deal as part of the sign-up-now-bonus! package. After two-plus years of fighting bunny ears, we were paying what I saw as a fair price for television. The package included digital cable with a gazillion channels, plus HBO and Showtime.

The gazillion channels I could probably do without, but HBO and Showtime both have a surprising number of excellent shows. None of them ever look good from the previews, but about ten minutes watching any one of them and you are asking yourself simultaneously what the hell is going on? and how have I not been watching this?

Big Love is the spotlight winner for me. Polygamy has never looked so... I'm not sure what the right word is. I'm a bit new to these pay channel shows, but this is the only thing on TV I can think of that both draws you in and pushes you away at the same time - well, maybe VH1's reality shows. All the characters appear underhanded and somewhat evil at one point or another, yet it manages to engulf you into it's chaotic world. It is a pretty amazing feat of storytelling.

I can't say that polygamy ever really intrigued me before, but the show raises a lot of questions. Chief among them is how in the world could someone afford it. I can barely afford living on my own, let alone supporting three families. And with my up-coming nuptials, I kind of like the idea of keeping my options open. Of course, I should mention that Tiff's favorite show was probably Dexter, with it's serial killer protagonist -

I'm sure that has nothing to do with our approaching marriage though.

Our twelve month introductory rate recently expired. Our bill jumped a hundred dollars. Tiff and I decided we could live without these shows. Or at least wait till they are out on DVD.

We now have the "limited basic" package, which still has three times as many channels as we will ever need. Annoyingly though, we lost the "guide" ability and now we never know what's on. I guess we could check on-line but the computer's always way over there and we're way over here.

Just to Add a Little Spice to Life

Complete and utter global domination. That sounds scary, so I've decided not to set my sights on ruling all of mankind. Instead, I'm expanding my online world and adding another blog to my quickly growing empire. I figure if growth of the Muted Guerrilla continues at this pace, I'll be able to get my own ticker on the stock market. MG is still available!

You know actually that's not that bad of an idea... a blog stock market. "Buy" and "sell" blogs based on how they are doing. I wonder how that would work. It could be called the block market. I'm so clever.

Anyways, I have a feeling this is hopping on some trendy bandwagon of self-moderation but let me present John Duffy's Sacrifices. I'm great with these names... I really am clever. John Duffy's Sacrifices is more of a chronicle of personal challenges in the vein of last year's Egg Challenge egg-speriment, where I'll give up something or add something for a said amount of time and hopefully write about how it's going. I decided to go with sacrifices though because John Duffy's Challenges or Personal Challenges sounds a bit too much like an after-school special. I'll admit sacrifices sounds a bit morbid, so the name could possibly change.

I don't think I ever mentioned that a week after the Egg Challenge I went to the doctor with persistent chest pains. Hmmm... I wonder if the two were linked.

Like the rest of my blog empire, John Duffy's Sacrifices probably will only amuse me, and almost surely will never get too high on the block market, but it should be fun... we'll see.

I'm Getting Married!

I'm getting married! Married to the beautiful future Mrs Tiffany Duffy! And we will have a beautiful future.

I must admit it took me a while to write this post... everything sounded cheesy... or like I was writing wedding vows... when all I want it to say is I'm getting married! I'm getting married! I'm getting married! and maybe have a little picture of me doing backflips with excitement. My head shot would be this picture:

and Tiff's would be this picture:

and your mouths would move like South Park characters, screaming... I'm getting married! I'm getting married! I'm getting married! I'm getting married!

We are running away from the spotlight, traditions, and costs of your typical wedding to get married on the sun-filled beaches of Jamaica. We leave in 66 days... I'll try and get a fancy countdown clock on the side. For all the details, here's our very own website.

We are still planning to have a Recognition party, because when people get married you better recognize, but we are thinking that instead of January we will shoot for spring when the weather's a bit nicer.

I don't think the merging of the Duffy's and the Hanback's will allow us to challenge the Klingons for inter-galactic supremacy, but it does set the stage for world domination... or at least a long and happy life.

I'm getting married!

It's Written in the Stars

I'm a Yahoo user, mainly because when I first signed up for an email account my name was available on Yahoo... or actually I think it might be Yahoo!. The exclamation mark makes them much more exciting than the other search engines. And well once you pass out your email address to folks, why bother changing? ... or ... why bother changing! Anyways, Yahoo! changed their format a while ago, which is much nicer, and now I can check my email right on the home page! Rah. I can also now check my daily horoscope easy enough that I actually do.

Horoscopes are a strange thing. They are always so mysteriously formal and direct. "A coworker cannot be trusted today." "You will make exciting travel plans today." "Do not be tempted in splurging in expensive items." "Today you can do no wrong. Enjoy it while you can." They are always written as though they should be carrying an exclamation point at the end, not so much in the excitement the Yahoo! evokes but more in an urgent, threatening way. With even the calmer ones it's like the Zodiac is almost challenging you to defy it.

My astrological challenger is the Taurus. Today's reading is more of a celestial bitch-slap: "Certain truths have become too obvious to ignore -- so stop ignoring them today." Oh, O-kay. Don't hurt me. What does it mean? Am I to have a revelation today? I better had... mess with the bull, you get the horns. I hope I don't miss it. There should be a ray of light and angels singing so I know when it's happening.

The day is half done, and here's my only revelation: Don't put too much stock in the stars.

Fun in Bed

It's fall and Tiff and I are back to doing art shows on weekends. This past weekend we went to tiny Edinburg, VA for a full blown fall festival. This small town knows how to throw a party. As a vendor, there were some serious flaws, most notably we were near the end of a long string of tents and I believe I-81 was closer to us than the center of town. We were so far down that the parade that went through town didn't even make it to us.

We did however have a good spot as far as the activities go. Thankfully we were close enough to hear one of three concert sites, so we got to listen to old time music... I mean like Oh, Brother Where Art Thou old time music. It was great. We got to watch all the hot rods and dressed up antique cars drive by honking their antique horns, including General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard. De-nuh-dun-dun-dunun-dunun-dun-dun-de-dun. And then we got to see tractors roll in the other day for the antique tractor show. But that was nothing compared to what happened at the end of the weekend.

Right after I put two dollars down on what I thought would be the winning duck in the annual duck races, a man started talking over a PA system, saying "it's almost time, clear the road, clear the road." And as people were scurrying to either side of the road, pushing for a good spot, the police rolled in a speed checker and sat it at the bottom of the hill. And with one more "clear the roads or you could get hit" they announced the start of the Bed Races.

That's right, beds with wheels racing down the street. Here's a picture of your winner, who reached speeds of a blazing 25 mph.

It may have been the goofiest thing I have ever seen... and pretty dangerous - this year only one bed rolled over on a guy, who walked away unharmed, but I can't help imagining myself racing down the streets of Edinburg, wind in my hair, tucked in tight, praying that I don't fall over, just having some fun in bed.

And the Winner Is...

(the final installment of the two part squirrel saga) part 1

A few months back, I set a humane trap for the squirrel, Dexter, that lives on my balcony. As you may know, Dexter has done some serious damage to my flower pots, bird feeders, christmas lights, and EVERYTHING else that was on my balcony. I had to bring everything inside so it would not be destroyed. All that remained out there were some ceramic pots (he can't possibly chew through those), a table (no chairs because he can chew through those), and a pile of things in the corner (that I don't care if he chews through and have no room for inside). After this major clean up, I didn't see the squirrel for months. The trap was out there, food was in it, and no squirrel was in sight. I thought I had settled the score and triumphantly declared myself the winner.

Tiffany: Wins/ Dexter: Loses

Fast Forward 3 months.
Last week, the cat was acting weirder than usual. I went to the window and saw the squirrel trying to fight my cat through the glass door. I'm not kidding, fists were raised. It was a little scary. Dexter eventually got bored with the cat and retreated into the pile of stuff in the corner where there was an old chair cushion that I guessed Dexter had been using to keep cozy on chilly nights.

Tiffany: 0/ Dexter: 1

The next day I bought a big jar of peanuts. I put some in the trap, thinking "AHA! I've got you now, Squirrel!" I waited. And waited. I left the window for 5 minutes to get a glass of water. When I returned... the peanuts were gone. And no squirrel was in sight or in the trap.

Tiffany: 0/ Dexter: 2

Now, I realized with the score looking like that, I should step up my game. Turn up the heat. Show this squirrel what he's dealing with. So a few days later I watched as Dexter took off down the building to find some food. I put on my gloves and got a trash bag and went outside to dismantle the pile in the corner and even up the score.

I went straight for the old cushion, which Dexter had chewed into thousands of pieces. I picked it up and thought... "hmm that's heavy for a half-eaten cushion"... and then it started to move. Babies. Baby squirrels. So I went inside and got my camera and took some cute little baby squirrel pictures.

UNTIL one little baby freaked out and ran to the other side of the balcony. There was nothing I could do. I tried to move toward the railings so the little guy would run back to his nest, but he was too scared. He held on the ledge with two feet and screeched for his momma (Dexter is a she I guess) and then, after some hesitation, jumped off the balcony. And it's a long way down, folks. It hit and bounced and sat there for a while.

Tiffany: 0/ Dexterina: 3

So I ran inside and got a shoebox and went down four flights to find it... When I got down there, it was gone. I looked for a half an hour.... In pajamas, gloves and with a shoebox right in front of a busy major road. I spent the rest of the day feeling horrible that I'd caused the baby to jump to it's possible death. I imagined it lost and cold and hungry, never able to find it's mom & siblings again...

Tiffany: 0/ Dexterina: 3 + major guilt factor points

Later that night I was watching Smallville with John and I heard a faint screech.... the same screech as before.... and I asked myself... WWCKD? (Which of course stands for What Would Clark Kent Do?) And I knew what I had to do. So I got my shoebox and ran downstairs... and I found the little guy hidden under the basement level stairs. I slid under the nasty stairwell and tried to get him... he ran to the other stairwell... So I slid under that one. After repeating this process 5 times, I finally caught him. I returned him to my balcony and Dexterina quickly came out to get him. His little nose was bloody, but he could still run, so I'm guessing he's going to be okay.

I forfeit. I'm laying my armor down. The Squirrel has successfully aquired herself a safe winter hiding place, and I will never again question who is more clever. Not only did Dexterina win the war, she also managed to make me genuinely interested in squirrels. If you want to see some cute little squirrels for yourself, I found a squirrel webcam website where you can see just how cute they are 24 hours a day...

Final Score::: Tiffany: Big Loser/ Dexterina: Winner.

The Real Smallville?

And then this was in the news today.

A village in Peru was hit by a green meteorite on Saturday and now the people are all complaining of a strange illness. When investigated, a local official said that"boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned." No need to worry, it sounds like Clarico Kent has come to rescue us all.

DVD Viewing

I got carried away with talking about how great Smallville is with that last post so I thought I should start a new post for this. The Smallville DVD is coming out today... Season 6. As much as I love the show, I've never seen a episode at it's regularly scheduled time nor have I been bothered with commercials.

A friend got me into the show after he bought the DVDs and I've watched them all that way. It might be an old thought by now, but it really does make it that much better. My one beef with the masterminds who started putting out DVDs of shows is, today the DVD comes out. Season 6... I haven't seen a single episode of it. There's something like 24 episodes in a season. Season 7 starts next week on TV. Now I'm not saying that I couldn't watch a full season in a week, but I just don't see it happening.

Somebody Save Me

I think I am in definite need of rescue. Lately, I've been watching a lot of the cheesiest show on television and it's going to my head. Smallville is all about the strange adolescent and young adult years of one Clark Kent. These are the years when he learns many of his powers and how to control them, and not to mention how to hide them. All the while he saves the small town of Smallville from a never-ending supply of meteor freaks and battles his own demons to figure out his destiny... becoming Superman.

Like the CSI's, SVU's and NCIS's of the world that ask questions like who did it or what happened, Smallville has these questions with each show, but you generally know what will happen next... Clark Kent to the rescue! Unlike these shows, it's also asking what's right and what's wrong. Even though we almost always know the answer.

Clark Kent may always choose the right thing, but the right thing to do is often not what you want him to do. And with Clark Kent's friend Lex Luthor, a man we know will be evil, it's always fun seeing him teeter on the edge of good and bad... always wanting to do good, but usually winds up being evil.

It may be a good show, but it is on the WB, now CW, home of Dawson's Creek and Gilmore Girls... and I don't even know what else. And as such the standard dopey acting, especially with Clark and Lex, exist, but it also makes the show worth rooting for. Just so long as you remember it's based on a comic book.

OPEC HQ

I don't really have anything important to say, but why is the headquarters for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna, Austria? Okay here are the countries in OPEC: Algeria, Angola, Iraq, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Lybia, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

Here's a map of the OPEC countries.

Here's another map of the OPEC countries with a big red X on Vienna.

I'm all for asking "why not?" but it just seems strange. I guess in a way it makes sense not to use a city anywhere in the cartel. And I'd be all for Vienna, too.

Get the Led Out

I've bought a lot of music this summer. It just sort of happened. I bought one that was pretty good, so I decided to buy another and then before I knew it I was buying two and three at time from Amazon. ...and I used to be so frugal, such the penny-pincher. I used to have a rule with myself that I would have to really truly enjoy two songs on an album before I would consider buying it. Now with Amazon's "People who liked this also bought ..." list I'm not even really sure what I'm getting, I just need a second or third to get me over 25 dollars and avoid shipping costs.

So anyways, I've got, well, Tiff and I got the new Ryan Adams, Rooney, an awful, awful Josh Rouse CD, which was very disappointing, the new Feist, Andrew Bird, Mika, Paulo Nutini, Cary Brothers and I'm sure there are more. Most of which were really good... Josh Rouse though. I don't know what happened. He has two amazing CDs and then a so-so CD and then this god-awful piece of junk.

Whatever though... I've been listening to this stuff almost exclusively for awhile, enjoying my music. Life's been pretty great. Then the other day, I'm not sure what got hold of me, but I decided to throw in a mixed CD that Tiff made of Led Zeppelin, the first song being Tangerine, and it blew away anything that I had been listening to for several months now.

Between the two of us, Tiff and I have a whole lot of CDs, maybe it's time for me to find my frugal roots and rediscover some good music. Especially if I'm going to save up enough money to go to London in November to see Led Zeppelin perform one last show, along with several other big names... and Paulo Nutini.

New Look!! New Blog!!

I started a new blog. Blog is a terrible word for it. No novel ideas or insights into my life will come from it. Like my list of words blog, this new blog is just a list, a list of places I want to go... and perhaps that I've been - I haven't quite worked out all the details yet.

When I was making the new blog, I ran into some blogger features that I didn't know about, like the option to change the colors... so I changed the colors on this blog. The verdict still out on it, but it sure is easy to change. In fact I'm conducting a poll to see if people like my new look. It's on the right, please vote. Switching the colors killed my hit counter though... I think the 2100 or something hits were almost all me anyway. And it knocked out my tip jar which I plan on getting back up soon.

Alright, with no further ado, I give you John Duffy's Places.

UPDATE: There's so much cool new stuff! I'm not sure how long a lot of this stuff will last, so I encourage everyone to take a look around.

Thanks A Lot, Yahoo!

For months now, we've been worrying that our wonderfully weird cat (who still has no name)is not getting enough exercize.

We decided to put her on a diet, even though she doesn't eat all that much in the first place. Being an indoor cat is taking a toll on her naturally active inner-killer, and she spends her days lounging on the sofa and gazing out at the world.

After a few days on the diet, we searched the Internet for ways to cure kitty boredom. I found what I thought was a great Yahoo! article about ways to help put some outdoor adventure into indoor cats' lives. It suggested a "puzzle feeder", which I immediately made out of a shoebox and some tape. I cut a hole in the side big enough for her paw and put a scoop of food inside. The cat was busy for an hour (obviously hungry from her few days on the diet) picking out pieces of food, one by one, and eating them off of the floor. We thought our problems were solved and we had a happy cat on our hands once again.
We let this go on for a week, feeding her mostly from her puzzle feeder. Then one day she knocked over her treats so violently that the container burst open and she was able to eat several handfuls before we caught her. It was then that we first started to question the article's "work for food" advice. So we started feeding her in the bowl and leaving food in the puzzle box (for her adventurous moments). We thought this was the answer and all was well until, a week later, we noticed the food in the bowl wasn't getting eaten as much as usual. We assumed she just really loved her puzzle box.
A few days ago, as we ate our dinner, the cat decided to eat her dinner, too. We looked down to see the cat taking food pieces from her bowl one at a time and eating them off of the mat. Then she moved on to the water, pawing droplets out onto the floor and licking them up. Thanks a lot, Yahoo! for training our cat to be obsessive compulsive.

On the upside, she is spending less time on the couch but only because her new method of eating takes hours.

Bread

Look what I can dough!

And from scratch too. I felt I just kneaded to do something. I've always been good at just loafing around, life keeps getting breader and better.

The Lottery

"I'd rather be working for a paycheck
than waiting to win the lottery."

But if I can do both, than why not? I've been playing the Megamillions a lot recently. Probably too much. A couple of weeks ago, I was convinced I would win the 8 million dollar jackpot, so I put $5 into it. Nobody won so it rolled over to the next drawing. Today, some five or six rollovers later, maybe more, and $25 later, maybe more, the jackpot stands at 122 million dollars, and I still believe that I will be the next big winner.

The thing about the lottery is that you always truly expect to win. For just those last five minutes right before eleven o'clock, my mind races with the what-ifs and first-I'll-do-this, and every time it's something different. "I'll buy a house first," I'll think one night; "I'm going to travel," on another night. Once I thought I'd spread some money out to my family... once. Today I'm thinking, "I'll keep working - I won't tell anyone that I won - and then I'll quit in a huffy at the worst possible time." Revenge for what exactly I'm not quite sure, but right now, it just sounds nice.

The truth is, $122 million ... I have no idea what I would actually do if I actually won. I'd be happy, maybe even ecstatic, if I just won anything, even just $25. This makes me wonder why do it, if now-a-days it takes a couple of bucks for me to dream big. Maybe, but it also only takes a couple of bucks to win big... oh yeah!!

A Sports Weekend for the Ages

Barry Bonds tied the homerun record this weekend. Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th homerun, becoming the youngest ever to do so. Former Atlanta Brave Tom Glavine won his 300th game of his career, possibly the last to ever do so.. While we're at it...Frank Thomas hit his 505th homerun. Jim Thome hit his 490th. Some crazy guy thought he won a race, but it looks like he only had road rage. Oh... and Barry Bonds will surely hit another homerun, maybe even tonight... or tomorrow.

I watched SportsCenter this weekend. That's nothing unusual for me, but I guess this weekend was a pretty monumentous weekend for sports. As always, I was just waiting for the 30-second highlight reel of the Braves game... that is if they win, which I can tell by the constant scroller at the bottom of the screen, or going on-line. If they lose, I usually don't watch SportsCenter. Although I am glad I saw the bit on Glavine, the rest of that stuff, even Bonds, I don't really care about. I don't think I care at all. In fact, I'm just sick of hearing about it.

ESPN missed one of the biggest sports stories from the weekend though, and what I believe truly made it monumentous. I beat my personal best on the Yahoo game Super BounceOut, thank you very much. The old score had stood for four long years, untouched and untested, for though I had tried, I had not come even close. I thought I had past my prime; I thought my glory days were behind me. But ho! ...in one game, I racked up a mind-boggling 185,410 points, crushing my old record by nearly 20,000.

I'm not sure how great an accomplishment this is, but I guarantee that there is no asterick by this record. Anyways, there's not much as far as local competition in BounceOut, but I challenge the good people in blogland to top 185,410. I don't think it can be done.

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty had a big fall...

And all the king's horses and all the king's men... went and got a camera.