Potato

When I was a kid, I got a Tasmanian Devil t-shirt for Christmas one year. I liked it. I wore it. I established a pattern.

Every relative saw me wear the shirt, and instantly memorized the TRUTH... "Jeff likes Tasmanian Devil t-shirts". I got them for every major holiday for the next several years. At one point, I had more than 10. I had to put a stop to the madness.

In recent years, a new pattern (one I'm *not* putting a stop to) seems to have emerged: Mr. Potato Head. I asked for Optimash Prime for Christmas one year. Now I have him, Spidey-Spud, and Indiana Jones.



I brought Indy in to join my office collection of starchy plastic vegetables. I showed him to Oorah, who immediately grabbed the new spud on his desk to show off.

"Look, I got one too!" he said. "It's R2D2!"

I pushed Indy's hat. The Indiana Jones theme song played, loud and proud. Oorah's face fell.

Later he confided to me, "I told my wife that I need another Potato Head, because mine doesn't play music."

Heh. I wasn't *trying* to be a joy-killer, but I have to admit it was kinda fun.

Football Stories

Two quickie football stories for you. First of all, for the first time, I WON my fantasy football league!



I don't have any jokes about the experience, I'm still too giddy.

This next one is good, though. My oldest nephew asked his daddy (my brother in law) what he wanted for Christmas. Bro-in-law said, "Get me an autographed football."

Later, he was visiting gramma's house (seems like the kiddos get into a lot of mischief when they're at my parent's house, doesn't it?). He asked her if she had a football. Mom found an old football. Then, he asked her, "Gramma, who's somebody who played football?" Mom responded with the first name that came to mind: "Troy Aikman."

"How do you spell that?" Mom looked up to see my grinning nephew with a Sharpie.

This is the football my Bro-in-law got as a Christmas present...



...and no, that's not Troy's handwriting. :)

Christmas Cards

I got my dad a slightly off-color Christmas card this year. The cover had a pic of Santa and said, "He knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good..."

The inside said, "What I'm trying to say is, don't [honk] off the fat guy."

A few days before Christmas, my niece and nephews were over at Mom and Dad's house. Oldest Nephew (8, almost 9!) wanted to see the card Uncle Jeff sent. Dad gave it to him and asked him to read it out loud.

When he got to the inside, he read aloud, "What I'm trying to say is, don't OOOoooohhhhh...." His eyes bugged out and he started to giggle.

Once the initial shock wore off, he and his sister (6) asked for construction paper so they could make cards for Uncle Jeff.

When I arrived Christmas day, I was given the most shamefully hilarious cards I've ever gotten (the two were almost identical):



I think I'm the bad uncle now. :)

Forgot My Cell Phone

I left my cell phone at work yesterday. I *never* forget my cell phone, but now all of a sudden I've done it twice in the past 6 weeks or so.

This level of emotional trauma can only be overcome with the love and support of my dear friends. I wonder what some of them would say...

P-Ziddy
He'd tell me I can't leave it "behind" if I stick it in a warm dark place first.

V
She'd tell me to staple it to myself so I *can't* forget.

Lightyear
...would commiserate with me, and find a way to blame it on a wife (probably his own).

Fyrebaugh
He'd suggest that I spend 6 times the value of the phone to get a custom-made leather carrying case with belt clip.

Powerama
He'd tell me to use my powers of magnatism to retrieve my phone from a distance (he really does think that I have superpowers).

iCanSpell
...would find some clever linguistic way to make a dirty joke, which she would then blame on P-Ziddy.

Oorah
...would find a subtle way to mock me. "I have a small daughter who never forgets her toys. Maybe she can give you some pointers."

Scruffy
He'd say, "Let me message my World Of Warcraft guild and see if any of them have any suggestions."

LadyPatsFan
She'd hide the dang thing so that she could giggle at me while I tried to find it.

Big Dawg
...would mock me mercilessly... *after* a quick check to make sure he hadn't forgotten his.


I probably won't post again before Christmas, so... Merry Christmas!

Kilroy Update

Friday I talked a little about Big Dawg's nose. The comments for that blog post quickly got out of hand... I had no idea his honker would be my biggest "news" story of the year. Rest assured, from now on I will be attentive to the situation and will let you know the very instant anything interesting comes out.

P-Ziddy was kind enough to remind me about Kilroy. I had forgotten about Kilroy, or I would have happily invoked him during Friday's post. For those who are unfamiliar, check out the little guy on the right.

Now, take a look at Big Dawg himself. You be the judge:



This is, obviously, Christmas week. I'll probably post something tomorrow but that may be it for this week.

So quit runnin' up my site counter and go hug somebody you love. Merry Christmas!

Stories With No Point To Them

Two quick stories with no point to them at all. :)

Lightyear's TV

Lightyear stopped by yesterday to chat. He told a most amusing story. He and his wife were sitting together when she turned to him and said, "We are getting a new TV."

Lightyear is a practical man. "There's nothing wrong with our TV," he pointed out. His wife was firm. "We are getting a new TV."

Lightyear became thoughtful. "I remember," he began, "30 years ago, there was this cute little brunette who looked at me and said, 'we will never make a major purchase without discussing it together first.'"

The ploy didn't work. "This *IS* our discussion," his wife commanded. "We. Are. Getting. A. New. TV."

Now, I don't know what (if anything) is wrong with Lightyear's current TV. But if there's a moral to this story at all, it's that you shouldn't cross Lightyear's wife.

Big Dawg's Nose

Big Dawg also stopped by yesterday. He likes to stand on the other side of my cubical wall and look over the top of it at me. He's just tall enough that his nose can rest on top of the cube wall, which makes him look like a cross between "Home Improvements" Mr. Wilson and a large-nosed airplane.

I couldn't resist. "What's the top of my cube wall smell like?"

Big Dawg inhaled deeply. After some thought he replied, "Smells like I've been here before."

At this point, the comedic possibilities actually caused a mental stack overflow error. My brain just simply stopped. Big Dawg grinned and smugly walked away... this was exactly the kind of result he was trying to achieve.

Bravo, Big Dawg. If there's a moral to this story, it's that you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your nose with your friend's cubical wall. Either that, or that Big Dawg's nose has its own distinctive scent.

...ew...

Christmas Greetings In Three Words

Have you heard of "Your Three Words"? ABC News does this little video montage each week of viewers holding up cards with three words on them. It's kind of a "describe your week in just three words" thing.

So I starting thinking, and an idea popped into my head. "Christmas Greetings In Just Three Words". I think it would go something like this:

ONG (Oklahoma Natural Gas)
Happy Gassy Holidays!

Sanjaya Malakar
Enjoy My Hair!

Steve Jobs
Honestly, Vista's Fine

Tiger Woods
Santa's My Caddy

Dr. Phil McGraw
Earn Those Toys!

Michael Phelps
Faster Than Rudolf

What's *your* three-word Christmas greeting?

Name Change

A player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has legally changed his name from "Greg White" to "Stylez G. White". The name change was inspired by the name of the "best friend" character in the movie "Teen Wolf".

I know what you're thinking... "An obscure character from an 80's movie? Why didn't *I* think of it first? I wonder if 'Lewis Tully' is taken?"

Other notable potential name changes:

Dick Cheney...
... could change his name to 'Rick Deckard' because of their shared interest in shooting creatures (lawyers, replicants) who resemble humans.

Keith Olbermann...
... could change his name to 'Frank Drebin' in an effort to be taken more seriously.

Larry Craig...
... could change his name to 'Remo Williams' in an effort to bump up his street 'cred.

(NFL Commisioner) Roger Goodell...
... could change his name to 'Roger Murtaugh', since he's an authority figure who has to work with crazy people.

Oprah Winfrey...
... could change her name to 'Tony Montana' as she begins to shift tactics in the building of her empire.

I could go on, but I suspect the 80's references are *just* dated enough to kill the humor in this.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna turn in my paperwork to get my name changed to "Irwin Fletcher".

Obamania!

My wife's friend Cat is a hard-core Republican. So is her entire family... parents, cousins, hubby, hubby's family... all except Gramma, that is.

A few weeks before the election, Gramma announced during a large family gathering that she was going to vote for Obama. It's a miracle she got out of there alive.

After the election, there were lots of conversations involving Gramma saying words to the effect of, "Now you'll see", and the rest of the family saying, "Shut up Gramma." If not for that whole pesky "Gift of Life" thing, I think they would have driven her out to the middle of nowhere and left her for dead by now.

And now, we have the pinnacle of partisan joy. Gramma has announced that *everybody* in Cat's family is going to get an Obama commemorative plate for Christmas this year.

My malicious side loves this. 'Tis the season for gifts I know you'll hate! I hear she's also buying up some hair gel for Howie Mandel and a speedo for Santa.

I did a quick search for other Obama merchandise. I'm not making any of the following up:

Commemorative Silver coins
Yeah, I know. Nothing unusual here, unless you consider that the coin features an ape-man-ish monster and a turkey with the legs of an olympic power-lifter. Moving on...

Mousepad?
Startin' to get weird here... I want to celebrate history by mashing a egg-ish blarg of plastic down on his face and rubbin' real hard!

Coloring Book!
This one is so weird I'm including a link so you can share my confusion. I thought that "coloring book" wasn't PC enough for us anymore... I'm surprised they didn't call it a "Tome of Paint Pages" or something.

Christmas Ornament
If you put political ornaments (for ANY candidate) on your tree, then I don't wanna be your friend anymore.

Walmart And The Elderly

1) The little old man

My wife was shopping for greeting cards recently. As she worked her way down the aisle, a little old man suddenly thrust a card in her face. Without preamble, he looked up at her and said, "Who can I send this to?"

After a brief moment of shock she recovered enough to say, "...er... well, it says, 'For my daughter-in-law'."

"Oh," the old man said, deflated. "I don't have one of those." He went back to the shelf.

A few minutes later he was back, pushing another card up in the general direction of my wife's nostrils. "Who can I send this one to?", he asked. "That one says 'Grandfather'", she observed. "Oh," he replied, clearly disappointed.

My wife started to wonder if sending cards was such a good idea this year. "Our loved ones will understand," she decided, and left the aisle. As she was leaving, she looked back and saw the little old man assaulting another hapless shopper. "Who can I send this to?"

2) The little old lady

My wife and I were in the car, cruisin' the parking lot. Obviously, this time of year there's a lot more traffic in parking lots. We were waiting for a clearing when we saw a little old lady hobbling across in front of us.

"C'mon, lady!" I said, pretending to shout and being generally silly. "You'd better run!"

At that exact moment, a gust of wind caught a square of cardboard. It was launched airborne, and then pinned against the lady's backside.

She began to run.

My wife and I were laughing to the point of tears at the amazing spectacle in front of us. A tiny little lady with a cardboard hinder, running for all she was worth in a busy parking lot. She was running with the wind (obviously), and looked like she might go airborne herself at any moment. The whole way, that piece of cardboard was attached to her so firmly it may as well have been stapled there.

For the first time ever, the phrase "spanked by cardboard" came to mind. It's my new favorite phrase.

Dirty Santa, Baby!

We had a Department Chili Lunch and Dirty Santa game yesterday. The bowls of chili were massive, and hot. I'm pretty sure mine once covered the ruins of Pompeii. In other words, it was perfect.

The conversation at my end of the table mostly centered around kid's toys and TV shows. There was some debate over Thomas the Train and similar items. Cute, or Creepy? I threw in my support with the "Creepy" crowd, saying "Inanimate objects really shouldn't have faces. They tend to invade my nightmares."

This was met with general amusement and some skepticism. "Didn't you have toys like that when you were a kid?" "Well yeah," I replied, "but when I was a kid, my toy bulldozer looked like a bulldozer. It didn't have a face!"

Soon, our conversation was interrupted for the start of the Dirty Santa game. There was all the typical D.S. amusement... one guy in particular kept opening up cool gifts, so he was constantly being stolen from, that sort of thing.

One guy opened up a package and got a USB fish tank. Plastic fish floating around in a fake fish tank. It was cute. Chatty said, "Hey, let me see that." He picked up the box, then looked at me and smiled. "Look out Jeff, they've got faces!"

I convulsed in mock horror and hid under my chair.

Later, Shaggy (former 70's hippy type, current department boss-ish thinger) opened up a present. To his considerable dismay, it was a purse with photo sleeves.

The roar of laughter lasted a *long* time. Toward the end, I stoked the fires a bit by shouting, "Shaggy, that goes really nice with your eyes!" "Don't you have some work you need to be doing?", he asked, desperately.

For the rest of the game, he was a failing purse pitchman. "Hey man," he'd say, holding the purse out invitingly, "You could be workin' from home tomorrow."

Sadly, he wound up "winning" the purse for himself. As folks wandered off to their desks to work (nap), one of the managers asked Shaggy to hold the purse up so she could see it. Thus distracted, the department head was able to come up and snap a photo of Shaggy proudly holding up the purse. "You set me up!", Shaggy howled.

For the record, I also tried to snap a photo of my own but it didn't work out. You'll just have to use your imaginations.

Happy Friday!

Related Story: Dirty Santa at my previous job, several years ago...

Out Of Ideas - How About Bacon?

Well, it happens every now and then. I got nuthin'. Sorry about that.

In celebration of ... er ... well, in celebration, let's watch a commercial about bacon! It's short, and audio is not required. Fun stuff. :)



Everything's better with bacon.

You Are Not Interesting

Today I get to speak a rare phrase. Pat Sajak has inspired me.

Let me set the stage. This week is "Pet Lover's Week" on Wheel Of Fortune. When Pat introduces the contestants, he also asks them questions about their pets.

On Monday, he introduced a lady who had one cat. "Yeah, I don't have a lot of pets, but I love my cat a lot," she coo'd. Looking at his note card, Pat said, "...and it says here, there's something interesting about your cat's name."

"Oh," she said dismissively. "He's just named after the gym I go to."

Pat was crestfallen. "Oh, so not really interesting, then." The audience roared with laughter while he backtracked. "Sorry, it's just... that was my fault, for building it up like that... let's move on to our first puzzle..."

At first glance, Mr. Sajak had faux pas'd like a hot dog vendor at a PETA meeting. But I think he was unintentionally brilliant. Trend-setting. A truer maverick than John McCain could ever dream of being.

It's a revolutionary idea. What if it was acceptable in our society to bluntly tell people when they are not interesting? It would, at a minimum, revolutionize conversations with Tony Kornheiser. Imagine being in an unfortunate conversation and being able to interrupt the speaker with, "Sorry, this is totally my fault for noticing, but you are just flat dull. Change the subject now or I'm out."

It gives me warm fuzzies just thinking about it. Notice how I accept blame at the beginning of the statement, keeping the Dunder-Dunce-Dork from being able to accuse me of making a personal attack. It's foolproof!

I encourage you all to try it out next time you find yourself discussing Star Trek with someone who's a few decades over the target demographic. Together, we can make this socially acceptable! Together, ... we can change the world.

You're welcome.

Rampaging Stupidity

Two quickies for you today.

1) Dressing Up Pets

In the words of the immortal Jay Leno, "Your dog is NOT going to wear this!"

Sister-In-Law has two adorable pups who had to endure much this past Halloween. Later, she brought the dog's "costumes" with her to a family gathering and showed them off for us. If that poor mutt looks like she's about to pack it in and perform a Seppuku ritual, it's because that's the *second* time she's been forced to wear that thing in public.

There are those who say that dogs can't talk. These people have never looked into a mongrel's eyes at a time like this. Pup1 saw Pup2 in her costume, and her eyes bugged out. She was clearly saying, "OMG! Do *I* look at dumb as you do?" The dogs promptly started chewing and pulling on each other's costumes, trying to get them off.

The best part was watching Father-In-Law, who turned blue from laughing so hard.

2) Winner?

This story includes an act of stupidity so severe, I'm not even going to identify the folks involved with nicknames.

Some folks I know were gathered and watching "Gone With The Wind" on DVD. If you don't know, then you should know that the movie is set during and after the Civil War (and if you didn't know, don't admit to it, you ninny).

Anyway, the movie was nearing the final stages when one of the participants sighed and asked, "I wonder what it would be like if the South had won?"

Another participant replied, "Won what?"

It's even funnier if you know the participant involved. This individual has a knack for appearing to be fully engaged in whatever's going on without actually having any clue what is going on. A truly priceless moment.

Dental Recovery

I'm not at work today. I took today off as part of my wife's Wisdom-Teeth-Apalooza. It's been fun.

Turns out, her lower wisdom teeth were touching a nerve that crosses her lip. While the rest of her mouth recovers normally, her lower lip will regain feeling over the next several weeks. Now with that numb lower lip of hers, there's *two* of us dribbling down our chins at dinner.

We've gone through a lot of napkins.

As for me, getting the Permanent Crown seated was pretty easy. However, no one warned me what the 'Doc meant when he said, "We'll just pop that temporary crown off..." He made it sound like there was some sort of clever pull-tab or something. What he actually meant was that he'd grab the temporary crown with a pair of clamps, plant one foot on the side of my chair, and yank upwards like he was trying to pull Baby Jessica from the well.

After a full minute of the purest joy, he stopped to catch a breather. "It's loose!", he happily proclaimed. Then he grabbed some bigger clamps.

Thank God we're done with the dentist for a while. He means well, but that much focused enthusiasm is just frightening.

Progress

I've been thinking about progress lately. I remembered what it was like to move out of my college dormitory into my very first apartment. The joy I felt could best be summed up by the phrase, "Welcome back to the world of 2-ply, baby!" Those were good times.

Of course, apartment life gets old. In late April, my wife and I moved into our first house. What joy it is to walk around the place and say, "I own *both* sides of this wall, baby!" If folks get too close, I can shoot them. These are good times.

It seems reasonable to expect that things will only get better from here. I look forward to my first gated community, my first private empire, my first fleet of warships. My minions will build air-conditioned visitor centers so that I won't have to smell the tourists. I'll be known as the compassionate iron-fisted overlord.

Those will be *really* good times.

But quality of life is more than just family, possessions, and absolute tyrannical authority. There's also *me* to consider. How can I expect to enjoy my private beach resort when I'm hooked up to a machine and breathing oxygen through a tube?

The only answer is to turn my body over to the machines before I'm forced to. Mecha-Jeff. Sure, things are more or less in working order as is, but far-fetched futuristic technology can ensure that I remain a scourge to the known galaxy for decades to come.

Step 1 of this process was yesterday. It's a small step, I admit... I got a permanent crown. Sure, it's only minor dental work, but I like to think of the "crown" as symbolic. As I continue down this path, I'll replace more and more body parts until my digitized brain exists in a 30-foot tall armored robot with jet-packs and 7.1 Dolby surround sound (for my peeps).

In the meantime, I have to wait for technology to catch up with my extravagant dreams.

Oh, and on a serious note, my wife is getting wisdom teeth removed today. Before I can become ruler for life, I must be caregiver for a weekend. The journey of a thousand miles, it seems, actually *does* begin with a single step.

Gopher Races

Now this is just wacky. Check out what appeared in my backyard.

How odd. Little animals must be prepping my backyard for use as a race track. There's no other reasonable explanation.

Picture it: The cat from a few doors down in the red "Tender Vitals" car vs Backyard-Neighbor Guy's destructive little "Peanut" in the blue Starbucks #2 car. They'll be competing against a squirrel on a skateboard, a rocket-powered mole, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Drama, thy name is "Jeff's Backyard".

It's all good fun, unless one of them crashes and damages my fence. Unfortunately, this has been happening with distressing regularity. Check out the front gate and see if you can figure out which planks I've replaced.



Never underestimate the power of a chiwawa at full speed. Yikes. Two of those boards were literally busted in half. Somebody hide the Scooby Snacks, for cryin' out loud.

Santa, Baby

My parents surprised us with an inflatable. An 8-foot tall Santa, to be specific. Sure, he's not drifting the high seas on a pirate ship, but he's still SANTA, baby!

We got him put together and wired up on Friday. I powered him up and we stepped back to see our own special little monster come to life.

Santa hadn't been upright more than 5 minutes before a neighbor lady on the other side of the street walked by with her two kids. The little boy couldn't have been older than 3. He saw Santa and started to leap with joy. "MAMA MAMA lookits Santa its SANTA! Santa, I wanna ..."

We couldn't hear everything he was saying at that point. He was jibbering at super-sonic speeds, and we were laughing.

Neighbor boy told our Santa what he wants for Christmas. :)

Biscuits And Gravy

My wife's Aunt and Uncle from Detroit came down for Thanksgiving (T-Day #3 for us). Auntie is a big fan of Thanksgiving day food (I know that's not exactly a unique quality). She called my wife's parents several times in the days leading up to the big event, wanting to make sure that all her favorites would be represented at the table.

My wife's parents cooked most of the day Wednesday, preparing. Then, Thursday morning, her dad got up at 5AM (not a typo) to continue preparations.

10:45AM Thursday, they got a call from Auntie. "We'll be there in a little while, we're pulling into Braum's for breakfast."

What?!? Breakfast?!? At 10:45 on the biggest "Hey, it's lunch!" day of the year?

After Auntie and Uncle arrived at the house, everybody just sat and looked at each other for a long while. "You know I made all your favorites," my wife's dad pointed out. "Oh, but I'm diabetic, I can't skip meals," Auntie countered. "Besides, their biscuits and gravy were really good."

We were having T-Day #2 over at my grandparent's house during all this, thank goodness. I'm told the tension in the air was a bit thick. Everybody else was starving, but they waited until about 1:30 to have lunch. :)

Thanksgiving - "You're My New Best Friend!"

Thanksgiving was wild fun. My grandparents always host. There were (I think) 25 people there, which was actually a smaller crowd than "normal".

Imagine cooking for 25 people, and thinking that you'd gotten off a little easy.

Once you get far enough out on the family tree, everybody is a cousin. Well, one of my moderately distant cousins is an adorable little 5-year old girl who has never met a stranger. She instantly hooked up with an fairly distant 15-year old cousin of mine, declaring her to be "my best friend". Moderately Distant Cousin (MDC) didn't have any idea what Fairly Distant Cousin's (FDC's) name was, she just knew that they were friends forever.

"MOM!", MDC shouted. "Take a picture of me and my friend!" MDC's mom didn't have her camera out, but I did. I offered to take the picture.

My wife was standing next to the BFF's, so I motioned for her to join the picture. She turned and smiled, and I snapped the three of them: the "I couldn't possibly be happier!" 5-year old, the "I can't quite believe this is happening" teenager, and the "I just happen to be nearby" photographer's wife.

MDC bounced over to me. "I wanna see the picture!" I pressed my preview button and showed her the pic. Her face fell. "Somebody walked into our picture!", she wailed. She grabbed FDC's hand and dragged her away.

I looked at my wife. "You just broke a 5-year old's heart," I teased. "You made me," she pointed out.

Details, details.