People are really weird, aren’t they?  Well, not you and certainly not me, but other people.  You know - the weird ones.  Case in point: Pat and I were at the Dar Williams concert last night (read all about it on her site - she writes much better than I), and the woman in front of us, the first thing she does is put earplugs in her ears.  “Hmmm.  Let’s see.  I’m at a concert, what can I do to make sure that I can’t hear very well.  Oh, I know.  Earplugs!  Yeah!  That’s the ticket.  I’m a goddamn genius!” Then during the warm up band, the Ben Taylor Band (who, to her credit actually were very loud), she grabs her husband’s (I am assuming here) jacket, pulls it over herself, scrunches down in her seat and tries to take a nap.  See, weird.  That’s just what I said.  Then the guy next to her spends 90% of the time during the warm up band’s performance with a finger in each ear.  Nope, I’m not kidding.  He actually sat there with two fingers in his ear like a 4 year old at a parade when the fire engines start blasting their sirens.  I’m thinking that he might have been better served to head up to the lobby where it wasn’t too loud for his delicate drums, but I’m just crazy like that.  THEN, (nope, I’m still not done), then, this scrawny assed slightly underweight ho woman, during the break between bands, while her boyfriend (I’m still assuming) was up in the lobby or the bathroom or wherever, decides to give herself a complete makeover.  COMPLETE!  IN HER SEAT.  Surrounded by people.  Let’s see.  She reapplied her lipstick, using two pencils, she reapplied her foundation, she touched up her blush, she relined her eyes, she curled her eyelashes (no, I’m not kidding) and she did a major hair fluffing.  I was fully expecting her to give herself a bikini wax right there in her seat, but her boyfriend came back and we were spared that horror. 
There were other strange goings-on while we were there but I am sure that you are tired of reading so I will just end with this thought:

Isn’t it great that you and I are perfect?  Hehe.

If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day.
John A. Wheeler

I ran across a bunch of quotes from Will Rogers and thought I’d share.

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.

I bet you if I had met him [Trotsky] and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn’t like.

I have had cause today to type the word ‘institutional’ about 500 times.  Not only is it an incredibly hard word to type (try it!), but the word has now lost all meaning.

What is the deal with Allen Iverson?  Every year he seems to be in some kind of “situation”.  A non-basketball “situation”.  A negative, non-basketball “situation”.  Now, I’m not the biggest basketball fan in the world (I don’t really like it), but I do like to root for my local teams.  This guy makes it really hard to root for the Sixers.  At least for me.  He has always seemed like a punk to me (don’t tell him I said that, though!  Christ!  He’d so kick my ass!).  He hangs with punks, he talks like a punk...Hey, if it walks like a punk and talks like a punk.....  So now he’s getting shot at by snipers!  Sheesh, what’s next?  We’ll probably find out that he’s been hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction!

Well, in case you care, here’s the story.  Iverson

This is a huge day!  Despite what my wife has said to me all these long months regarding weblogs, and let me quote here so’s I doesn’t get it wrong - “I will never EVER have a weblog!  I would never have anything to say!”, despite that, Pat is now up and running on MoveableType with her own blog.  And man, is it ever awesome!  She is going to (for now anyway) focus her writing on music.  You fine folks should go over and wish her a hearty welcome to the blogosphere.  She can be found at http://empress.buzzstuff.net.  She’s really nice.  Don’t be shy.

On a related note, just in case you didn’t know (and I’m sure you all do), Christine from Big Pink Cookie ROCKS!  I was struggling with Pat’s new site and Christine stepped in and got everything running smoothly.  I was ready to tear my hair out (well, what’s left of it anyway).  I gave her plenty of opportunity to make fun of my ignorance, too.  But did she?  Nope.  Not in front of me anyway (and that’s what I really care about).  She was super nice.  I just can’t say enough about her and all the others at both MoveableType and Blogomania!  Thanks Christine!!

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am no PETA member (mmmm...beeef), but this is disgusting!

By the way, don’tcha just love the batchild.  Admit it, you do.  I do too.

My wife wants to start a blog of her own and I told her that I had room on my blogomania server and I could create a new weblog for her in MoveableType.  So, I’m like some kind of super-hero, yes?  No!! I can’t even figure out how to get this new freakin’ weblog running.  I have it so that I can post to it, I just can’t view it.  That’s not good, is it?  I am very frustrated!!!  Damndamndamndamndamn.

CJ, our youngest (17), has this as his “buddy info” on his AIM profile:

...and one day, when canadians rule the world, we’ll all be watching ice hockey and think ‘i wonder how this came aboot...’

He’s a funny guy.

Hey!  We’re back.  How are you all?  I’m very glad to see that none of you went out and started up any more wars while we were gone.  In fact, ya’ll seem to have gone out and found our POWs.  Nicely done.  Top drawer!

We spent the weekend traipsing around New England.  It rained all Saturday morning, but the rest of the weekend was bee-you-tea-ful!  Including traveling we hit PA (origin), NJ, NY, CT, RI and MA (what is wrong with those Massachusetts drivers!!??  Yikes!!!).  Whew, this is one tired bee!  We had quite the grand time, albeit short.  We stayed at the Whaler’s Inn in downtown Mystic, CT (very nice but the shower/jacuzzi left a little lot to be desired), we ate at our favorite restaurant, **NAME OMITTED SO THAT I DON’T GET SUED**, well, it used to be our favorite till they tried to kill us w/ bad meat - they had to toss a whole batch!), we ate breakfast in the smallest restaurant in the world, Kitchen Little (you gotta try this place!) and found a real nice Irish dive bar - John’s (yup, just John’s).  All in all, a real good time.  It doesn’t hurt that Pat is the perfect traveling companion.  Thanks hun.  Already looking forward to our next adventure!

Ok, time to catch up on all my favorite blogs.  Here we go....