• I’ll bet you never knew a holiday could cause so many problems

    I’m so out of whack right now I almost don’t want to discuss it.

    I did say ALMOST, didn’t I?

    A mid-week holiday almost isn’t worth the trouble.

    I did say ALMOST, didn’t I?

    It all started on Sunday, just like the calendar says it should. Sunday morning went just as planned; I went to church, came home, took a nap. Then there was Sunday night. In a way it was Sunday night, but in another way it was Thursday night. I had to go to work the next morning, but there was only one working morning between me and a morning off. Monday was totally whack. Monday was equal parts Monday and Friday, and that’s the stuff of Rod Serling. Tuesday was nothing like Tuesday… more a bastard child of Saturday and Sunday (thanks in no small part to the Fourth of July Holiday). I was barely getting used to it being a kind of Saturday when I had to start thinking about getting to bed for work the next day. That’s just wrong. Everyone knows the Christian Sabbath is Sunday, and since I’m a good Christian (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) I almost had to take today off. Today is equal parts Wednesday and Monday (with just a splash of Sunday), with the forecast remaining the same (or at least similar) for tomorrow.

    There will be no reprieve until Friday, and even then it will feel a little like Wednesday… but who the heck cares… it’ll be Friday.

    On a side note: Word is pretty useless as a spell checker when a word is spelled correctly. Before you start slapping me around and calling me “Yogi,” lemme give you a hypothetical sentence and see if you can guess where and how I had made a mistake in this entry…

    “Go forth and have fun; for the Fourth is meant to be festive.”

    (Hint: the preceding sentence contains no intentional errors; grammar, spelling, punctuation, nor any of their close relatives.)

  • Little people

    Have you ever heard the myth that short people tend to be the biggest braggarts? If true, imagine what it would mean if you were the totalitarian ruler of a smallish, extremely poor country; AND, you were only 5′ 3″? I give you Kim Jong-il, leader/ruler/supremely powerful person** of the ironically named “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

    First of all, someone should tell him that you don’t help celebrate the birthday of a country you fought a war against… one that technically speaking, hasn’t ended.

    Second, those rockets were, like, way overkill dude! We’ve had 230 years practice and we still occasionally loose fingers with little firecrackers. Jeepers, those babies you set off could get whole crowds killed!

    Third, the whole point of fireworks is to SEE the explosion. If you let them go hundreds of miles and plunk them into the ocean it kind of defeats the purpose.

    What can I say… color me Freud, he’s obviously compensating. The lesson here is that compensating often has the opposite of its intended effect: you come off looking like a bigger fool.

    **Apparently there is quite a debate going on behind the scenes at wikipedia.org as to what, exactly, Kim Jong-il is.

  • All is fair…

    See if you can appreciate my dilemma. I was getting into the car after an uneventful family outing. I was saddling up in a fashion that left my posterior an attractive target, and my wife gave it a good swat.

    “What was that for? Did I do something?” I asked.
    “You didn’t do anything John.”
    “Is that supposed to be an affirmation or a repudiation?” I asked.
    “I have no further comment at this time.”

    If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”
    – Sun Tzu, the Art of War