15 B.G. (Before Google)

Once upon a time in a world without car horns and remote controls a fellow asked me,

“Do you want the job?”

I don’t recall exactly what the job entailed but it had something to do with determining the edibleness of wild mushrooms and clinical trials in the first stage of FDA approval. The amount offered was prodigious and my main thought was, ‘hopefully I get into the placebo group.’ But due to a deep-seated aversion to gambling and a very religious upbringing forbidding drugs and alcoholic beverages, apart from Vanilla flavoring, declined the offer.

That’s not to say I didn’t think about it. With the extra money I could start a side business raising emus on a ranch with salmon and trout streams. Emus lay the world’s second largest egg and one can make Faberge-like egg-purses for the rich and fragile. The omelets would be huge…something like 14 regular chicken eggs = one emu egg with the only danger being a really bad case of Salmonella.

I could quit the part-time gig as an Elmo mascot at the local kid’s museum and tell people I’m an Anthromycologist at parties serving expensive hors d’oeurves consisting of rare fish, goat cheese, and the non-lethal mushrooms. Mrs. Parrish, the beautiful, charming, and witty Mrs. Parrish…we met at the university cafeteria and knew we were made for each other when we discovered a mutual interest in big birds, trash-can dwelling life forms, and snuffleupagus sightings…would be at my side. The rich people would come bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and $25 Starbucks gift certificates and sing praises to my name call me blessed one and a really fun guy. I would wax eloquent and give my opinion on alternatives to an NCAA D1 football playoff system called Stimulus II. And when they ask me deep philosophical questions such as,

“How do they punish a Siamese twin if one commits murder?”

I’ll say, “Bring me a sword!” and stall for time until I think of something profound and mutter obscure Latin phrases until…until I direct them to my Emu-Faberge purse web site on the new and improved Max iPad much to the chagrin of the wonderful Mrs. Parrish, Proctor and Gamble, and those seeking enlightenment.

“Lesser Sensory Perception (LSP) is the path to true happiness…still stalling…if one hears no evil, sees no evil, or feels no evil, it is only a matter of time until one disbelieves in evil. So when evil comes, one calls it ‘ungoodness.’ Which, technically speaking, is not an actual English word so one might as well re-arrange the letters to make ‘goosed nuns.’ And everybody knows a goosed nun is a rare nun albeit a definite evil.

Today's Proverb

"Go with your gut feeling."

"Listen to your heart."

"What does your brain say?"

"Do what your nerves tell you."

If one tries to do the rational thing and listen to all these body parts, it is inevitable one will go mad. Ever notice how it's always the most rational people who lose it? People who eat, drink, and are constantly kept amused by the tv never go crazy. Perhaps they're simply listening to their colon...the one body part that is NEVER wrong.

Road trip

Some pictures of a recent road trip I took for mental and inspirational reasons.














--The white funky airplane is the Voyager, or rather a model replica, as I think the actual one is in D.C. It was the first plane to travel around the world without stopping at Exxon for gas, beef jerky, or Mt. Dew.

--The bi-plane was, at the time, the latest in aviation complete with a winged tail.

--The parking lot mountain (volcano really) is Mt. Rainier from @30 miles away as seen from Lakewood, WA on a most rare sunny day.

--The rest of the pictures are of an old growth tree ring (taller than me), the Nisqually River, Route 7 from Tacoma to Mt. Rainier National Park, and some Cascade Mt. range shots as seen from the cockpit of a sky-blue PT Cruiser on a 60-degree January day.

My only regret was not seeing Bigfoot. The nice forest ranger lady said he might be hiding or possibly foraging for salmon in the Pike Place market in Seattle. It was kind of hard to tell as many Seattle-ites sport prodigious quantities of facial hair and what with a Star Wars convention in town...Hirsute Harry could have been mistaken for Chewbacca in a pinch.

Dom.i.nos...Change has come

I do not consider myself much of a sentimentalist-more like a thinkamentalist-but this video made me weep.



Of course it was well after lunch time when I saw it. My excuse? Hunger pangs and a deep-seated hatred of mediocrity.

The Newest Wonder of the World

REUTERS/Mosab Omar

2,717 feet = about half a mile above the ground.

I want an office here...one near the top...so I can throw paper airplanes out the window and watch them land in oh,...Southern Iran.

Miscellaneousness

One of my secret dreams is to have a pet fox called Smell E. Peyote. I also want an African large-clawed otter named Sidney. Anyways...




This picture is yet another unusual thing I found in a cabinet at work. I can only assume the warning label is there because somebody, somewhere, in a similar laboratory, attempted to put this very type of tubing into a living breathing animal in hopes of improving its life. But something went very wrong and which necessitated a very quick burial.

I went to Walmart today for two reasons, (actually 6 reasons, one of which is philosophical and medical and requires a great deal of math and statistics to explain fully.)

1-to get an oil change
2-to get new truck tires

After waiting for a very longish time the Walmart people cancelled my order without explanation. Then, for my time and trouble they gave me a free oil change which made me happy. The greasy dirty guy with hamburger and bananas in line behind me, however, was not happy for me. I know this because he spent a good 5 minutes talking to himself while the managers were discussing my two reasons for visiting them.

It wasn't a total waste of time. I caught up on my reading and feel up-to-date on exotic sports cars, bass fishing lures (jigs are best with spoons a close second), and the latest video games. There was also a magazine predicting the results of the 2009 college football scene...which was almost, but not quite, nearly 100% inaccurate to a fault.

As for my good deed of the day, I helped a little girl get water out of the industrial-sized coffee maker in the waiting room, which nobody actually used due to H1N1 or H2D2....or R2D2...whatever the latest flu strain is now called...fears. One cup for her, and another cup for the squirt gun she carried around shooting random strangers with.

Which reminds me: www.Peopleofwalmart.com

These people actually exist. I saw some of them today. Scariness.