Ripping Stitches

From the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest on ESPN...

"Yukons, Hybrids, Drill Bit Taylor, Bleach Alternatives... I don't have all the answers, but I do know that Kobyashi and Joey Chestnut can eat, and eat well."

Happy 4th of July

To my neighbor who I saw pooping in his yard yesterday - w4m

Date: 2008-06-05, 2:52PM EDT

I saw you couched down with your pants around your ankles. I asked "Hey, what are you doing?". Your reply was "Pooping in a groundhog hole! I read about it online. It's suppose to trick the groundhog into thinking another animal has moved into it's lair.".

Since you are normally a sane person I refrained from calling the police.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

36 Have been accused of spousal abuse.
7 Have been arrested for fraud.
19 Have been accused of writing bad checks.
117 Have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses.
3 Have done time for assault.
71 Cannot get a credit card due to bad credit.
14 Cave been arrested on drug-related charges.
8 Have been arrested for shoplifting.
21 Are defendants in lawsuits.
84 Have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year.

Pop quiz. Can you guess which organization these people belong to?

Time's up.

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.

Whoever buys the domain name Pay Hillary's Debt Dot Com from me.

An open invitation.

Pay Hillary's Debt

Here's something you don't see every day... This cute little guy landed on our new neighbor's perfectly buffed black Mustang. So much cooler than a pigeon. And give me a break if it's a hawk and not a falcon... Bird Nerd.

Bird Nerd Update: It's a Cooper's Hawk. Last sighting, according to MSU was in 2005 in Oakland County. Time to update that table, Sparty!

For the first time since 1996, I'm under 200 pounds.

I weighed in this morning at 198, and I was very happy.

Michele and I applied for life insurance last month and the test results came back showing I was quite average with everything having to do with blood and fluid and other gross stuff, but my sugar was really high -- Beer, red meat, etc. can send that number up. Following some web research, I started taking Niacin (an Amino Acid that works with your metabolism) and Fish Oil.

From my all-time high of 239 back in the Dark Ages of my life (I was with a miserable woman for a few years), I went from 218 last month to the Under 200 Club.

My goal is 180, but I'm not rushing anything. And tomorrow I'll probably be back at 205 or 203, 206 or 201. I'm a realist that way. One step at a time.

In unrelated, but tangentially trivial news, I finally have all the kitchen and dining room tiles cut, placed and grouted. I started that project at the end of August. Last August.

Some things take a little work, a little time, and a little patience.

Maybe he should have fed him Purina.

• You have bags under your eyes so big you’d have to check them in at Heathrow Airport
• You watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials
• You can spot bad typography from 100 yards away
• You can name more than 200 fonts in under five minutes
• You buy a CD or DVD for the artwork, even if you have no idea what the actual music or film is like
• You know what “kerning” is and you really, really like it
• You giggle whenever you use the colors F0CCED, EFF0FF and 44DDDD
• Seeing someone use Lens Flare or Comic Sans adversely affects your blood-pressure
• You organize your CD collection according to the Pantone chart.
• You know Lorem Ipsum by heart.
• Looking at a menu make you go “hmmm, ITC Baskerville italic” rather than “mmmm, lunch!”
• You use words about fonts you dislike that other normal people reserve for fascist dictators and serial killers
• Apple+Z is the first thing that goes through your mind if you drop and break something
• Your best friends are all employees at the local print shop