Things Are Getting Sticky Around Here

Here I rant a little tiny bit about glue sticks . . . I'm on page three, but the "She Said" on page two is a great intro.

Today's Harvest

Here's what I picked from my pepper plants today. I've been pulling in this many about three or four times a week, and I only have one plant of each variety. The tabasco peppers aren't ripe yet, but I have hundreds of them, too! I'm not sure what to do with all these peppers. Salsa, anyone?

And finally, after three months, I have four little golf ball size tomatoes on the vine.

Chef Deli Salad Did Not Go To Culinary School

That's what has been posted on the sign above a Roanoke restaurant for the past few days.

"Chef Deli Salad Did Not Go To Culinary School"

I'm sure there is some inside story to that. I wonder what it means. What do you think?

Coundn'ta Said It Better So I Won't Even Try

You don't have to read too deep into the archives to figure out that I'll be voting for Barack Obama in November. Very little could change my mind about that.

But I will say that after the two conventions I am a bit worried. Yes, Biden is a very competent and qualified VP choice, but he's also volatile, and remember all the other silly things that brought down other viable candidates for office? Macaca anyone? I'm kinda on the edge of my seat waiting for him to let something fly that will be hard to backtrack from.

Then Obama's speech. Yes, it was inspiring. Yes, it was energizing. And yes, he took it to the Republicans in ways that neither Gore nor Kerry did. But what I didn't hear were specifics. I wanted more specific, attention grabbing ideas that would pull more undecideds to his side. I don't think he pulled that off.

Then we have Sarah Palin. At first, I thought her a very odd choice. Until we all got to know her. Sure there are questions of her experience. Her family should be off limits and I hope they are, BUT you can't ignore the fact that so many right wing pundits villify pregnant teens in the entertainment world, but the case of the Palins is just the "family doing what they think is right." You have to admit, her presence on the ticket may well shore up support from the crumbling Republican base, evangelicals, and probably, working women with pregnant teenage daughters. Politically, I think McCain made a brilliant gamble.

What worries me is that most of the criticism of McCain's choice went only to those topics I just mentioned. Nothing deeper. No one was getting to the real reasons why we should be frightened of the McCain-Palin ticket.

Colleen, from Loose Leaf Notes offers a clear and succinct summary of those reasons.

Why I Would Never Ask My Mom to Fly Down for a Visit

She would do something like this. I can almost guarantee it.

Good For The Rhubarb

I can't remember the last time it rained this hard for this long, and it looks like it's going to keep on going for another 24 hours or so. We have been right on the edge of drought conditions so I'm not complaining just so long as it quits before the holiday weekend.

Whenever it rained hard G'diddy used to say it was "good for the rhubarb". I always got a chuckle out of that.

Bye Bye Now

See you next week!

Ocean Size

Here's another ocean song. This one blows away that Black Sabbath song. This one brings back memories . . .

Children of the Sea

I'm heading to the beach tomorrow. Wife and boy are already there. Never before have I been so in need of salt air.

So, knowing this, here's a Sabbath video that I'm showing you just because it has the word "Sea" in it. People forget that Ronnie James Dio took over for Ozzy and did a kick ass job.

Lemon

I'm not ever buying another HP PC. I trusted them because I worked with HP3000 and HP9000 mainframes for a few years and they were rock solid. Mainframes, PCs, apples and oranges.

I thought I found a good deal a couple years ago on this m7360n Media Center PC. First off, I don't even use most of it's bells and whistles. It's my own fault for buying more than I needed. But this thing is a lemon.

We've had to replace a fan, a hard drive (or so we thought, turned out to be something else entirely), and a video card. Plus it's hot, loud, unpredictable, and the DVD drives only work when they want to. Have to try over and over again sometimes.

Never again. I'm thinking about chucking it out the attic window just so I have a reason to replace it (after doing a full backup, of course).

I only mention it now because it's groaning at me like a constipated goat. Next time I'm going to find a hardware geek to build a PC for me.

Worn Out

Today I:

• Scraped and painted the front porch steps
• Removed the front storm windows, cleaned out all the dead bugs on the window sills, and washed the windows inside and out
• Watered all the plants and trees
  
• Spray painted two chairs
• Spray painted two outdoor candle holders
• Weed whacked the yard
• Trimmed the bushes in front of the house
• Picked peppers
  
• Mowed the grass (or, I should say, the longs wispy puffs that are growing above what used to be my grass)
• Went to Home Depot
• Mulched the front beds
  
• Pumped up bike and car tires with a foot pump, and in the process tried to guillotine my big toe (word of advice: never use a foot pump with sandals on)

Doesn't sound like all that much, but I'm worn out. Still, I love days like this, piddling around with projects and taking care of our little piece of the world.

Now That Is Weird

That hilarious hippo video that I tried to post from YouTube 8 days ago showed up this morning, twice. What's going on with that? For all you who didn't think it was funny, there's your chance to try again. C'mon. It's a riot!

Noodles on my Back

Speaks for itself . . . Enjoy!

MicroBustivus

Last Saturday, from Noon to 6:00 was the Microfestivus in downtown Roanoke, which is a fundraiser for Center in the Square featuring dozens of microbreweries from around the state and elsewhere.

LBB had casually mentioned it a few times, so I knew she wanted to check it out, but we ended up spending most of the afternoon at the pool. About 3:30 a friend offered to take the boy for a couple hours so we decided last minute to scurry home, get ready and get on down there.

We arrived about 4:45. Parked right across the street - I'll say it again (and again and again): parking in downtown Roanoke is never a problem.

After we went through one set of tables where we showed our IDs and got stamped, we were directed to a second set of tables to pay and get wrist bands. Here's what I don't understand: an admission ticket was $5, or for $20 you could buy an admission ticket and 10 beer tastings, or for $30 you could get an admission ticket and 20 tastings.

Keep in mind we have only an hour before the event is over. We asked to buy the $5 admission and then pay for individual tastings inside the event.

Nope. Couldn't do it that way we were told.

Now, I understand wanting to keep things simple. If all the money is transacted at the gate, the breweries can focus on pouring and discussing their different beers. But think about the logic here. Did it really make sense for us to pay $40 to sample beer for one hour? A beer tasting is 4 oz. Ten samples would be about 3 1/3 standard beers. Not an amount a lush like me would shy from, but still, that is quite a lot to gulp down in one hour! Especially if trying navigate around and sample different beers.

Poorly planned. Honestly, unless you got there by 3:00 the pricing would be a rip-off. I'm sure we aren't the only ones who turned and left. Why not a $10 option for 5 tastings? We could have done that in an hour.

Instead we stopped at 7-11, got some beer and sampled it on our own front porch. That turned out just fine for us. We saved some money, but Center in the Square lost out.

Think, Fool, Think!

The well is dry and I have a column deadline on Sunday, so I'm using this post as a scratch pad. Here are a few topics I have thought about tackling:

• Countryside golf course and other goings on about town.
• Fruitless tomato and pepper plants and the effort I've expended caring for them.
• My failed experiment in hyper-miling.
• Olympic fever! Phelpsomania!
• Mole holes.
• Anecdotes on crap customer service.
• Lack of a good radio station around here. (The Planet says they play "Everything That Rocks". They lie.)
• Why I don't go to church. (Probably not appropriate for the Circle.)
• Demon alcohol. (Definitely not appropriate for the Circle.)
• When Keith Anderson kicked my ass in second grade and why I deserved it.
• How about just a recipe for my Mom's delicious Chicken and Dumplings?
• My 7 year old does the "eye roll" at me now, and other emerging pre-teen behaviors.
• My desperate longing to get to the beach (going next week! Wheee!)
• Did K McN on Channel 10 get a boob job? No, don't go there!
• The Duchess County Fair incident and other tales of extreme selfishness.
• Am I too old to crank Black Sabbath with all the windows open in the car?
• Weary of the election. How come in other parlimentary democracies they just "call" an election and it's done within a month? Let's do that!
• Chasing rabbits through the woods . . . in a Buick.

I guess I have a few ideas. Not sure I can get 800 words out of any of them. Maybe I'll just turn in this list.

I Do Love Noodles

Hey, a few days ago I tried to toss up a cheap post from YouTube; did it the same way I've always stolen material from there, and it never showed up on the blog. Took me a few days to figure out that it was missing, so you can see how much I've been into blogging lately. None! Zip! ZERO!

So here's what I was trying to share. I think it's hilarious, but I was told by two 7-year-olds that it isn't funny at all. They are so wrong.