Unbecoming Levity

Mister Clean Mouth

Abacquer — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:24:34 -0400

So last night I went to bed with a "sippy bottle" of fruit punch on my bedside table. Sometimes I wake up at night and my mouth is really dry and I like to take a sip of water or juice. Also sitting on my beside table is a squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer.

You can already see where this is going can't you?

At about 4 AM this morning I went from "half asleep taking a drink" to "wide awake what the fuck is THIS".

What followed was a jog to the bathroom to spit out the small amount of purell that was in my mouth followed by extensive rinsing--that's some nasty stuff to have in your mouth. Then I had to go downstairs and get on the 'net to find out if I was going to need to call poison control--I didn't really think I would need to but just in case. Within 15 minutes I was back in bed, sipping fruit punch and going back to sleep.

And the hand sanitizer was moved far away from my drink and out of easy reach.

So for once in my life, I really was Mister Clean Mouth.

Of course I overslept this morning, and was late getting to work. Had to order a birthday cake and call my Mom's financial advisor, as well as prepare for a shoot I have tonite--doing another school dance, again for no pay. I'm rapidly becoming an unpaid success. :-/ Ah well, experience is good, and truth be told I really enjoy taking pictures.

Tastefully Simple?

Abacquer — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:42:46 -0400

Sometimes interesting packaging strikes me as good photo material. I like these colorful tins and boxes, and the design of them. But what strikes me as funny is the name "Tastefully Simple". When I think of tastefully simple, I think of simple things like, oh, a fresh picked apple. Or maybe a saltine with a little cream cheese on it, or a nice piece of pita bread. A "key lime cheese ball" is not exactly the first thing that springs to mind.

"Wow I'm in the mood for a simple snack. I don't need any fancy oreos or chocolate chip cookies or fritos. Just something quick. I know! A delicious key lime cheese ball! Just like Mom used to make."

Of course then again, what in the world would you possibly put on your key lime cheese ball? What goes with that, uhhh, flavor? (And it ain't Vanilla Bean Chiller, I'll tell you that right now.) I mean a saltine or Ritz cracker you can put just about anything on. But a key lime cheeseball? What are you gonna put on that.... chives? So in fact it is quite deceptively simple after all.

So maybe they should have called it Deceptively Simple Key Lime Cheese Ball mix. I'll bet some marketeer is kicking himself in the Prickly Pear Cooler for not thinking that winner up first. What do you think?

EDIT: Well this article, intended as a joke, sure has gotten a lot of Tastefully Consultants to show up and talk up their product. That's very nice but this isn't the "Tastefully Simple Blog". Enough already. Comments are closed on this article.

I Laffed

Abacquer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:27:02 -0400

Solo and the Wookee

Dynamic... Dumpster?

Abacquer — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:58:30 -0400

This dumpster showed up at work a couple days ago because part of the building is being refurbished and the company doing the work is called "Dynamic". I thought it was funny because what's less dynamic than a big dumpster?

Then I hatched an idea that it might be cool if I could photograph someone doing something dynamic in front of the dumpster.

The problem was I didn't have anyone who was interested in helping. This meant it was going to be me who was doing something dynamic.

I also didn't have my tripod (arrgh!) so I lugged a chair and some plastic crates out to the parking lot to set my camera on. Then I set the timer for 10 seconds and kept clicking the button, running to get into position, running and leaping and whatever in front of the dumpster, and then running back to the camera to check out each shot.

I couldn't decide which looked better, highspeed shots where there was no motion blur, or slower shots where the motion was implied by the blur. Eventually I settled on the latter. I think the above was the best of the series.

Did I mention it was like 80 degrees and I'm woefully out of shape? I took about 25 shots, which is essentially 25 10-second laps back and forth in front of the camera which was about 50 feet from the dumpster interspersed with lots of jumping and leaping and generally looking like a fool. It took me forever to get my timing right. In most shots, the dumpster ended up winning the "who is the more dynamic" contest! In the end I only kept 5 shots.

I was completely beat. So I took one last picture of me exhausted in front of the dumpster to get that idea across. It was only as I was dragging my sweaty tired ass in, lugging my camera bag, a chair and four plastic crates, that I spotted four people in one of the other offices in my building looking out at me with big grins on.

Given the choice of being humiliated and mortified, or just going with it, I decided to go with it. I set the chair down and gave a theatrical bow. Then one of the guys watching me laughed, waved, and held up a large hand-drawn sign. Here is what it said:

9.7

Lynnea Giggled the Whole Time

Abacquer — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:30:52 -0400

I've seen a few photos like this on flickr, and I have been wanting to try one.

This was a lot of fun to do, especially listening to my daughter giggling as I struck each pose. Patty was nice enough to take all the pictures. Although you only see 10 of me, there were 13 shots taken, its just that the me at the front of the car and the me at the back of the car are blocking the view of three other me's in the background. But ten Chucks isn't bad for a first effort. And I learned a couple things along the way (beyond the obvious: plan out the shot!)

One is, even with the camera on the tripod, it still moves a teensy bit with each shot. I really should have set up the cable release for Pat. Next time we try this, I will. The other thing is whenever I've seen this shot done, the photographer tries hard not to have anything in the picture that moves... like say a car. When I sit in the front seat, she leans a little forward, when I sit in the backseat, she leans a little back, and so on, each tiny movement creating seams and edges that don't line up as I try to stitch things together. So either I should leave the car out of the shot, or put sandbags in the front and back as I move about to even out the weight.

But still it was a lot of fun and I liked the end result. Y'know when I look at Vanessa, many thoughts cross my mind. "Clown Car" isn't one of them.

Do I, Really?

Abacquer — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:35:04 -0400

You know... there's a group for everything on flickr...

Activate Your Geek Powers...

Abacquer — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:28:48 -0400

Okay my geeky friends, what's so funny about this?

Preoccupied

Abacquer — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:22:25 -0400

Preoccupied (adj): attempting to put on underpants and then realizing you are already wearing underpants.

Audio Message From... Chuck?

Abacquer — Wed, 09 May 2007 05:18:49 -0400

Chuck's Audio Message On Drugs (MP3, 483 Kb, 41s)

I'm sure you will get a laugh out of that. Apparently I tried to record a voice message shortly after returning to consciousness in the recovery room. At the time I was still whacked out on the meds, and my mouth was stuffed with gauze.

Here's the best translation I could manage:

Okay, I am in the recovery room... and I am out of my head on medication. Can't really talk all that well... but so far, so good.

Mumble mumble mumble right now. Mumble mumble mumble.

Don't worry, things will be a little better tomorrow. Love ya. Bye bye.

As for how I am doing now--as time progresses the fit of the dentures changes, sometimes very slack, sometimes very tight (probably from gums swelling and shrinking, swelling and shrinking), so the worst pain seems to shift from place to place, but my mouth aches all over. The imporant thing is I am on the mend.

I can't eat much at all. Applesauce and yogurt and jello is it so far. Yesterday I made myself a thick shake out of yogurt, a cut up banana, and a cup of fruit juice which I ate with a spoon. Would love to eat something more substantial, but I just can't manage it right now. I tried lipton soup with teeny noodles in it... couldn't manage it. Drinking is hard, and taking pills is harder. Anything which works my upper cheeks and tongue like laughing, talking, and especially swallowing makes the upper dentures dislodge.

Anyway hope you got a laugh out of my "audio message".

Preoccupied

Abacquer — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:34:35 -0400

There's so much stuff going on in my life now I am very preoccupied. Today it hit home just how preoccupied I am. I got to work (late) and settled down to get going on this document I need to finish before I disappear next week for my oral surgery and recovery. But first I tossed my lunch in the microwave and started heating it up. Then I sat down an ate a plum that was in my lunchbag while I was working and lunch was cooking. The plum was delicious, according to the label on it, it was "Tree Ripened from Chile". I worked and ate, worked and ate. Finished the plum, tossed it away. Realized I was still quite hungry 20 minutes later and then remembered I needed to get my lunch from the kitchen. Someone had long since taken it out of the microwave but it was still warm. So I returned and dove back into my document, but couldn't shake the feeling that I had forgotten something.

About 10 minutes later I finally figured out what it was. I never took the label off the plum. Apparently, I ate it.

I'm a little preoccupied.

And apparently, tree ripened, from Chile as well.

Too Much To Talk About

Abacquer — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 19:36:39 -0400

I'm sorry I haven't been able to blog in awhile... there's just been so much going on my life. I've got a lot of things I'd like to talk about, but any one of them would be a full blog article I don't have time to write. So here's the "Cliff Notes"...

My Health
I visited the doctor about 2 weeks ago. My TB test came back negative, as expected. I woke up with the area around the injection on my arm completely flat and showing no reaction other than a slight redness. I could tell it was a negative result, but still I had to get to the doctor and have a nurse stare at my arm for two seconds and say "yep, negative." Did I mention it was snowing? A lot? The doc informed me that the plan at that point was to let the antibiotics run out, and then monitor myself very carefully, watching for fevers. I was to take it easy and not exert myself once off the antibiotics. I took my last pill the day my Dad had his aneurism. So I was getting almost no sleep, no regular intake of food, a high amount of exertion and stress, exactly at the time we were hoping my body would be able to cope with the remaining infection. By March 7th I was having fevers and my doctor extended the antibiotic. By March 8th the fevers had reached 102, and I was having painful chills in the night. On March 9th the fevers subsided and I haven't had any since. I had another visit with the doc today and she began to speak very frankly about having a surgeon go in and "break up" the scar tissue, or using a needle to drain out the infected area so it could heal. I spoke very frankly about how disturbing those prospects were to me, and if sixty days of antibiotics would solve the problem, I'd rather go that route. For now, we are on a middle ground. The doc has given me a script for 10 more days of the antibiotic, but I am to repeat the "wait and see" experiment when the current batch runs out (Sunday). If the fevers return I can start the next script. Next week I will have another CAT Scan, and then based on the results we will make a decision. The doctor said I could come in and speak with the pulmonologist at that time if I liked. At this point I'm beginning to feel resigned that a surgical solution is going to be necessary.

Mr. Deity
If you haven't seen the "Mr. Deity" videos yet, check them out, they are hilarious. A warning to my theist readers, these movies are created by humanists, and are therefore pretty irreverent. Don't check them out if that is going to bug you.

RSS & YouTube
Why doesn't YouTube support RSS in any obvious fashion that I can detect? Why do I have to go to my subscription page on YouTube to see what is new. If they are tracking what is new, then they have the information necessary to provide an RSS feed. Bloglines tries to "fake it" for you, building an RSS feed out of a YouTube search, but that doesn't work well. Partly because old videos keep popping up on it, and because jerks post movies on YouTube with the usernames of popular YouTubers in their keywords simply to bring in viewers. The only YouTubers I subscribe to are ImpyTheRap (i.e. Nobody's Watching) and SuttSteve. Yet my Bloglines is constantly telling me they have new videos when they don't, simply because the RSS feed is built from a keyword search, and some people are not capable of getting viewers on their own talent. Does anyone have a good way to get a YouTube subscription as an RSS feed? It's really bugging me. I had to discontinue my YouTube "feeds" in Bloglines because it was a waste of time.

Texas and the HPV Vaccine
The Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has mandated that all girls entering the sixth grade in Texas schools must receive the HPV vaccine Gardasil, produced by Merck. HPV, or Human papillomavirus, is a virus that can be carried by both men and women, but some strains of which are shown to cause cervical cancer in some women. It is primarily transmitted sexually, but can be contracted in other ways (skin on skin contact, or being born from an infected mother). Under Perry's plan, parents could choose to refuse the vaccine for their child, but it is not clear if the child would then be allowed to enter the public school system (any more than they would be allowed to refuse, say, Mumps and Rubella vaccines and still put their kids in school.) The Texas legislature voted 118-23 to basically overturn this order. The primary complaints were that (a) there are questionable connections between Perry and Merck, (b) parents should have the right to choose whether their daughters will be vaccinated, (c) the drug is new and needs to be further tested, and (d) Perry circumvented the legislative process. On (a) and (d) I can't really comment, on (c)... well the FDA has approved it, so it has to have undergone some testing at this point, and on (b) I'm just mystified. The mandate clearly has an opt-out clause... so what's the diff? The thing I can't shake is that the early complaints about the possibility of making this drug mandatory that came out of Fundie USA was that it would encourage young women to have sex. Which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But I can't help feeling that because those who said it are realizing how stupid that sounds, we are now getting other excuses like a through d above. I find myself wondering if HPV was transmitted in a nonsexual manner, would there be any outcry at all?

These are the Same People Who Said...
Tell me you haven't heard this one before: confronted with the latest news from climate scientists about global warming, a politically motivated skeptic will claim "These are the same people who said the world was headed for another ice age back in the 1970's... why should we believe them now?" Like so much politically motivated rhetoric, there's little merit in it. Between the 40's and the 70's a cooling trend was noted in the data available at that time. Scientific journals noted that although such a trend could be the precursor of the cyclic ice ages that our planet goes through, there was not enough data or understanding of the climate to accurately predict when the next ice age would come. The popular press on the other hand (i.e. those journals which are not peer reviewed) took the story and made a sensation out of it. The scientific community never said another ice age was imminent, period. Needless to say I hate hearing this stupid argument, especially when it is delivered by people who unfortunately are accorded undue credibility... like Michael Crichton for instance. But if you want details refuting this particular bit of rhetoric, check "The Global Cooling Myth" on Real Climate.

Guess that's all I have for now. Hope everyone else is well and happy...

Eyeball Glaze, Love

Abacquer — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:35:38 -0500

So I have conjunctivitis, which means 4 times a day I get to experience the joy of Erythromycin Ophthalmic Ointment (or EOO -- pronounced eyewwwwww!) And in trying to follow these instructions I've discovered I need a hand mirror to look in or I will, ahem, end up with ointment where it doesn't belong. So, one hand on the mirror, one hand on the ointment, another hand pulling down the eyelid and... umm. As you can imagine this requires some contortions. Fortunately Wang Chung was on hand (that's FOUR hands now) to explain it:

Take your mirror in your hand
And lean back further than you planned
Take your eyeball by the lid
Reveal the red part often hid

Chorus:
With our hands in face
For our eyeball glaze
We were locked in place
When I, you, and everyone we knew,
Had to squeeze, spew, a bunch of eyeball goo...
Oh I said
Eyeball glaze, love.
Eyeball glaze.

Take your ointment by the tube
And carefully, the cap, remove
Now you've got everything in place
So squirt that crap right in your face

repeat chorus

So grab those tissues while you're blind
Or use the first thing that you find
'Cause on your face there's sticky glue
And you need far more hands than two
And you need far more hands than two

Thank you, Wang.

Stewie Griffin's Sexy Party Music Video

Abacquer — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:04:44 -0500

A la YouTube. Not safe for work, folks... but funny!

The Five Second Rule

Abacquer — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:59:31 -0500

We've all heard of that one right? You are eating something and you drop it. If you pick it up within 5 seconds, it's not dirty and is still good to eat.

One YouTube user has put together this little video to highlight just how ridiculous that belief is.

From the wiki:

...A study on the five-second rule was performed by Jillian Clarke, a high school senior, during a seven-week internship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003. Clarke and a doctoral candidate named Meredith Agle took swab samples from various floors around campus. They then looked at the samples under a microscope and discovered that they did not contain significant amounts of bacteria. The conclusion was that in most cases, dry floors would be safe to eat from.

However, Clarke also wanted to test the five-second hypothesis in cases where the floor was known to be contaminated. She therefore spread E. coli on both rough and smooth floor tiles in a laboratory, placed pieces of gummy bears and cookies on the tiles for various amounts of time, and then examined the foods under the microscope. All the foods had a significant amount of bacteria after less than five seconds. Her findings therefore disproved the five-second rule...

...The five-second rule was also featured in an episode of the Discovery Channel series MythBusters. The results they got from their tests confirmed Clarke’s findings: time was not a factor when food is exposed to bacteria; even two seconds' exposure is more than enough time to contaminate it...

Hot? Check! Fresh? Check! Crispy? Check! Stupid?

Abacquer — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 02:03:23 -0500

If this article were ever linked to from FARK, the given title would be something along the lines of "Having Solved All Other Problems, Chuck Discusses French Fry Containers". I can't help it... sometimes I see stuff and it just eats at my brain and I need to get it out (the stuff, not my brain). Burger King recently redesigned the cardboard container they serve fries in. One has to wonder who thought the public would give a shit, and further, how many millions went into this project. Here's the new "FRYPOD" (bet Apple computer LOVES that name) unfolded...

A Special Wish for Some Special People

Abacquer — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:04:03 -0500

This special wish is for: Rick Santorum, Katherine Harris, Dubya and Dick, and various conservative commentators like: Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and so forth...

Love, Conservative Style

Abacquer — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:58:00 -0500

Are you a conservative who is tired of going out on dates with people who turn out to be liberals? If so then ConservativeMatch may be just what you are looking for. Somewhere to find a person of the opposite sex who shares your political opinions. As they themselves say it's about "Sweethearts, not bleeding hearts".

I suppose it's nice that there's somewhere conservatives can go to find other conservatives. Interestingly, there doesn't appear to be a LiberalMatch service.

White & Nerdy

Abacquer — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:00:00 -0500

Okay, I recently picked up Weird Al's new album "Straight Outta Lynwood", and I have to say that by and in large I found the album disappointing, but that said there are some real gems in here, and if you haven't seen the video for "White & Nerdy" I insist you do so, I guarantee you will laugh your ass off...

Girls Costume Warehouse

Abacquer — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:39:00 -0500

Probably because of my recent rant on the proliferation of the "sexy" Halloween costume for women, my friend Dave sent me this funny video. Beware! There's foul language (and a lot of sexy costumes), so wear your headphones.

Thanks Dave. I assume the next time you call me because I haven't been around in a while, you'll say "Get da fuck down here, I got shit I'm tryna sell."

EDIT: link updated to yet another copy of the video. Sorry the last one was pulled. This one will probably get pulled eventually as well.

EDIT: Thanks James for providing the source link for the video. I've updated the above link to point there.

Milk Doesn't Need a Friend

Abacquer — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:53:25 -0400

I love the comedian Lewis Black. The guy cracks me up whenever he opens his mouth. A bit I quote from occasionally (and do great injustice to everytime I try) is his rant on milk (or what poses as milk). So the other day I was lucky to find out that this particular rant was on YouTube. Yayyy!

Lewis Black on Milk

Warning the language is foul, so wear your headphones. If you like this performance it was from his stand-up show "Black on Broadway". (You can buy Lewis Black CDs/DVDs on Amazon.)

Bri Feels Pretty

Abacquer — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:07:04 -0400

So my friend Bri is a very brave man. He recently took part in a fundraiser-walk for Breast Cancer Research (Making Strides Against Breast Cancer San Diego 2006). In order to drum up as many contributions as possible...

Bush and "The Google"

Abacquer — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:52:55 -0400

...One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see... I’ve forgot the name of the program... but you get the satellite, and you can... like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It reminds me of where I wanna be sometimes...

Teen Repellant

Abacquer — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 15:04:24 -0400

I heard about this on NPR months ago. This guy in Britain invented a device called "the Mosquito". Its a speaker you can install on a storefront (or anywhere really) that emits a piercing ultrasonic whine that most adults can't hear. In fact the older the person is, the less likely they can hear it. Young people on the other hand, can hear it, and find it (as you might imagine) extremely annoying. So if you're a shopowner who has teens loitering around your store you can install one of these devices to drive them away. In June NPR carried a story with a new twist on the mosquito...

Shoe Shopping Parallels

Abacquer — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:11:22 -0400

Here's a curious parallel. This weekend, I went shoe shopping and picked up some new sneakers. Nothing so odd about that. But what is funny is that independently, my good friend Maggie, who authors Pandora's Tea Room, wrote an article about shoe shopping and strangely we both mused about similar ideas. When I got home and was thinking about writing up my shoe shopping ideas I was quite suprised! Coincidence is a funny thing sometimes...

Living With Cats...

Abacquer — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:18:20 -0400

Just sitting here at my computer... minding my own business. Ho hum.

CRASH! SCAMPITY SCAMPITY SCAMPITY SCAMPITY SCAMPITY...

Today it was a dry washbin and some plastic containers balanced precariously on the downstairs bathtub. You know sometimes it's easy to see where the expression 'curiousity killed the cat' came from.

New Experiences

Abacquer — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:06:24 -0400

So today I’m wearing boxer briefs. Now you may have one or two questions at this point, neither of which is probably "why are you wearing boxer briefs?" More likely you're asking "why are you telling me this?" or "why would I care?" Read on to see which of these questions I'm planning to answer...

New Rule

Abacquer — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:38:47 -0400

The word "gigabyte" is from this point forward banned. From now on, the appropriate phrase will be "giggle byte". I've already used the phrase once today, and I encourage you to do the same.

That is all.

Yes, I'm still on my meds, before you ask!

Funny .Sig

Abacquer — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:01:10 -0400

Saw this signature line today on a post somewhere and it made me laugh:

You should walk a mile in someone's shoes before you criticize them... because that way if they get mad at you, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.

Interesting Recipe

Abacquer — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:16:24 -0400

What do you get when you leave a box of tissues sitting on a table in front of a running table fan?

A cat magnet!

Old Enough?

Abacquer — Thu, 04 May 2006 07:00:00 -0400

So on Sunday my wife took her monthly trip up to Pickety Place with her family. This is usually followed by shopping. I had a tournament Sunday afternoon so I stayed behind to prepare (and honestly, Pickety Place is not for me, so I never go up.) Sunday night, when I got back...