Honestly, the second thing I thought when my husband shook me awake at 0530 (after thinking "Cool!") was "Poor Deskmerc..." I've never been very good at maintaining rivalries.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:32 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 All I have to say is that a lot can happen between the alarm clock going off, and the next snooze! I remember we listened to the game for just a minute to hear the score, and I said "Sounds like Houston's going to the World Series." By the next snooze... not yet. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the alarm clock going off to baseball and football games still being played in the States

Posted by: The Girl at October 19, 2005 11:45 AM (Ue919)

2 While I'm sorry your husband is sad, I'm quite happy now. Astros win game 6!

Posted by: MrPhil at October 20, 2005 12:44 AM (/s7f5)

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Last night I was listening to a radio program about the benefits of pet therapy, where they take nice doggies to hospitals to cheer up patients. The program said, "Pets are a great way to reduce anxiety."

Um, I'd like to negotiate a trade.

Yesterday Charlie looked me right in the eye and squatted to pee on his bed, ate the first ten pages of The Federalist Papers, and managed to chew a hole in the bag of dog food on the shelf so that he could sit under it and have food pour down into his mouth.

Reduce anxiety, my foot.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:07 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Doc Foglesong is retiring?! Man, that's gonna cut the number of TV commercials in half around here!

(This joke is dedicated to The Girl)

Posted by: Sarah at 05:44 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Oh, no!! How am I going to entertain CaliValleyGirl without him?!?!

Posted by: The Girl at October 07, 2005 04:09 PM (L/ou0)

2 You might have to explain this one to all the people that have never seen AFN TV.

Posted by: Raven1 at October 07, 2005 10:57 PM (N1rEE)

3 The USAF commander makes TONS of attaboy commercials, constantly flitting around Europe and recording himself giving motivational blurbs on runways. I'd wager that we get one Doc Foglesong message per commercial break.

Posted by: Sarah at October 08, 2005 04:01 AM (ncie4)

4 Trying living on base where the man works! Oye that was a pain in the rear. He carried a two way radio and called in violators of base regs like not ensuring your dog was more than 50 feet from housing before pooping. Yes I know some folks don't pick it up but you shouldn't live in fear of the two way radio! His other favourtive was the "wing runs." He would tie up 3/4 of the base making all these folks in the wing run with him. No body could get in or off base for over an hour due to security and safety issues. He liked to do this once a blooming month!!!! HH6

Posted by: Household6 at October 11, 2005 06:18 AM (T+Tkq)

5 When I was deployed to an air base in Kuwait the last 2 Christmases, my reactions to his commercials ranged from gentle amusement to laughter to anger to wondering why his wife looks 90 years old. He certainly inspired me to make a Christmas wreath for my C-130. (See Christmas spot 2004). Now that's inspirational leadership!

Posted by: Keith at October 16, 2005 11:16 AM (i71p0)

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My neighbor called because her hot water wasn't working. Mine seems to be just fine, but who knows how these screwy buildings work. I've lived here two and a half years and I still don't understand how to work the heater.

Anyway, as I was getting into the shower this morning, I remembered the strangest shower I've ever taken.

When we lived in France, my friend had a bizarre bathroom setup. Imagine a cross between a stand-up shower and a bathtub, and not in a good way. Her bathing apparatus was the dimensions of a stand-up shower but with the porcelain sides of a tub, reaching about three feet off the floor. So if you're standing in the tub/shower, the side of the tub reaches mid-thigh. And then there's nothing -- no curtain or door -- but there's a nozzle for a shower. There's a seat in the thing, kind of like a jacuzzi-style shelf. Oh, and in the middle, at about belly button height, there's a series of strings for drying laundry. Seriously. I wish I had a picture.

So one day I decide that my curiousity is too great, and I ask my pal to use her shower. I just have to see this for myself. And I proceed to take the most miserable shower of my life.

In my own apartment, the shower had exactly three and a half minutes of hot water, so I was not unaccustomed to misery. But the moment I turned on the water in my friend's shower, ice water sprayed all over me...and all over most of the bathroom too, since there's no curtain to control it. But since I'm an idiot, I didn't just shut it off and get out, oh no. I took the whole danged shower.

When I got back to my friend's room -- did I mention that she shared this monstrosity at the end of the hall with two strangers? -- I asked her if her water was always that cold. She said that it was never pleasant, and I could tell that she thought I was being overly critical. That afternoon she learned that the hot water had been shut off in the whole building, and I had indeed taken a shower that was worse than usual.

As if things could get any worse than that hybrid shower-tub.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My husband got a real laugh out of this interview with R. Lee Ermey, G. Gordon Liddy, Evel Knievel, Merle Haggard, and Jack La Lanne. (But don't read it unless you can appreciate a man's man.)

MORE TO GROK:

Speaking of Liddy, CavX got interviewed by G. Gordon Liddy! Wow!

Posted by: Sarah at 06:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Holy smokes -- our gas just jumped 18 cents overnight.
I thought we were getting oil out of this war...

Posted by: Sarah at 10:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Stop the presses -- there's a draft going on in the military!!!!

Posted by: Sarah at 05:08 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 I posted that link to the message board for our Fantasy Football league yesterday. I got the biggest kick out of that article, too

Posted by: The Girl at August 29, 2005 07:50 AM (FmIVz)

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Hilarious Dilbert cartoon via CaliValleyGirl

Posted by: Sarah at 08:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This website (via Sully) made me laugh simply because it reminded me of my husband and his old roommate. They used to make up stuff like this about the opposing baseball team's players, such as "I heard Benny Agbayani once ran over a puppy and instead of stopping to notify the family, he backed up and ran over it again." The more absurd, the better. They used to have me in stitches with this stuff.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I turned to Annika for commentary, for she's the one with the shoe fetish, but no word from her yet on...um...flipflopgate? Apparently some girls wore flip-flops to the White House and it's caused a ruckus for, well, people who are older than the flip flop craze of late. To be honest, until the news pointed it out, I didn't even notice their footwear. Flip-flops have come a long way from being "shower shoes", so I don't think they were that inappropriate. But the ones I saw were classier than the two dollar Walmart bin shoes, so I don't know. I own some cheapo flip-flops myself, which I would never wear with a nice outfit, but I also own some classier flip-flop-like sandals that I would probably not consider disrespectful towards the White House. Your thoughts, Annika?

Posted by: Sarah at 05:35 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Now you know full well that you would be singing a different tune if you knew for a fact that those women were Democrats. Then it would be all about their lack of respect for "Sir President Bush." Good thing that Harvard doesn't have a killer lacrosse team!

Posted by: Pericles at July 21, 2005 06:55 PM (hHudX)

2 We had a fairly conventional wedding last summer. My wife wore a very stylish pair of flip flops, cute pink with daisies on them. I see no problem with them.

Posted by: Paulie at The Commons at July 21, 2005 08:50 PM (4KwiQ)

3 i bought these just recently. i don't know if i'd wear them to the white house, but i do think they're way cute.

Posted by: annika at July 21, 2005 10:21 PM (SLBbG)

4 I was actually gonna post something similar to this. Today I had a meeting with a vedor. Here I go, slacks, button down shirt, jacket and very nice flip flops. No issue. In fact - I can count on one hand the number of times I've worn "real shoes" to work this summer. I'm in an office - in sales. No Big Deal!!

Posted by: Tammi at July 22, 2005 09:02 PM (Z7Q0/)

5 A few days back I had to differ. Still do. http://urbanelephants.com/nyc/node/87

Posted by: Sean at July 23, 2005 01:20 AM (Evr8K)

6 I'd have to agree with Sean, at least in the USA. Flip-flops are a bit too casual for a formal setting, and meeting the President, however one feels about him, is one of those times. It is, to me, a matter of respect. It is also not that newsworthy really. So while the girls should have put on shoes, the newspapers didn't have to care so much about it.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at August 02, 2005 01:38 PM (2ZRmz)

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My mom sent me an excellent email forward today:

Why English Teachers Retire Young

Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m.instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina raised gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:54 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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You tell 'em Greyhawk...

I suppose it's possible that there are toilets capable of [flushing a Koran] in Guantanamo, in the same sense that it's possible that the Texas Air National Guard was using Microsoft Word in the early 1970s. To caveat my own opinion, however, I note that anything is possible, Inshallah.

That reminds me of a Futurama line my husband and I like to repeat:

Professor: "Is it true that stem cells may fight the aging process?"
Scientist: "Well yes, in the same way an infant may fight Muhammad Ali, but--"
Professor: "One pound of stem cells please!"

Posted by: Sarah at 06:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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By the way, did ya'll see what Red 6 managed to do to his hand? He called me all calm too: "If we need to go to the emergency room, do we go first to the American clinic or straight to the German hospital?" "Who needs the emergency room?" I asked. "Me," he replied, cool as a cucumber.

I remembered that phone call when I read this post by Not Deskmerc. If we had been living in England, none of this would've ever happened.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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CaliValleyGirl hit me up with this blog forward...

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video:
I just went and counted: 222. (Holy crap, I just thought of all the money I've spent on movies.)

2) The last film I bought:
Ordered Team America yesterday.

3) The last film I watched:
Actually we went to see Be Cool tonight. I liked it, but my husband thought it was too close to Get Shorty.

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):
Well, that's hard. How 'bout I name some movies that I never get tired of no matter how many times I watch them, like Raising Arizona, The Royal Tenenbaums, True Romance, Joe Dirt, Ocean's Eleven, Superman II, and Smokey and the Bandit.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A few days ago, the Boy and Girl called with a funny story. They were in the food court and saw someone they thought for sure had to be my husband. They'd only ever seen one photo of him, so they weren't positive, but they stared for a while until they caught sight of the name tape (Keller) and quickly looked away. They were embarrassed that they had been staring at some stranger.

Today I walked into the food court and caught sight of a soldier. My first thought was, "That has to be LT Keller!" The resemblance is really uncanny. I ran into Red 6 a minute later and dragged him over to take a look; he agreed.

But it wasn't my soldier. Mine should be landing in Germany any minute now...

Posted by: Sarah at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Wanna know how naive I am? I had to attend a faculty meeting today, and one of the counselors was talking about how it's not uncommon for kids this age to participate in "cutting". I thought she meant hopping into the lunch line; she meant self-mutilation. What is up with kids these days?

Posted by: Sarah at 11:57 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Woah. Cool photo.

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Lileks always makes me smile -- and boy what a treat it was to hear his voice for the first time -- but I can't think of the last time I've laughed as hard as I did when I read this...

My tie today wasn't Ogg Vorbis friendly either, but it looked hella good with my shirt.

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Oda Mae sends a hilarious link!

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Random thought: I still don't understand how the Trojans fell for that stupid horse.

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