Saturday, January 27, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
I've Been Hijacked!
Well, I didn't like New Coke either, and I turned out to be right that time.
Fuggem.
www.thedryspot.wordpress.com
or
www.thedryspot.net
Labels: Bloggernazis
Thursday, January 25, 2007
What if I Liked Looky Frumpy?
I own about 5 hockey jerseys. I like them because they are big and bulky. Like a sweatshirt, but cooler looking. I'm not sure my frame was ever begging for a fitted jersey to accentuate my curves.
And I'm not even Short and Fat.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
I Just Got Back from Dr. Jellyfinger
But he did have dreamy eyes.
In all fairness he did say that this wasn't his favorite part of the day either.
Why do they make you sit for twenty minutes on a cold slab in that assless-chap gown staring at a counter with nothing on it but a tube of Fist-Eze lubricant? Couldn't they store that stuff in a drawer somewhere?
On the bright side, the doc told me I seemed pretty healthy and didn't even mention that I could stand to lose a few pounds. He did say it wouldn't hurt if I grew a couple of inches taller, though.
p.s. Lynnster sent me the following email of encouragement, and I quote:
"Fingers crossed that you get a thumbs up from doc today!"
Nice.
In My Continuing Effort to Bring Some Culture to You Buncha Philistines
But you do need some more culture. Especially the free kind.
The Tennessee Repertory Theatre is presenting their second David Mamet play in two years. After last years extraordinary production of "Oleanna" they are putting on "Speed the Plow." A tough, witty insiders look at Hollywood and the moral morasses that accompany the life of a producer, this play has a stellar cast and I guarantee it will be wildly entertaining.
But that's not the free part. Most people know who David Mamet is; but usually because of his writing work on television and motion pictures. His theatre drama is some of the best written dialogue I have ever been treated to hear. To remind the general public of some of Mamet's work, the Rep is having a free screening of Mamet's political satire "Wag the Dog" at Sarratt Cinema on the Vanderbilt campus on Thursday at 7:00. Look closely for a young Kirsten Dunst as the poor refugee girl they hire to run through the explosions looking scared. It's a fun movie with a serious message in these volatile times of international policy. Check it out! You can't beat the price.
Back to the play; it's not free but you can't beat live theatre for impactful performances. The production stars David Alford, who I think is a Nashville treasure who doesn't get the attention he deserves, Marin Miller, a wonderful actress in the midst of a breakout year who you may remember as the "Best of Nashville" queen in the Scene this year or from her role of the Adjective Girl in Schoolhouse Rocks and Jessejames Locorriere, a very talented actor who is returning to Nashville after a long hiatus where I think he was either rebuilding motorcycles, singing for Dr. Hook or playing the chainsaw in Jackal. OK, my personal knowledge kinda slacks off at this point in the description.
But that doesn't excuse you from going to the free movie and/or the play. The Dry Spot sez: Check it out!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I'm No Medophile
You reckon that one day on the treadmill and 30 minutes of peaceful meditation will cure my ills?
Nah, me neither.
You Ever Have One of Those Mornings...
*click, click*
Crap.
Monday, January 22, 2007
I Am Not Switching From Blogger to Wordpress
Stand by.
p.s. Remember, you can always find me, no matter where I go, at www.thedryspot.net. Please adjust your blogrolls accordingly.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Random Ruminations on the 2nd to Last NFL Weekend
The little robot in the corner of the screen when Fox comes out of commercials has the exact same gestures and movements as Eddie George when he was warming up on the sidelines before a game. It's like he's an avatar. I wonder if Eddie got any royalties?
Noticed by DogDoc's wife, The Dookie:
Inevitably after the first Colt possession of a game, the camera will show Peyton Manning on the sidelines looking at those fax pictures of the defensive alignments. He usually has a look on his face like someone is holding a little dog turd under his nose.
Speaking of that look, UnaCoachaBomber Belicheck really classes up the sidelines with that hoodie and his ever-present pissed off look. Fuggem.
I sure wouldn't mind seeing free-agent-to-be Asante Samuel lining up at corner on the other side from Pacman Jones next season. But, unfortunately, his price tag is going up every game. He could make me get over my "no more DB's with dreadlocks" prejudice. That assumes we trade that swinging door of a safety Lamont Thompson for a bag of footballs and a used kicking tee.
Rex Grossman may win the Super Bowl, but I don't think he could start for Vanderbilt.
Two African-American coaches, and the NFL has to create the "Rooney Rule" to force teams to interview minority candidates when coaching positions come available?! That's just stupid. Let the dumbass cracker teams that choose not to broaden their pool of possible coaches suffer by continuing to suck.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
How 'Bout Dem Dores?!
Hutch deserved this.
Sorry about that, Fishwreck.
Wish You Were Here
We're planning to go rap, tap, tapping across some really tiny troll bridges this afternoon. Who's with me?
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ripped from the Headlines
Oh, don't you worry about that, you greedy f*cks!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Live Blogging the Windows Vista Launch Event-Session 2
Ok, I'll admit it. Office 2007 is pretty cool. And it's blogger friendly since you can publish straight from the application.
It's still a knock-off of Google Docs in that respect, though.
And the chairs didn't get any softer during the break. Please send a seat cushion. Or Preparation H.
Live Blogging the Windows Vista Launch Event
Zzzzzzzzzz.
Oh, sorry. Was I snoring? Damn these chairs at the Opryland Hotel are hard.
2 hours into the afternoon and I think I have Adolph Gates' strategy figured out. Take all the cool features from Mac OS10 and rename them. "They aren't widgets! We call them gadgets." Oh, sorry. My bad. "I know it looks like a dock, but we call it arrow" Uh huh.
The other strategy is to copy one of the most useful universal utilities, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and install Microsoft's proprietary version built in as part of the operating system. They want you to use .xps files instead of .pdf. It smacks of anti-trust to me and I seem to remember it cost Microsoft a few billion (with a b) when they steamrolled Netscape the same way a few years ago.
Lastly, I recommend you invest in memory chip manufacturers cuz this sumbitch hogs some CPU. Don't even think of installing this behemoth without a gig of RAM.
The highlight so far has been when the perky Microsoft demo dude was showing 200 of us a security feature and killed his mouse. Dance, nerd, dance!
This might effectively end my career as a tech reviewer, but I favor truthiness.
BushOla
Bring your own crayons.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
If We Could Somehow Harness This Power for Good
Some of you work-at-home folks give me the review...or not.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Day 4 Without Caffeine...
But my BP's down twenty points, so that must be worth something.
And what's with all the media outlets suddenly panicking about "black guys?" That's all I heard on the news last night and this morning.
"Beware of black guys!"
"Conditions are right for black guys to appear almost anywhere tonight and early in the morning, especially in the outlying areas of Nashville."
"Be careful because you might find yourself rounding a corner and suddenly encounter black guys when it's too late to react."
Worst of all, Channel 4 sent Larry Flowers to do a live remote somewhere to warn us about this problem with black guys. I think that's wholly inappropriate. Especially on MLK Day. Can't we all just get along?
Oh, what's that? "Black ice?" What the hell is black ice?
Never mind.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Stress Puppy
But part of me also thought that some of the ear pain might be related to some TMJ issues. I've never had a problem with that before, but I've noticed I've been gritting my teeth and clenching my jaw lately when some work-related stress has been getting to me.
Now regular readers of the Dry Spot know that I used to give platelets all the time. Until I had a little incident with the Red Cross. That of course turned out to be no big deal.
One of the good things about giving platelets so often was that it was like getting a mini-physical every month. I've always been a pretty healthy kinda guy with blood pressure readings in the 115/75 range month in and month out. So I wasn't too concerned about it when the Minute Clinic nurse practitioner slid the BP cuff over my arm. Yeah, I've been pretty uptight at work and a good friend and coworker got a really bad cancer diagnosis and I've been dealing with some issues with an aging parent who has gotten herself into a financial jam and I'm involved in a couple of really tenuous business ventures and haven't been sleeping well because of this damn earache, but all in all I felt fairly healthy.
156 over 94.
Crap.
Maybe I am a little tense. I took it again a half hour later and it was within 15 points of normal, but WTF?!
And the worst part is that I have my first appointment with a new doctor in 10 days. I haven't had a regular GP in 20 years, instead counting on Doc in the Box to treat my various infirmities throughout the years. But I figured after I turned 40, I'd better get somebody who I could go to on a more regular basis. My new doctor came extremely well recommended by several other docs, (skinny fingers) so I was willing to wait the three months that it took to get a new patient appointment. Apparently, somebody has to die to make room in the schedule. I guess it's kinda like getting promoted from the kiddie table at Thanksgiving.
But your first appointment with a new doctor is like a first date with a woman. I don't want his first impression of me to be that I'm a broke-down stress cur that needs to be put on Xanax and Lipitor. I always brush my teeth three times and floss like a madman before I go to the dentist, and I used to always wash my hair (when I had some) before I'd go to get a haircut.
So I've got two weeks to destress, eat healthy and get my pressure down out of the stroke range.
Crap, crap, crap.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
CostCo-nfusion
Two lovely, tall ebony-skinned women were working food demos across the end caps of an aisle and talking back in forth in a beautiful trilling melange of French and Kikongo.
A matronly Belle Meader walks up wearing her post-church finery.
"Excuse me, but what language are y'all talking in?"
"French."
"Oh, are you from Canada?"
"No, we're from Congo."
"Is that near Canada?"
"No, Congo. In Africa."
"Like that movie with the talking monkeys? How precious!"
"?!"
Friday, January 12, 2007
Like That's Ever Gonna Happen
NEWS ALERTS
alerts
Get an alert when there are new stories about:
* Stonewall Jackson
* Porter Wagoner
I believe they have me confused with my good friend Sista Smiff. (...who I can't believe I scooped on this story...)
Thanks for Your Good Thoughts
Fingers crossed!
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Sorry I Haven't Been Regaling Y'all With Stories From Florida
As soon as I got here I got some really bad news about a friend and coworker not unlike what Hutch just went through. There's nothing I can do from down here, but I'm feeling pretty damn helpless from a thousand miles away. I don't know what I can do when I get back, but at least I'll have the opportunity of proximity to share my emotions with the folks involved. This sucks.
Whining over for now. Pray for someone you don't know if you have space on your list.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
What Kind of Wack Job Am I?
Yeah, you guessed it. I'm at a three-day conference at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, home of Irv and Saul and the early bird special at Luby's before a rousing game of backgammon, a suspenseful episode of Matlock and the sweet sleep of pre-death as the Weather Channel drones on with the sleep timer of the television. Sounds perfect for me, doesn't it?
Yet I chose to leave this 5 star resort to drive an hour south to an oyster/sports bar in a Best Western so I could meet two old friends and watch Florida kick that Buckeye ass in the BCS Championship Game. And I loved it!
Youth is wasted on the young and luxury is wasted on the classless. Yup, that's me...
Monday, January 08, 2007
I'm Leavin' on a Jet Plane
How hackneyed was that post title?! Oh well, whaddya expect on a Monday morning.
Speaking of which, Monday mornings are normally brutal travel days, but the Nashville airport is practically deserted. I guess everybody is all traveled out after the holidays.
And it's a good thing too since because of all of the terminal construction going on this place looks like the airport in Nagos, Nigeria that the TSA keeps warning me has inadequate security every time I go through a checkpoint. No problem skipping that place.
Oh well, off to the mouth of the rat.*
*bonus points if you can figure that one out.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I'm Gonna Tell You Something I'll Bet You Didn't Know...
Damn near all of 'em.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go change my blue jeans.
Schoolhouse Rocks! Rocked!
Me and RUABelle
Sista Smiff
Aunt B and the Butcher
Mr. and Mrs. Short and Fat
Fishwreck
BusyMom
CanIBFrank and Interplanet Janet
and a couple hundred other hipsters who had a great time singing along with songs we didn't remember we knew all the words to. Maybe next time y'all will pay a little more contention to me when I make an artistic recommendation...
Seriously, it was a stone blast. NCT still has public performances going on this weekend and next, albeit without the free beer and popcorn. Y'all go! It beats the hell out of Charlotte's Web.
For details, check out www.nashvillechildrenstheatre.org.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Last Chance to Dance (and Learn)
Please don't make me type the details all over again. Just click the damn link. A good portion of my blogroll is coming. Don't be left out!
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Master of My Domain
So behold the glory that is www.thedryspot.net! Go ahead and click it. I'll wait...
Yeah, I know. It brought you back here. Try again. OK, you gotta admit that's pretty cool. It opened up a new window and brought you right back where you were. It's like a magic mirror. And my sitemeter is probably going through the roof with all these circular clicks. (err...maybe not.)
Feel free to cover up your desktop with my glorious old page. As James Brown would say, (if he wasn't cremated and sitting in some creepy bigamist bitch's purse right now) "Hit me three times! Uhn! Uhn! Uhn!"
So why does it just mirror back to this page, you might ask? Because I'm too insecure to leave Blogger yet. Hell, I'm not even willing to go to Blogger Beta because I haven't really figured out Blogger Alpha yet. I know all the cool people are leaving, but I promise to turn the lights off when I'm the last to go. Feel free to change your bookmarks now because whatever I eventually switch to will mirror from here.
And what comes along with a new domain? That's right, email addresses! Of course they all mirror to the same junk account, so anything you send to thedryspot.net will come to me now.
For example, (spammers stop reading now. Oh, and go reach up your own poop chute and pull your intestines out and wrap them around your throat until you choke to death on your own stinky Saddam rope since I'm not standing next to you to do it for you.) if you send email to any of the following addresses, it will come to me now.
CeeElCee@thedryspot.net
CLC@thedryspot.net
ceeeeeeeeeeeeelcee@thedryspot.net
thedryspot@thedryspot.net
smartass@thedryspot.net
dumbass@thedryspot.net
throwrocks@thedryspot.net
whatsthenameoftheAwiththecirclearoundit@thedryspot.net
ampersand@thedryspot.net
I tried to get thedryspot.com when I first started blogging, but it is being held by a company that makes pads to soak up your pissy sheets. That's somehow appropriate. Of course, they're not really using it. Maybe I should get to. The domain name. Not the piss pads.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
McLazy
Sheesh.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Lucky Seven
In no particular order, (cuz that's just the way I roll):
1. Took Knuck's advice to start blogging as a writing assignment to myself. The creative stimulation from reading, writing and commenting has distracted me well through some tough times in my personal and professional life. The new friends I've made through this undertaking have really been an unexpected blessing this year. Thanks for being such an easy audience and laughing at my doody jokes.
2. Adopted Nellie the nervous pudelhund. I've always believed that the right dog needs to find you. Nellie needed RUABelle. They had seen each other in two or three separate shelters and foster/adoption events in various places around town, and I'm convinced it was meant to be. the work and patience necessary to overcome her extreme fearfulness has made the good times together even better.
3. Realized how much my late father used money and the fact that we work in a family business to keep me and my brothers in opposition with each other. As we've worked through the finances of the estate, we've also made a lot of progress addressing the dysfunction of our relationships.
4. Admitted to myself finally that I have been bound by golden handcuffs at work for far too long. I have started to take steps toward picking those locks. I subsequently have found out that I just may be kicked to the curb anyway. Oh well. I'm looking forward to the next chapter of this story. Stay tuned.
5. Took RUABelle on very enjoyable trips to Vegas, Napa and Ireland where she was treated like the princess she is. For a change, I didn't do everything on the cheap. I've decided that it's better to put off vacations and save up in advance so you can pay cash as you go rather than suffering through months of bills afterwards
6. I went to my first Masters in April. While it wasn't the perfect trip logistically, it was perfect to me. If I never get to go again, I'll be satisfied. If I get to go 100 more times, I imagine I'll still be breathlessly awed when I walk through those gates and see and smell the azaleas for the first time.
7. I finally learned to say "no" to some people. Not RUABelle or the pets. But I've learned to delegate better at work and just refuse to take on some tasks that really were the responsibility of other people who were just too lazy to do them and knew that I wouldn't let the ball they dropped hit the ground. I also undertook a much-needed inventory of my volunteer and non-profit work to decide which groups I really wanted to stick with and which ones I could make the most meaningful contribution to.
So those are the highlights of 2006 for me. I guess I could tag somebody else; but I won't. (cuz that's just the way I roll.)
Monday, January 01, 2007
Friday, December 29, 2006
Just Five More Minutes, Mom!
Oops.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Bowling for Dollars
Let me just say the Earnhardt memorabilia was flyin' off the shelves at the Bass Pro Shop...
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Take a Short Trip in a Time Machine with Me
But last week, I got to sneak up to Washington D.C. for a day and a night to visit some old college buddies, so here are the random notes from that trip:
The main reason I headed up there was to see one of my best friends from Stanford. He's from Korea and serves as an advisor and professor at some think tank that is dealing with North Korea/South Korea issues. His father was the Korean ambassador to Nigeria and Australia when I knew him in college; needless to say my friend is quite international. He went to high school in Massachusetts and is a die-hard Red Sox fan so I guess he's really sort of a mutt. He's been working as a fellow at the Brookings Institute for a year and a half and was just about to return with his family to Seoul when I decided that I would have been a real shitheel if I hadn't made it a point to visit him before he left.
I won't bore you with my usual claptrap about how I used nothing but buses and trains to get to the Nashville Airport and around D.C., but I did. And, come to think of it, I guess I did just bore you...
The Metro dropped me off right in front of the Smithsonian, and since I was only packing a small backpack with me I figured I'd hike around the Mall a little bit before I met up with my college friends. Unfortunately, D.C. distances are like Vegas distances due to the size of the structures involved. "Aw hell, the Washington Monument's right over there. I'll just hoof it on down." Two hours and several blisters later, I finally made it back to the brew pub where we were supposed to meet up.
I did take a few cool pictures along the way, though.
Monumental Eclipse
Lincoln.
No, it's not.
After an enjoyable night of visiting, catching up on old times and taking an around the world tour of expensive beers, the next morning I had a couple hours to kill before heading back to the airport. I figured some of the Smithsonian Museums would be better than one more beer at the airport bar, so off I went. Besides, the museums are free, err...I mean I paid for part of them with my tax dollars and I might as well avail myself of them.
Getting to the Museum of Natural History right as it opened, I did the 30 minute tour. All the school age kids ran straight to the dinosaurs, but I figuired they weren't going anywhere. Instead I headed upstairs to be the first one of the day to see the Hope Diamond and all the other mega-gems in the mineral exhibit. I got to tour the space exhibit in total peace and even touch a piece of rock from Mars. Pretty cool. They also have an amazing exhibit of nature photography in one of the temporary galleries that was well worth the ten minutes I spent there. I was going to buy RUABelle a souvenir, but I figured that after sixteen years together as a happily unmarried couple, a t-shirt with a big ass diamond on it emblazoned with the word "HOPE" might not have been the most sensitive of gifts.
Then I headed down to the National Gallery. Two huge gallery buildings make up the complex, but I just went to the collection of pre-20th century art. It is in a beautiful building constructed of Tennessee marble which stretched several blocks. Anticipating patrons like me with time constraints and the attention span of a golden retriever puppy, the Smithsonian has actually put together a 60 minute gallery tour and map.
I saw almost everything on the itinerary, including the only DaVinci painting in the U.S. (recently restored to an incredible brightness-that must have been a scary job), and a lot of other great pieces by Rapahel, Van Eyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer (the Girl with a Pearl Earring dude), Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Botticelli and Toulouse-Lautrec. I would have seen all of the pieces on the quickie tour, but the gallery was sparsely attended on this dreary cold December morning. That meant in most of the small individual galleries it was just me and a uniformed security guard. How is that a problem, you ask?
First of all, it made me nervous having them looking over my shoulder and walking two paces behind me until they passed me off to the guard in the next room. Maybe I shouldn't have worn my Basque Separatist t-shirt and toted that bottle of HCl around with me.
Secondly, being the polite friendly southerner that I am, I felt the need to say "howdy" to every guard as I entered each gallery and made intitial eye contact. 25 "howdys" probably cost me the chance to complete the "crystal meth crankin' tour" of the collection.
Wandering back to the Metro to head for the airport, I was struck that Reagan National is even open after 9/11. The flight paths of jet after jet forced them to bank steeply to wend their way around tall buildings and monuments as they dodge a steady stream of military helicopters and flocks of Canadian geese. And the Capital and the White House are only 30 seconds off of the final approach path. I don't know what kind of armamant they have on top of the White House since Google Maps has airbrushed it out. But whoever mans the battle station has about 15 seconds to make a decision if there's even a perceived threat on the property and whatever they use to defend the area in that short of a distance must be pretty bad-ass.
I think next time I'll fly into Baltimore and take the train in.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
The 12 Days of Blogger Christmas (Day 13)<
Happy holidays, everybody!
(Except for you, Sista. Merry Christmas to you.)
Friday, December 22, 2006
The 12 Days of Blogger Christmas (Day 12)
A woman of uncommon beauty
uncharacteristically silent
stands in the kitchen drinking coffee
in a house where her mother
once was
staring at where a tree
once was
wondering what
once was
will be.
Her shoulders bow
under the weight of a self-imposed load.
She bears it gracefully.
Usually.
Few know the gravity
beneath the levity.
A pink tongue tickles her exposed ankle.
A strong, soft hand touches her neck.
Neither startles her.
Instead she cocks her head to the side,
Trapping long fingers between her shoulder
and her curly locks.
"Let's go upstairs."
sigh.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
The 12 Days of Blogger Christmas (Day 11)
The naming of Kat is a difficult thing
With so many choices to choose
To find the right name that has the right ring
I really don't think I can lose.
Libertarian, knitter, bunco group leader,
Wife, friend, pet owner and daughter,
Talented writer, voracious reader
Of Atticus, Frodo and Potter.
Katherine, Katy, Kathy or Kay,
Zevon fan, graphic designer.
I get less done in a whole day
Than she does from her recliner.
Of course it's not fair to compare me to her
And all of her Hogwart-like powers.
When I'm abed and have ceased to stir,
She uses all twenty-four hours.
Renaissance woman, forensic foe,
Moral compass of NiT.
Editrix, KC, Ren* and K-Co.
*"Kather-Ren," not "and Stimpy."
Too many names. I can't settle on one.
It's taken me down to the mat.
So after all of this exercise's done,
I'm honored to know her as Kat.