Blogrilla

Good news! A family friend recently gave me Quadrophenia by The Who. I
know its thirty years old but the more I listen to it the more I think
it might be their best album. I’ll have to listen to it more
extensively to be sure, though. Really a great gift. They also brought
me a growler of beer from a brewery on the south shore. “Rock Bottom
Brewery” I think it was called.

FYI: they make a good Munich Gold!

There’s
a brewery close to work called “Salem Beerworks” that I like to go to
for lunch. In fact, last week for my birthday they sent me a $10 gift
certificate!

Life is good.

I’ll make sure I get over there today.

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        Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

        DEATH TOLL FROM TSUNAMIS RISES TO MORE THAN 114,000

        http://abcnews.go.com?CMP=EMC-1396

What headline to be greeted with
first thing in the morning.  On the up-side I guess its better than
being in Sri Lanka and being one of those 114,000 people.  There’s
always a silver lining.

To make it easier for you, here’s a link to the Red Cross donation screen:

        https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

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Just went to lunch and bought “Billy Idol’s Greatest Hits” for $10.
1. Dancing With Myself - Generation X
2. Mony Mony
3. Hot in the City
4. White Wedding, Pt. 1
5. Rebel Yell
6. Eyes Without a Face
7. Flesh for Fantasy
8. Catch My Fall
9. To Be a Lover
10. Don’t Need a Gun [Single Edit]
11. Sweet Sixteen
12. Cradle of Love
13. L.A. Woman [Single Edit]
14. Shock to the System
15. Rebel Yell [Live and Acoustic]
16. Don’t You (Forget About Me)

I’ve always liked Billy Idol. I can’t help it and don’t appologize for it, baby!

I also got a comedy CD/DVD from Dane Cook called “Harful If Swallowed”. He’s a VERY funny guy.

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So I’m listening to this CD from Billy Idol and its got a couple of new tracks on it that aren’t anywhere else.

One is “Don’t you (forget about me)” — its that song from Breakfast
Club by Simple Minds. Parts of it sound fine and Mr. Idol does a good
job putting his own finger prints on it.

but there are some parts that sound like pure comedy. The beginning of
the song normally goes “HEY HEY HEY HEY! Ooohhhhh!” Look it up on some
site that does lyrics, but that’s what the normal lyrics say. He’s
tweaked it a little so he it goes “HEY HEY HEY HEY!! Well I said Woo
Woo Woo Yeah!!”

It sounds rediculous. I can send it to you if you want. Its crazy.      

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Roy Collette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same
pair of pants as a Christmas present for 11 years - and each time the
package gets harder to open. This year the pants came wrapped in a car
mashed into a 3-foot cube. The trousers are in the glove compartment
of a 1974 Gremlin. Now Collette’s plotting his revenge–if he can get
them out.



It all started when Collette received a pair of moleskin trousers from
his brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of Bensenville, Ill. Kunkel’s mother
had given her son the britches when he was a college student. He wore
them a few times, but they froze stiff in cold weather and he didn’t
like them. So he gave them to Collette. Collette, who called the
moleskins “miserable”, wore them three times, then wrapped them up and
gave them back to Kunkel for Christmas the next year.



The friendly exchange continued routinely until Collette twisted the
pants tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide tube and
gave them back to Kunkel. The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the
pants into a 7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the “bale”
to Collette. Not to be outdone, the next year Collette put the pants
into a 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded
it with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel.



The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged.
But they were as careful as they were clever.



Kunkel had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a
20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette. Collette broke the
glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can
and soldered it shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled
with concrete and reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following
Christmas. Two years ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound
homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched
Collette’s name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the
treasured trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a cutting
torch.



Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to
Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it
with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe
shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who is the plant manager
for Viracon’s outlet in Bensenville.



Last week, the pants were trucked to Owatonna, 55 miles south of
Minneapolis, in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a car with
95,000 miles on it. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car
advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment.
“This will take some planning,” Collette said. “I will definitely get
them out. I’m confident.” But he’s waiting until January to think
about how to recover the bothersome britches.



“Wait until next year,” he warned. “I’m on the offensive again.”

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Lose weight. I’m far too heavy and have to relieve this burden I’m
carrying around my middle. We have a family membership at the YMCA
which is only a couple of blocks away. My neighbor has a similar chore
ahead of him for the winter and we’ve decided to team up and go to the
Y a couple of times a week. I’d like to schedule twice a week with him
and once solo — I’d like to work in some swimming. At home I have a
stationary bicycle I can ride for 30 or more minutes. The gym is a
couple of blocks away so I can get in some cardiovascular exercise with
some weight training a few times a week. Also with the swimming pool
there I should be able to do some light swimming for thirty minutes at
a shot. That’s my hope. I feel like with all these good choices
available I shouldn’t get bored as quickly. My neighbor says he wants
to sign up for some karate classes. “Ken-do” or something. But I’m
still too heavy to move in that direction. I need to lose weight before
I can do that kind of thing. Lately I’ve been feeling physically weak,
as well. So I’m hoping the weight training will help with that.

This is all a natural outgrowth of my sedentary lifestyle. I spend all
this time working in front of a computer and not exercising — OF
COURSE I’m going to put on weight! Duh. It ain’t rocket science is it?

I’ll let you know how things progress.

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A friend of mine from work was on vacation in Cambodia and Thailand for
the last couple of weeks and we were very worried about how he was
doing. It turned out that a few days ago he and his family had to make
a choice: should they go to the east coast or the west coast of
Thailand.

They decided to go to the east coast. That may have saved their lives.

Its funny how seemingly inconsequential decisions can turn out to be so momentous.

There but for the grace of God go I.

Discuss.

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Through a deal at work I can get discounted tickets to sporting events.
For instance, I just got an email saying I could go see the Boston
Celtics play the New Orleans Hornets on 1/3/05!!

Exciting, right?

The tickets are being discounted by $30!!

Even more exciting, right?

They’re
dropping from $116 each to $86 each. They’re in row five, section 14 of
the Boston Fleet Center. They’re good seats to be sure; not great, but
they’re good. They’re five rows back in one of the corners of the court.

It still seems like a crazy price to pay.

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Dave works hard at the plant and spends most evenings
bowling or playing basketball at the gym. His wife thinks
he is pushing himself too hard, so for his birthday she
takes him to a local strip club.

The doorman at the club greets them and says,
“Hey, Dave! How ya doin?”

His wife is puzzled and asks if he’s been to this club before.

“Oh no,” says Dave. “He’s on my bowling team.”

When they are seated, a waitress asks Dave if he’d like his
usual Budweiser. His wife is becoming uncomfortable and
says, “You must come here a lot for that woman to know that
you drink Budweiser.”

“No, honey, she’s in the Ladies Bowling League. We share
lanes with them.”

A stripper comes over to their table and throws her arms around
Dave. “Hi Davey,” she says, “Want your usual table dance?”

Dave’s wife, now furious, grabs her purse and storms out of the
club. Dave follows and spots her getting into a cab. Before she
can slam the door, he jumps in beside her and she starts
screaming at him.

The cabby turns his head and says,
“Looks like you picked up a real bitch tonight, Dave!”

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I took the ‘91 Previa to the local Toyota dealer on the way in this
morning. All their service agents wound up milling around the van
mumbling complimentary things about this grand old damme. Old men were
rubbing their chins and talking about remembering when these things
came out. A middle-aged woman commented on how great it looked for a
‘91 and especially considering it only has 108,000 miles!

“Keep up those oil changes!!”

“Why, back in double-aught I saw one of these jump over three cows and keep running!” said the old codger who was tidying up.

Everyone said nice things but it was a little disheartening to hear our family car referred to in such terms.

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