B-Bang!

Ooh, Lordy. The supernova continues. One of these days, I'll actually find the time to tell you about it. Stay tuned.

Slang Sling: Fancy-Pants Edition

I like the expression:

"putting on airs"

I can't say why, but it seems to perfectly capture the idea of someone getting too big for their britches.*

What expressions are you liking?

* Another great expression. ("Fancy pants". "Too big for britches". What's the connection between high-falutin'-ness and legwear?)

Take the Long Road Home

We finally closed out our Road Home claim today. Whooh! And gosh, it only took just-shy-of-three-years. Yes indeed, brutally efficient bureaucracy at its finest. (Though late-money is better than no-money.)

Fortnightly Fun avec les Brusiers!*

The usual deal: Band starts at 8:00. Nonsense starts at 8:05. All hell breaks loose around 8:30 or so. See you there.

* I wasn't lying.

What's his deal? (Extra credit: What's his sweater's deal?)

I Don't Want to Ride on My Motorsickle...*

So, in Schoolin' School, we were talking about the various sorts of positive reinforcers teachers can use to reward good behavior from students. We discussed the usual fare: stickers, pencils, etc. Then the professor said, "You know, I have a teacher friend who swears by pickles—the big ones you buy in the giant jars."

I immediately thought, "That's so weird. That's exactly what Wheeler said." (He once, for some reason, had a pickle-in-a-bag with him. It was one student's birthday. Wheeler gave the kid the pickle, which much to his surprise, caused an immediate furor from all the other envious students who hadn't gotten pickles on their birthdays.)

And since then I've heard—literally—something like half-a-dozen different teachers all independently say things along the lines of, "You know, it's weird. The kids will do anything for pickles. They go crazy for them."**

Pickles? Pickles. Is that a local thing? (I'm thinking it's got to be.) Far-flung pedagogists, please edu-ma-cate me.

Pickles. Huh...

* Hopelessly obscure? Reasonably transparent? Please tell me.

** I sympathize. I'm rather fond of pickles myself.

So, what's her deal? (I'm liking this game. Y'all're good.)

Bullsh*t 2: The Return of Bullsh*t!

The fun continues. Four of the following eight statements are true. Which ones?

(A) I have webbed toes.

(B) My chin stubble is asymmetrically graying (on the same side as my white eyelash).

(C) I drink more white wine than red.

(D) As a young boy living in Kenya, I got caught in one of the baboon traps. (Don't try eating the corn attached to the little string.) It took nearly two hours and the assistance of several soldiers from a nearby army encampment to find me. (Fortunately, I had the corn, so I didn't go hungry.)

(E) I am equally proficient at whistling by exhaling or inhaling (the whistling equivalent of circular breathing).

(F) Once, while mowing the yard as a teenager, I ran over a nest of yellow jackets and was stung five times. (Yellow jacket stings really hurt.) My mother made me finish mowing the yard, which I greatly resented. (Those farm ladies are tough.)

(G) I secretly like Air Supply.

(H) My cousin invented Raisin Bran.

The winner will be awarded an Air Supply box set and a lifetime supply of Raisin Bran. (Now there's a party!) Happy hunting.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Sam

We're in Texas, an appropriately star-spangled locale for the holiday. To honor the occasion, our New-Orleans-conditioned-selves will spend the rest of the day ducking from fireworks-mistakenly-perceived-as-gunfire. Whooh!

Alright, so what's this guy's deal?

Rocket Science

Marco's comment reminds me: Many of my friends possess the vague misbelief that I used to work for NASA. Not quite.

True, a while back I did work at the Stennis Space Center whose primary occupant is NASA—they tested the space shuttle rockets*—but it also housed many other federal-ish entities, and I worked next door at the Naval Research Laboratory, which didn't do anything with rockets but did do all sorts of stuff with robots and computers and littoral dynamics and buoys and whatnot. (At the time, digital mapping was my particular corner of governmental geekery).

But that's kind of hard to explain. And my job was already hard to explain. And I did eat lunch in the NASA cafeteria, which is almost like working for NASA. So sometimes I let it slide.

There you have it: I almost worked for NASA. And "almost" is good enough for government work. (It's just rocket science.)

* Sometimes I would be sitting in my office and would feel a deep subsonic rumble vibrating through the floor. I would go outside and see a massive billowing white rocket plume billowing up beyond the South Mississippi pines and hear a massive roar in the distance. Kinda cool.

p.s. I think that guy is me, in fifteen years, if I hadn't switched careers.

What's his deal? (Seriously, I want to know.)