Unfinished Rambler

Today is Day 5, Write Letter Home Day, and the last day of Humor Bloggers dot com Summer Camp, with camp counselor Shawn from The Shark Tank and The Open Letters Blog (where he is a co-author, can't give him all the credit there). Never one to stick to the rules completely (I always adapt rules for memes to my own devices, especially on my reading blog, why should I change and not do something similar here?), I adapted the idea a bit in the form of a letter from my parents to lawyer to Chelle B., the cabal leader of Humor Bloggers.

Dear Mrs. B.:

This letter shall serve as formal notice of our intent to file a lawsuit against you and Humorbloggers dot com, due to your blatant and objectionable disregard of the law.

On Monday, July 27, 2009, in a summer camp sponsored by you, Head Counselor ThinkinFyou threatened to burn down the camp and then posted a pornographic picture on her site (we weren't going to post the picture again, please) that has scarred the mind of our dear son, Unfinished Rambler, to this very day, July 31, 2009.

Also on Monday, July 27, 2009, Craft Counselor Mizzdrake called our son a...well...since we can't bring ourselves to use the offensive word, a person "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress." We admit that our son is not the sharpest knife in the drawer as he has demonstrated here and here (and by his overuse of hyperlinks and, even worse, parentheses, we have no idea where he learned that from, by the way, or his overuse of dangling prepositions either).

On Tuesday, July 28, 2009, Singalong Counselor Quirkyloon used a parody of a Joan Jett song, "Do You Want Me To Touch There?"



(which we share only in the interest of full disclosure of how horrifying it is) about a blogger named Nipsy, the name of whose blog we can't even bring ourselves to type. Now our son is hooked on Joan Jett and is getting a bad reputation.

On Wednesday, July 29, 2009, Campfire story counselor Spaz used the f-word on two occasions during his story. I mean, it's not like we sent him to Teenage Tourette's Camp.

Then to cap it all on Thursday, July 30, 2009, Survival Tips Counselor Red Raider offered our son whiskey AND told him along with his campmates to take all their clothes off when we all know that...




Please also be aware we are jointly filing a formal complaint with the Federal Summer Camp Commission, The Idaho State Attorney General (where you are from), The Florida State Attorney General (where your head counselor is from) and the Better Business Bureau. Thank you and we look forward to resolving this most expeditiously.

Mr. and Mrs. Rambler

cc: Federal Summer Camp Commission
Idaha State Attorney General
Florida State Attorney General
Better Business Bureau

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Today I'm combining WTF (usually Wordless) Wednesday (usually Wednesday) and Day 4, Survival Day, at Humor Bloggers dot com Summer Camp. Head counselor: ThinkinFyou. Survival tips counselor: Red Raider. Earlier counselors: Day 1: Craft counselor: Mizzdrake. Day 2: Singalong counselor: Quirkyloon. Day 3: Campfire story counselor: Spaz. (Sorry, Spaz, since I never really went to camp when I was a youth, I didn't really have any stories to share.)



I found this on the restroom wall of a local convenience store. In case you can't read the fine penmanship, it says:

The sky doesn't ever end
The air just get much thinner

While Red Raider gave practical advice on how to survive in the woods, a la poison ivy, and so on and so forth, I, through the words of this lavatory (and most possibly high) graffiti artist, give you nonsensical advice on the exosphere.

For more nonsensical advice, some even inspired by "the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant that yield THC," visit blogs at the following sites:

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Yesterday was Day 1 of Humor Bloggers dot Com Summer Camp, Craft Day, as hosted by Julia of Homemade Hilarity. During the first few hours, I built this:



Today is Day 2, Singalong Day, as hosted by Quirkyloon from Musings of A Quirkyloon.

Since yesterday's post elicited a comment from fellow HBDC Summer Camper JohnnyB from Late For The Sky challenging me to write a parody of The Who's "Magic Bus," I had to take him up on it (written in the style of a blues singer going to see his baby on the bus). With the weather here being pretty hot at summer camp, this one took me a good part of the day, and as you can see, the humidity got to me as I only finished a couple of stanzas:

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* As noted yesterday, I didn't actually make the bus. Artist Lee Stoetzel did.

So here I am at Humor Bloggers (dot com) Summer Camp, Day 1 with our host Julia from Homemade Hilarity. In the photo above, I'm on the kid on the left, having to be shown what to do by my camp counselor.

However, I'm a pretty quick learner. It's only noon and I already built this:




I figured it would help get me to Day 2, Singalong Day with our host Quirkyloon at Musings of A Quirkyloon.

A song I could have used except I'm using it now because it fits so well with my creation:



And so it really gets stuck in your head:




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Confession time: I didn't make the bus. Artist Lee Stoetzel did.

For more Day 1 craft creations, visit ThinkinFYou (whose idea the summer camp was) and Confessions of A Reforming Geek. If you are participating in the summer camp, add your link in the comments via CommentLuv.

It's been a while since my last Sunday Shout-Out, so I thought it was time to post one again. This time, it's a special one for a special person: Joe @ Crotchety Old Man Yells At Cars.

When last month Joe told his readers that he was waiting for the ambulance to arrive, we all were like "Rut-roh."

But then he announced in only the way Joe can: Holy Crap, I lived, and we were all like "Whew."

Since then, Da Old Man, as Joe goes by, has been in the hospital and rehab, with Mrs. C updating us from time to time. But His Eminent Crotchetyness can't keep away from the computer and he's still rolling out the crotchety.

In fact, one of his more recent posts was called 10 Things I've Learned, in which he included how good the blogging community has been to him and other...well...insights that you just have to read for yourself.

Among bloggers, he said, from whom he has heard via telephone:

Quirky

Lobo

Don

FishHawk

Deb

Dani

dizzblnd

Secondary Roads

all of whom are worth visiting too, not just because they called Joe (although that right there says something about all of them), but also because they're good bloggers in their own right.

He also mentioned Janna sent a hilarious get-well card, which I can believe, having read her blog.

Many of the bloggers mentioned, including Joe himself, are members at Humor Bloggers, where last year Joe was named the Humor Blogger of the Year.

If you'd like to give Joe your own shout-out, I know he would love to hear from you, because he told me so himself when I talked to him earlier this afternoon.

His phone number is 732.650.8441 (which he gave out on his blog).

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And um, Joe, I know what turkey loaf is, and I advise against it.

I lost a book tonight...

...from the library.

I don’t know where it is, but I have a theory:

It was raptured.


It was an Agatha Christie book.

This all led The Wife in a roundabout way to what would Jesus read?

I thought the Bible, but The Wife said why not Agatha Christie? After all, she said he probably couldn't keep up with everything that was published each year...

...which makes sense. I mean, look at the numbers of books published per country per year.

It's hard to imagine even him keeping up with all of them, doesn't it?

I'd like to imagine he'd be reading Agatha Christie than this:


I mean, really? Hasn't he read that shtick before?

Didn't C.S. Lewis refute all that hogwash in Mere Christianity?

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Please note this is a humor blog. Any comments that take this too seriously will be removed.

The other day I took this photo of our cat, Seamus, after he had just swatted down a fly and I realized that we didn't need a flyswatter since we already had one. I thought, "Hey, I could use that as a blog post!" and so I began this post in my mind.

After looking back at this photo, I realized that something like this had probably done on those cat blogz, yeah, you know the onez I meanz, onez like Daisy The Curly Cat where the owner a.) speaks in the catz voize and/or b.) usez lotz of z's. Daisy just speakz in a catz voize, leavez out the z's, thankfully.

So instead I focused on what was in the background: the DVD of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story: All-New Outrageous, Censored. I know what you're probably thinking: A pozt where the blogger plugz a product and provides a Youtube video:



Never seen that done before (rolling eyes).

Actually, though, what I'd like to say is I wasn't that impressed with the movie and thought it was a colossal waste of time. I mean, RC Cola was the punch line.

Why not Fanta?



...although maybe a case could be made for RC Cola.



After all, "it's right for me, it's right for you."

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This post was brought to you by Meandering Monday on Tuesday, an intermittent feature here at Unfinished Ramber when the author procrastinates and then posts yep, you guessed it, just another Youtube-themed post. Sigh.

This week is probably going to be a busy week for me as I'm filling in for the full-time reporter for our area at the paper where I normally work as a correspondent. She's on vacation. So as I might not have a post on Wednesday, this is a mashup of Meandering Monday and WTF Wordless Wednesday:



My wife found this posted on the bulletin board at a neighboring town's convenience store yesterday, and immediately thought this was blogworthy. Or as she said this afternoon when I told her I was doing my piglet toss post this afternoon:

I knew that was gold when I saw it.

And how many people get to say "I'm doing my piglet toss post today".

I doubt too many.

This afternoon, I've searched on the Internet high and low (okay, like five minutes) and only found scant references to "piglet toss," including in what I think is a role-playing game and a reference in a review for a rubber pig you can purchase from Amazon.

What I want to know is are they going to use the bikes while they're tossing the pigs? Do participants have to hit a target while on their bikes? Too cool...um, I mean, cruel. Very, very cruel.

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Tuesday I talked about having "just one of those days." Today's it's just one of those songs. You know those I mean, too, the ones that get stuck in your head and keep bouncing around the cranium for days.

Kathy of The Junk Drawer knows what I mean. For her, it was, as she wrote about it, this song:



For me, yesterday afternoon it was this song:



Then last night The Wife said the following song "stole over me unbidden...like a bad fart" and, then thanks to her mentioning it, it wormed its way into my ear:

Uploaded by jpdc11 - See the latest featured music videos.

Personally I'd rather have that last song stuck in my head to the one where I get to remember Jaye Davidson's...well, you know if you saw the movie...wwwwuhhhh (shuddering).

What songs have gotten stuck in your head? Feel free to share videos and if it works embed a video of the song so it can be stuck in our heads too. Maybe, although doubtful, someone else actually will like it stuck in his or her head.

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Humor Bloggers where one of the bloggers is Crotchety Old Man Yells At Cars. He's in Room 4330 at the hospital. Stop by and see him. I'm sure he'd love to see you.

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For other earworm posts I've written, see here and here.

Today began as "just one of those days."

I was awakened at 7:30 a.m. by a phone call. I looked at the number and while I recognized that it was a local exchange, I didn't recognize the exact number. WTF?

I answered it because I wondered who would be calling me so early.

It was the director of our county housing authority. I had called last week, requesting on behalf of the paper for which I am a correspondent, to be at a meeting that the board wanted to be an executive session. He returned my call this morning and told me that the board had directed him to make it a closed-door meeting for "strategic planning purposes for the next five years."

I told him the position of the paper, and the law, according to media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, was that that was not a legitimate reason for a closed-door meeting. Under Pennsylvania law, only certain reasons are allowed for a closed-door meeting by a public entity, among them, personnel, litigation, real estate and negotiations, none of which applied here.

After arguing him with for about 10 minutes, he finally said, "You've made your position clear."

And with that, I hung up.

A few minutes later, I called him back to apologize if I had come across "snappy," but he had called me before most businesses even are in operation. I then asked him for an official quote, which he said, in light of the previous conversation, he would be making none and talking to their attorney...

...which all leads to a telephone conversation with the authority board's solicitor later this morning.

"What the hell do you want to go to that goddamned boring meeting that's going to last six hours anyway?"

That was how she began. I am paraphrasing because I didn't expect that kind of a response and was a little shell-shocked, mostly with laughter, by that introduction.

The meeting, it should be noted, is scheduled next Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at a local country club. I told her I didn't want to go to that meeting per se, but my editors wanted me to go since it was supposed to be a public meeting.

The lawyer later said what irked her was that she had to be at the meeting and that was the day, the new Harry Potter movie opened.

After talking about the situation a little bit, she said to me something to the effect:

"So let's get to the important stuff..."

Finally my ears pricked up (is it just me or that an odd turn of phrase? "pricked up" - eh, maybe it's just me, anyway) because I thought here is where we get to the crux of the matter.

"Does the Arcadia [our local theater] have a midnight matinee?"

Sometimes things just have to be put in perspective, don't they?



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If that title looks a little odd to you, let me translate, since I'm having problems speaking today: This week's Sunday Shout-Out is postponed this week.

Why? Let me provide a photo:



Last night as I was trying to go to bed, I suddenly felt like there was something stuck on my tongue. However, as much as I tried and tried, it wouldn't come off. That's weird, I thought.

So I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror to see if I could get the detritus off my tongue, and nope, it wasn't a jalapeno potato chip grafted to the top of my tongue. What I found was that I wouldn't be able to get anything off my tongue, because it was my tongue, or I should say, a piece of my tongue, almost like a wart on the front of my tongue.

In 40 years of existence, I had and have never seen or felt such a thing so what did I do? What any sane, rational man would do. I went back into the bedroom to tell my wife.

"Um, honey, I think something's wrong with my tongue? Can you come look at it?"

"What?!?!"

"I think something's wrong with my tongue? Can you come look at it? It's really weird."

I showed it to her and she said that it was just irritated from eating three-quarters of a bag of jalapeno chips earlier in the night.

"Really? I've never seen or felt anything like this. It's like I have something stuck on my tongue and I can't get it off."

Then ensued a 20-minute monologue in which I whined that I'd never be able to get to thleep. About 4 a.m. I think I finally got to thleep, my tongue lolling out of my mouth.

Today, though in keeping with the hypochondria that is prevalent in my family (e.g. my sister), I had to look up online about tongue ulcers (even though I'm not sure that's what I have yet) and what was one of the first places I found:

Yep, this one that said "May cause cancer..." Of course I saw it as "may CAUSE CANCER."

So how do I treat this? Well, among the ways, listed were these helpful hints:

• Applying honey mixed with pipal tree leaves and its roots.
• Applying milk of the banyan tree.
  

So all I need to do is go and find a pipal tree and banyan tree and I'll be fine...

...unfortunately, I just learned through the world's greatest resource, Wikipedia that the pipal tree and the banyan tree aren't native to my part of the world.

I guess I'm thucked.

In the interim between last week's Sunday Shout-Out and next week's Sunday Shout-Out, visit any number of bloggers from these three sites:

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I highly recommend them (or at least some of them, you know who you are).

** My wife wanted me to add that I had "crazy eyes" (like that time I awoke when I had a dream that a friend in South Korea had died as the result of an attack from North Korea and I had to call him at 3 in the morning, she reminds me) and that I wanted to apply a band-aid to the tongue until she informed me that it probably wouldn't stick.

Worst "American" song, IMHO:

God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood (click at your own peril)

If for nothing else, for being available online at ScoutSongs.com.

"And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free."

In other words, f*** the rest of the world.

Very close second:

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) by Toby Keith

No other words:

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way

Best "American" song, IMAO (arrogant opinion):

America by Neil Diamond

As much as I'm not a fan of Boston or the Red Sox, this is one time I wish I could be there to see the Boston Pops as Neil Diamond performs tomorrow night for the Fourth.

Close second (in two different ass-kicking versions):

Link:

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...is this guest post, "Heart beats silly like a big bass drum," from me for Ann @ Ann's Rants for her weeklong event called Man's Rants while she is on vacation.

Also be sure to check out the other male bloggers (of which I'm sad to say I only had heard of one) who posted their own coming-of-age stories there:

Monday: Tony @ Life with Tony with "Forever"

Tuesday: IB @ Idiot's Stew with "The Big Blow"

Wednesday: Spencer Casey @ The Recession of the Depression with "Let's Call Her Tanya"

And at least one more to come tomorrow (I'm not sure if Ann has scheduled into the weekend or not, you'll just have to visit her blog to see).

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Our cat Seamus last year, but he still likes to do this.

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