BunkBlog

You may recall the decorated sheep that are now placed around San Angelo – the husky was scared of one a while back, and The Boy and I watched the Sheeptacular parade when they were first introduced to the community. Some idiot college students swiped one. They were planning to return it, they said, because who needs a five-foot fiberglass sheep in their living room?  Of course, they also let the police knock on their door for an hour before letting them in; did they think the cops might get tired and go away?

Surprisingly to many, this is considered a state felony, because the value of the stolen property was over $1500. I remember some folks in high school swiped the Bob’s Big Boy statue from down the road – would have sucked to get hit with a felony charge.

Remember, don’t rustle sheep – Jonny Law will get ya.

As I’m sure Stewart himself will find apalling, there’s a Time online poll (no scientific accuracy to speak of, self-selected population, blah blah blah) which shows more people think Jon Stewart is a trustworthy news source than Brian Williams or Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric.

For years now, Stewart has been defending himself from mainstream journalists and pundits, who say he’s not upholding the correct dignity or standards of a journalist. His response is always some variation of, “I’m on Comedy Central and you expect me to be the journalistic role model? We are screwed as a country.” Yet, academic studies have found that the Daily Show, although calling themselves a fake news show, has just as much or more substantive news coverage as the networks. How sad is that?

I tried out Wolfram Alpha today for the first time. The new search engine did not impress me. It found no notable events for my birthday (I’m notable!) and then the amazing thing: a search for July 20, 1969 said the most notable event was Josh Holloway’s birthday. Huh. I think something else may have happened that day.

Just saw a Citi commercial touting their ability to make wise investment decisions.  I beg to differ.  They asked the U.S. government for a bailout, if you recall.  When any company needs to ask me for money, I question their business acumen.

Happy April Fool’s Day.  Today, even more than other days, don’t believe anything on the internet.  I saw squeeze bacon and a Tauntaun sleeping bag on Thinkgeek, and a Sony UMPC with mini-CD drive on UMPC Portal.  Who knows what we’ll see on Slashdot and others by the time the geeks go to sleep tonight?

Michael Phelps, fastest swimmer on record, smoked pot. Well, that proves it then – doing drugs leads to nothing but failure. Some other pot-smokers I know of, just off the top of my head: President Obama, former President Bush, former President Clinton… Yep, a road to ruin there.

I was behind a Hummer H2 today and noticed it had tie-down points.  WTF?  Is someone sling-loading these things below a Chinook?

I’m sure I can think of someone in the Frozen North who could put one of these trees together…

The tree has a MySpace page.  That’s just wrong.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

(H/T to danielmedic)

The great and mighty Siberian husky, Banshee, defended the family from a giant polar bear this morning.  Well, not so much “defended” as “cowered in front of” and not so much “polar bear” as “painted sheep statue.”  But, it was a great adventure regardless.

After the Sheeptacular in October 2007, many of these decorated sheep appeared around town:

One of them was on our walking path this morning.  The dogs were pretty sure it was a giant monster that was going to eat them.

Dear coworkers who babble all too frequently near my desk: “nonplussed” actually does not mean the same as “unfazed” but um…the opposite.  Thank you, please drive through.

First, thanks to all who wished me happy birthday this past Saturday.  I appreciate it.

The lovely Kat put together an unusual method of gift-giving – a scavenger hunt. I wandered around the nature center, following her rhyming clues, hoping not to be told to put my hand in the viper cage. It was a very cool haul of presents, including a few pans to be used for various stir fry and baking needs, as well as a few books I’ve been looking at. Of course, the cocktail shaker got a good workout this weekend, making a few batches of raspberry margaritas to accompany the Serrano ham-wrapped figs.

Sunday morning we hit the lake, after applying what appears in retrospect to be insufficient amounts of sunscreen. Kayaking across 3 miles of placid water, watching for critters, and watching The Boy splash around in the water – good times.  The eventual “seen animal” list included a bevy of turtles, a flock of birds, a swarm of dragonflies, a school of jumping fish (none near the fishermen, though), and a couple water snakes. The first snake was a cottonmouth (aka water mocassin), which was swimming away from the crazy humans at a good clip. It must have been at least 4 feet long. The second slithery critter was a diamond-backed water snake of much smaller size.  It popped up and then slipped beneath the surface, never to be seen again.

We also discovered that paddling a tube is not very efficient (no bow or stern, so you tend to paddle clockwise and counter-clockwise rather than forward).  Well, The Boy discovered this, after much instruction on the proper angle of attack for the paddle.  Then, we discovered that The Boy likes to paddle the kayak.  Come back here, you little monkey!

Overall, a great birthday and good weekend. Now, if my coworkers would just stop saying, “Got some sun this weekend, eh?”  SO original.

Kat’s kayak arrived via big truck last week, and then sat on the love seat for two days due to lack of time. Here it is.

When Kat arrived home Friday afternoon, she chanted “It’s kayak time” repeatedly until I changed into swim trunks and slathered on some sun screen. I took my inflatable kayak, which is (in contrast) a big pig of an overgrown pool toy.  But, still got us around the lake for a couple hours, during which we saw critters. There were many turtles poking just above the surface, a nutria putting on a diving show for us, a swan, and a water snake. Maybe that water snake, who knows?

The only problem with taking the kayak out, other than sunburn? The cat no longer has a giant bed.

Kat is working as a naturalist at the local nature center, and gets to spend much time with the critters. She’s owned snakes and lizards and all manner of furry, finned, and scaled critters over the years. She minored in biology. She’s not generally squeamish.

Saturday, I’m finally getting the 2007 DVDs ready to ship to far-flung relatives, when I get a call. “There’s an emergency, I can’t get in touch with [Snake Guy] (her boss at the nature center), and I need you to come out here.”  So, I hit the road for the lake, pop in and she’s standing in the middle of the main room, with the door to the reptile room blocked, while she madly dials anyone who can help with the unidentified snake in the room. Last seen heading for a dark corner, the reptile has decided to enliven the morning and cancel a child’s birthday party.

After a couple hours of searching, a snake wrangler in flip flops (!) pulling apart the reptile room, and general panic trying to identify which snakes might be missing (without going into the “venomous” room if avoidable), the little bugger finally decides to reveal himself. It turns out to be a fairly dehydrated water snake. One of the enclosures appeared to be missing a water snake, except that snake died three weeks ago. This one is the same species, albeit much younger and smaller. He broke into the nature center. While we’re trying to figure out which snake had escaped, it turns out this one was a burglar. What are the odds?

Picture this: Kat’s in the kitchen, making herself some pasta. I hear a shout, and go in to see boiling water pouring down the counter and the front of the dishwasher.

Um… What happened?

“I was holding the colander to strain the pasta.”

Did you know it was recently boiling?

So, I now know someone who literally can’t be trusted to boil water. I suspect she does this sort of thing just to ensure I won’t allow her to cook.

A great look at upgrading from Vista to XP.  Amusing and yet very informative as a primer to the various issues Vista users encounter far too frequently.  Except Wayne, who thinks Vista is wonderful.  Cuz he’s insane.

Review: Windows XP – Coding Sanity

The final count of animals wanting to use my car as part of their assisted suicide pact tonight: 9.  That’s three cats, five deer, and one skunk.  Something in the air, I guess.

Apparently, not every story ends like the Pina Colada song.

My sexy friend Michele seems to think she’s old.

So, I looked up who else was born in 1970. Heather Graham, Minnie Driver, Matt Damon, Lara Flynn Boyle, Mariah Carey, Rich Schroder, Uma Thurman, Tina Fey, Naomi Campbell, Beck, Kevin Smith, M. Night Shyamalan, Claudia Schiffer, Deborah Gibson, Bridget Moynahan, Ani DiFranco, Kelly Rippa, Bai Ling, Nia Long, Ethan Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Jennifer Connelly, Michael Shanks – does anyone really consider these folks old?  I saw Nia Long on the Late Late Show this week; she’s so incredibly hot.  Not old.

Now, if you still feel you’re old, don’t hesitate to send racy photos to me so I can evaluate and give you my expert opinion.  😉