Trap

This morning, I set my lunch box on the passenger seat of my venerable Toyota light pickup, slipped my car-mug of miso into the cup holder, depressed the clutch, and turned over the engine. A couple seconds later, the vent fans spun up and produced a sound akin to an On The Edge card riffling against a bicycle spoke. Now, my truck is a '93 and has plenty of rattles and grinds, but that was a new sound. So I twisted the key and she rumbled to stillness. Then I heard a rustle. I leaned over and slapped the dash over the glovebox twice. More rustling. Slapped again. Silence. Slapped some more. More rustling.

I actually allow mice to live in my garage, because hey, it's not very nice to kill living beings. If they were in the house, then I would consider them a health threat and would reluctantly eradicate them. In the garage, they occasionally chew up a glove or an extension cord, yet remain primarily harmless. I let them be. But I can't very well drive to work with one perilously near a vent fan; if it died I would feel kinda bad and it would cause that yucky death stench. I took the car instead.

Now I suppose the mice have become enough of a nuisance to bother trapping the poor creatures, but I'm gonna try to trap them live and incarcerate them. The tiny crimes they have heaped upon me over the last several years still fall well shy of the death penalty. And besides, they're just so cute. You know, same reason I can't kill Sailor Scouts.

Beautiful dreamer

If only a single word could describe me, that word might very well be "dilatory." In fact, that's what the D stands for in the non-actual case that D is my middle initial. But every dozen shaves or so I'm struck with that tingly sensation inside. An urge to clean my home office. So it was that the last time I had that special feeling, I took the opportunity to hang up a couple of plaques that my crazy friend Aila had given to me, years prior, before she was called Aila. She had hand painted and lettered one plaque with the word BEAUTY and the other with the word DREAM. When deciding where to hang these brazen, morphemically-challenged locutions, I thought it foxy to use them for labels over the two doors in my office. BEAUTY leads to the rest of the house, and ultimately the rest of the universe. DREAM leads to the closet. Now they loom disconcertingly with the iconic power of epithet.

I'll post your ante

The split between AM and PM should be at 1 o'clock instead of 12. Honestly, does it make any sense for 11:14am to be later in the day than 12:29am? 24-hour clocks avoid such eddies in the chronosphere, but "oh-eight-hundred" seems so, you know, militant. Besides, some of my best friends are meridians.

T is for Tell 'er

I work at the Capitol Building in downtown Lansing, MI. I have always been aware of the ATM on the ground floor, but only today realized how handy that must be for cash bribes.

Seemed obvious at first glance

Since they are square and made of vinyl, it seemed clear to me that Twister mats were intended for use in the shower. The Princess argued that they were too large. Sigh. And I'm afraid someone might get hurt if I use one to replace the shower curtain, what with gravity and all. Ah well, another idea down the tubes.

Especially those new tatoo ones

Last night I suggested to the Princess that she could wear fruit roll-up panties and just drop them in my lunch box the next day. She didn't care for the idea.

6 things I used to dislike but now I kinda like

The reason for changing my mind is in parentheses after.

Chris Isaak (the Chris Isaak show)
Cris Collinsworth (time)
pro football (fantasy football)
MMORPGs (Puzzle Pirates)
sunlight (not having a window in my office)
sushi (Akagi)

Oscars Fusionista

Best dress? Uma Thurman.
Best tux? Uh, they all look the same to me.
Sexiest woman? Annie Lennox. And she can sing! And she's Scottish!
Sexiest man? Well, I would have said Pierce Brosnan, but I only saw him on the carpet, not actually on stage. So I dunno... maybe the Princess can tell us.
Best presenters? Jack Black and Will Ferrell.