Bafflement

I just cleaned dried spots of what appeared to be pureed peas from the ceiling. How they got there, I cannot fathom. Obviously the baby had something to do with it, but I can’t comprehend how.

“Chupacabra Funk”

The following was inspired by a particularly bizarre search engine query that directed some unlucky soul to this site.

Perhaps no other creature of recent uncertain ontology inspires fear throughout the Western Hemisphere as the wily chupacabra. Armed with naught but a bendy straw, some cardboard and a boom box, the chupacabra stalks its prey from the edge of the forest, surveying a nearby herd grazing in the meadow. The chupacabra then spreads the cardboard across the meadow floor and presses the play button on the boom box. The hills spring to life with the sound of Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters on vintage cassette. Only then can begin the mythic ritual goat-sucking break-dance of the chupacabra.

At the conclusion of the dance, the chupacabra shouts to the goats, “You just got served!”

“Oh no we di’n't!” reply the goats, and they commence break-dancing as well, because it is, at this point, so totally on. By carefully observing the break-dancing goats, the cunning chupacabra is able to discern the weakest and most arthritic of the herd. It is in this devious manner that the chupacabra selects its prey.

Pouncing upon the slowest of the goats, the chupacabra rips its head off in one swift motion and begins to suck blood from the goat’s head through its trusty bendy straw, as everything tastes better when sucked from a skull. The chubacabra’s tendency to drink from empty goat heads eventually helped spawn the otherwise inexplicable tiki bar craze, where cocktails with umbrellas sticking out of them are imbibed from plastic cups lovingly mass-produced by some plaster mold to resemble seriously brassed-off wooden heads.

The Dog That Adopted Telephones

I’ve always been a cat person, partly because dogs never struck me as being particularly bright. However, the following video clip surprised me with the sheer depth of canine stupidity contained within it. I believe the dachshund in this may just be the single densest being ever to grace the face of the Earth. That said, it’s still kind of cute in a dumb sort of way.

Too Bad It Isn’t Halloween Right Now

• Vlad the Impaler;
• Elizabeth Bathory, the Blood Countess;
• Bunnicula;
• and our baby.

The kid has been teething recently. His bottom front teeth came in a few months ago, and for quite some time those remained the only teeth visible in his mouth. A few days ago, two other teeth began to poke through his gum line. They were not, however, the front teeth on the roof of his mouth, which in most infants are usually the next teeth to sprout. They are the teeth on either side of where his front teeth will eventually descend.

That’s right, our baby is apparently sprouting fangs. One can easily imagine the comical scenes that could follow:

An annoying stranger approaches the stroller. “OOOH, what a cute baby! What’s his name?”

The baby smiles, revealing his teeth; the stranger jumps back and shudders. “Nosferatu,” I reply casually.

Right now, his two top front teeth are also just beginning to poke through at last, but the ones at the sides remain much more noticeable and probably will remain so for a while longer. In the meantime, we’re keeping an eye on the vegetables in the house. If any of them start mysteriously turning white, we’re in trouble.

The Cold Medicine Doesn’t Work Anymore

Now that I think about it, that could be the title of a blues song . . .

After three increasingly miserable days, I finally went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have both sinus and throat infections. Unfortunately, the antibiotics I received haven’t kicked in yet and probably won’t for several days. The result of this is that I’ve slept for a grand total of two hours so far tonight, since neither Ny-Quill nor old-school Sudafed no longer seems to do the trick and my sinuses immediately clog up the moment I lay down. Ergo, this blog blurb at 4:25 in the morning. The first birds are just beginning to chirp outside the window, and the baby will probably wake up anywhere from one and a half to two and a half hours from now. One adventure in sleep deprivation coming right up . . .

Here’s a weird side note: when I submitted this post to Digg, the site said it found some other tagged articles that were potential duplicates of this one. Every potential duplicate Digg listed had something to do with Grand Theft Auto IV. I never realized that sinus infections, antibiotics and Ny-Quill were so vital to the video game industry. Apparently the Internet has a one-track mind at the moment.

It’s Been A Long Time

It’s been too long a time since I had a post like this. I ran tonight . . . For the first time since October . . .

Anyone who’s read this blog since its very early days can probably dimly remember its initial focus as primarily a running blog and/or training diary. New parenthood really can suck away all of your free time to an extent you never fully saw coming beforehand, I’ve found.

After seeing that I’ve gained about 15 pounds since our son was born at the end of August (I managed two runs in October and that was it), I decided the time was nigh to start doing something about that before things got completely out of hand. I’d fought long and hard over the year beforehand to lose 25 pounds, and I certainly didn’t do that just to gain it all back eventually.

So, after looking at our schedules, I’ve determined that it is possible for me to run several times a week if I get out after our kid goes to bed for the night and run in the well-lit neighborhoods nearby our house. It’ll be a little different for me, since I used to get up to run at the butt-crack of dawn on the rural roads outside of town.

So, for my first run in six months and my first attempt at running on a consistent basis in eight months, I totaled almost 4.2 miles tonight in 44:13. I’ll be deliberately keeping things slow for quite a while so that I hopefully don’t wind up hurting myself in my effort to get back into regular exercise. Luckily, I don’t feel wiped out at all. At this point, I just hope I can sleep easily tonight, since it has been about a decade since I ran at night on anything vaguely resembling a regular basis.

Phrases Only Found Here

Feeling utterly uninspired to write anything new tonight, I’ve instead compiled a list of phrases that somehow found their way into this blog since the beginning of 2008 and that, as far as Google can tell, exist on the Internet only on this blog or on another page referencing this blog. I’m surprised by just how many there seem to be:

• Mind altering missive,
• Belgian firecloak,
• Teeming throngs of nobody,
• Drooling from my keyboard,
• Impish robotic paint artisan,
• Radon got nothing on me,
• Chuck-E-Cheese token racket,
• Half-life of the average paint can,
• Annual tribute of three goats,
• Somebody please think of the goats,
• Hydrogen used by oxen,
• Intrepid navigators of the World Wide Web,
• Lighter than linoleum,
• Converted cock-a-leaky-soup,
• Bloviating about mold,
• Utterly inconsequential miscellany,
• Jumper with antlers,
• A mango or a ferret,
• Fashionista sadists,
• Corporate chew toys,
• London’s Syntagma Square,
• Love child of Winston Churchill and Sluggo,
• Long rotting burg,
• Ripped to the gills on Yuengling,
• Doom, loathing, disappointment,
• Another opportunity to fail spectacularly,
• Fanatical masochism and pity,
• Over the top goonishness,
• Much like the sword swallower,
• Pyhrric drivel,
• Bottomless peanut jar,
• Good ole’ bouva,
• Fumigating the holidays,
• Mountain Dew method of contraception,
• Swallow a feast of crow,
• New vistas of rationalization,
• Thank you Journal of Neuroinflammation,
• Chavs by Ralph Lauren,
• In the vein of a cockfight,
• Dreams involving whiskey.

Amazingly, “vanguard of the lumpenproletariat” appears in two other places on the Internet, while the more mundane “I can’t predict squat” only appears in one other place.

One Step Closer to Reality…

In keeping with today’s impromptu blog post theme of dreams involving whiskey, it appears the news is beginning to get eerily similar to a dream I wrote about here last summer:

The . . . dream took place at a Democratic Party presidential debate that utilized a new, two-part format. The first part consisted of a traditional debate, while in the second part, each candidate had to slam back seven shots of whiskey, then give a presentation and hold an open question-and-answer session with the audience.

On CNN’s web site, the following story appeared yesterday:

Clinton Takes a Shot . . . Of Whiskey

. . . Sen. Hillary Clinton relaxed in Crown Point, Indiana and took a shot of a different kind – Crown Royal whiskey.

As part of its vital function in reporting only the most serious news we all need to navigate this uncertain world, CNN helpfully added the following photograph:

Of course, nobody actually ever reads this blog, but in the highly unlikely event someone from the Clinton or Obama campaigns happens to stumble across this:

HI THERE! I’M A REGISTERED PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRAT!

I think it would be a great idea to have a Presidential debate in the format described above. After seven shots and open questions from the audience, it would become painfully obvious exactly where each candidate stands on every issue, whether he or she initially intended to reveal their actual positions or not. We in Pennsylvania are positively aching for that kind of candor. If you still need convincing, we’ll all pretend to be undecided!

Another Strange Dream

Something in the vein of a cockfight was going on in my living room, but instead of chickens fighting, the contest was to see which person’s spider could engulf the largest animal in a cocoon-like web. Old men were either standing in a circle around the spiders and throwing down money to bet on the outcome, or they were playing dominoes at a table in the corner and smoking cigars.

I soon noticed that the animal the apparently winning spider was wrapping up was one of my cats. I quickly dug him out and found he was completely unharmed, as were all of the other animals. My rescue of the cat didn’t affect the betting and trash-talking about the skills of the various spiders going on all around me. Most of the old men seemed to have Caribbean accents of one form or another, although there were also some northern England and Boston accents floating about the room as well.

One of the men then called out that everyone was getting thirsty, so I went to the kitchen to make some coffee for everyone and spike it with whiskey, as he requested. It was at that point I noticed that the stereo and CD changer had been moved to the kitchen. The CD player was on full random mode, but every track of every disc played the song “Mississippi Jail House Groan” by Rube Lacy.

The weirdest thing about the dream was that as creepy as it seems while writing it down now, there was nothing remotely scary, unsettling, or even stressful about it at the time.

Product Concepts Best Left Undeveloped, Part V

And now, a new line of designer clothing: “Chavs” by Ralph Lauren. High-end fashion for the vanguard of the lumpenproletariat!