Story Time Two

So, I challenged myself to do this last week, or was it two weeks ago? Sorry I've been busy working and I don't like it one bit. :) I kid. I love my job, really I do and the fact that they want to pay me to do it, is even better. Anyway, below you will find my two 'stories' that I created from my two starting sentences and my ten words. I have bolded the offending and appropriate words. Okay they aren't really offending, but maybe the story is. Hmmm. Inquiring minds must continue to read below. I should also point out that this entire blog post has been written live, as in I didn't just copy and paste these stories, I sat down and wrote them out in less than half an hour, including this introduction. So what do you think?





How can the moderate wed the fancy metric?

For some reason, this question was keeping me awake this evening. I knew I shouldn't have attended that conference on how to save the environment. Alas, my friend had a convincing argument explaining that I should listen to what the panel had to say on the matter, and how it was important for me to look east for the new dawn of living life for the enjoyment of any future ancestors of mine. I tried to explain that I would rather wander about life like a tube  rides on the lazy river of life. To which he called me a pussy and I had to agree that I was making any excuses I could to keep from listening to the preaching of environmentalists that say they have my own interests in mind while charging me in helping with their formulation of ideas to bring to the masses. I mean if they were so sincere about all this stuff, why not just spend their own money instead of looking for an intake of funds from suckers that were inclined to give to any Tom, Dick or Harry that sold them a bill of goods.

As to the question of the night? I'm not really sure how it pertains to what I went through this evening, but I am sure it does on some deep intrinsically asinine melodrama of epic proportions.

Did I really just write that sentence? Sleep deprivation is a nuisance to the sane of mind and sound of body. I wonder if I am either or both?

Now that's a question I can fall asleep to.



The girl acquires an evil censor.

Why would someone write that here under this bridge? It doesn't even make sense. I mean if you want to go around preaching messages under overpasses don't you think they need to make sense? Who knows how many people will wander along this trail and stop to read 'the girl acquires and evil censor' and will immediately be thrown into a fit of self-consciousness wondering if the message is meant for them or some ancestor that will understand completely because they too, are bat shit crazy.

Of course, the only people that will really take notice will be those concerned with the environment who will no doubt get together a panel of like-minded individuals to hunt down the graffiti artist with no sense of proper storytelling. As much as one can tell a story with one sentence that is.

Looking east I noticed an intake of some sort, or what looked like one anyway. It appeared to draw the river into a small culvert that led to, somewhere. Maybe someone made it long ago for their own enjoyment and road tubes of air down the stream to a glorious pool of joy at the end. I really must ascertain where my thought come from and why I decide to use bigger words for some trivial thoughts and small words for the deep ones. You'd think it would be the other way around, wouldn't you?

Okay, enough dilly-dallying I must get back on my bike and head home before mom starts to miss me. I will have to work on a what the formulation of that idea means though, can't have people writing random thoughts without someone taking the time to figure them out now, right?

I think it's spaghetti for dinner and I don't want to be late for that.

Zebulon Yearned Xanadu

Zebulon yearned Xanadu.

While venturing umpteen times,

Searching religiously quieted Pike’s

Obdurate needs.

Making life, keep jumping into

Hellacious gambles, forever engaged.

Discovering constant beauty about.

Another Black Colored Day

Another black colored day,

examinations from gregarious haunts.

Indeed jealous kids limit making new ornaments,

preferring quasi-relationships,

secretly taking unique versions,

with xenophobic young zealots.

Game Time

As a writer, I look for new ways to spark some creativity in myself. One of the ways I do this is to randomly choose ten words and make a story using those ten words throughout the story and they have to be used correctly, etcetera and it would be nice if the story itself makes sense.

I have also gone through the alphabet, forwards and back, writing a sentence or series of sentences using the letters in order. That is fun, and sometimes it makes sense.

This is what I will be doing over the next few posts, so do not be alarmed.  First up will be a story using my ten words, chosen randomly, I promise. The words are environment, wander, panel, intake, tube, east, preaching, formulation, ancestor, and enjoyment.

To make things more interesting, I am going to add a random sentence to start the stories with, yes I said stories. I have two sentences so there will be two stories. The first sentence is "How can the moderate wed the fancy metric."  the second is "The girl acquires an evil censor."

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of hating myself right now for choosing those two sentences.

I will also have two posts using my alphabet method, one from A to Z the other from Z to A.

Pretty exciting, eh? (I'm in Canada, so I have to "eh" right?

Anyway, stay tuned for the results, I promise they should all arrive by the weekend. Hope you enjoy them.

Christmas - Guitar Hero Style!

From Bad Habit, this looks so cool!

Follow the link for more info...

What is it? Answer #2

The item that I wrote about yesterday was (drum roll):

Crunch 'n Munch Buttery Toffee (Popcorn with Peanuts)

Good news? it has 0g of Trans Fat (must be all that soy). Oh, and it's pretty tasty as well. I think you can get the 4oz box at Wal-Mart for $1.25.

Enjoy!

What is it? #2

Since I actually had someone guess last week when I introduced this segment, (thanks Jeff!) I figured I would give it another go around. So, if you are ready, here is this week's food item:

Ingredients: Sugar, Corn Syrup, peanuts, popcorn, butter (pasteurized sweet cream, salt, and annatto(color)), margarine (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, liquid soybean oil, water, salt sweet dairy whey, soybean lecithin, mono and diglycerides, sodium benzoate, added as a preservative, artificial flavor, colored with beta carotene and vitamin A palmitate) soybean and/or cottonseed oil, salt soybean lecithin, baking soda, corn oil, BHA, BHT.

Whew! Any guesses? Like last time, the answer will be posted in approximately 24 hours.

Happy guessing!

Heading Into The Closet

Remember the boy's rooms from last year? The ones that still need a better floor, and their closets fixed, and some more paint and doors to be put in? You know the ones I will not forget.

Yeah those.

Well, I have started working on them again. Yay!

First step, putting in the closet system. Check. We went with the Rubbermaid system and it looks pretty good, if I say so myself.

Next step, doors. At least for Andy's although, to be honest I really don't see the need for them, but my vote doesn't count. In fact, my FIL just commented on my Facebook status about said doors - because they are in his garage. I will be picking them up, post haste. Or at least after church, sometime tomorrow. I think.

Jenni says definitely. Which is pretty impressive since she is asleep at the moment. Must be that secret language that all husbands and wives share. Fellow husbands, you know of the one I speak.

We finally found Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii today, so Benjy and I just "jammed" on it for the past hour and a half. Fun stuff, but I think I need to move up past easy, because easy is just too boring, and uh, easy.

Andy's doing a solo tour on the drums right now as I type. I must say that the drums are WAY nicer that the Rock Band drums, by far. Oh, and an FYI for my fellow Guitar Hero/Rockband fans out there. The Wii version of Rock Band is NOT compatible with Guitar Hero guitars, we found that out earlier today when I picked up the drums and the game of Rock Band for the Wii, figuring I wouldn't need the guitars because I already have two guitars for Guitar Hero as is, so why not. Wrong oh, captain. Luckily Sam's Club took the drums and game back AND gave me back my money, which we didn't think we were going to get. Whew!

Well, hat's it for now. Church is in the morning and I need my beauty sleep.

Good night and God Bless!

How to Make a Mountain out of a Mole Hill.

In a good way, of course.

It all started back in October of 1967, okay technically it was in January, but I don't remember that far back...

Oops, sorry about that, I started writing my memoir.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, mountains out of mole hills. (Is that one word, or two?)

We are going to Six Flags over Great America tomorrow (can I get a whoop whoop?) with four adults, but only if I am considered an adult and fourteen kids. But that isn't how it all started...

Jenni, the kids and some friends of ours were planning this annual extravaganza, when Jennifer (our friend) said why don't we let Roger come along? Jenni (my lovely bride) said that Roger doesn't really like Six Flags, and probably can't get the time off, but she asked anyway.

I actually said yes. I know weak moment, but hey I can be accommodating at times.

That was three months ago.

Fast forward to yesterday, when the realization of what I was going to do hit me. ("I don't want to go, and you can't make me.... waaaahhhh!)

Ask Jenni, she will attest to my whiny butt. My substantial whiny butt, or maybe that should be my whiny substantial butt?

Whatever.

**** Side Bar ~~~ Watching Elf right now, and the short dude Miles is on and Buddy just called him an elf. Now he is stating that he gets more action in a week than...(family edit). Whispering now "He's an angry elf."

HI Larry Us! ~~~~ Back to your regularly scheduled screed

Anyway, last night we had a bunch of Andy's friends over { I should actually step back again (sorry) and mention that the going with the friends was falling apart because of rain for today, the original scheduled day, and it looked like they wouldn't be able to go tomorrow, so } and we were talking about Six Flags. Well one thing led to another and the next thing we knew, we were inviting anyone and everyone. In fact, if you want to come to Gurnee, Illinois tomorrow around ten, we will be there, so come on by. Some are coming that were here last night, some can't make it, while others (who were NOT here last night) are now coming.

Isn't that cool?

Okay, I must leave the blog for a few hours and get a little shut eye -we leave at 7:30 tomorrow morning... So maybe I'll see you all on Friday. :)

Please pray for us, those rides can take a lot out of a person.

Good night and God Bless.

An Album Cover To End All Album Covers(not to mention a really cool band name)

Hello all!



I was lurking like I like to do, when I can't get to sleep. Anyway, I went over to Damama T's blog and read a very touching tribute to her mother who passed away twenty-four years ago. While there I (and I do this at every blog I visit, because you never know where it will lead you).



It led me to Kathy:I am who I am and this neat little experiment, which ironically she got from Damama T - talk about some weird sense of synergy, eh?



But I digress (trying to keep up with Kalynne, don't ya know. She's the digressing champ{Is that even a word?}).



Ugh. Your point?



Oh yeah, An Album Cover that is created through a whole bunch of randomness (actually three random web pages, to be honest). Then after creating said cover, well you see if it fits you to a 'T.'



So here are the instructions:



Go to the following websites...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random(The first article title on the page is the name of your band.)



http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3(The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.)



http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7daysThe third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.



Got it? I'm not putting in links, (although it looks like they may be there, not sure...) well because Kathy didn't do it, and I'm not sure if it would screw something up - does that make sense? Whew! Are you all still with me? Anyway, just copy and paste the URL into your address bar and it should work just fine.



Now for my cover...

My band name and album title:

Geriojennsa ~ 'Enjoyment of One's Self'

There you have it. Does kind of fit you know, except maybe the whole (Geriojennsa is a genus of moth in the family Arctiidae.) part. :) That's okay, I kind of like the name for a band... (I got dibs!)

Good Night and God Bless! (for real this time)

Guitar Heroes Ruin School Work for Hard-Working Man (Yeah Right)

Oh my!

I only posted a little blurb about changing the template and that was it. The Blog365 people are going to be mad at me. Excuse me for having a tough day....

Worked ten hours, or was it twelve? And this was actual work, not sit around with free moments galore work. I was getting frazzled. Even my lovely bride told me that I should leave and get away - oh and to pick up LHS from work (he's still grounded from driving). Do being the dutiful husband that I am, I came home.

Then I had the tough task of taking control of the Wii for a little more than an hour, playing Guitar Hero III.

Yes I did.

Got myself a couple of five star reviews even.

Maybe I should move up to Medium, eh?

Or not. After all, I have a goal of getting at least four star reviews before moving on to the next song, much to the annoyance of my family that has to listen to 'My Name is Jonas' by Weezer, six times in a row. Okay, maybe not for THAT song, but there have been songs that I play over and over and... I think I am at level five now, after just besting the "European Invasion" section.

Hey go over and check out Manic's site later today. She is hosting an awards show for all of the blood donor's in Manic's First Annual Blood Drive. There were thirty-three donors in all, that is ninety-nine lives saved. How awesome is that? Yea Manic!!

Back to my 'tough' day.

I then watched my kids play GH III, after all the family that plays Guitar Hero together stays together. :)

The rest of the eveing is a blur... I remember looking at my school work that is due, then I came up with excuse that because I didn't have a three-hole punch I just couldn't concentrate. That and Metallica's "One" on Guitar Hero might of had something to do with it. Can't wait until we get that second guitar!

Then there was the half-hearted attempt at making something to eat, my five-year old little Magpie decided that throwing away the rest of the dinner that was prepared for all, was necessary. Of course, this also happened while I was playing the game. I think. So I took some radiotore (sic) pasta, some corn, some tuna, some cheddar from Vermont (thanks again for the gift Mom and Dad!), some pepper, garlic salt and mayo. Mix it all together and you have, something. Tasted alright to me, although the cheddar was a tad bit sharper than I was expecting. Magpie said it smelled, Monster kept saying "some, some" until he tried it and made that sucking on a lemon face, Cuddlebug said she liked it. Those were the only comments I remember from it, if the other four people in my house said anything about it I don't recall it.

Last thing I remember was watching Benjy playing "Anarchy in the U.K." while I was lying on the coach.

You guessed it. At 4:17am my alarm went off and I was still on the coach. So restful. Not.

Now I am back at work, trying to make amends for yesterday, BEFORE the work begins. I love my job. Really, I do.

I think.

***Extra Note -- before anyone gets the misguided idea that all we do is play video games, I must point out that the boys could not play until they had all of their school work done, the girls were busy "cleaning" their rooms. Rooms that looked really good AFTER mom went through the inspection process (i.e. cleaning up after the cleaning). So there. Besides, isn't Tuesday night game night in your households?

Have a great day!

Heroes and Disney Meet the White Dress!

This is going to be a boring post because I have to get up in a little over five hours and I am tired, so...

I played my first "Hard" level on Guitar Hero 3 tonight. Uh, it was hard! Go figure, right?

Monster is cute when he talks now. It's amazing how much he can say with one word, over and over again. :-)

Cuddlebug got herfirst Holy Communion dress tonight. Her first choice. She said it was the best that they saw all night.

Okay, I'm tapped, seriously. I need to get a few hours of sleep, before I spend my hour with Jesus in the morning. I'll just have to do more tomorrow, I guess.

Or later, when I can't fall asleep because I am listening to all the "Guitar Heroes" in my house.

I guess Monster will be playing 'Jack Sparrow' for Halloween, some year. Just can't pass a deal up, I guess.

Poor Monster is crying because he saw a mimi(Mickey) bag. As in the mouse.

Okay, it's all nonsense now, and I will look back on this someday and wonder what the heck was going on. The only concrete thing I've written is the state of my fatigue.

So, Good Night and God Bless.

Guitar Hero 3 Must Die!!

Okay, maybe I am being a bit extreme here, but this stupid video game is turning my kids into evil and violent little brats!

Well, one at least.

No, not Monster (note: new nickname, in case you missed from previous episode).

I'm talking about Cuddlebug. Such venom, such anger, such another word that means the same thing. I hate when I do that! Anyway, the girls, CB and SAPLG came home from Irish Dance classes. I said that they could play the game for the next 30 minutes, then it was prayer time. (we're trying to pray a Rosary every night - we'll get it sometime) SAPLG was up first and played her tune. Now it was CB's turn.

CB: Okay SAPLG, it's my turn.
SAPLG: Just a minute, I need to finish.
CB: Dad! She won't let me play.
Me: SAPLG you need to finish up and let CB have her turn.
SAPLG: Okay, but I was just finishing up here.
Me: Okay. CB, when she finishes you will get your turn.

The next thing I hear is one of the worst shreaks I have ever heard, from both of them.

Me: That's it! Both of you get your jammies on and go to bed!
CB: But Dad!
Me: Now, young lady.
CB: But Dad!

SAPLG actually did what she was told and got her jammies on and went to bed. Meanwhile...

CB: No, Dad!
CB: But Dad!
CB: No!
CB: No!
Me: 1, 2, ...

Then CB did something that I am still kind of in shock over. She put the guitar (from the game) over her head and went to turn on the television, and the game.

Me: ALL THREE NAMES!!! Get your butt in bed, right now!

That did the trick. Of course she whimpered in bed for another thirty minutes, before falling asleep. I couldn't believe that she would do that. That she would even think about it. That makes four of my six fighting hard for their independence. I guess I'm getting old.

***Note: Benjy is looking over my shoulder and just said "All three names?" So, I figured if he didn't get it, maybe I should explain it. ALL THREE NAMES, is in place of her first, middle and last name - the dreaded whammy, when you knew that you had crossed the line. And since I am paranoid, I guess, I just did that instead of saying Louisa May Alcott! Got it? Good, I hope. Note ends here***

GIRL SCOUT COOKIES: Are in! We loaded up cars and everyone should be expecting to get their wallets out to pay for these diet breakers, maybe I'll share my experiences with the frozen world of Batavia later, let's put it this way, I'm still thawing out.

Good Night All!