Team spirit....

Now if only I had a Green Bay Packers polo shirt for Friday.

Insightful....

It turns out Boomer Esiason is a pretty bright guy. If you don't believe me, just read this column.

Gratitude....

For those of you who might doubt that Green Bay Packers fans are the best around, just read this.

Something's fishy....

This is a good story for the holidays. It also makes you stop and think about where our priorities, as a nation, might be.

Part of this complete breakfast....

This is the kind of thing Maryanne would beat me for if I did it. Nonetheless, I find it amusing, and she probably will too, since someone else did it.

At what cost?

The disturbing story behind the Evil Empire. This is the reason I avoid Wal-Mart like the plague.

Comments....

Well, it turns out the free blog comment provider I had tried, though easy to use, is unreliable, and a mere day or two after setting up the feature, their site is already down. That does not bode well, so I switched providers to BlogSpeak, who I'm hoping will be more reliable. Since Maryanne was the only one having left any comments on the site, I'm not overly concerned with the loss of her two comments (Sorry!). Hopefully this new host will be more reliable, and I can look forward to some more active commenting here.

Apologies....

It's a couple weeks old now, but this Op/Ed piece is one of the best I've read in a while.

It doesn't quack....

What noise does a platypus make? It doesn't matter: they have radar.

Idle hands....

Some people have too much time on their hands, and then we end up with stuff like this.

Silly....

Speaking of whack-jobs....

Now arriving: comments....

As you can see (or maybe not), I've added a comment feature to the blog. It's provided by a third-party vendor, called BlogOut, and is a free service. If you don't like it, then you can come up with an alternative for me.

Happy holidays!

A little twisted humor just in time for the holidays.

Full of surprises....

It turns out my windshield did have to be replaced, at a cost of $300-some dollars. It turns out Klein-Dickert is pretty cool, though. The part was in stock, and we were able to get it fixed right away.

Much of our weekend was spent doing some Christmas shopping. Did you know it's nigh on impossible to find desk lamps with a polished-brass finish? Or that it's equally difficult to find a bathroom towel rack in an antique-brass finish? It's all chrome and brushed nickel these days.

Saturday night there was a surprise birthday party for Maryanne's friend Kim, who was turning 30. She was surprised. It was an interesting evening that included silly string, marshmallows, flashing, and a little bit of pyromania. Thank God there were some other guys there.

Cracked view....

Somehow I developed a crack in my windshield. I reported it today, and made an appointment to have it fixed tomorrow morning. But between the time I left home this morning and the time I got home this afternoon, the crack had grown. I'm not very optimistic that it's going to be able to be fixed, and I'm wondering instead of my windshield will have to be replaced entirely.

I have no idea what caused the crack. I don't recall anything hitting my windshield hard enough to do it. I suspect the crack has been there for a while, and the rain turning to snow we got earlier this week caused it to grow.

Surfing...

Personal Web surfing at work can be beneficial. Here comes the science.

Geeky Christmas....

Christmas gift ideas for the nerd in your life, brought to you by the good people at Wired. Geek factor: high.

Changed the world....

Monty Python's Flying Circus: "the Beatles of Comedy."

Grammar....

Check your grammar skills. I'm sure few will be surprised to learn I got 10 out of 10.

"Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night..."

...Nor a massive snowstorm could keep these sisters from Lambeau Field.

This is most certainly true....

This might be interesting to see.

Strange things are happening....

Wackiness is almost sure to ensue when Mormons are involved.

Crossing a line....

Apparently this guy hasn't heard about separation of church and state.

Behold the power of cheese....

Yet another example of geeks with too much time on their hands.

Bully tactics....

Whack-jobs aren't only found with PETA, but this guy's from California, and that's good enough for me.

Gobble, gobble!

As Thanksgivings go, Thanksgiving 2003 was probably somehow the most organized in a long time, considering all that went wrong.

Maryanne and I arrived Wednesday night, but later than we would have liked. Caly's Blazer was in Mom's driveway, and we were greeted by the smell of cooking. It smelled like steak to me, but when we got inside we learned that Caly's pumpkin cheesecake had leaked all over the upper oven, proving that Mom's smoke detector did indeed work. Because of the buttery, smoky mess in the upper oven, Mom decided to run the cleaning cycle. With instruction manual in hand she started pressing buttons. The upper oven locked, and we set it on its merry way.

The next morning we discovered that the oven was still locked and without power. Resetting breakers did nothing to help, and we soon discovered we had to find another way to roast two turkeys.

One was done on the Weber kettle grill, while Caly came and picked up the other and cooked it at her house. With the dressing cooked on the gas grill, everything came together quite nicely.