Old Man Sounds

Just found myself using the phrase "sheesh o'meesh". I'm pretty sure that's not actually a phrase, but it sounds like something you'd hear in a 'talkie' or perhaps a Bob Newhart comedy special (which are awesome if you check your irony at the door, by the way). I'm gonna go with it.

Pictured: Cary Grant in 'Arsenic And Old Lace'. Not exactly a talkie in the 'first movies with sound' sense, but I like Cary Grant, and he might've been persuaded back then to utter "Sheesh o'meesh!" if the script called for it.

Sheesh o'meesh!

Today I Wish I Was 46

Forty years ago, Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon. That would have been amazing to see firsthand. Here's a story about it.

I Don't Know If I Can Explain How Happy This Makes Me Without Blubbering, So Just Look At The Image

If We Can Dream It, We Can Do It

Stay with me here. It's a bidet for babies. I call it a Bidet-by (biday-bee).*

Sure, right now it's in the planning stages, and since I don't have the start-up capital it's just a squirt gun filled with warm, soapy water, but think of it! The baby gets clean, and your chance for fecal contact is minimized!*2

What we do is, build a small walk-in shower-type dealie, put a slot at toddler eye level for the display of the kids' favorite toy, run a hose at medium pressure in through the floor of the device, and put foaming soap dispensers that shoot jets of cleaner at butt level.

Let me know, 'cause I've got investors who could be interested in this if I tell them about it if they return my calls.



* I understand that the spelling makes it seem like "Bidet By", but this is a whole different thing. I admit in retrospect that surprise ass washings might not be everyone's thing. The court has spoken, and I am listening. Strictly voluntary this time.........for the parents, at least.

*2 Of things that we all would like to minimize, fecal contact is pretty high up there. Am I right? On my list of things I'd rather not do, 'touch poop' is somewhere between 'run unnecessarily' and 'step on a cheese grater while running unnecessarily'. Probably closer to the latter than the former.

I/You Are Invited

So, two things.

One: I've got this stupid Black Eyed Peas "Boom Boom Pow" song stuck in my head.*

Two: Today has been a day of invitations. I was invited to head on over to a three day training session and then a job making more money per hour than I've ever made in my life (by 25%). It's no glamour position, but aside from superhero, what is? *2


Two-A: I've been invited to a music rock guitar funtime concert show featuring the new iteration of Alice In Chains. Now, I haven't heard the new singer, or any of their new material, but at one time I loved that band. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that they do Layne Staley justice.*3

In honor of my day of invitations, here's a song about invitations. Note that my daughter went batshit crazy at 2 minutes, 35 seconds.






* If I got it in your head by mentioning it, I'm not sorry. Why should I suffer alone?

*2 How come I wasn't created by Dan Jurgens? Why couldn't I get a job as a night watchman in a space museum filled with the gadgets of heroes from the distant past? Damn you, Booster Gold, you've got all the luck.

*3 Here's a bonus song! Gotta get that Black Eyed Peas song out somehow, right? Teenage me identified more with Layne Staley (minus the eventually fatal drug habit) than any of the other grunge-era exemplars.

Three Days In A Row Means This One Isn't Interesting

So, in an effort to continue the streak of daily posting here, I'll tell you what I did today.

Got up early and went to a job interview.

Aced the first part, tanked the second part to almost failing, came back strong on the third part, and split the difference in the 'tell me about a time when this happened, what did you do, and what was the result' section.

I should know tomorrow or the following day what will become of my aspirations.

Stay tuned, loyal readers!

Talkin' 'Bout The Good Ol' Days - M.U.S.C.L.E.

I've been getting these tiny figures for Neil lately called Gormiti. They're from Belgium or Zaire, or some other place. Of course, I get them because Neil likes them; my feelings have no place in the matter.*

But they'd set me half-remembering toys from when I was a kid. Being old, I couldn't quite get a handle on them. Google to the rescue! Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere. They were tiny and pink and seemed at the time to be wrestlers. Intergalactic alien, robot, superhero wrestlers.*2

Of course, nowadays, tiny figures have the luxury of being painted and existing to battle over the fate of Gorm. Gormiti belong to one of six tribes, each nature-themed.*3 There's epic destiny and ecological concern for today's five year old. Me, I just wanted to make weird guys beat each other up to prove their worth.*4 Take young me to the corner store, steer me past the Pocket Rockers*5 and over to the M.U.S.C.L.E. guys, buy me a Snickers bar I could stick in the freezer and throw in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic book and I'm good.

With the recent resurgence of all things Eighties, from He-Man to The Smurfs, it's just a matter of time before M.U.S.C.L.E. returns. Maybe this time around they'll make the figures action-ready and forgo the 'hands on hips' pose of power that didn't allow for making the figure punch.*6

This has been "Talkin' 'Bout The Good Ol' Days", the preeminent thrice-apostrophized blog series on the interweb.





* That's the official line, but I'm enough of a geek that I look forward to new ones at least as much as he does.

*2 I don't know what 'Lurking' had to do with wrestling, but then again, there weren't 'Millions' of them either. Hundreds, maybe, but that would have made for an awkward acronym. H.U.S.C.L.E. connotes a different type of wrestling entirely.

*3 Yes, sectarian violence is everywhere. Even in Gorm. Give me the good old days when it was "G.I. Joe against Cobra, the enemy, fighting to save the day". You knew where you stood. You were "fighting for freedom over land and air". Never mind securing the oceans. The Joe team had Shipwreck, but he obviously wasn't a competent sailor. The first clue is that he was saddled with a codename denoting naval failure.

*4 I was a tiny roman emperor, but nobody won their freedom.

*5 I remember that the commercials for Pocket Rockers used CCR's "Down On The Corner", excising any reference to Willy and the Poorboys. Tragic in retrospect, but I was untroubled at the time, having no concept of John Fogerty's copyright battles with his record label. Now I know better and kind of hate Fisher Price a bit for forever linking the jingle with the song in my mind.

*6 Headbutts are a nice change of pace, but everybody knows that haymakers win intergalactic wrestling bouts.

Birthday and Daily Attempt

Two and a half months, you say? Bullshit. That can't be right. Anyway, here's some pictures of my babies and some cake. So begins the "Justin tries to update every day and probably stops after two consecutive days" TNOTBEM extravaganza*.

The badass sandcastle cake was baked by the lady of the house, but the pestle-ing of the graham crackers into a facsimile of sand par excellence was all me.





As my daughter Niamh turned a year old, I finally decided to help her with something. Prior to this, I had a strict hands-off policy in place. You'll notice that my "future glasses"*2 are hiding the shame in my eyes.




Niamh is about to go all 'Sean Penn'*3. Guess who's playing the part of the papparazzo?






Here's Neil. We go way back. Must be five years if it's a day...

Oh God, I'm so old.








Once I was a man (arguably). Now I am hammock.







* It's not going to be exciting, people. But then again, it hasn't been an exciting two and a half month silence, either.

*2 My future glasses are proof that not all drunken drug store purchases need be cause for regret. And they're red. Haven't worn red since the "Converse Debacle of 1996".

*3 No, she's not about to argue passionately for human rights. The other Sean Penn thing. With the punching and the yelling of obscenities. Tiny fists and "big girl" words are an adorably effective way to get knocked unconscious.