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While I was in the shower this morning, I had a Profound Thought

Star Trek: First Contact would have been a TOTALLY DIFFERENT MOVIE if the Vulcans had first visited Earth based on our creation of striped toothpaste.

QotD: There’s a Monster in My Closet

The title and default tag of this QotD are appropriate, because when I was a kid I had an almost paralyzing fear of my walk-in closet. It was big and dark and full of clothing on hangers and it had these large drawers full of bedding and linens. The drawers were easily large enough for me to climb inside until I was about 5 or 6 years old, so the idea that I might be playing hide-and-seek and never get found was just horrifying.

But worst of all was the hole in the closet wall at the edge of those drawers. It was a ragged hole, knocked into the wall to allow access to the crawlspace between the eaves and the house’s brick walls. But I had seen the 1980 version of The Fog, and I recalled a scene where an eerie light was emanating from the walls of an old house and a young woman reached through a hole in the wall to grab something she had lost (or possibly left behind, or whatever), and as she reached in, THE MONSTERS GRABBED HER AND PULLED HER THROUGH TO HER DEATH.

I would NOT go near that part of the closet at night, and in daylight only with every nearby light source turned on. Scared the SHIT out of me.

Answering:

What were you afraid of when you were younger that seems silly to you now?
Submitted by wandie

Two scarecrows

Two scarecrows
Flickr: Don NunnLast of the supplier’s stock at the Seattle Gift Show, so we got them cash’n’carry.

There’s water in the distance

There's water in the distance
Flickr: Don NunnLooking toward Elliott Bay from the middle of the WSC&TC skybridge spanning Pike Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Exit receding

Exit receding
Flickr: Don NunnWe are ascending to the Seattle Gift Show at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

Which venue name is really just an 11-syllable way to say “hell”!

Signs of a houseguest

I went into my bathroom this morning to do the usual shower/shave/etc. prep for the workday.

First thing I saw:

GREEN APPLE BODY BUTTER

I did a triple-take on that, because

1. “Body Butter”?
2. GREEN APPLE “Body Butter”?
3. In my bathroom??

Then I remembered:

Oh yeah, Mom’s in town for a visit!

Mystery solved, and that’s when I realized I was a bit hungover from the bottle of wine I inhaled last night.

Sunrise over Lake Washington

Sunrise over Lake Washington
Flickr: Don NunnBeautiful day ahead.

One hundred sixty

One hundred sixty
Flickr: Don NunnBeers on tap, that is.

Tap House Grill in Bellevue.

They could KILL YOU. Without even blinking.

A couple days back I mused on Twitter:

Amazed that badminton is an Olympic sport. 09:07 AM August 11, 2008 from web

Got a couple of replies expressing similar wonderment:

jewellsinsea: @donnunn That amazes me too but what is even more amazing is that they will go through 1000 dozen shuttlecocks during the games. 09:09 AM August 11, 2008 from web

heidihoover: @donnunn Me too. How do you get the idea: “Hey, I bet I could go to the Olympics and play badminton!”? 11:13 AM August 11, 2008

Then I actually saw badminton played in the Olympics.

Let me tell you: I have never seen a shuttlecock emit a smoke trail, but that’s what happens when the thing is sent blitzing at your face at roughly 45,000 mph on that little court.

These things become MISSILES off the rackets of the players. The singles play is amazing enough, in its way, but the doubles play is just ASTOUNDING. This chaotic-looking dance of insanity and somewhere in there a point is scored, only you need the four replays to see just WTF happened there?

I bow down before the players and referees of these matches. They have superhuman vision and light-speed decision-making skills to keep track of these things, and if I ever met an Olympian badminton player in a dark alley, I’d run screaming from the light WHOOSH of the approaching birdie.

These are the problems of a 30-something single man in Seattle

A few days ago I was going to complain about how I cannot, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, pull off the foil lids on yogurt cups without the damned lids tearing, no matter how careful I am or how slowly I pull the lids away from the cups.

Now three cups in a row, the lids have come off in a single piece. Somehow I have become a foil-lid–removing GENIUS.

So I moved on. Last night I wanted a banana, and wonder of wonders, I had some bananas from a grocery trip I made Sunday evening. Lovely small bunch, so I wouldn’t waste any of them in the seeming SECONDS between their perfect ripeness and their festering rottenness. Grabbed a banana, took hold of the stem in my right hand and started the quick sideways yank I used to break the stem for peeling.

Stem came right off that damned banana, flew about 12 feet across the kitchen into the dining room, where Flex was waiting for it. Poor stem, it’s now a cat’s plaything, in the evile way cats bat and chase things around before those things disappear for a time into whatever weird places such little objects go.

I’ll find that stem in a year or so, a dessicated little wart that I’ll have trouble identifying. Maybe I’ll flash back to an August evening in 2008 when I did a little comedy routine that only my cat appreciated, and only because it got him a new toy. But most likely I’ll wonder just what the hell is that little thing? when my vacuum suddenly emits a squeal of tortured belts and I have to turn the thing over and dig out whatever has the damned mechanism jammed up.

But I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing the sound of the vacuum has sent Flexie cowering into a corner under the bed.

Bwahahahaha.

Because it’s been this kind of day

SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK.

Also:

SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK.

Unpleasant sounds to start your day

In no particular order, and from the last couple of weeks:

• Cat retching 2 feet from your head
• Brakes squealing on Aurora Ave, right outside your open windows
• Goddamned alarm clock, bah!
• Low-flying jets you’re almost certain are about to crash directly into your block oh God run! run! RUN!!!
• Hammer-drills on building at north end of block, damnable concrete workers
• Sirens rushing up and/or down Aurora, I’d thought those would stop registering on my mind but THEY NEVER END

That is all.

Joker ain’t the only fool

Joker ain't the only fool
Flickr: Don NunnJulie Anne happens to show both ladies while she shuffles the final hand in this game of Shanghai rummy

Eagle Harbor view

Eagle Harbor view
Flickr: Don NunnLooking out the window of the Harbour Public House as we play cards and drink a beer on a lovely Saturday evening.

Coffee jackassery

Coffee jackassery
Flickr: Don NunnTwo half-full milk cartons among the debris left behind by someone(s) who couldn’t be bothered to step 10 feet to a trash can.

Crescent moon over Lower Queen Anne

Crescent moon over Lower Queen Anne
Flickr: Don NunnHoping my camera phone can do it any justice, since my PowerShot batteries are both dead.

They’re growing up

They’re growing up
Flickr: Don NunnNow at Old Spaghetti Factory, no longer the folded paper menus of our youths.

I may be overdosing on messaging

Two days into the month, my text-message count is already 177.

Buy beer at a BREWERY? Can you IMAGINE?

Utah enters the 20th century with a rule change regarding sale of beer and liquor at the locations where they’re actually sold. Salt Lake Tribune article, which I received by email from my mom, after the jump.

Links for 2008-08-01

• Presto - Pixar
  Hysterical short film: A magician’s rabbit gets his revenge when the magician is late to feeding time.
  (tags: pixar shortfilms entertainment amusing funny cartoons video)

It’s the middle of the 4th....

Happy birthday, Julie Anne!

It’s impolite to disclose a lady’s age, of course, but I figure this is just obscure enough and the pun on recent events we’ve attended just leapt to mind. Though I hope when people read this, they do the figuring correctly and don’t add a decade.... :-x

Anywho:

If you’re a Twitter user, add Julie Anne and wish her a happy day.

Or go write on her Facebook page.

Or leave a comment on her web site.

Or all of these—that works too. :-D