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Hold on Ter Yer Hats

HUMMUS WITH MY HANDS (sung vaguely to the Beverly Hillbillies tune. Based on a true story.)

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL
it was getttin' kinda late and i was mighty awful tired
but i figured hey what the heck better eat some hummus n' carrots
but i looked around the fridge and what did i find
there weren't a single fracking carrot i could claim as mine!
So gathered up my hands and i told 'em what to do
I said dig into that hummus and squish it up like goo
and then when you've got a big ball come on by
and shove it in my mouth like a peice o' pie

oh hummus hummus hummus with my hands
hummus hummus like a regular ayn rand
hummus hummus hummus with my hands
now i've finished all my hummus, and now it's time to dance

(interlude)
Oh...I've finished up my dance, and i'm getting awful tired
I guess I'll go to bed, after my hands are washed and dried
but oh i forgot, i'm all out of power!
i suppose that instead,i guess i'll take a shower
well i went upstairs,to turn the water on
i got hummus on the door knob and hummus on the ground
i got hummus on my pants hummus in my hair
i rubbed hummus on the cat, hummus on the stair

hummus hummus hummus everywhere
hummus hummus hummus in your hair
if you don't wash your hands and they've got hummus on 'em, you're gonna get hummus in places you don't want it

Three Great Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svgyvyHpdkc&feature=related -- Israel is for Jews

http://www.oldspice.com/videos/all/29/Zoom_30/ -- Old Spice Ad w/ Tiger

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=1105697281&v=info -- Click on Video in Bottom Left Corner. (worth it)

Took Kids to Dragon Movie

I took the kids to see "How to Train Your Dragon" yesterday all by myself.   Rachel and her parents & sisters took the opportunity to escape without me and go out to eat a delicious fancy meal at Neptune's Seafood pub.  They brought me back some pizza though, so it's okay.

I'm excited because soon Rachel and I shall go down to Okracoke island for our 5th anniversary and have 4 days to chillax in the sun without kids!  Pretty sweet, non?  I think it sounds like a bold and daring plan, personally, and I'm glad it is coming this has been the semester of boring unlearning hardworking terribleness.  But somebody told me law school is like Karate Kid -- "paint house" turns into beat up bad teenagers before you know it.  I sure hope so.  Painting houses is boring.

I have been watching Battle Star Galactica by myself, which maybe is contributing to the feeling of creeping isolation.  First of all, it's not a very good show, honestly.  It started good but now it's not but I can't stop watching.  Secondly, watching shows by yourself on a little laptop is just sad.    So I guess I should just read a crappy wikipedia summary of how it ends or something.

I feel like I used to write better blog entries than I do now -- filled with ideas and swarthy, sweeping sentiments about pirate life and things like that.  You know, more scholastic.  Also I miss the pictures, which I am not allowed to have thanks to google.  I wonder if I should switch back to my old blog.

I dunno.   Anyway.  Tom out.

BFFs

Well, the internet is down at school and I am confused and afraid.  Like an old person. So what did I do? Well, currently I am writing a blog entry on this old fashioned word processing program that I will later cut and paste onto my blog if they ever fix the internet.    It eases the pain.

Rachel went to philadelphia to go to the "doctors" (affair?)  and had to stay in a hotel room there for the night.    I think I could increase my readership if I wrote more lovey dovey blog entries about how much I love her, but I don't know if that's appropriate when she is probably having an affair.   (just kidding -- i hope.)

In other news, my kids are still cute as always, wouldn't you know it.  Sena slept at her Oma's house yesterday night, but Gus kept me company, which is good, because truth be told when I am left in a house alone all night I kind of freak out.    I don't know how some people live alone. I wouldn't last more than a day or two I don't think.  I was also pretty flattered Gus chose me over his grandma and sister.   His sister has to be forced to spend the night away from her grandmother.  They are total BFFs.  Their favorite activity is to play farmville together.

Yes, in fact, a word on this farmville.  I'd like it to be known that I am not responsible for all the farmville being played around these parts.    I think Cheri is currently playing the farms of all one million of her daughters, her own account, her husband, and also mine.  Cherri is a funny sort.  She is a deeply private person and ubber respectful about certain issues, except you can never tell which these will be.  She will apologize prefusely for, say, moving your shoes from away from the front door, and then on the other hand she thinks nothing of posting things on your facebook every single day about how she needs fertilizer for her imaginary crops.

But to go back to these affairs Rachel is likely having, I have been wondering lately who Gus' real father is.  Okay, so, Gus has BLUE eyes and BLONDE hair.  Meanwhile, I have brown eyes and brown hair and Rachel has green eyes and red hair. It doesn't add up, does it!  I wonder what color hair and eyes this Pennsylvania "doctor" has.    #curiousaboutaffair

Gus is very into lizards currently and wants to purchase a lizard desperately.  He likes Geicos, skinks and iguanas the best.  I bought Gus a hat yesterday that says "winner, winner turkey dinner" and is comoflauge.  He says it is his camping hat and that we are going to go camping soon.  Which is good, but I guess probably he'll be a pain in the ass to take camping -- won't want to follow the trail, will probably go off and start eating poisonous berries, splashing in streams, petting bears, and refusing to hike the full 12 miles per day. That's the main purpose of camping as I see it, the death marches.  (that really is what I love best about being in the woods, for some reason).

I was thinking that even if Gus isn't mine I'm probably in too deep to back out now, love wise.   Then again, maybe I could manage it.  Yes. I think I could probably manage it.  We humans are amazingly adaptive creatures.  We can accomplish anything if we only set our minds to it.

The Blog of a Space Emperor (FICTION)

I know it's a common theme on this 'lil blog of mine, but being emperor of all creation isn't all it's cracked up to be.

My wife came in this morning -- at 9:00 a.m. this morning to be exact (I had been up since 5:00) -- and she was angry, as usual.  This time it's because I put the empty milk thing back in the refrigerator.   I gave her that smile of mine, that clownish smile.  She half forgave me, as usual -- although I can tell she never forgets.  These things add up, and I have to pay for them later.

Her look said, "how you can be one in charge of a hundred million worlds is beyond me."   And my look said... well what did it say? It didn't make a statement so much as take a stance.  That off balance, clownish stance, distant and bemused.  Or so I assume.  That's what I'm trying to convey, anyway, maybe I just look like a little kid getting yelled at.

This photograph was produced by European Southern Observatory.  This usage permissible under this picture's creative commons license.

Now, obviously, I'm just a figurehead, just a relic of a bunch of ancient, decisively meaningless traditions, but even if I wasn't and actually did have to rule this "empire" of ours (sorry Galactos -- another one of these posts), thinking on the scale of inter-galactic space is incomparable to the level of putting an empty milk carton back in the refrigerator.   Why?

Well, if you're my wife, you're already bored.  But, if you're not my wife, read on.  Space is, of course, immeasurably, unimaginably huge.  This, you know.   Our galaxy itself contains about 300 billion stars -- nobody has any real idea how many planets.  And there are billions and billions of galaxies.  Nobody knows how many.  Ever since the invention of that damned faster than light drive that runs on water -- yes, ordinary water, a drive that is cheap and safe to produce and use -- the empire has gone from a regulated, manageable, semi-feudal collection of world-nations to a Wild Environment, tribal, nomadic: an infinite desert.

And weird things happen out in space. Things that don't lend themselves to bureaucratic structures.

As I write this there are somewhere between 300 million-1 billion crafts currently navigating the universe.  They were built on as many as 100 million more or less habitable worlds spread over distances so insanely unimaginable numbers are completely meaningless.   Every one of these ships is essentially subject to no law at all.  And due to the nature of faster than light travel it would be, in fact it is, practically impossible to ever make them subject to any sort of law, even pirate law. Unless they want to go home, unless they want to meet up with fellow human beings -- they don't.  And many of them never do.

There are communities out there, maybe as many as 30% of all human communities it is estimated, which are completely unknown to the rest of this "empire."   What goes on there, the things that are found, and found by ordinary schmoes like you and me -- it's dazzling, utterly mind-bending.

Planets, yes entire planets, that are sentient (not just sentient in fact but intensely philosophical and very good conversationalists.  Snooze-fest, I know, but some people go in for that sort of thing).  Wars of such brutality and violence and rage and incredible length it stupefies even a flexible mind to try and understand why anyone would participate when their ship's FTL drive would help any participant  untraceably disappear forever in seconds (the Brunian war: 1,000 years. Yes. A thousand; the Cyclopeon war: 480 some years, depending on if you count that 30 years of unofficial assassinations and military "peace actions"; the War of the Rocks:  more time than is known, although technically Rocks are probably not sentient any more than fire is sentient, but they do seem to have memories, of a sort).

Most of these wars and races and planets we steer clear of if we don't like what's going on.  So wars, even wars as long and deadly and brutal as these, practically don't even matter to Average Joe Spaceman (or woman -- it's always seemed a dumb term to me).  AJSes can go where they pleases and do what they please. This place, the Universe, is so huge, and tracking, sensing, and communication devices are so utterly useless due to the speed of light limitations imposed on everything but the manned and crewed faster than light ship, that we, truthfully, do not even a basic idea of what the hell is going on.  We have to rely on the word of mouth of those willing to stand and report.

You can hardly call it an empire.  It's more like a rain forest and me a bonobo monkey who happens to think himself king. (Actually, I guess that would be more Galactos. Sorry again, Glactos. I definitely owe you a space beer).  But look, I know this stuff is boring. I know you've heard it all before, and I'm sorry to pull a Carl Sagan on you when all you really want is to read about my kids.  (Klygone took his first Outerworld Cruise yesterday.  His girlfriend, Jendar, who, as you know I adore and think is a wonderful influence on him -- doesn't let him get away with anything -- said the experience made him "more peevish than usual."  I'll blog about it when I have time.)

It's almost 11:00 now and I finished reviewing the days notes hours ago, and this blog is stalling before I have to do chores -- out of courtesy I'm Cced on the unclassified bits of all the briefings the Chief Executor receives (but don't bug me for any secret information -- what I get is so incredibly non-vital you might as well just read a newspaper -- really, I don't know why I bother to read them, I should just pick up a copy of the Daily Sun instead -- better written).

(Digression -- sorry for all the M dashes -- I know it's a problem.)

Anyway, it's back to husbandhood and fatherhood again.  I've wasted too long on this entry.  My wife is in the kitchen, and I can tell by the tone of the pots and pans being put away she's mad at me for not cleaning up my breakfast bowls. I probably left my bag of tea on the counter, draining that concentrated black water (which I guess is just tea, when I think about it) to wander down the counter top and drip into the kitchen rug.  Sigh.

Sometimes I wish my job was more important.