Someone in or near my neighborhood owns a pair of peahens. As in female peacocks. The just sort of roam around eating everyone's plants and making fucking weird noises. I'm not a big fan of birds but even I have to admit they are pretty nifty looking birds. I am glad that they are not acclimated to people. Or it least it seems like they aren't. I can't get close enough to take a picture, which is fine because I don't need them sneaking up on me while I'm outside and distracted and going all murder hen on me. I have no evidence that they would be bloodthirsty, evil, flesh tearing monsters aside from my luck. If I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all so goes the saying.
There is also an "eagle nest" in my neighbor's tree. I am a tiny bit skeptical that they are actually eagles. But I am certain it's some type of bird of prey, like a falcon or hawk that my idiot, redneck neighbors mistook for eagles. I mean, an eagle is a big fucking bird and I doubt that they would go unseen by someone who lives 50 feet from where they do. I also think that if they were eagles that were feeding babies the neighborhood would be missing a few cats. They definitely make the scream that birds who drink blood make. And they make it all the damned time.
Speaking of cats. I think it's pretty common for neighborhoods to have wandering cats. I have to say though, I've never lived anywhere where there were so many cruising around. This is especially nuts because 5 of our 6 cats don't go outside. The one that does was a stray who was wandering around and suckered me into feeling sorry for him and taking him in. Most of the cats keep their distance and the one that doesn't is a pleasant old fellow with no voice named Studley. He's a rough looking, old, grey tom that suckered our neighbor into feeling sorry for him and taking him in. He visits every now and then and does a silent meow for me so I'll scratch his ears. It's a good relationship. Especially since someone else is feeding him and cleaning his box.
My neighborhood is also awash with barbecues and grills. I'm guilty as well. I have a neat little portable Weber grill that runs off those little green camping sized propane bottles that my buddy Treebeard gave me. It cooks really nice too. Easy to clean. All the good stuff. Ok, there wasn't much point to the grill paragraph but I felt the need to write something about it. So you got a snippet about my grill.
Monday, July 22, 2019
There Was a Farmer
I have an odd obsession with bingo. Not the farmer's dog, actually, the game. I can't really put my finger on why I have affection for a game that is, at it's heart, just random number generation. No skill will help you be "good" at bingo. All you have to do is listen for the caller to say a randomly generated number and then look at your field of randomly generated numbers to see if there's a match. Then mark that number with your brightly colored, wipe-away marker. Not exactly chess.
But I just love the heck out of it. It is probably because one of my earliest memories is going to play bingo with my grandparents when I was young. That's bingo's target audience by the way. Old people and children with single digit ages. There are outliers of course. My niece and her husband have a weekly bingo night and GOD HELP YOU if you interrupt it. Anyway. When I was a single digit aged child I would go to a building my grandmother just called "gerontology" and play with her while my grandfather called the games. I remember thinking that the crazy, popcorn machine thing that they used to get the balls with the numbers was super-duper-cool. I always wanted to play with it. My grandfather, knowing me, never let that happen, thereby saving them the trouble and cost of buying a new-fangled replacement machine.
Now that I'm middle aged I use the internet to satiate my bingo cravings. Most often I play using apps I've downloaded. Yes, apps in the plural sense. I have 5, I think. I'm sure that if I wanted to my niece and nephew would welcome me to their bingo club with open arms but I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of savage. Five different bingo apps is excessive you say? HOGWASH, I say. I like them all for different reasons. Each has it's own design and layout as well as different side...things to entertain you while you aren't listening for your random numbers. One lets you run a city and fill orders from various shops to earn boosts and other rewards. One has a crafting station and a global tournament. A couple others have versions of classic (read: not fun) board games that you can fart around with between games. Each has it's own appeal and having multiple versions lets me cycle through them when I run out of game tickets on one of the others.
Now you know some of my horrible secrets. I'm a middle aged nerd, my mental age ranges between 9 and 90 years old, and my grandfather abused me as a child by not letting me break his shit. It's a wonder I didn't grow up to be a serial bingo machine smasher.
But I just love the heck out of it. It is probably because one of my earliest memories is going to play bingo with my grandparents when I was young. That's bingo's target audience by the way. Old people and children with single digit ages. There are outliers of course. My niece and her husband have a weekly bingo night and GOD HELP YOU if you interrupt it. Anyway. When I was a single digit aged child I would go to a building my grandmother just called "gerontology" and play with her while my grandfather called the games. I remember thinking that the crazy, popcorn machine thing that they used to get the balls with the numbers was super-duper-cool. I always wanted to play with it. My grandfather, knowing me, never let that happen, thereby saving them the trouble and cost of buying a new-fangled replacement machine.
Now that I'm middle aged I use the internet to satiate my bingo cravings. Most often I play using apps I've downloaded. Yes, apps in the plural sense. I have 5, I think. I'm sure that if I wanted to my niece and nephew would welcome me to their bingo club with open arms but I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of savage. Five different bingo apps is excessive you say? HOGWASH, I say. I like them all for different reasons. Each has it's own design and layout as well as different side...things to entertain you while you aren't listening for your random numbers. One lets you run a city and fill orders from various shops to earn boosts and other rewards. One has a crafting station and a global tournament. A couple others have versions of classic (read: not fun) board games that you can fart around with between games. Each has it's own appeal and having multiple versions lets me cycle through them when I run out of game tickets on one of the others.
Now you know some of my horrible secrets. I'm a middle aged nerd, my mental age ranges between 9 and 90 years old, and my grandfather abused me as a child by not letting me break his shit. It's a wonder I didn't grow up to be a serial bingo machine smasher.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Why We're Here
Sometime last week I was lurking around Reddit; reading a post about depression. Someone linked a couple pages from Allie Brosh's blog: Hyperbole and a Half. They said this was the best description of depression they had ever seen or heard. That caught my attention so I clicked on over to check it out. Here and Here are the pages they linked if you're curious. While I read I found myself getting that strange, sort of hopeful, excited feeling. Like "holy shit, someone else feels what I feel." I also found myself laughing a lot. Not only is Allie experiencing similar feelings to mine, she is also hysterically funny. You really should go read her work even though her blog has been defunct for several years.
Another thing that happened was that I read through a great deal of her archives and giggled my slushy brain out and found myself thinking that some of her material, mostly the stuff about depression and anxiety, was depressingly funny. I was laughing because she's funny and because I could relate to a lot of it. Kind of a funny because it's true situation. I also felt like I shouldn't be laughing at some of it because it was her recounting genuine anguish and it felt mean spirited to laugh at it. It's not though. It's a way to cope with the condition and help yourself potentially get out of a mental funk and maybe even give some people a laugh and brighten their day.
I am currently on medical leave from work until further notice, which has a lot to do with mental health, so I thought I would take the inspiration I gained from Hyperbole and a Half and start a new blog. The last one (nope, not linking it...yet) was on a different site and was getting pretty aimless and negative. So I'm starting fresh and hopefully I can make some progress in my own headspace while giving some folks a few laughs in the process.
I can't promise that I'll make X posts per week/month/etc. But I'll try to remember to do it when I think of a funny story or something interesting happens. I'm likely to follow the same method as Allie (I SWEAR I'm not obsessed with her! I'm inspired and impressed by her and her writing) writing about my life and the odd things that seem to happen to me and my wife. Not sure I'll be drawing any pictures but I'll probably post photos and such.
I'm new to Blogger/BlogSpot so bear with me as I monkey around with the site and change the layout and general appearance A WHOLE FUCKING LOT in the coming months. You may have gotten a notice that there may be adult content on this blog. I set it to adult because I swear a lot. There won't be any nudity or gore or anything like that. Just words that some people may find objectionable. Also, be prepared for the fact that I write about stupid shit and sometimes I'm just not funny. And I will tell you about my cats. A Lot.
Cheers
Another thing that happened was that I read through a great deal of her archives and giggled my slushy brain out and found myself thinking that some of her material, mostly the stuff about depression and anxiety, was depressingly funny. I was laughing because she's funny and because I could relate to a lot of it. Kind of a funny because it's true situation. I also felt like I shouldn't be laughing at some of it because it was her recounting genuine anguish and it felt mean spirited to laugh at it. It's not though. It's a way to cope with the condition and help yourself potentially get out of a mental funk and maybe even give some people a laugh and brighten their day.
I am currently on medical leave from work until further notice, which has a lot to do with mental health, so I thought I would take the inspiration I gained from Hyperbole and a Half and start a new blog. The last one (nope, not linking it...yet) was on a different site and was getting pretty aimless and negative. So I'm starting fresh and hopefully I can make some progress in my own headspace while giving some folks a few laughs in the process.
I can't promise that I'll make X posts per week/month/etc. But I'll try to remember to do it when I think of a funny story or something interesting happens. I'm likely to follow the same method as Allie (I SWEAR I'm not obsessed with her! I'm inspired and impressed by her and her writing) writing about my life and the odd things that seem to happen to me and my wife. Not sure I'll be drawing any pictures but I'll probably post photos and such.
I'm new to Blogger/BlogSpot so bear with me as I monkey around with the site and change the layout and general appearance A WHOLE FUCKING LOT in the coming months. You may have gotten a notice that there may be adult content on this blog. I set it to adult because I swear a lot. There won't be any nudity or gore or anything like that. Just words that some people may find objectionable. Also, be prepared for the fact that I write about stupid shit and sometimes I'm just not funny. And I will tell you about my cats. A Lot.
Cheers
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