Trey's Bloglicious Blog

BBC Top 100 Books vs. Facebook Meme

2009-08-19T10:31:00.004-05:00

First of all there is a facebook meme running around claiming to be attached to the BBC list. But it seems to have been doctored, it took of a lot of literary books and replaced them with books that have been made into popular American Movies. I guess whoever started it didn't think Americans would read "Good Omens" by Pratchet and Gaiman, British Authors. (I did.)

Also most people on facebook probably count watching the movie as "reading" it.

Also the facebook meme contends that the "average" person would have only read 6 of the 100 listed. This is not what the BBC List is about, it was just looking for the most popular book in the UK.

I guess I'll play along and even use the Facebook list instead of the BBC original list.

Top 100 Books by BBC - X those I've read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen -
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte -
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - X
6 The Bible - X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell -X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott -
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy -
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - x (Lower case x this time...)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger-X
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell-
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy- x (Lower case X again...)
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - X
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky-
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll -X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy -
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens -X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -X
34 Emma-Jane Austen -
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen -
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini -
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden -
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving -
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood-
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - X
52 Dune - Frank Herbert -X
53 Cold Comfort Farm
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen-
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon - X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac -X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - x (Lower case X, I think everyone skims over the middle of this book.)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker -
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce- X
76 The Inferno – Dante- X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray -
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens -X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - X
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas -
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -

Ok the facebook list is stupid. It lumps a lot of things into "Series". For example, the BBC lists individual Harry Potter books and Shakespeare plays.

There are also weird inconsistencies on the list. For example, "The Complete Works of Bill" are listed as well as Hamlet. As well as The Chronicles of Narnia and the individual L,W&Wardrobe book.

I X'd 48 of them (3 of which were lower case). Drat less than half...

I decided to google this before posting, here is an interesting article on this Facebook list and its migration away from the original.

Tomorrow I Turn 30

2009-06-27T15:26:00.002-05:00

Two years, seven months and 13 days ago I made my Tricenarian List, I highly suggest you read it. A Tricenarian is someone who is 30.

I had a lot of stuff on there I wanted to get done before I am 30. I have done none of them. Each is a little personal failure.

But I consider the time since then a great success because I met and married Sara.

Perhaps I'll make a list of stuff to do before I'm 40. As long as I have Sara then I'm sure I'll look back and consider the next 10 years a great success.

I also can't help but think that Jesus was 30 when he started his ministry. I'm sure I won't be as successful as him, I certainly won't walk as far, but I hope to do something that he would do if he was walking (or driving) around today.

Last Night Was Valentine's Day

2009-05-06T10:10:00.003-05:00

For Valentines Day Sara got me tickets to see "Flight of the Conchords" at Nokie and last night was the night! (Thanks, Babe!)

If you haven't heard of them your no longer cool. They are a New Zealand Novelty Duo. They have a show on HBO.

They talked between each song, which they explained to us up front:

"This is how we do it. We do a song then we talk a bit. Song. Talk. Song. Talk. Sometimes we just go song-song. And other times we go talk-talk... but you probably won't notice that."

Right off the bat I told Sara we had accidentally stumbled onto an "Ironic T-Shirt Competition" I thought about giving you my top 10 Stupid T-Shirts I saw but 9 of them are too profane to describe.

Also at Nokia they serve people drinks in that kind of disposable cup that are like kind of nice but still thin cheap plastic. They look like real glasses but they are just trash. Anyway, you wouldn't believe the people who thought these made excellent souvenirs. First, you are just advertising how much you drank. Second, they are trash!

I'm not surprised stupid college kids to take these home. Man, between us three room mates we got a set of 24 margarita glasses! I was surprised to see people in their 30's taking them home!

Ok, to go to this concert you basically have to have enough money to get HBO and buy tickets. This means you should know better than take home an armload of trash! But I'm sure the janitorial staff appreciates it.

I assume people wake up the next morning hung over, look in their sink at the sticky, dirty trash cups they brought home the night before and shake their heads in amazement at who they have become!

48546

I Hate Reply All

2009-04-28T09:37:00.006-05:00

There are many annoying email things going on now!
I hate Reply All. You should too. It is over used and annoying.

Here is an example of how Reply All abuse gets started:

To: (40+ email accounts in the office)
Subject: FYI - Kitty is Sick

"Hey guys, just FYI, I'll be a little late getting back from lunch, I have
to take Ms. Kitty Paws to the vet.

Thanks for your prayers,
Fake Name McGoo

This email may contain sensitive information that should not
be shared with anyone. Other legal mumbo jumbo, etc etc.
"

Ok, so this email has several problems:
First, I don't care about your cat.
Second, you emailed too many people this information. They probably agree with point 1.
Third, you put everyone's email in the To: line.
Fourth, your automatic email attached a legal disclaimer to the bottom of an email about your cat. (I didn't know Ms. Kitty Paws' health records were privileged information... and if it is why email everyone on your contact list.)

But lets pretend this is information that everyone needs to know, not a cat-update. If everyone needs to know they all need to get the email but do they all need to be on the To: line? NO!

Also, don't make the mistake of putting everyone on the CC: line either. Most likely everyone needs to be on the BCC: line. If more people did this the Reply All wouldn't be so abused and annoying.

Reply All is only if everyone on the list needs the information your distributing. Here is an example of what not to do:

To: (Everyone McGoo emailed)
Subject: Re: FYI - Kitty is sick.

"McGoo,

Hope your cat doesn't need a purrrscription!

LOL,
Fitzelroy"

Ok, now everyone has gotten two silly emails, one about a cat being sick and one with a bad pun. The problem is everyone else wants to get in the act so you get 10 more emails with messages like:

I hope her illness doesn't give her paws.
Are you taking her to the vet in a CAT-illac?
Maybe the cat has mono does she HISS and tell?
Why won't you tell us what the vet said? Cat got your tongue?
Is she CAT-atonic?
Etc.

As you can see people think they are funny when they are not. Please do not reply all! The people I know who are truly funny don't reply all.

In Conclusion:

Start treating peoples Email address like their home phone number. Don't just give it out to anybody. Use BCC!
If you must Reply do so only to those individuals who need the info which is most likely only the person who sent it and not ALL.
If you must reply all, make sure it is really funny!

48409

Trey Update: Stream of Consiousness

2009-04-21T10:44:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I've been through some changes and people are probably asking themselves, "What's up with Trey now?" So I figured I'd give you guys the det's stream of consciousness style.

Personal Fear: Heights
Height: 6' in the morning, 5'11'' at bedtime
Bedtime: 11:00pm-1:00am
Favorite AM Radio Station: Sports Talk 1310 the Ticket
Recent Ticket Purchase: Flight of the Concords at Nokia.
Nokia product owned: Backpack
Items in Backpack: KenKen Puzzle Book, Moleskin notebook and book "Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." (About 2 comic book writing kids in the 40s.)
Where I want to be when I'm 40: Alive.
Favorite scene from the movie Alive: Where they eat that soccer player
Favorite thing about Soccer: They occasionally crash into mountains and eat each other cannibal style.
Favorite cannibal: Hannibal
Favorite feat of Hannibal: Crossing the Alps mountain range
Favorite Mountain: Big Rock Candy Mountain (folk song)
Favorite Folk Movie: A Mighty Wind
Favorite name for wind: Maria
Favorite Maria Carie Song: "Vision of Love"
Love of my life: Sara
Other person names Sara(h) I like: Palin 2012
Where I want to be in 2012: Either at World Cup in Brazil hoping to see people eat each other or in Norway exploring my Norse roots.
Norse god of Mischief my dog is named after: Loki
Loki's reaction to loud noises: Fear
Personal Fear: Heights

There I hope that was informative but somehow I doubt it.

48299

10 Last Minute April Fools Gags

2009-04-01T09:38:00.007-05:00

So if you're like me your six feet tall and named Trey. If you also like me you like a good April Fools gag. And if you're like me in a third way you forgot to plan anything epic.

If so... You're in luck! Here is a list of 10 Last Minute April Fools Gags:

1. Limp into a room with a pained expression, when somebody asked what happened say, "April Fools" then do a little jig.

2. Leave a post-it on someone's desk saying "Don't forget our 3pm appointment! :)" Don't sign it. (They'll be like "what did I forget?" all day until 3!)

4. Cut off your finger in the paper cutter for real and people will think its a gag finger but then you get blood on them.

5. Ask if you can bring anyone lunch back and then get the order all wrong or better yet, don't bring them anything... OR! bring them something their allergic to like peanut butter hidden in the hamburger. Classic April Foolery!

6. Send an email to a coworker asking to check if your email account is working.

7. Gather a whole bunch of pennies. In a crowded area accidentally drop them and say, "Everybody freeze! One of these pennies is magic!"

8. Write a letter to your boss quiting! Don't tell them its an April Fools joke for at least 2 weeks... if they don't throw you a going away party with cake just forget the joke and move on. If there is cake wait to cut the cake before announcing "April Fools" and dancing a jig.

9. GREAT 1-on-1 prank (wait to be alone in a room with somebody) "Fake a heart attack" Steps: 1) Rub left arm for a minute and act like its no big deal 2) Seem to loose focus and stumble and say "whoopsie daisy" 3) then shake head to clear vision and say, "Can you bring me a glass of water?" slowly sit down 4) When they get back be lying on your stomach lifeless. 5) For greatest effect wait until the Ambulance shows up before yelling "April Fools!" 6) Unless you know an EMT who can play along then wait until you are in the morgue.

10. Tell people you're going my your middle name now.

What's your fav? Got any others? Leave a comment below... and facebook people need to learn to leave a comment on the blog not on my facebook status which vexes me because they don't get saved.

47955

Bad Marital "Advice"

2009-03-06T09:56:00.005-06:00

OK, since I announced my engagement I have gotten a lot of "advice." And yes, "advice" should be in quotes because I'm using the word ironically. And yes, ironically should be in italics because I'm adding emPHAsis! And yes, PHA should be in all caps because I'm beating a dead horse.

Anywho! I've gotten a lot of bad marital advice. I'm worried that in the slush pile there might be some good advice I'm throwing out with the bad. Here are a collection of things I've been told about marriage by friends, coworkers, elders at my church, my family and others. I've leaving them anonymous because I plan on ripping them to shreds in a bit.

And I warn you, these are actual quotes from actual people who actually said them to me, most in the church building, actually! Most "advice" takes the form of dark prophecies of doom.

"Advice" Given to me by Women!
You're life is going to change sooo much.
You're marrying up.
You're life is no longer your own.
I can't wait to she how she betters you!
Now, don't use that tone with Sara.
Many men don't get a say in the decorations of their house... other than to pay.
Sure, you say that now Trey but you'll understand when your married!
Well, she'll straighten you out quick.

Let me distill the advice from women:
"You're life was pretty sad before. She's great and is doing an act of charity by taking you on as a project."

"Advice" from Men:
You're life is over!
Dead man walkin!
Get ready for the ole ball and chain.
You only got 1 week of freedom left!
Do what ever she says and don't ask questions.
Women good. Men bad.
You're marrying up.
Once your married the fun is over... its a bait-and-switch deal.
If you're going to have fun you'll have to hid it.
How long til the big day... you know weddings and funerals are a lot alike...

Summary of Men's Advice:
"Run! Change your name! I don't like married life."

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

All in all I'm more offended by the women. I see that most of the men's comments are just ribbing and hyperbole. But you women really think you've saying something helpful when dozens of you say, "She's going to improve you" basically implying I've been crud before now.

I'm sure people meant well. Many thought they were being funny. But these jokes might reveal people's true feeling about marriage but I sure hope not! Questions arise:

Did you men choose bad mates or did they change or have you no spine?
Did you women choose poorly or change dramatically or do you really want men with no spine?
Are men truly perpetually immature and unable to make even the simplest decisions for themselves or are women truly domineering, controlling and soul-crushing?
Do you men have no fun?
Did you women change into enemies of fun?
Does every woman out there but Sara think I'm a worthless lump?

The Final Responses:

First, I'm sorry if your marriage experience is unfulfilling recently. Men, I like spending time with Sara who is lots of fun. Women, see point number 2.

Secondly, I think my life was pretty good before. She and I were both good at being single. I think I'm worthy of her and she of me. I'll agree that I'm marrying up but I am not a worthless lump!

Thirdly, I know change is coming. But Sara is not out to change me into something I'm not, I trust her completely in this regard! I welcome the changes in my life marriage will bring, and yes... I'm sure I don't fully understand it all yet.

Above all: Thank you for you words of advice (be they poorly worded, hyperbole, meant as a joke, or cliche) and DON'T SQUELCH OUT LOVE!!!!!!

P.s. I've actually gotten some good advice that I didn't include on this list. If you have any more that doesn't sound like that listed above please feel free to comment.

47493

New Church Words

2009-03-03T09:39:00.013-06:00

Word of Warning:

Not for those who have yet to grow a sense of humor.

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Post-Sermon Rustle (PSR) - It seems in preaching school they make you develop a signature closing phrase, much like news anchors. This phrase usually ends with "... as together we stand and sing." The opening syllables of this phrase sets off the Post-Sermon Rustle. People start folding Bibles and getting out song books, others gather their kids toys. Sometimes accompanied by the PSM, the Post-Sermon Murmur as people discuss going to lunch.

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This morning in the shower I came up with this term, "Theology of Least Resistance" to describe some church behavior. "Making a decision based on which perceived outcome will garner the fewest complaints." I'm not immune to the concept in Children's Ministry.

Example: Trey decided to changed the LTC scripts and group assignments not because of artistic or Biblical reasons but to receive fewer terse emails from parents.

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I'm also prone to "the-way-we-have-always-done-it-ism" but this is harder to pronounce, maybe it should be TWWHADI... "Twwhadi" pronounced "Twha-dee.

Example: Trey pulled a Twwhadi when he organized an Easter Egg hunt even though it has been poorly attended the past few years because they've always had an Easter egg hunt.

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And now some brief ones:

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Addicts - This is what I call people who congregate around the coffee pot.

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Deacon - Elder in Training, kind of like the Cub Scouts.

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Eschatology - The study of whether or not to install an escalator in the church.

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Sacred - The pew you've sat in for 30 years that some visitor is rudely occupying.

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Next Year - Never. (Example: I'll volunteer next year.)

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Raise hands - 1) To lift up hands. 2) In a hymn: To place hands on lap.

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Dance - 1) To move joyously. 2) In a hymn: To sit.

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Birdseye - A chance for the song leader to show you who's boss.

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Laud - What you say when its really hot in the church. "Laud, its hot in here."

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Ebenezer - 1) Grouchy miser 2) Stone of Help

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Stone of Help - Nobody knows what this means.

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Fetter - A heavy feather, or fatter feather.

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Diadem - Part of instructions on how to make a tie-dye shirt. "Step 1, Rubber Bands. Step 2, Diadem."

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Emergent Church - A church that is... emerging from something... like a hermit crab...

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Postmodern - 1) Younger than 40: A new way of viewing the world and truth. 2) Older than 40: Wrong.

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Unpack - A verb used by preachers when they want to make you feel stupid. "We should all be beautiful, benevolent believers... let me unpack that for you. To be beautiful is to be..."

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Canon - What they shoot you out of if you try and preach from the end of Mark 8.

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Hermeneutic - The study of the book of Herman.

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Sinner - Someone who does the "big sins"

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Heresy - Doing, saying or thinking something that isn't Twwhadi.

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Change - 1) What kids give to contribution. 2) There is no other acceptable definition other than 1.

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Hallelujah - What you say when church is over.

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Ok, end of list. Again, I want to remind you this list is meant to be humorous... perhaps I should follow the "Theology of Least Resistance" and delete this post...

47406

So they called an ambulance for me.

2009-02-24T14:01:00.005-06:00

The tale of a power lunch gone wrong.

I took my lunch hour at 1pm today. I had to get a bite to eat and mail a few wedding invites.

I drove thru McDs and munched on my way to the post office. I decided to park in the shade and eat my lunch. I was listening to the radio and drifted calmly off to sleep. (Car was safely in park.)

I probably slept for 20 minutes and would have slept for longer had not sirens woke me up! There was an ambulance and a firetruck blazing towards my location.

I looked around for smoke but didn't see any. Then both vehicles stopped right in front and beside me. I sat up and took a nerve steadying drink of Diet Coke and rolled down the windows. The fireman spoke first.

"Just taking a nap?"

"I guess I am."

"You live around here?"

"Yes, and I work over at the Church."

"Ok."

"Sorry to get you guys out."

"Don't worry about it." He turns to the truck. "HE WAS JUST TAKING A NAP!"

Then the firemen laugh at me.

I don't want to blame this all on wedding tiredness, I think I may also be sick. But, I won't park in front of that old guys house again if I need to take a nap.

47222

Trey's Game Show "$100 Challenge"

2009-02-19T09:56:00.003-06:00

1,000 Volunteer competitors each bring a $100 bill with them to the game show. This $100,000 becomes the prize for the sole winner of the game. The rounds will stretch over multiple hour long programs, I'd guess each "$100 Challenge" will take 4 shows to go through all 7 rounds.

You either win it all or you go home with nothing!

Round 1 - 1,000 Competitors - "Wheel of Destiny" -

The 1,000 competitors are divided into two groups. Red and Green. Then a giant wheel of destiny spins with dozens of red and green spaces.

Whichever color comes up gets eliminated in a humorous and embarrassing way. For example: A bunch of manure or slime is dropped on them, they are bungee shot upwards, the floor falls out from underneath them, a fire truck hose sprays them, etc.

Round 2 - 500 Competitors - "Test of Skill"

The 500 Competitors race to be the first 100 to complete a novel and brief test of skill. For example they race in sets of 100 threw a mud pit, they are thrown into a giant ball pit and where there are only 100 red balls, they are each handcuffed to a weight and the first 100 to find the correct key in a room of keys wins, etc.

Round 3 - 100 Competitors - "Test of Intellect"

A cognitive challenge. Trivia is blasted at them quickly! They have 4 minutes to answer 20 multiple choice trivia questions, no changing of answers allowed. Questions will randomly be hard and easy, they have to answer quickly and I assume most won't have time to read them all. The top 50 move on!

Round 4 - 50 Competitors - "Face off!"

Competitors are randomly paired off in 1-on-1 challenges, half are eliminated. These can be any physical or cognitive challenge that can go 1-on-1 for example: tug of war over slime, giant q-tip battle, log roll, nerf bow and arrow battle, high card draw, checkers, etc.

Round 4 - 25 Competitors - "Test of Will"

An endurance challenge, where the number is taken down to 10! Examples: Must keep their arms above their head, must stand on small platforms, hang on a trapeze over various unsavory things, etc.

Round 5 - 10 Competitors - Rando Roundo!

A random challenge to reduce competitors to 2 like: Hot dog eating, moving eggs with spoons, putting out a fire with a hand pumped hose, run thru a maze, etc.

Round 6 - 4 Competitors - 4 Quadrant Cut Throat

Each player is standing on a quadrant of a platform with 9 light up tiles. When all 9 lights go out their platform drops. Competitors earn the opportunity to knock out their opponents tiles via trivia, games of chance and skill.

I foresee weaker contestants trying to knock out stronger ones before the gauntlet.

Round 7 - 2 Competitors - Final Round - The $100 Challenge Gauntlet

The final show down. I think this round will me the same insane challenge each time. A side by side obstacle course!

They must run up a stair then down a slide into a ball pit. There they must find the right 3 colors to "unlock" a door. (The door with have 3 baskets of different colors that must be matched by tossing in a ball from the ball pit of the appropriate color.)
Then they must answer a true/false cognitive question. If they get it right they move on. If they don't they have to run a penalty lap in a hamster wheel.
Then over a balance beam (if they fall they have to return to the beginning of the beam).
Then under a waterfall.
Then up a ramp while you are all slippery.
Then use your key to open one of 10 locked cases. (Another trivia challenge.) When it is open there is a zipline handle inside. Clip on and slide to victory!

Each contestant secretly keys into a computer how much of their theoretical $100,000 they will wager if they win (in increments of $10,000) before the race. Whoever wagers the most gets a 1 second head start for ever $10,000 more they wager. Wager the same and they start simultaneously.

Then to the Wager Wall! 101 Bouncy balls have been prepared with different wager result. 40 are blue "Keep it" balls, 30 are red "$100" balls, 10 are black "loose it" balls, 10 silver "x2" balls, 10 gold "x4" balls and 1 white "x10" ball.

Winner of the gauntlet is placed in front an slope funneling to the a hole in the wager wall! They are given a baseball glove and a broom (and perhaps different random tools each time). Then all 101 balls are released at the top. The contestant (who can't pass a line 5 feet from the hole in the wall) must defend his wager by blocking black and red balls and letting good balls through until one enters the wager wall!

The contestant may leave with $1 million or their original $100 or nothing if they risked it all.

Would you risk $100 for a chance at $100,000 or $1,000,000? Did I mention that the end of each season is a "Million Dollar Challenge" the 20 season winners vie for a $1 Million Dollar Prize and another chance to multiply it to $10 Million!

I want to keep all the "physical" challenges simple so that average Joes and Janes can win.

What you need:
A Host - Me! (BTW if the contestants loose the money it becomes mine, kind of like "Win Ben Steins Money")
A Place to Compete - Some kind of large warehouse/sound stage with access to an Olympic size pool or the ocean.
No Prize Money - The original $100,000 is supplied by the contestants. The wheel of fortune at the end might cause some expenditure but its just as likely they'll end up loosing it all.

47132

My First Wedding Shower

2009-02-16T09:58:00.003-06:00

1st - I'm engaged if you hadn't pieced that together yet.

So I went to our first wedding shower and stayed the whole time. I started to get nervous about attending because people kept asking me if I had to stay the shower and when I said I was planning on it they acted surprised! "Really, you're staying?"

What did they have in store for me? Would I be the object of ridicule? Will I be crying with boredom? Would I be blindfolded for any reason? Was there some kind of wheel of destiny I'd have to spin?

Turns out nothing bad really happens, nor was it boring really. I just smiled and thanked people a lot. I think I've discovered why this shower wasn't so bad, two words "come and go"... three words if you count the "and"... and you probably should without its just "come go" which doesn't imply time for cake.

Basically people streamed in and put their gift down. The gift conveyor belt moved them towards Sara who opened them. The people got cake, as did I, and we opened gifts. I spent most of my time talking to Sara's mom and sister. After a person's gift was opened and their cake devoured they often gave us best wishes and left and new people came in to start the cycle over.

The weird thing about all these gifts is there were mostly better versions of junk I already had. Even though I had registered for them, I felt like the gifts were implying I had no silverware, plates or cooking implements whatsoever.

So whenever Sara would open something I'd say:
"Wow, plates! Now we don't have to eat off the table!"
"Wow, cookie sheets, now the dough won't fall through the grate and onto the oven floor."
"Wow, serving utensils, now Sara won't have to bring me food cupped in her hands."
"Wow, a blender, now my shakes won't be so lumpy."
"Wow, spoons, eating soup is going to be much easier!"
and so forth.

Parting words for Men
* If its "come and go" I think its ok for you to go to it... if invited.
* Also, don't try to be helpful by throwing away bows, they keep those.

Joey goes to India

2009-02-11T13:35:00.002-06:00

My friend Joey left today for 2 weeks to do missionary efforts in India.

This idea has tickled me from the start and when I say, "Joey goes to India" I am reminded of famous movies like "Ernest goes to Camp."

If he follows in the footsteps of Ernest here's what will transpire in India.

Day 1: Arrive Jet lagged and confused about what day it is.
Day 2: Ask about where the real food it.
Day 3: Have his wallet stolen by street children.
Day 4: Blow off work to watch Indian "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire!" on TV.
Day 5: Secretly eats beef jerky in his room.
Day 6: Tries to shake Shiva's hand.
Day 7: Offends a cow.
Day 8: Gets lost.
Day 9: Still lost.
Day 10: Joey recovered by team in a complicated underground gambling ring. Joey say, "I thought it was dominoes"
Day 11: Joey sleeps.
Day 12: Joey find out that Muslims and Hindu's aren't "6 of one, half a dozen of the other."
Day 13: Joey steals a passport to get home.
Day 14: Joey boards wrong plane to Afghanistan to film the sequel, "Joey's Journey 2: Afghans aren't just blankets anymore."

The Big News!

2009-01-05T11:01:00.008-06:00

You've all been very patient so I think it's time I reward you.

It finally happened! I wish you could have all been there except that would have been a little uncomfortable.

Are you ready for the Big NEWS? I don't think you are...

What you are ready? Ok, well it was a crisp December evening... you are not READY!

I can tell when readers aren't ready and you are not ready.

Ok, you're prepped enough. But i find it kind of gauche to just blurt it out. So if you want to see the Big News you will have highlight the hidden text between the x-x-x-x markers.

Ok.... here is the Big News you've all been waiting for:

x-x-x-x

My
car
hit
123456
miles!

Pics
forthcoming!

x-x-x-x
(To see hidden message between the markers click and drag mouse.)

Long Time No Blog

2008-12-17T12:06:00.003-06:00

Sorry... been AFK for a while now.

Let me give you a recap of what I've done since my last post.
* Spent one freezing day outside fixing my car with Joey. (I held the flashlight.)
* Played video games
* Ate Thanksgiving with Sara's fam!
* Did it again with my fam!
* Spent an entire day clearing out my "floordrobe"
* Read comics
* Maddox's B-Day at Chuckie Cheese "I'm gunna eatsomepizza!"
* Put off Christmas Shopping
* Took a lot of days off. (Again this year I got to the last 2 weeks of the year with like 9 or 10 vacation days... I really should spread them out more.)
* Elders/Ministers X-Mas Party at CCC (Featuring singing "White Christmas" twice because once it was requested as "White Christmas" and later requested as "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas." We sang it all the way thru both times.)
* Read comic books and played video games
* Last night we went to a Stars game with Jeff and Dale. (Stars won in OT.)
* Today Children's Ministry Christmas Party!

There... now you're all caught up in the minutia of my life. Sorry I'm not more interesting.

Turkey Day

2008-11-25T09:40:00.002-06:00

The turkey you imagine you will eat...

...the grotesque white farm raised bird you will actually eat.

Bon Appetite!

Monopoly: Saturn Road Edition

2008-11-18T11:04:00.004-06:00

Monopoly keeps making variant editions of Monopoly including Simpson's, Elvis, Disney and Dallasopoly... you name it they'll add 'opoly' to the end of it.

So I figured why not make a Saturn Road Edition! Monopoly provides a nice dispersion from least to most valuable properties. (If you are easily offended by the truth read no further.)

Properties:

Mediterranean (60) - Trey/Cecelia's Shared Office
Baltic (60) - Workroom/Jaton's Office

Oriental (100) - Cradle Roll Classrooms
Vermont (100) - Preschool Classrooms
Connecticut (120) - Elementary Classrooms

St. Charles (140) - Youth Ministry Offices
States (140) - Adult Ministry Offices
Virginia (160) - Preacher's Office
(Yes, there are minister offices bigger than classrooms.)

St. James (180) - Teen Pews in Auditorium (Where no pens can be found.)
Tennessee (180) - Teen Kitchen
New York (200) - Teen Area

Kentucky (220) - Chapel
Indiana (220) - Library
Illinois (240) - Baptistery

Atlantic (260) - Center Middle Pews "Old Marrieds."
Ventnor (260) - Far right wedge of Pews "Young Marrieds"
Marvin Gardens (280) - Back 5 Rows of Pews "Old People"
(These three should actually be yellow but you can't read it.)

Pacific (300) - Room 141/142 "Gary's Old Classroom"
North Carolina (300) - Family Center Kitchen
Pennsylvania (320) - Family Center

Park Place (350) - The Coffee Maker
Boardwalk (400) - The Pulpit

Railroads: (Parking)
Reading - South Parking Lot
Pennsylvania - North Parking Lot
B&O - Distant North Parking Lot
Short Line - Park across the street near the taqueria.

Other Squares:
Go! (Collect $200) - Benevolence
Community Chest - Elders Conference Room (They decide who wins the beauty contest and who gets the $10 for coming in 2nd.)
Chance - Secretary Pool (Who did you think really makes the decisions around here?)
Income Tax (%10) - Tithe
Luxury Tax ($100) - Special Collection
Jail/Just Visiting - Singles Class/Teaching the Singles Class
Go to Jail - Graduate from High School or Divorce
Electric Company (150) - Mechanical Closet
Water Works (150) - Bathroom
Free Parking - That couch in the family center where you can sit if you aren't interested in actually going to class during class time.

There, now we just need to doctor a board and play!

Facebook Requests

2008-11-12T14:02:00.003-06:00

Ok, before I click ignore all I'm finally going to look at all this trash people send me on facebook.

For the record, other than flair, I'm not interested in any apps or facebook groups or whatever you want me to join. I'm not into facebook fads.

Here is what is currently pending on my facebook requests page:
(I don't know what most of these even are!)

3 Friend suggestions - No thanks
59 Friend requests - This seems like a lot because I never reject anyone, I just table veto it.
1 Event invitation
4 Cause invitations - I'm not into causes just effects! ba-zing!
10 New Notifications
7 Group Invitations - Your group is not important to me.
3 Group Confirmations - My group is not important to me
1 Star Wave request - IDK
3 Kidnap! requests - Are you wanted to kidnap me or am I supposed to kidnap you?
6 (lil) green patch requests - The world is going fine, its ok to litter now.
8 top friend requests - We really have to have two tiers of fake friends on facebook now! I'm waiting to be someones top top friend
1 digital bookshelf friend request - Intriguing but I'm too lazy to enter every book I own online.
2 mob wars invitations - I'm not Italian.
2 dot game request - IDK
1 how long would you survive in a horror movie invitation - I'd make it out and survive the sequel.
1 relative request - So are we not officially related unless I agree to this ap?
6 nicest person requests - Get a life losers. Who's nice now?
2 hug requests - Consider your request for a digital hug denied.
2 tinyadventures invitation - I'm too big to be tiny.
2 coolest persons request - Well, maybe...
2 bumper sticker requests - Do you people never learn?
2 triumph invitations - I will not join your legion, triumph alone or not at all.
2 word challenge invitations - idk
3 friend quiz invitation - If I fail do we still have to be friends?
1 more bumper stick request - Apparently there are two separate aps for bumper stickers.
1 kickups challenge - idk
2 bowling buddies invitation - If we've never bowled IRL then we won't online either.
9 superpoke invitations - lame
(Dozens of regular pokes have gone unpoked back. I'm not into retaliation poking.)
1 brain game request - pass
1 DC comics superhero request - tempting
2 YoVille game invitations - I love Yoyo's and say "yo" a lot but still no thanks.
1 Smile request - :) there you go, now leave me alone.
1 Scramble invitation - when I learned its not about eggs I passed
1 Which Bible character are you invitation - I didn't take the quiz but I'm pretty sure I'm Judas.
1 My Hero ability request - again i didn't take the quiz but I'm going to say mine is sarcasm
7 Funniest friends invitation - I hope you found this list and subsequent rejection funny.

and before I compiled a list I ignored a whole slew of old things like:
Jedi vs. Sith
Drug War
and countless other recruiting contests that are pointless.

There you have it. Well over 100 things asking for my attention. Why? I'm glad you thought of me. Thank you. I'm touched. But I am now clicking reject all!

(Well, I'm still not rejecting friends, nor am I accepting them. If I haven't actually sat down across a table and eaten a meal with you I'm leaving you in unrejected limbo!)

Ok, its done! I want to be your friend in real life, if all we have is facebook we aren't really very good friends. Still... SUPERPOKE!

Untapped Markets

2008-11-10T10:25:00.003-06:00

Did you ever see an untapped market and say, "I can make a million dollars there." Well it happens to me all the time only I'm too lazy to bother with them. So I figure my friends might as well make a million then maybe they can buy me lunch.

Untapped Markets:

Paintings for the Blind - Shoot a piece of tin with a shotgun. The bumps and protuberance might very well be art for the blind.

Pop-up popper - You hook up two mouses to one computer and its homebody's job to pop all the pop ups.

Teaching Eskimo's English - Just think, one you teach them that there's only one word for snow you're like halfway there.

Online Diploma Maker - If you've got a printer you could be your own college. People tell you what they want their degree in and bingo you sell them one. Congrats, doctor.

Disciplinarian at Large - Ever see kids behaving like brats at a restaurant and their parents do nothing. Just walk over show their parents the menu of discipline you provide. Then spank the child in front of an audience tell him to be quiet and collect $40.

Carbon Debit - Offer to buy peoples carbon credits for pennies on the dollar. Then you have... uhm... nothing I guess. Ok, forget this one.

Advocate for the Content - Angry people have advocates, why not the content. Collect money and go to Washington and tell them to change nothing. Warning: its hard to collect from this group.

Door to Door Milk Smeller - I can never tell when the milk has turned. You might also sniff yogurt and cheese, expand to all dairy.

Parallel Dimension Organ Harvester - We all know that there is a parallel dimension where there is an evil version of you if you are good and a good version of you if you are evil. So if a good Jim here needs an heart you travel there and take it from Evil Jim. Automatic 100% donor match. Also both dimensions are better off.

Netflix Watcher - I often don't have the time to watch the netflix that come in my mail. And I feel guilty that they just sit there. Others have this problem also. So you go to their house watch their movies and return them for them.

Unstylist - You go to your unstylist and they say, "You look great! Don't get a hair cut and keep the clothes you have, foxy mama!" They give you $50 which is cheaper than what you'd've spent on a haircut and clothes.

Trend Killer - This is the job I want myself. I want to be the one who decides when a trend is dead. Sorry, we're no longer giving each other flair, that's over. Ooops, you waited to long to use the word "Crunk" its dead. A good rule of thumb is if your white and over 40 and you are aware of a trend... its over.

Is this what John Kerry felt like?

2008-11-05T10:35:00.003-06:00

And for that matter Gore?

I've voted in every presidential election available to me and until last night I was batting a thousand. But the person I voted for lost, fairly decisively. This has never happened to me.

I'm vexed by this feeling, to have something go the opposite way I want it to. This hasn't happened very often in my life. I've done and achieved what I wanted. I wanted an education, a girlfriend and buffalo wings and I got them.

And now there is this stinker in my life for 4 years. I'm taking it very personally. Yes, this election will have consequences nationally and abroad but right now I'm just stymied by the feeling that what I, Trey Milhouse Vanderbilt Hussein Laminack, did not get his way.

Am I the world's most petulant child?

Upon reflection, I don't really think I feel the same the way that Kerry and Gore supporters did. For one thing, I've never vowed to leave the country upon defeat. If I did I've the character to follow thru (hint hint Alec Baldwin). Also, if I had a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on my car (which I don't) I would take it off now. I still see Kerry and Gore stickers driving around in a complete state of denial.

I pray Obama makes good decisions. I have to admit that I kind of like the guy. Even if he doesn't have the record or character I look for in a president. He seems ok as a person. I'm sure the media will spin any mistakes he makes into wise choices, but lets hope he has the courage to do something original: Think for himself.

In conclusion I like Obama and hate the liberal media, Oprah, Jeremiah Wright, overly digital election coverage, higher taxes and bumper stickers.

An Open Letter of Apology

2008-10-27T15:52:00.005-05:00

An Open Letter of Apology

To whom it may concern (which likely includes most of my friends, former teachers, waiters and waitresses, people who've sat around me at the movies, numerous funeral attendees, church patrons, librarians, roommates and museum goers):

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for a lot of things, but I'm specifically sorry for BEING SO LOUD!

See, there I go again. I'm trying to do better. Until recently I didn't know how to whisper. That's right, I was 29 before I learned how to whisper.

The problem is my hearing isn't very good and when I whisper I can't hear myself. So in the past I'd "whisper" where I could just barely hear myself and it turns out that is louder than a standard whisper.

But this also means I really can't hear you when you whisper unless you lips are almost touching my ear. I didn't like leaning over like this so for the last 20 years if you've ever whispered to me I have not heard you. So if you whispered to me I'd just nod at you even though I couldn't hear you. I might have agreed to do things that I never heard. I would try to read your lips but I'm not very good. Again, sorry.

Also, I don't see the need to whisper. If I've got something witty or wry to say why shouldn't everyone enjoy? For this I will make no apology. I'll just try to actually whisper and have faith that you can hear me. If you can't hear me, just smile and nod at me. It works most of the time.

In conclusion if I've blurted during your movie, gabbed to loud at a neighboring table at lunch, cut up during class, commented during church, waxed nostalgic while you were trying to enjoy a painting or yelled into my cell phone while you tried to sleep next door...

I'M SORRY!

Fun with MS Paint

2008-10-22T14:22:00.003-05:00

Dean sent me this pic:

I sent him back this one:

A Trip to the DMS

2008-10-21T08:30:00.005-05:00

I start my morning at 5am by double checking the 72 pages of forms I have to take with me to the Department of Medical Services. I naively feel lucky that I no longer have to "pay" for medical care. I've diagnosed myself with Deathitis. It's easy to diagnose. Two months before you die the word "Deathitis" appears across your chest in bold red san serif font. According to WebMD a simple day surgery and a pill can save my life. I even have 8 weeks to get it done.

The parking lot is crowded and I have to walk a couple of blocks to the DMS Building, which is also crowded. There is a long line of people waiting to get a number, luckily I've called ahead, I learned this trick at the DMV. I approach the "Appointments" window and a lady greets me without ever making eye contact.

"This line is for people who called ahead, sir." I know, I called ahead.

"If you called ahead you'd have a number, sir." I know, I have a number.

"You have a number?" Yes, I do.

She lets out a long sigh and puts down her emery board and turns on her computer. We wait while it powers up. She then calls a technician because the computer is on but the monitor isn't working. He arrives 30 minutes later and unplugs the lady's fan and re-plugs in the monitor. She is angry and notices I'm still waiting.

"This line is for people who called ahead, sir." I did call ahead, ma'am.

"If you called ahead you'd have a number, sir." I do have a number.

She half reaches for the slip of paper I've been trying to hand her for half an hour when a friend taps her on the shoulder. She gets into a game of "what did you do this weekend". After 10 minutes of that my lady checks her watch and goes on break. I stand there with my slip of paper outstretched.

20 minutes later a different woman returns and takes her place. She is surprised to see someone in her line.

"Sir, this line is for people who called ahead. You need to be in that line over there." I did call ahead and here is my number.

"If you called ahead you'd have a number..." She fades offand looks at my number. She punches it into the computer then unplugs the monitor so she can turn the fan back on.

"Please go to annex W12. That's W as in West, Twelve. 13th Floor, East Wing. Room 11."

I take a tram and it conveniently drops me off at E13, East Wing, where I go the 12th floor. I get into a shouting match with an OBGYN who informs me she doesn't treat Deathitis.

Eventually I find W12, 13th Floor, East Wing, Room 11. It is another set of lines. I have to choose between three lines: Confirmed Appointments, Tentative Appointments, Appointment Confirmations. I choose the last and wait an hour. I get there and try to give he my number. "Do you have the magenta form?" I do not. She informs me its in the back of the room and to fill it out.

I do so and wait another hour in line. She looks at the form and at my number, then shakes her head and looks at me. "You're in the wrong line. You have a confirmed reservation not a reservation waiting to be confirmed." She points me at the correct line which is blissfully shorter.

Unfortunately they don't accept Magenta forms only Fuchsia. I play the line game one more time and reach the front of the line. As I'm about to step forward the man behind the counter goes to lunch. I'm starving but I'm next so there's no way I'm leaving. He returns at a quarter till three and smells suspiciously like lunch beers.

"Next." I present my ID and 10 colorful forms. While he was away I decided to remove all doubt and fill out all the forms available in the room. I did Magenta, Fuchsia, Salmon, Carnation, Cherry Blossom, Cerise, Orchid, Lavender Pink, Hot Pink and Pink. He wades through them and selects the three he likes best.

"Sir, your confirmed reservation was for the AM. I'll have to put you on the tentative reservation list." After a trip through the tentative line I'm shuttled to the Waiting Room Warehouse H. A room the size of a football field awaits me. I am given number 5,439. Now serving: 2,001-2,005.

I try to find a seat. If possible I'd like to sit next to someone else with Deathitis. Its hard to spot them, even though a large number of occupants aren't wearing a shirt.

I eventually sit next to a man with a rake sticking out of his neck and a woman giving birth. Her contractions are 6 minutes apart and her number is 2,414. I spend the next hour feeding her ice chips and helping name the twins. She is grateful and leaves me her number before she goes.

Around 9pm my new number pays off. I go into exam room 88. My 12 year old doctor is there chained to the wall beneath his Calcutta Med Diploma. He has a hammock in the back he can sleep in but he is an indentured servant until he pays off his student loans.

I take off my shirt and he carefully examines my Deathitis. He has to be certain it isn't just painted on. He takes a skin sample and informs me he'll send it to the lab. Results take 3-6 weeks.

6 Weeks? Doctor, I have Deathitis. "Whoa, lets let the boys in the lab be the judge of that."

But I only have 2 months to live. "You do IF you have Deathitis. If you just painted it on you could live longer. Wouldn't you rather know for sure?"

I know for sure! I didn't paint this on! Who would do that? "Sir, we have to follow procedures."

I cry and contemplate strangling him with he wall chain. "Sir, there's a man out there with a rake in his neck. We can't waste time on you're little problem."

Deathitis! I have Deathitis! The word Death is right there in the name! "What's in a name?" He quips.

It's not I realize I hate Ivory School types, even if the ivory is from an Indian elephant.

I return home and await my test results. It's ok, I have time. No need to panic. I stop wearing a shirt. My Deathitis scar is a real conversation starter. I fill my days with Sudoku and raking the leaves very carefully.

Six weeks later I receive a letter that my test results are in and low and behold I have Deathitis. They've scheduled me for surgery at their earliest convenience in 18 months. I call my doctor who informs me if I wanted to have it taken care of in the next two weeks I should have started the proceedings 16 months before I had the disease.

And two weeks later I died.

Main St. Vs. Wall St.

2008-10-15T10:00:00.004-05:00

I was thinking of other streets that most towns all have. And what conotation they invoke.

Main St - Theoretically "Old Fashion Values" in reality a street lined with old storefront business that are now either seedy bookshops or "revitalized" coffee shops
Wall St - Money or uhm... some kind of wall in proximity... I guess... I don't get it
1st - That part of town with small wood frame houses that probably were once great but are now are all paint peally.
MLK BLVD - Danger
Park - That street with the dangerous run down park on it.
Oak - That street with the nice trees
Pine - That street with all the parking lots
Hill - Unless your walking you'll never notice this "hill"
Washington - Washington "ST" is a good place to live, Washington "Heights" not so much.

I get the feeling that since most of these streets are in the oldest parts of town they tend to run in a few categories. They are either still quaint, scary or re-quaint. By re-quaint I mean they used to be scary and now they've been white washed and remodeled into their old models. The worst state of a downtown is if its re-scary, which happens if a quaintening doesn't stick.

According to the 1993 Census the MOST common street name in America was: Second?
What happened to First? Just think of all those towns where 1st street had to be renamed after some local major or dead president. (Or sometimes just called Main). This leaves Second in First place. Actually there are more Thirds than Firsts as well. So the new order of best places goes Second, Third, First... tough luck Michael Phelps.

(There was some confusion about my previous post. I encourage you all to read the labels at the bottom of the blogs.)

I was attacked by a raccoon

2008-10-14T09:52:00.003-05:00

There I was minding my own business in the Tom Thumb side parking lot and a raccoon is poking its head out from under my car. I say, "Scoot!" so I won't back over it. But it doesn't scoot. Instead it charges at me and climb up my body in a spiral motion until it is scratching at my face. I throw it off and it takes my glasses with it.

I am looking around for my glasses, thinking the confrontation is over, and it jumps me again and bits my hand. I throw it and its teeth cut a long gash down my palm.

This time I keep my eye on it. It sizes me up too. Then charges me. When it goes for my legs I step down hard on its tail trapping it, sort of. It is trapped next to my leg which it begins to scratch and bit. I use my other leg to violently kick the beast.

It gets away and hides under my car. I run get inside and close the door. Now I don't care if I run it over. I turn on the engine and back up. I don't feel anything crunch nor do I it in the parking space so I figure its clinging to the bottom of my car.

I gun it to 40 miles an hour and hit a speed bump hard to rub it off. This time I see it bounce out from under my car and roll to a stop. I go back and pick up the remains so it can be tested for diseases. Meanwhile, two kids have been watching the show. One of them is crying at the slaughter, the other is laughing.

Return to Normalcy

2008-10-02T11:25:00.003-05:00

What is normal? I've totally forgotten. I've gotten so tilted I think my world view is seriously skewed. It only looks normal to be because I've grown accustomed to the angle.

I was watching a commercial and they were talking about, "Don't worry if you have bad credit! You're approved! Don't worry if you have no legal identity. You're approved. Don't worry if you are upside down on your last loan. You're approved!" I thought it was a spoof of a bad credit company. Some kind of humorous public service announcement warning you not to get into debt with no way out. But it was a real commercial. They really will approve you no matter what.

Bad credit? Approved!
No credit? Approved!
Not alive? Approved!
Zombie? Approved!
From a parallel dimension? Approved!

Of course I'm not living debt free. I've got college loans, credit cards and a mortgage.

And I don't care what you say, a mortgage is debt! There was once a time when people didn't get home loans. They did something we have forgotten about.

"Save."

They should put a piggy bank in a museum next to the dodo and T-Rex. Extinct creatures.

Cincinnatus

2008-09-15T11:02:00.002-05:00

There was a crisis and in a crisis Rome knew that you needed one person with absolute power calling the shots. So they found a farmer named Cincinnatus and appointed him dictator of Rome. The next day he formed an army. And the following day he lead his hastily constructed army to victory. Sixteen days after being given absolute power of the most powerful nation in the world Cincinnatus resigned his post. He gave up total power.

I think we need more dictators. One person sure can get some stuff done if he has the power to make people fall in line. Lets face it. Any course of action will have its detractors. If you wait for universal consent nothing will every get done democratically.

Fantasy Soccer

2008-09-08T10:20:00.003-05:00

I play fantasy football which Sara finds insane. She says its what we do to make a boring game more fun. If this is the case then they need fantasy soccer.

First Draft your players. 1 Goalie per team and what like 9 other dudes with no specific job besides running around in shorts.

Your fantasy team receives these points:
Every 10 Minutes of Pointless Running = 0.01 Pts
Every time you kick the ball = 0.0001 Pts
Every time you fake an injury like a little girl = -0.05 Pts
Every time your fans riot = 0.10 Pts
Every shot on goal = 0.15 Pts
Every goal = 1 Pts (Don't count on this ever actually happening)
Every blocked goal = 0.2 Pts
Every time you get a yellow card = -0.5 Pts
Every time you get a red card = -1 Pts
Every time your fans fall asleep = -0.01 Pts
Every time fans have to explain why their sport isn't boring = -0.05 Points

The scoring is based on a decimal system so the final score can be something like soccer fans are used to... like 1-0! It was a blow out!

Flash Fiction

2008-08-28T11:13:00.003-05:00

Jerry never stepped on a crack until his mother bought his son a parrot. Now he steps on all of them and the parrot can say, "Take that!"

Phelps Phony

2008-08-13T09:34:00.003-05:00

Ok, I love Phelps. He's a tremendous athelete. But...

Come ON already! I'm already tired of him. What I'm most tired of is him being called things like "the greatest olympian ever", "the worlds best athelete" and "Most Gold Medals Ever".

First of all the greatest athlete and Olympian titles seems a pretty heavy title to place on a swimmer. It's not like he also runs track. He's basically amazing at one event. The "Greatest Ever" would need to be good a plethora of events. And NO different strokes don't count as different things.

And although he technically has the most gold medals ever they are all in swimming! Most other athletes only get one shot every 4 years to win 1 gold. Muhammad Ali only got to box once. He didn't get to Box under a whole variety of of boxing type things. Phelps get the possibility of swimming a variety of strokes at a variety of lengths with a variety of team mates.

Here is my new proposed boxing breakdown:
Heavy Weight Singles, 15 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, 10 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, 5 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Left hand tied behind back, 15 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Left hand tied behind back, 10 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Left hand tied behind back, 5 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Right hand tied behind back, 15 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Right hand tied behind back, 10 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Right hand tied behind back, 5 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Medley (1 Round each of standard, left-tied, right-tied then repeat), 15
Heavy Weight Singles, Medley (1 Round each of standard, left-tied, right-tied then repeat), 10
Heavy Weight Singles, Medley (1 Round each of standard, left-tied, right-tied then repeat), 5
Then you move on to Heavy Weight Doubles were partners trade off and do it all over again.

I'd love to have seen Ali or Foreman do this! They'd have gotten dozens of medals at a time. Then again, you'd get so beat up in the first one you'd be tired for the 2nd match. But I guess everyone else would be too. (Don't bother comparing Phelps' crazy schedule to this.) I guess you could change the rounds from 15-10-5 to 5-3-1. That would be short. Swimmers can swim a long way they just arbitrarily stop at 200m. Why not a 1 round boxing sprint?

I think Swimming should be handled like Gymnastics. There should be an all around Gold Medal. I'm more impressed that Phelps won in two consecutive Olympics than I am at the number of medals. I wonder who the true "Greatest Ever" is? It needs to be someone who won like a Gold Medal (in a real event) in 3 consecutive Olympics. Or won Gold in more than one type of event.

And the last word on Phelps: he's an amazing swimmer but lets not forget he's also a drunk driver.

Olympics

2008-08-11T10:32:00.002-05:00

I have 80 hours of high def Olympic footage on my DVR!

I love the Summer Olympics! The Winter "Games" are very weak by comparison. I prefer to call them "Games" to Olympics because some of it is just people messing around on the ice for no good reason.

I like seeing new sports for the first time. I watched Handball. It's like soccer but, you know... with hands. All in all, I already like it more than soccer.

I watched fencing, swimming, boxing, equestrian, track and all kinds of stuff.

My eyes are starting to bleed.

London 2012... Trey Laminack... archery Gold medal... wait for it!

Journals

2008-07-31T10:54:00.003-05:00

I keep buying journals. I probably have 20 journals I've never written a word in. It seems too permanent to add ink to paper. I'm afraid of making a mistake.

I know you're thinking, "Trey, your blog is full of mistakes and typos."

Yes, but I can go back and edit them. I don't. But I could.

So I've started writing in some of the journals. Here's the problem. Who's gunna read 'em?

I mean do I show people what I wrote? Do I keep it a secret? What if there is something I want people to read in a journal right next to something I don't want them to read?

In the end I decided to keep various kinds of journals. Some I consider open. Go ahead and flip thru them. Others are secret... I generally don't write anything in them.

In the end this blog is my journal. I think thru my problems and vent and spaz out.

I'm afraid I will continue to buy journals and not write in them. But those blank pages and clever bindings just pull me in. They have a gravity well that I can't escape.

Words that start with Q

2008-07-24T15:19:00.002-05:00

Quail
Quiet
Quit
Quite
Que
Quiz
Quack
Quad
Quest
Question
Quid
Quality
Quark
Queen
and
Quoz

Nightmare

2008-07-23T11:04:00.004-05:00

I had the standard Final Exam Nightmare last night. It was a calculus exam that I didn't know I had signed up for. I arrived late and hadn't read the book. But I figured... I can do this, I know math. So I sit down to take the exam. But the questions are stuff like.

1) (Picture of a mouth) - 2q = X hello!
2) (Upside down umbrella) = 3$
3) Five + 2 = L

So now I'm panicking again and begin to bubble in things at random. Then my cell phone keeps ringing over and over. It is people who want me to share my happiness with them. And I keep telling them I'm taking a test and can't talk right now.

The proctor gets really annoyed because he thinks I'm cheating. But I can't turn my phone on silent and people keep texting me pictures or odd things.

Then I turn in the exam and wake up.

Long Time No Post: Since VBS

2008-07-21T12:05:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I haven't posted since VBS. But one of those weeks I was gone to camp and the other two I was... busy. I'm tempted to share my happiness with you but I'd rather do it in person. Instead I'll share my Vexation. I had jury duty last week.

First you have to take the Dart which is a little adventure. Then you have to watch a video where they repeatedly call you a "Jur-OR." Then you sit around. Then they tell you to take a break.

They have a cafeteria downstairs where they'll serve you two eggs, three bacon, toast and hash browns for $3.50. That cafeteria is locked in time!

I met a man named James as I exited the Dart. He too had jury duty. It was a mistake to talk to him because he'll talk your ear off. And chuckle at himself. I decided to play Zelda on my Gameboy. Excellent game!

Then they told us to go to lunch. Then they told us we were dismissed.

Then Sara and I went to the Dallas Museum of Art because I figured Uncle Sam had given me half a day off downtown. It was good. My favorite painting was Gerald Murphy's "The Watch."

It's actually bigger than this. Like 8' x 8'. And it wasn't fuzzy in person.

VBS Elijah Night 4

2008-06-19T11:17:00.002-05:00

What a great night!

Now we finally know who let the dogs out. (It was God and he did it to kill Jezebel.)
And the Chariot went up without a hitch!

We broke down the set in record time. We were at IHOP @ 11pm! Wow!

Great job cast and crew! I've gotten a lot of great feedback and what to send that love on to you. You guys really make the show great!

Well, better clean up and do it all again next year.

VBS Elijah Night 3

2008-06-18T11:01:00.002-05:00

It was GREAT!

Baal vs. God!
Elijah rocks the HSM2!
They loved Cody's falsetto!

Must paint!

VBS Elijah Night 2

2008-06-17T10:09:00.002-05:00

Elijah Night 2: A VBS First.

Drama, Actually Drama. After the PoBs loosened everyone up we got into the story of the Widow and her Son. The boy got sick and died. He sang, she sang, Elijah sang and he lived!

And over those 15 minutes the kids got worried, got sad and some of them cried. People may question making kids cry in VBS but I think its an appropriate emotional reaction to the story.

They were attached to the boy enough so that when he got sick and died they felt it. Joe, Laura and Hutt sang beautifully. There were a plethora of little sniffles and sobs when the boy died. And a cheer when he came back to life.

As per usual Ahab and Jezy were funny. But the most memorable gag of the night might have been when the well started to fall onstage towards Laura and Hutt stopped it then held up a hand to to audience as if to say, "It's ok. I got this."

VBS Elijah Night 1

2008-06-16T10:11:00.002-05:00

Night 1 of Elijah was a smash! We're off to a great start.

Night one has a lot of scene changes and the cast did them really quickly.

If you missed out you missed:

Evil Queen doing the Vogue Dance
A King who's not allowed to Sing
Some well dressed prophets of Baal! SHAZAM!
And an Unkindness of Ravens.

Yep, a group of Ravens is actually called an Unkindness of Ravens.

To bulk up this article I'll list a few more group of Animals names.

A Crash of Rhinos
A Congregation of Crocodiles
A Murder of Crows
A Congregation of Owls
and finally
A Flock of Seagulls... and I raaaaan, I ran so far away!

Recent History

2008-06-10T09:39:00.005-05:00

1) New Phone! - T-Mobile Wing

Other than the fact that I'm still not very good at using it yet, I like it. Unfortunately, I lost many of my old numbers but I can't really say for certain who's who. So if you want me to call you again text me your name and number ASAC*.

2) Saw the Fantasticks at Casa Manana!

We performed this musical in high school. My part (Henry the lovable old eccentric semi-retired actor) was played by Tom JONES! (Not 'whats-new-pussycat' tom jones, no the Author and Director of the Fantasticks Tom JONES!) He wrote it when he was young and now he's ancient enough to play the part.

Interesting side note: Lorenzo Lamas played El Gallo!

Jonathan played El Gallo in High School and should have played him in this production as well. Unfortunately Lorenzo only sang in one note and talked funny. He wasn't completely horrible but he's not an actor. But how can I not support TV's Renegade!? Sure he can't act or sing, but when I was in middle school he was there for me, riding a harley and kicking people with his cowboy boots! What a guy!

* ASAC = As soon as convenient.

Workaholic or Playboy?

2008-06-03T10:01:00.003-05:00

I picked up this little tract at Ryan's church. Until VBS is over I'm feeling a workaholic. But I will try and squeeze in a little Playboy in before its over.

Here are the bold text titles of the little sections of the tract:
* It's a Playboy world
* Day's work for day's pay
* Why work?
* The need for balance.
* Final thought
* Prayer

The chapter I'm currently interested in is "The need for Balance" unfortunately my balance doesn't allow flying to New York (as badly as I want to) but can include a Musical besides Elijah.

I love my interns enthusiasm, but I can't add 12 new events to an already crowded summer. Last summer we did at least one or two events a week on top of our normally busy church schedule.

What suffered?

My health - At the end of the summer I crashed hard
Their attendance - Gas prices and over scheduling led to people thinking, 'I can skip this one or that one.'
My Social Life - Dead.
Their Parents Patience - Eye rolling abounds
The End of Summer Video - Although crowded with events we were too busy to document each event very well as one was ending the next was already running late.

THIS SUMMER: "Less is More."

We've consolidated some events. Instead of shotgun blasts of events I want each event to have a purpose and each event to have an impact. Now I just need some way to break my interns spirit.

300th POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-05-21T21:13:00.008-05:00

300th Blog Post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the 300th Post on Trey's Bloglicious Blog!!!

I started this blog because Ryan made me. Now he has quit the good fight. He's quit blogging and yet I continue... Why? Because I can't stop. Let me be honest. I do this to entertain myself. Your entertainment is just collateral damage!!

If I had $300 I'd buy:
300 Double Cheeseburgers!!!!!!!!!!
150 Eggs of Silly Putty and put it all together and drop it off the roof!!!!!!!!!!
100 Rolls of Duct Tape!!!!!!!!!!
75 Comic Books!!!!!!!!!!
60 Geckos to set free in John Scott's office!!!!!!!!!!
50 Vente Caramel Macchiatos!!!!!!!!!!
30 Movie Tickets! I'll see Made of Honor 30 times in a row!!!!!!!!!!
15 Outback Steaks!!!!!!!!!!
10 Overly interesting T-Shirts!!!!!!!!!!
5 Video Games!!!!!!!!!!
4 Tattoos of reptiles!!!!!!!!!!
3 Tanks of Gas!!!!!!!!!!
2 Full Service Mani/Pedi in Mesa, Arizona!!!!!!!!!!
1 Decent Guitar!!!!!!!!!!

(Wait, I'm getting that much from Uncle Sam!!!!!!!!!! )

The Number 300:
Perfect Game in Bowling
Number of Spartans who died to create a great Graphic Novel and Movie.
Yards on a football field
Known as the Harshad Number
The Number of Exclamation Points in this Blog Post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dance Dance Resurrection

2008-05-19T13:49:00.000-05:00

Now Hiring Public Storage Employees

2008-05-15T10:33:00.004-05:00

To keep up our high standards at Public Storage we ask you meet the following qualifications:

Completed 4th Grade (Unless you have a letter of rec from your 3rd Grade teacher.)
Willingness to forward customers on to another middle school drop out without actually helping yourself.
No computer skills needed.
Heavy Breathing while customers wait on the phone and you wrastle with the computer you don't know how to use.
When asked for a phone number offer only 9 digits. If asked what the last number is say, "That's all of them."
You don't have to know how to work a modern credit card machine. We still use that old slidey kind with carbon paper.
When using the card slider try and break the customers card if possible.
Don't worry about knowing how to run a fax machine. If a customer asks for a fax tell them you don't have a fax machine even though you list a fax number on your website.
Don't worry if you don't know what a website is.
On site: When all else fails suggest they call corporate.
Corporate: When all else fails suggest they call the site.
When confronted with the never ending cycle of forwarding calls: sigh deeply and ask the costumer to hold. Hopefully they'll hang up. If they don't, after 15 minutes, tell them you are going to transfer them to your supervisor who is actually the first person they talked to who forwarded them to the site manager who transferred them back to corporate. Remember to place customers on hold for 5-10 minutes between each of these steps.
Remember our motto: "The customer is always frustratingly interrupting my do nothing job."
Personal hygiene optional.

10 Text Messaging Problems

2008-05-13T09:08:00.003-05:00

Oh, I love to text. But there are some problems.

1) Poor spelling on my part.
2) Poor choice of abbreviations by others.
3) You never know when your done "chatting."
4) Other people text too slow.
5) Hard to drive, text and shave simultaneously.
6) Predictive text always predicts the coming apocalypse.
7) Thumb burn.
8) My gargantuan thumbs maladroitly trying to press tiny buttons.
9) You can't see tone.
10) People who don't use proper punctuation,

Long time no post: Random stuff sitting on my desk and the thoughts they provoke.

2008-04-29T11:32:00.003-05:00

Did you know if you remove a post it by peeling it side to side (instead of bottom to top) it will lie flat and not curl up and away?

I wonder who invented the highlighter. I always liked used textbooks with highlighting in them. Somebody else had already drawn my attention to the important stuff.

There must be a million crafts that start off with, "Ok, round up a few dozen toilet paper rolls."

Will we ever have one translation of the Bible we all like? Hmm... no.

I don't like my phone extension 4863. Its not prime, it doesn't repeat anything. Sad.

I haven't fed my Webkinz online pet in months, I think he's dead but I'm afraid to check. At this point he's like Schrödinger's Cat... Trey's Lion will one day be the digital equivalent.

Thumb tacks are cool.

How long has that sticker been there?

Why isn't that guy still making The Far Side cartoons.

What's in that wicker thing on my desk? Should I open it? I'm better off not knowing.

The Book "Seven Principles of Effective Ministry" is the only book of its kind that has ever helped me. Define the win!

What pictures are on that disposable camera? How long has it sat there? Should I just throw it away.

MOM! READ THIS! - Somebody donated and I scooped up a great Frankoma Bowl! How about that!?

Pez needs a more convenient way to load in candy.

I don't even have a computer that will read 3.5 floppy disks anymore.

Is it time to take down Christmas cards?

Magnetix are cool toys but the little magnets come out to easy... swallowing hazard.

What is ink so expensive?

Whenever I see a move where a guy gets fired I'm always surprised that all of his personal belonging can fit into ONE copy paper box.

T-Dobs: Tax Season

2008-04-14T14:32:00.003-05:00

T-Dobs is a word I've coined that stands for the rare feeling I get which is "The Downside of Being Single." I can go weeks or months without the sensation, but when it hits, it hits.

It hit the other night when I finished my taxes online. I usually put them off til the weekend before the 15th. Which I guess technically isn't even procrastinating. Its due the 15th, I sent mine in on the 12th. That's downright early. (The Gov wants your money early so it can get some quick interest on it. I don't give them the pleasure.)

Anyway, taxes are hard even for a stat junky like me because I neatly file all the required receipts and pieces of mail in over 200 places around my house/trash can.

So when I finally get done and turbotax tells me that I won't be going to jail for tax fraud (this year) I'm pretty excited.

I spun around and wanted to announced it to someone... but there was nobody there. I really wanted a wife to high-five me on a job well done. I thought about calling a friend but they wouldn't care... it would be like asking for an "attaboy" for something I had to do anyway.

I was sure that if I had a wife she'd've high-fived me and I got a momentary case of T-Dobs... also I was a little sunburned and needed someone to aloe my back... but if I'd've had a wife she should have known to put sunscreen on me in the first place so I got angry at my non-existent wife for not taking better care of me and the T-Dobs passed.

A Dream I Had Last Night

2008-04-10T09:59:00.004-05:00

I'm a grown man but for some reason I'm also a baby. I've forgotten much of my past and am relearning things like how to talk coherently and many fine motor tasks.

Me and the other adult-toddlers have made macaroni art because our parents are coming to visit the government facility we're being held in. They demonstrate what we've learned and it ain't much. Are parent's are hopeful, my mother cries when "the boss" (who I can't see the face of) says "They may never get back who they used to be."

The other toddlers are dumber than me. Only I can understand parts of what the grown-ups are saying. Things about a virus and terrorists. About us having used to be able to talk and run and dance and things.

I become angry because I realize what I've lost. A woman named Correy rings a bell at me and I get disoriented. When I wake I have regressed. I can't walk as well or talk as well. But I put it together that the people here are purposefully keeping me stupid.

I make attempts to blend in with the other infants. I notice that if any begin to flourish and regain intelligence they have that bell rang at them and become droolers again.

I drool but I think and think of a way out. Then salvation appears, "the boss" is coming in for a visit. And it turns out to be my brother-in-law Fred. He'll help me!

Only he looks me in the eye and says, "You're not telling anybody now, are you?" Dominoes in my brain fall into place. I learned a secret about Fred and he's desperate to keep me from spreading it.

Fred makes sure none of us are wising up then tells Corry that before the next parent evaluation there will be a sad regression. We'll all get dumber still and they'll have to try "a different theory." And then they can start letting some of us pass away, starting with me.

I only have until the weekend when my parents show up to do something or they'll hit me again with the bell and disguise my death as a result of this virus.

My only advantage is being able to learn faster than the other adult-toddlers.

Step one plug my ears and get into the kitchen which is guarded by bell machines, security is pretty lax because we are all idiots. Step two get some kind of proof. Then I find something better. The virus... Fred exposed me too it. Maybe I can return the favor... but then I'd never know what happened... I have to get out...

Correy enters the kitchen to find a grown-toddler holding a hypodermic needle. I begin to fiddle with it like its a toy and then hide it behind my back in a obvious fashion.

"Give me that... you'll hurt yourself."

"No! It's mine!" I clutch it to my chest.

"Trey, I'll trade you for a cookie." Apparently Toddler Trey is easily tempted with food.

I hold it out and look excited. She approaches trying to mask her anger at me. When she gets close I jab her in the arm with it and push down the plunger.

She falls unconscious. When she wakes she'll be one of us. One of the toddlers she abused.

I have to get out of here. But everything is locked. I open the fridge and the phone rings....

I wake up... because the phone is my alarm clock.

There are a lot of unanswered questions:
* What did I learn about Fred?
* What there really a Virus attack?
* Where there even really terrorists?
* Can I get out of the hospital?
* Can I extract revenge?
* What about the other patients? They'll die soon... and what did they know that was too dangerous?
* Can I fully recover?
* Will I dream part 2 or be foreced to come up with my own ending?

Reflection following Baby Blessing and Trey wearing a suit

2008-04-07T11:41:00.003-05:00

We blessed 30 babies last night! 30! This church has been blessed, in fact there were more babies but some of them couldn't make it.

I put on my monkey suit to do my part. Its easier than getting dirty looks from old people. Unfortunately its all I heard about for a few hours. How nice you looked in a suit. Why don't you always where a tie? I didn't know you could clean up so good? You look like a grown up, good for you. Trey, is that you?

Let me translate: God likes you more when you play dress up.

I'm tired of feeling like Church is a fancy seafood restaurant with a dress code. If that's the case would should have a loaner coat and tie at the door for people. I adhere to a much softer, friendlier set of rules. Church should follow the 7/11 example: No shoes. No shirt. No service.

There's a dress code I can understand and get behind! Come as you are!

Yes, I know I look amazing in a suit. I'll give you that one. But what image am I trying to send? I got so many compliments last night I'm afraid I caused women to sin lustfully and men to sin jealously. I'd much rather come to church looking to the kids like what their dad's wear on Saturday afternoon.

Besides, ties have no evolutionary purpose. Is there somebody out there who is really cold right down the middle of their chest?

A final anecdote to prove my rant: I went to Bible Hour to make sure things went well after church. My nephew, Maddox (who I call Legend), was there running around. Usually when he sees me he is happy to and runs over to me. But not last night in my monkey suit. I called out, "Legend!" He smiled real big and started looking around for me. Unfortunately I was standing right in front of him. He didn't recognize me in that get up. He actually ran around to me to look for me!

I'll keep my one coat and tie for now... for now...

FONTS

2008-04-02T13:25:00.003-05:00

Why are there so many fonts?

Why sometimes are there so few?

Why can I never find the one I want?

Why don't they have more descriptive titles?

Why don't I have a font named after me?

What is the origin of the word font?

Who can actually read wing dings?

Realization from Video Editing

2008-03-28T10:12:00.005-05:00

To make that two and a half minute "Do you know?" took about 2 hours of rough footage. And when you are editing you basically have to watch all of it.

As I did I began to see myself as others must.

Observation 1) Out of shape - Why did nobody tell me how out of shape I am? I think when men look at their bodies they imagine the best case scenario of what they see. (Women do the opposite.) This isn't so pressing to me, I've already joined a gym and seen a doc. I'm basically disappointed that nobody stopped me and said, "Trey, I'm your friend and you're killing yourself." Almost nobody, Stacey was willing to pull me back from the cliff face. Shame on the rest of you.

Observation 2) I don't shut up! - Watching those 2 hours of rough footage, basically 70% of the dialogue was mine. Which is saying something because of how verbose Jeffro is. A lesser tongue may not have been able to get even 10% in. I just kept up a string of rambling jokes, observations, instructions and know-it-all-isms. I told Jeff, upon watching the rough footage I wouldn't be my own friend.

He claims I've got a complex and it wasn't that bad. That at the time all those comments and jokes seemed to fit it. Still, can I trust a man who wasn't willing to pull me back from the cliff face?

THE PLAN) Solitude!

I've been trying too hard in social situations, placing too much value on what others think of me. The video reminded me of the 8th grade version of myself who never stopped talking because he was desperate to prove how smart and funny he was.

I need to refocus this in a spiritual bent (as I've tried to do with my weight). While at Harding I spent 1 day a week in solitude for an entire semester. This meant no human contact, no tv, no internet, no phone, no reading, no writing, nothing to keep my mind preoccupied. I'll spend that time listening to God.

Obviously my schedule is different now. I plan on being in solitude one day a month. If you try and call or text me you won't get a response.

Sub-plan) Shutting UP!

I plan on shutting up more. I want to console myself by saying that even though I talk a lot, I assure you I have been listening. The things I said in that video where mostly responses to things Jeff said, so clearly I'm not just waiting my turn to talk. I don't plan on trying to change myself entirely either. I know I'll always be a talkative, bombastic, know-it-all, grandiloquent, loquacious, blathering fellow. But maybe I can tone it down a notch: Just enough to remove blathering from that list.

I want to get back to that Trey from late 11th grade who only needed to say one short sentence or just raise an eyebrow to get a laugh or cause someone to think.

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

Final Promo Video for Spring Retreat 2008

2008-03-19T17:55:00.003-05:00

"If you watch Rob & Big you'll think this is awesome!
If you don't you'll just think we're idiots.
Either way you're right."
~Jeff Brooks"

Promo 2: Gladiators Parody

2008-03-17T10:21:00.001-05:00

Gladiators Parody featuring the Music of Bib Fortuna

If you don't know Bib Fortuna, here he is

YouTube Goodness

2008-03-09T16:17:00.001-05:00

Sesame Street Hip to Be Square!

Saturn Road Promotion Video for Spring Retreat.
300 Parody

H2BS: Huey Lewis Saved My Life (Honorable mention to The News)

2008-03-04T11:18:00.004-06:00

(Mrs. Hey Man mentioned my hair cut and that got me thinking.)

Huey Lewis Saved My Life (Honorable mention to the News)

I was recently in a very receptive state and fate shined on me and the Huey Lewis and the News song "Hip to be Square" played 5 times in one weekend.

I then bought it on iTunes. After long hours meditating to the message of H2BS I decided to change my life.

Here are some quotes and changes they inspired in my life.

1) "I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around / But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down" - First line right out of the box! I feel it. The world has broken me finally, I'm more willing to conform.

2) "I'm working out most everyday and watching what I eat / They tell me that its good for me, but I don't even care" - This is now true for me as well, I'm averaging 7 hours of working out a week. Take that! I'm also eating better. And like Huey, its not really just about the health benefits, its about being a part of the health club scene.

3) "Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair" - Self-explanatory. Also, long hair at the gym is like jogging will wearing wet mop as a hat.

4) "But don't you try to fight it; 'An idea who's time has come.' " - Take my advice, never question the collective will of your culture. They enjoy hammering down the proud nails and it hurts. I'm waving the white flag, I feel like a rat sometimes. Then I feel the warm acceptance of my culture, that comforting feeling that most of my thinking has already been done for me. Also, I can fit into my fat jeans again. (I have 4 categories of jeans: svelt, chunky, fat and morbid.)

Are these changes permanent? Some prolly, some prolly not.

One of the places I heard H2BS during that fateful weekend was in the movie "American Psycho" here is a quote from said movie. (Bear in mind the man saying this is getting ready to go crazytown with an ax.)

"In '87, Huey released this, Fore, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip to be Square", a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself. "

And now, I feel like H2BS is a personal statement about me as well. Thanks Huey.

You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care

Because I can tell what's going on

It's hip to be square

3 Things

2008-03-01T21:09:00.000-06:00

1) Leap Day

It came and went and I didn't get a chance to say anything. What a strange day! Leap day always proves to me that the METRIC SYSTEM WILL NEVER WORK! Sure you can make a nice "Base 10" system for measuring length and width, but what you can NEVER have a easy 10-scale measurement of time!

Leap day is the case in point! - There aren't 100 perfect days in a metric year. There aren't even 365 even days! We have that 1/4 day hanging around waiting to mess you up! In fact our calendar isn't even that great! The Mayan calendar was more accurate than our current calendar 4000 years ago!

Ok, so Leap Day is cool. Metrics will never work, quit feeling guilty that America won't convert.

2) Wellness update

I'm feeling fine, haven't heard anything new. The waiting may kill me.

3) "Moonbeam"

Had a few comments about my name selection. "Moonbeam" was going to be my name (according to my mother) if I had been born a girl. That's right, Moonbeam Laminack. That really tells you something about my upbringing. Two yuppies who used to be hippies. I think I still have the free spirit of a "Moonbeam" even if I have been forced to cut my hair because of the man.

If its a girl, I'll name it Moonbeam!

2008-02-28T10:27:00.002-06:00

Three weeks ago I did something I've never done before: I went to the doctor while healthy. I wanted his advice on weight loss and figured one check up a decade couldn't hurt.

They took some blood, "as a precaution" and tested for diabetes, thyroid and "a few other things."

A few days go buy during which time I don't know I should be panicking.

One of those other things was my liver, which gave them abnormal readings. So they had me come back and take 4 more vials of blood! (From a flubotomist who's hands are like ice.)

This time I do know to panic and do so with great flair for a few days.

Which leads us to today. The results are in and "you should probably get an ultrasound"!

WHAT? I'm pregnant? That might explain the weight gain and crabbyness but there are some unanswered questions! (Like who's the momma?! and Will I have to drop out of beautician school?)

Well, I'm trying to stay positive with my potentially life threatening liver condition that somehow requires an ultrasound. As you can see when the doctors don't give me enough information I just fill in the gaps myself.

If its a boy it'll be Trey T. S. Laminack the IInd. And if its a girl...

Fixer upper

2008-02-20T10:03:00.004-06:00

I think I'd make a good fixer upper. A starter husband. That way in 10 years, she can flip me for a profit and I'll have a new marble countertop. But with the housing market the way it is people are a little skeptical.

What work really needs to be done?

Maybe I should get repainted, but I think I'm allergic to spray on tan.

I really should clean out the attic, lots of trash there.

Also, the furnace seems to smoke more than it should and the AC can't keep up in the summer.

Perhaps I should take out the carpet and go down to the hardwood, do straight men shave their chest?

New windows would be good, but can I afford Lasik?

Also, I'm sure my foundation is cracked. So you can sink a few thousand dollars into me but sooner or later it will all disappear into a hole in the ground.

Valentine's Day: How 'bout dem apples

2008-02-14T10:18:00.003-06:00

Here is a pic of what I got the Children's Ministry ladies in my office.

The Card Reads:

One dozen roses

(Apples are a member of the rose family)

XOXO,

Trey

Let's keep in touch (Pt. 2)

2008-02-11T14:00:00.000-06:00

While in Abilene last week I ran into an old friend (but I don't mean old, she's young, old is just an expression). I hadn't seen here since I graduated from ACU in 2004. Anyway, she said she had taken stock of her life and had thought of me. (I was somewhat stunned because I don't usually make the highlight reals of attractive girls lives.)

What she remembered is when we parted ways she had said something like, "Let's keep in touch."

And i had said something like, "I'd love to, your awesome and everything but I don't see it happening." Wait, don't overreact, it wasn't that mean. I've said this before to many people. Here is a paraphrase of my typical response.

You're awesome, I'd love to hang out and be BFFs but lets face it... I'm moving aways/your moving away and I'm not that good at keeping up communication at long distances. You are of course welcome to take up the cross of being my friend and put in the effort, for which I will be eternally grateful, but for me out of sight = out of mind. I just want to be honest, which I think is better than promising to stay in touch, then not doing so, which leads to hurt feelings. I would never intentionally shun you. BUT Should our paths ever cross again, I'll hang with you any night of the week. Rock on.

So, she took stock of her life, remembered my honesty and was able to appreciate it 4 years down the road, even if she didn't initially. Of course our paths did cross again and she is now one of my limited facebook friends.

Of course, with the creation of facebook (and this blog residual) levels of contact. "Let's keep in touch" got a lot easier. Now I can just say, "You're free to read my blog."

Well, that's me and I don't see myself changing.

Read: Let's Stay in Touch Part 1 Here. - Ok, I just read Pt. 1 from 2005 and sure enough her name was on the list of people I regretted falling out of contact with. Maybe facebook will save us all.

Teacher Appreciation Banquet

2008-01-28T15:56:00.000-06:00

If you missed it last night here is what you missed.

300+ People in Attendance
100 Pounds of BBQ
28 Tables
12 Trophies given.
10 Magic Tricks
8 Pie Jokes
5 Hand Puns
Two tearful moments.
And a Parson in a sweaty tee.

I want to be in a "real" rock band

2008-01-17T09:54:00.000-06:00

I'm playing rock band... and I rock! I'm like a 5 star performer. The teens at church think I'm a Rock Superstar because I can play Reaper on "Hard"! I even use the orange button. (Smug mode.)

My question is this video game guitar going to translate into real musical skill. I mean, what chord is an orange anyway?

Then I thought, what makes me think Rock Band is any less valid a musical form than so called "real" musicians.

I can see Guitar Hero and Rock Band pushing Karaoke out of business!

I need to buy a real guitar, but the question lingers on, "What chord is orange?"

How sleepy are you? And the cure!

2008-01-07T11:31:00.000-06:00

There are levels of sleepiness and different skills used to stay alert.

Level (example if any) - Skill used to stay awake.

1. Yawny (Pervasive yawn, perhaps spawned from watching someone else yawn which may not indicate you are sleepy at all) - Cure: Put fist in front of yawn to keep soul from escaping.

2. Blah (That minute level of tiredness that doesn't qualify as a symptom, just a little blah) - Cure: Gently shake head

3. Listless (Loss of your ability to list, as you can see I am not currently affected.) - Cure: Stand up. Walk around office

4. Drowsy (You find your eyes have been closed for 5 seconds) - Cure: Stand up walk to coffee maker

5. Sluggish (you move slowly and leave trails of slime) - Eat something salty (salt kills slugs)

6. Tuckered out (Kids only; after a long day at the fair) - Cure: Red Dye #5

7. Torpid (Lazy feeling like you blood is heavy) - Cure: Splash Cool Water in your Face

8. Drained (Lack of energy, hollow feeling) - Cure: Red Bull

9. Lethargic (Movements seem to happen slowly, you tell your legs to move and they are disobedient the first time) - Cure: Force yourself to dance a jig or cotton eye joe for 30 seconds.

10. Tired (That feeling your get 45 minutes before work is over, its too long away to get a "works-done-rush") - Cure: Wait 45 minutes

11. Droopy (Eyes 1/4 closed, could fall asleep if you lean back) - Cure: Slap self in face.

12. Leaden (arms and legs feel twice their normal weight, too tired to slap yourself in the face) - Cure: Slap someone else in the face. What a rush!

13. Sleepy (Sleepy when you can't be sleeping. The definitive feeling of sleepiness.) Cure: Walk around a little bit then get a cup of hot coffee, this time with cream and sugar. Go to restroom and put stopper on sink. Splash face with hot coffee. It will be burning and sticky. Wash face with cool water. Drink what is in stoppered sink. Fight need to vomit. By now you are wide awake!

14. Dozy (You take little naps accidentally making sermons difficult to comprehend.) - Cure: Look up all the verses in your bible about naughty stuff. Giggle uncontrollably.

15. Heavy-eyed (Eyes 2/3s closed, makes driving tricky) - Cure: While driving run onto that noisy thing on the side of the highway. Briefly freak out! Open window to freezing air and sing along to all Rush mix tape.

16. Somnolent (Body feels like it has become one with your la-z-boi recliner after a large turkey lunch, while the heat is on and the TV volume is kind of low and the football game doesn't start for an hour.) - Cure: Don't fight it. Sleep until the football game.

17. Soporific (Complete lack of energy, will power, and get-up-and-go) - Cure: Attack jumper cables to car battery then one to your left pinkie tow and right ear.

18. Narcoleptic (disease known for random attacks of sleep at odd times) - Cure: Partially manageable by medication. Caution: Do not eat soup with this disease unless you tie you head to the chair so you won't drown.

19. Comatose (Brain shows signs of life but no consciousness for a decade) - Cure: A loved one holds you hand and cries saying, "If you can hear me squeeze my hand." You don't squeeze but try to. Later that week you wake up when your loved one has been pulled away from you beside for the first time in a decade. You assume she's moved on when you see her silhouette hugging your brother in the window. In reality, she is crying on his shoulder about how she'll always love you. You don't find this out until after you've started a new life in a small town working in a roadside diner. They deserve to be happy and you'll just be in the way. She spends months looking for you when you turn up missing from the hospital. A year later, during a thunderstorm, you help a car struck by lightning. Pulling out a young boy and a woman who turns out to be your wife. The kid is your son that you didn't even know you had.

20. Dead (You will never be awake again) - Cure: Expensive Voodoo ceremony or be son of Deity.

New Year, Same Trey

2008-01-02T10:04:00.000-06:00

New Years Eve I made a big long list of all the trash that went wrong in 07.

Then I made a big list on the back side of all the stuff I was going to change in 08.

I looked at it. Read over it. Made sure I had made no mistakes or omitted something.

Then I laughed at it for a good 2 or 3 minutes.

I set it down and walked away.

But every now and then it caught the corner of my eye and I had to laugh again.

I burned it.

Forget that. No resolutions, no regrets. It just isn't me.

I'm awesome just the way I am.

Bring on 2008!

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 11 & 12 (Quickly)

2007-12-26T17:00:00.000-06:00

Humbug 11: Comercialism. Nuff Said.

Humbug 12: No delivery on X-Mas.

I'm not talking about packages. First, that is commercialism which falls under #11. And 2nd, because it just shows you procrastinated.

No I'm talking about food. There I sat. Hungry. And no Pizza Place would pick up the phone. Then I remembered the Christmas Story "Fa Ra Ra" scene so I called for Chinese food. Guess what? It looks like they found Jesus because they weren't open.

Well there you have them. My 12 Humbugs of X-Mas. I think they actually helped me have a better Christmas. I got out all my vitriol online and IRL I was pretty cheery.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 9 & 10

2007-12-17T09:11:00.000-06:00

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 9 &10

Mom has to work X-Mas Eve

Christian Denial

Get back to work Cratchit!

Poor madre toiling away Christmas Eve. This is just Un-American! (Mom works in payroll and end of the year stuff is a lot of extra work.)

I hope her boss is haunted by three ghosts not counting the first ghost of a former co-worker who will show up to warn of the others, "You will be visited by three ghosts... uhm... not counting me." Couldn't you have said 4 ghosts? "No! 3 sounds better, and don't question the three ghosts like this, they won't like it."

Christian Denial - Get your head out of the snow its X-Mas!

Some Christians don't celebrate Christmas because the date of Jesus' birth is not known (and most likely not in December at all). So I guess they walk around in a state of denial, "Did you see that tree with the lights?" NO! They did not.

I think I posted in a previous blog about the date Dec 25th coming from the birth of the pagan God Mithras the Sun God. He was born on the longest night of the year therefore it got sunnier everyday thereafter. Well Roman's Christianized everything so Mithras became Christ but the date was so popular it stuck. It turned out the commoners didn't care who they worshipped at the feast as long as the feast was good.

But this isn't the reason most Christians object, they don't know or care who Mithras was. No, they argue that it is the wrong date. But they don't celebrate it any day of the year. It's best to be safe and not offend out Lord by totally ignoring him.

People can do what they want and I understand its a touchy subject. But I can tell you why I personally celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December. I celebrate then because the rest of the world celebrates then. For on small month a year, the general populace is open to discussion about Jesus. And if that opportunity rises in your office or out in the world and the only thing you can think to say to a non-believer is "Well, you know Jesus wasn't even born on December 25th!" you've missed an opportunity.

Nobody was ever baptised because of when something didn't happen. - So HUMBUG!
And Humbug as well to my mom's cruel employer!

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 5

2007-12-14T15:13:00.000-06:00

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 5&6&7

The Word "Holiday"

The "X"

"The Holiday Season"

Ok, so today is a quick triple helping of Humbug!

"HOLIDAY"

First, there probably isn't much need to ramble about my hatred for the word Holiday pushing out the word Christmas. Everyone hates this. Why does it happen? Liberal guilt! Touchy-feelies out there can't just wait for somebody to get offended. They have to get offended for somebody else.

You can't say Christmas! What about the Jewish people! - I say, let a Jewish person raise their own objection. Its not like its not Christmas. It's true that it is Christmas so go ahead and say it!

I preferred it back in the day when they used to say "Merry Christmas and Happy Nun-chucks" than what they do now with the bending over backward. Many secular people celebrate Christmas too! I say, Christmas gets top billing and once or twice we can mention lighting the man-or-duh. And don't even mention Kwanza or that other one. Kwanza was made up less than 50 years ago and that other one... come on! We're in America not Istanbul.

The "X"

Of course half that time they mention Christmas its said, "X-Mas." Way to take the Christ right your of everything. Us "X-ians" should get more upset about this. It also looks tacky. I think the only place "X-Mas" makes any sense is if its part of an "X-Men X-Mas Special"! Wolverine could cut the turkey. Cyclops could cook the bird with his vision. Jean Grey could have a nervous breakdown.

"The Holiday Season"

When I was a kid the "Holiday Season" (HS) was from like X-Mas Eve to New Years Day. Then it started being Thanksgiving to New Years. Now it starts in October. In face one Children's Ministry Magazine article defined this time of year as "Falloween." Because the hysteria starts at Back-2-School time, builds into Halloween, the rampages over Turkey day to end in a train wreck around Christmas and smolder until New Years Day. It is starting as early as possible. Now I'm expecting it to start ending later. A logical new end date would be the Super Bowl. It already is the biggest TV purchasing week of the year!

The Word "Holiday" - Humbug!
The "X" - Humbug!!
"The Holiday Season" - Humbug!!!

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 4

2007-12-12T10:29:00.000-06:00

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Part 4

Vapid Celebrity Thoughts About Christmas

Every year the media decides we need to hear somebody talk about Christmas. And who do they choose? Do they choose religious scholars, famous authors or poets, regular people with a story to tell? Nope. They ask idiotic celebrities.

The Interview

"We're here with Megan McDurmat, who is starring in Bikini Death Kill 2 opening in theaters near you on December 21st. Welcome Megan."

"Thanks Talking-Head."

"The next thing on the teleprompter says, 'Do you have any special Christmas Memories?' "

"Oh, Well when I was a little girl my gin-gin... that's what we called my grandmother would..."

And this woman who's only assets are her bikini killing skills proceeds to tell us all the meaning of Christmas and surprise surprise the meaning is to go see her new memory with your family.

The Desecration of "It's a Wonderful Life"

But worse than this is when they take my all time favorite Christmas movie, "It's a wonderful life" and before and after each commercial break they have celebrities talking about the movie and Christmas. First, this eats up air time and causes there to be more commercial breaks than necessary. Second, these people are idiots.

Celebrities are the last people I'd look to for touching family stories. Lets face it. If they loving families they wouldn't gotten into show biz in the first place.

Also a problem is that they can't get real celebrities to do this. They are too cool and too busy to shoot a little heartwarming piece about Christmas. Nope, its always the D list.

Like Whoopi Goldberg, "I just love this part coming up where Bert and Ernie sing in the rain." (This is annoying on two levels. First, who cares what she thinks. Second, she just told what was about to happen in the movie.)

Or David Hyde Pierce - "I remember back on Frasier we'd have a Christmas party and the dog would be there in his Rudolph outfit... I wonder what those guys are doing now... I'm too cool to talk to them now that I'm doing legitimate theatre again... what? Yes, Spamalot is so legitimate theatre!"

Celebrities ruin Christmas!

Also in this category is "entertainment news" which insists on telling us what gifts celebrities are giving each other and their families.

"Angelina & Brad gave all their friends this handwoven bag. It is made of natural fibers and sports the phrase, 'Green is the new Black.' Each bag costs $400 and is made is a sweat shop in Malaysia by 6-year-olds being whipped by relentlessly and are forced to eat lead paint. On a lighter note, Angelina has promised to adopt the child that produces the most bags this holiday season as an incentive... if the whipping isn't enough."

A Heartwarming Tale that makes me vomit

Also this is the one time of the year a celebrity likes to look conscientious. They donate to charity, drop off toys during the today show and stop putting their cigarettes out on peoples necks on the street.

Never mind the rest of the year they spend more on martini's than many families make in a year! But no, we have to act all gracious that one day a year they repel down from their high horse to grace us with their leavings and tax deductible contributions.

Celebrities! HUMBUG!

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 3

2007-12-11T09:41:00.000-06:00

Part Three: Double Booked Christmas Parties

This Friday there are two Christmas parties double booked on top of each other. One is the work party and the other is a friend party. 50 Weeks of the year I never get invited to parties. I sit alone and cry and think about buying a cat. Then two weeks of the year the party-gods smile down on me and flood me with invitations. In the next two weeks I have a lot of little get togethers to drop in on. In most cases I can hit two in one night, but the one this Friday this would be impossible one is in Fort Worth.

So to help me decide I'll have a Holiday pro's and con's list for the work party (WP) and friend party (FP).

WP - Pro: I'll be missed if I'm not there.
FP - Con: Nobody will notice if I miss that party but me and the host (and she might be so busy it won't matter.)

WP - Con: Its the people I see every day of the year. "Stale"
FP - Pro: Its new people. "Fresh"

WP - Pro: Its the people I see every day of the year. "Comfortable"
FP - Con: Its new people. "Stressful"

WP - Pro: Gift Exchange
WP - Con: Gift Exchange
FP - Pro: No gift to purchase*
FP - Con: No gift to receive

WP - Pro: Catering.
WP - Con: Extreme over fatness following catering.

WP - Con: Everyone but me is a couple. (Which they use to strong arm the gift exchange.)
FP - Pro: Single women presence. (I'm trying hard not to let this stress me out and become a con.)

WP - Pro: At Church 30 Seconds away
FP - Con: In Fort Worth 30 Minutes away.

WP - Pro: I already RSVP'd.
FP - Con: I told her I couldn't come. (Why let that stop me?)

WP - Con: People always dress up and I always wear shorts and a t-shirt... odd.
FP - Pro: No dress code. Wait... now that I think about it...
FP - Con: Presence of single women mandates clean, wrinkle free attire.

WP & FP - Con: Either one I skip I will be forced to hear all the fun things I missed and have to question my party decision.

Well I thought about putting it to a vote but nobody from work reads this blog very often so it would be pretty one sided. I guess I'd like to go to both. Maybe I can dress my crash test dummy and send him to the other party.

*Wait... maybe the friend party is a Birthday party... so I might need to get a gift anyway.

WP Pro's = 5
WP Con's = 6
FP Pro's = 4
FP Con's= 7

Total Score:
WP = (-1)
FP = (-3)

Well according to these numbers I should just stay home... HUMBUG!

Twelve Humbugs of Christmas: Parts 1 & 2

2007-12-10T10:14:00.000-06:00

First and foremost I LOVE Christmas! It is awesome. But I find myself in a Scroogey feeling this year. So I plan on giving you my 12 Humbugs of Christmas.

(The first two blend into each other so I've made them into on post.)

Part 1: Home Decorations

Part 2: Other People's Decorations

I don't recommend either.

I don't decorate for Christmas. I was asked if it was because I had some strange Christian objection to Christmas, this is not the case. I love Christmas. But I never liked decorating. It felt more like mom cracking a whip while we toiled to hang ornaments and lights while she laughed and rubbed her hands together maniacally.

So now, my house, no lights, no tree. I actually kind of like looking at lights and decorations. But I feel I get enough of that out in the world. Everywhere is brightly decorated. Even out church has a great big tree in the family center. I feel I absorb a lot accidentally, I don't need to induce more at home.

I have to also admit that I really don't like driving around to look at lights. I've done it every year it seems like with one group of friends or another who twist my arm into it. In short, I enjoy the time with my friends but what are we doing... wasting gas watching others waste electricity.

If these drives have no children on board it is just sad, a bunch of grown ups trolling the neighborhood: "Look another light bulb! That Edison was a genius!" I mean were you brought up on Little House in the Prairie, "Look Paw! Twinkling Lights, can we go stare at them, we've been ever so good this year!"

Of course stores decorate to induce you to shop more. Its kind of like putting chum in the water to attract sharks and start a feeding frenzy. If I see garland and little bells I just needs to buy me a Pepperage Farms Basket.

Part 1: Home Decorations - You'll just have to take it down in 4 months, Humbug!
Part 2: Other People's Decorations - Capitalist Swine controlling our brains with lights, Humbug.

The Upside to the Writers Strike

2007-11-29T09:56:00.000-06:00

Ok so this week I watched the first episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that I actually found funny since the mid 90s. Unfortunately for Jay it was a replay of a show from 1993.

I don't know when Jay Leno gave up and decided being funny wasn't his thing anymore but seeing him in old form brought to light how dull his show is now.

The 1993 Lineup:
A good opening monologue

Chit chat with Branford Marsales who is better than what's-his-name on the bass.

He did Headlines - this was before people started faking them to get on tv.

His first guest was TOM HANKS! Who was plugging A League of their Own. Only he didn't just plug the move, play a clip and leave (like they do today). No way! He did 3 segments! Is this Jay being lazy or are today's celebs just to vapid to do more than 5 minutes? (Probably some of both.) Tom talked about an actors strike in the 80s which seemed to fit in well with our current strike. Then he shared a story about Tom's failed stand up career, which he left "to become a global celebrity"

Then Dilbert McClinton performed some song. It wasn't great but he walked over to the couch immediately after to talk with Jay. This was funny because he couldn't stop sweating profusely through the whole thing. He couldn't catch a breath. I kept thinking, "Jay, say something longer than 3 words so he can breath!"

Then they interviewed newsman Brian Ross.

Anyway, what happened to Jay? Good news is this is his LAST YEAR! Hurray! My man Conan O'Brien will be taking over. But will the Late Night pressure and old people audience sap the life out of him as well? Time will tell. This will probably be the best year to watch Conan as he has nothing left to lose!

Turkey Day and other causes of Type II Diabetes

2007-11-26T09:51:00.000-06:00

Turkey day was good, I had two in fact, one on Thursday and again on Saturday, I basically started over eating on Wednesday night and didn't stop until dusk Saturday. Consider it my last hurrah because going to get healthier.

Ok, so next week I'll be breaking my decade long streak... I'll be going to a doctor when I'm relatively well. Usually I have to be bedridden for 48 hours before I consider going to see an MD. And then when I do I go to a McMD like Primacare. I like those places because they don't want a relationship or to know about my personal life. Just the facts and get out of here with a Rx. (Also, they don't weight you.)

Anyway, if you haven't figured it out already I'm an overweight hypochondriac. I also verge on Christian Science thinking: God will heal me or he won't. I have a tendency to self-diagnose. So if its a cold, I'll just ride it out. If its something worse, I'll suppress it and hope it goes away.

What caused my sudden change in disposition? My sister told me she was concerned about my health. 5 Years ago I would have ignored her. 10 years ago it would have been an argument. This year, I figure its time to try out my insurance card and see if it really works.

My list of diseases/syndromes I think I have but have no medical proof of:

Type 2 Diabetes
Hypothyroid
Cancer
Heart Disease
Heart Worms
Tapeworm - Actually that would be good, I might loose weight.
Mono - It can lay dormant.
Heart Arrhythmia
Dunlop Disease*
Sleep Apnea
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Munchhausen Syndrome
and Stockholm Syndrome

List of things I'm worried about at the doctors office:

Catching something from all the sickies
The scale
My doctor is female
Them confirming anything from the first list
Them suggesting something involving my back door. (I've looked up a Bible verse and I'm prepared to refuse for religious reasons, I'm a proctological conscientious objector.)

I've probably worried years of my life away worrying about a check-up. I know I'm probably as healthy as an ox who over-ate at Thanksgiving.

Well, wish me luck and feel free to comment here but when you see me IRL^ please act like you did not read this blog post. Make no mention of the doctor or how my visit went. If you do, I will infect you with my Stockholm Syndrome!

^ IRL = In real life.
* Dunlop Disease: In case you didn't know this is a dangerous disease common to members of the CofC where cheese covered dishes and fried chicken are commonplace. Dunlop disease is when "your belly dun lopped over your belt."

Blog Labels

2007-11-12T09:45:00.000-06:00

I just discovered these things. I can attach a label to my posts and they get grouped accordingly. I've started with my most recent posts and then went back to the first 20 or so from the beginning. I'm working towards the middle. If I label a few posts each week it won't take too long.

I need to work on my labeling skills, I don't want 300 posts with 300 separate labels. I want like 20 labels that all the posts fall into. So far that isn't working. I plan on going back and any label that is only linked to one post I'll relabel.

I'm labeling this blog "Blog" because its about blogging.

I'll get back to the lunches soon.

School Lunches Pt. 2

2007-11-07T12:41:00.000-06:00

A lot of reactions to Pt. 1. It seems I was oblivious to the Vinyl bags being the final stage of evolution. How could I, I was a Buyer? Mags filled in some details for my last post and reminded me vomiting in the lunch line, but I think I've said enough about that already.

Today I want to focus on the contents of the school lunches.

As a Buyer, I can recall exactly the FDA approved lunches I used to get served. They often tried to add things like peaches to make something seem healthy but they were always out of a big can in heavy syrup. Being a Buyer taught you the important lesson: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." You had no control on the menu, the portion or the temperature of the food. Each day you show up and take your beating. Somedays, yak, creole spaghetti and other days Pizza!

Us Buyers really resented you Bringers when you crossed the line and bought your lunch on Pizza day! This was our line, our lunch lady! But sure, when its convenient for you come Buy a lunch and make the line super long!

The Bringers lunches seemed much more interesting to me:

* A sandwich wrapped in that plastic bag with a flap. (This was before the proliferation of ziplock bags.) The sandwich was usually bologna on white, PB&J on white, or ham and cheese on white. Wheat bread meant a sure fire beating I was sure. Occasionally there was one leaf of lettuce on there for some reason.

* Carrot sticks - I never knew why so many kids got these, but they seemed to like them. They ate them, and I still don't know why.

* Drink - Sometimes moms sent a quarter in the bag to buy milk but more often they sent Capri Sun or used that awesome matching THERMOS! The best was one soda wrapped in Tin Foil! The tin foil didn't keep it "not cool, but palatable... not cool, but palatable." (That last quote was for Ms. Patty.)

* Chips - I usually got a handful of chips in a sandwich bag, pre-crunched. But some kids got those proportioned little bags of chips. I also recall how horrible it was when the 20 count variety bag was down to Frito's how horrible that could be. You'd eaten all the Cheetos and Doritos and were down to corn toe nails.

* Fruit - Apple or Banana standard. An orange was too much work. Most of the Bringers I knew often threw away the fruit still in the paper bag. (Touch luck starving kids in China.)

* Dessert - It was always an odd number of cookies. No self respecting mom would give their child 2 or 4 Oreos. It had to be 3 or 5, rarely 1 if it was a big oatmeal creme number.

* The infamous note - I remember little notes being written on napkins. I was envious of them, but the Bringers were shamed by them. They desperately didn't want anyone to know that they had a mother who loved them and who drew little hearts on their napkin.

Clearly the moms of America sat down each morning with the food pyramid and did their best to live up to it.

But what about the wild card of school lunches: Dads. I could always tell when for some reasons a dad had been forced to make the school lunch of a friend. It would be like a comedy of errors. Instead of ham and cheese you got Pimento cheese. Or they tried to make PB&J and had used Apricot instead of Grape, what a scandal. An even number of cookies, usually too many, like 6. No fruit, instead whatever was prepackaged around the house: granola bars, pop tarts, croutons. Thankfully they left no note.

School Lunches Pt. 1

2007-11-05T10:56:00.000-06:00

A universal American experience is the elementary school lunch. A lot of thought and preparation went into slapping bologna on bread back in those days.

I was 99% of the time a kid who bought their lunch. I envied those brown paper bags and Ninja Turtle Lunch box kids, the Bringers. So I did what any anxious kid did, analyzed them out of the corner of my eye so that one day, if I brought a lunch, I could blend in with the brown baggers. But that was a rarity, we were a buy-your-lunch family not a bring-your-lunch family.

Today, I think I'll focus my jealous nostalgia on one aspect of the school lunch experience. The container. I had no choice in my container, just a plastic tray and they only came in one color, tan... or was it faded blue? (Maggie might remember.)

Anyway, the Bringers always had a lot of variety in their lunch container. My favorites were the lunch boxes with coordinated thermoses! Genius! Oh, what I wouldn't have given for one of those. (Of course, I had one but there was never a lunch inside it so it stayed at home.)

The lunch box gave you a chance to declare you allegiance to something too. There was the G.I. Joes, the Ninja Turtles, the A-Team! There were also female equivalents, but since as a 1st grader girls were just a buzz on the periphery of my mind I don't remember them as well. (Like I said, Maggie will probably remember. She's entrusted to keep my memories for me, for example, what's the name of the teacher who had us sing "Texas our Texas" every morning? I don't know but guess who will.) But I digest (ba-dum-ching).

I also remember the fickle winds of fate that blew through the lunch room sometimes. It seemed one semester you had to have Ninja Turtles, then suddenly after Christmas the turtles were lame! Only dweebs still had that kids show. Now you had to have the Power Rangers.

Upon reflection on this topic with Jeffro, he said, "Nothings said maturity like a brown paper bag." I hadn't realized this. I was a Buyer, Jeff was a Bringer. As an outsider, I never realized there was a hierarchy. But its clear to me now. When you finally rose above the petty childish plastic lunch boxes (with awesome matching thermos) you brought the brown paper bag.

But there is nothing like a lunch box! When I got my current employment I bought this lunch box for myself.

I hope to one day have my last meal served in my Last Supper Lunch box.

I guess I have a lot more to say about lunches, like what goes in them so I've added that "Pt. 1" to the title. I'll get back to you after lunch. I'll leave you with my parting bit of angst.

As all of you Bringers opened you boxes and bag I had to carry that tan/blue tray to the table. And everyday somebody had to say: "Hey, nice tray, Trey!" Every single day of my life! It happened a week ago at the Casa Linda Cafeteria! It's a wonder I'm not on top of a bell tower somewhere with a painball gun and a thermos full of chicken and stars taking my revenge on the world.

And now you know the rest of the story... mmmmm, Good day!

I'm tired of hearing about the medicinal properties of chocolate!

2007-10-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

Every week some soft news outlet has breaking news that, gasp, chocolate can cure cancer! We all have a PhD in candy science now, having been forced to hear about it so often. You probably already know which kind of chocolate is better for you without me having to tell you... dark chocolate, wonder pill!

The things chocolate can do you for you these days: Treat depression, good for the skin and probably really does cure cancer!

Here is a copy paste from thinkquest.org:
Chocolate acts as an antiseptic, diuretic, parasiticide, and pilatory. It is used to treat burns, cough, listlessness, pregnancy, and snake bite. Cocoa has theobromine which has a similar effect to that of caffeine. It stimulates the muscles, heart, and kidneys. In fact, it can relieve congestion during colds by simply opening the bronchial passages in the lungs.

WebMD wrote this article. - Basically: Chocolate = Magic.

I DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT!

I think all this does is convince me more and more that we have NO idea what is going on inside the human body! For example, are eggs good for your or not? Nobody knows! Every 5 years they switch their stance on eggs. All they want to do is sell magazines and keep you watching the Today show until the next commercial break to sell more Tide! These should not be our sources of medical knowledge.

So what if Chocolate has antioxidants! In 2 years they'll come out and say we need more oxidants! But go ahead eat more chocolate. After all for years Placebo pills have cured all manner of ills. Maybe it isn't the placebo effect that cures people its just the sugar!

That's it! SUGAR! I can't wait for Martha Stuart and Jimmy Kimel to be telling us how sugar is really healthier than once thought. That phrase 'than once thought' can cover a number of wrongs. It basically means forget what we said, the opposite is now true, don't question us we're on TV. That is straight out of 1984, people!

Of course too much sugar and chocolate can lead to another of my soft news pet peeves: shots of fat people walking on the street from the neck down.

You people and your coats!

2007-10-23T10:24:00.000-05:00

Baton down the hatches and start hoarding heating oil! It's October in Texas and it might get down to 63 degrees!

You people and your coats. Shouldn't you just be enjoying the cool? (I don't think cool ends and cold begin until you get to 40.) But no, the mercury drops a millimeter and we have to show off our new coats. Its like some people live in envy of cold climates who have to wear coats to the first day of school. Bah! They probably all live in envy of us getting to wear shorts and not having people drop dead of frostbite each weekend during a football game.

So fine, its 63 better start layering clothing. And if you think the adults are bad you should see the way they bundle and swaddle their preschoolers. I've seen geriatric Eskimos wearing less clothing.

And even if it does get down to 58 its not like you're going ice fishing! You are walking from your heated car into your heated Starbucks back to you heated car with a heated drink in hand then onward to your heated house so you can turn on your gas logs!

If it gets bellow 60 I'll switch to long pants, maybe! But expect me in t-shirts until it gets down to sub 50! You people and your coats! Your weak, over-fashioned people who can't accept the modern lifestyle you live that requires no time outdoors. If I didn't love you so much I'd tie you up and send you by train to Fargo so you can finally have a reason to wear your faux-fur lined, down jacket with matching scarf and mittens and bright yellow rubber snow boots! But that would be cruel, nobody deserves to be Fargoed.

The House-Spirit Connection

2007-10-10T09:55:00.000-05:00

When I was in Psych classes at Harding and ACU on of my favorite subjects was the "Mind-Body Connection." It is amazing what the mind can do. It can make you sick, it can heal you. There are even documented cases of women who want to be preggers so bad they fool their bodies, their stomachs grow, they lactate and they can even fool a chemical pee test. Amazing.

Now that I'm a home owner and live the bachelor life I've discovered the "House-Spirit Connection." When my house is dingy and cluttered I feel it dragging me down from afar and I live in fear of the dreaded "pop in." When it is clean I wake up peppy, I'm ready for people to drop in, I invite people over. Probably the best thing I've done for my social life is cleaning up my stupid house.

Concerning "pop-ins" I still fear them somewhat, I like my alone time. So here is my commitment to you. If my front porch light is on, you may pop in. If it is not, just keep walkin'. I may need another signal if you want to drop buy during the day Saturday or something.

Now my house isn't clean like Martha Stuart OCD clean, its just bachelor clean. But I think people expect a few dishes in my sink and books in little piles all over the house from me. If they can't accept it, they don't need to invade my fortress of solitude anyway!

I'm not taking very good care of my lawn, but I can sense something. I can see on the horizon another connection, "The Lawn-Machismo Connection."

Evolution of a Fan (Now with Pics)

2007-10-03T09:40:00.000-05:00

After a conversation with Lucion's wife I discovered we were both "Fans" of Harry Potter. Fans is in quotes because we had different meanings for this concepts. I've sense thought about it a lot. Here is what I believe to be the evolution of fandom. Evolution is probably incorrect its probably more of a scale, but many people progress on linearly so it might function like evolution. I'll provide two examples at each stage. One for Harry Potter and One for Comics and one for Lord of the Rings.

Stage 1 - Ignorance is bliss - This person is unaware of the media. This type of fan isn't really possible for Harry Potter or Spider-man unless you've been living in a cave.
HP - Quidi-what-ich?
Comics - Spider-who?
LotR - Hobbits? You mean midgets, right?

Stage 2 - Not a Fan - You are aware of the media but not a fan of it.
HP - Oh, Harry Potter, yeah, that kids thing.
Comics - Oh, yeah like Archie and Jughead.
LotR - Hmm... another movie about sword fighting.

Stage 3 - The Dabbler - A lot of noob fans start out but just putting their toes in the water.
HP - I've seen the first Harry Potter Movie.
Comics - I've seen the first Superman Movie.
LotR - I watched the animated Hobbit in High School English.

Stage 4 - The Sophomore - Once you get over the dabbler stage you think you're the bomb. But you truly are the "Wise Fool" They tend to say things true fans have heard a million times already.
HP - Well, you know JK really wanted a female protagonist!
Comics - If Superman really caught Lois when she fell off that helicopter, the force of him accelerating to catch her would be more forceful than letting her hit the pavement.
LotR - You know the One Ring is really the Atom Bomb don't you!

Stage 5 - The Devoted Fan - This fan could also be called the Cult Fan, or the Devotee. This stage everything about the thing you like is PERFECT! Criticism of your favorite thing is a sin.
HP - How dare you say JK was "stalling" during book seven just to artificially stretch it out to the Hogwarts Year 7 paradigm. She is a genius! She might be the next Buddha! She's not wrong! You are wrong!
Comics - The JSA is the definitive book about heroics in a dark time. It taught me how to be a better dad!
LOTR - The LOTR is the I Ching, the sum of all wisdom.

Stage 6 - The Fanboy - (Or Fangirl I guess.) - This is the fan who's awareness and love of a product has enlarged to include its flaws. This fan is defensive of others who dabble or criticize but might be the toughest critic of his chosen passion. This type of fan believes "If you love something set it free... then shoot at it with a shotgun!"
HP - YES! She stretched out the book. Yes! It was annoying that the best stuff in book 7 happened "off camera" at Hogwarts while the gang was mucking around in the wood. But it was a serious stroke of genius to be able to write a series to a growing, maturing audience.

Comics - Worst Issue Ever! (The Comic Book Guy is the quintessential Fanboy.)

LotR - My PRECIOUS!

SCS Homecoming 2007

2007-09-24T09:45:00.000-05:00

I haven't been to a homecoming since 1999 and I had intended never to go again. But much to my surprise I had an ok time.

I was persuaded to go becasue Kim had invited my Harding friend Booge to go with her. And then I found out James and Robyn were going too, so I had a posse together, going in alone would be suicide.

So much to my surprise I'm printing out an alumni ticket off the interweb (which they didn't even take from me).

It was weird being back on campus, every parking space belongs to someone with more money than me.

The alumni reception was on the other side of the field with some tents. They were serving fajita's which were good. They had this large white archway thingy set up in front of the sign in table. I didn't feel comfortable traveling under such a matrimonial looking thing so I went around the outside.

I had only RSVPed 3 hours previous so I knew they wouldn't have a pre-printed name tag for me so I told the lady I was "Greg Campbell." This served 3 purposes: 1) Nobody would know Trey was there. 2) As Greg I would receive a warm reception 3) When it came to light I wasn't Greg it would give me something to talk about besides the big three (job, wife, kids).

Of course, the real Greg Campbell showed up and blew my cover.

There weren't a lot of people there but I enjoyed talking to a few people I hadn't seen in a while. I also got to NOT enjoy talking to people I hadn't seen in a while.

Perhaps what made the evening so good is we left before the 1st Quarter was over. All in all we were there 45 minutes.

On the way out James and I discovered they had built a new fence around the field. There was no way to our parking place. We would have to walk in front of all the bleachers and behind the football team the entire length of the field to get out. So we just did it.

Then opportunity knocked: The cheerleading team was in our path in those two parallel lines they seem to like standing in. Should we go around? Behind? Nope, when opportunity knocks I answer. I lead the charge right between those two startled lines of cheerleaders.

"Watch out! Hot coffee here! Alumni coming through! Nice outfits girls! Like the new colors. Excuse us! On your right! Make way for Alumni!"

This of course was in full view of those people who make more money than me because good parking coincides with good seating near the cheerleaders.

Well, I've decreed I'll be back for Homecoming 2008! My 10 Year Reunion... ick! All you class of '98 peeps better show up. We'll stay for an hour then on to the after-party!

The question remains whose name tag should I snag next year?

More stollen blog ideas

2007-09-17T09:35:00.001-05:00

(For more info on stealing see my last post and the ensuing comments.)

This idea is lifted from Logan's Run!

Cat's have 3 Names:Their formal name, their informal name and a third name that only the cat knows.

This is like having a cat named P.J. Whiskerton but calling him Whiskers. You see there the formal and informal names at work. What you as is up with the 3rd mystery name?

You know when you call a cat and it totally ignores you? That's because right at that moment its only answering to that 3rd name.

I've warmed to the idea of owning a cat.

I've also warmed to the idea of giving myself a 3rd name that only I know. Sure you can call me Ervin Franklin Laminack III or you can call me Trey. But what if I'm only answering to my secret name, P.J. Whiskerton XVII? Only that not my real secret name.

Trey Solves the World's Problems: Illegal Immigration

2007-09-10T10:27:00.000-05:00

Today on "Trey Solves the Worlds Problems" Trey solves the problem of Illegal Immigration.

I suggest we build the TransAmerican Pedestrian Walkway. Its a giant footbridge that starts in Mexico, spans the entire United States then comes down in Canadia! See the genius of it? Then immigrants may skip over our country and become "undocumented workers" in Canadia!

There could be a big sign on the Mexico side that reads, "Looking for a better life, aye?"

Now everybody is happy. Everybody. Every-body. Which bodies are happy now? All of them!

Wait, come to think of it, this does not solves the world's problem with immigration it just solves America's problem. Oh well, take that CANADIA!

If Canadians in Canadia have a problem with it, let them build their own walkway to Iceland!

I wanna...

2007-09-08T11:10:00.001-05:00

I wanna shave half of my head.

I wanna cut someone off at the drive thru and eat their food.

I wanna pet snake.

I wanna moment to myself.

I wanna be surrounded by people.

I wanna fix my AC.

I wanna swimming pool.

I wan-out of my college debt.

I wanna new car.

I wanna Vespa.

I wanna video game that keeps my attention longer than one week.

I wanna be an airborne ranger.

I wanna play the guitar.

I wanna be in a band.

I wanna be struck by lightning.

I wanna drive slower.

I wanna be taller.

I wanna be thinner.

I wanna smell like the sea.

I wanna eat something I killed myself.

I wanna sleep til noon on Saturday.

I wanna be remembered fondly.

I wanna get my dander down.

I wanna hover by the seat of my pants.

I wanna be quotable.

I wanna dance more often but less often do so alone.

I wanna be free.

I wanna have an opportunity to stem the tide, but then decide the tide can do what it wants who am I to stem things.

I wanna go down swinging.

I wanna maid.

I wanna personal trainer.

I wanna personal shopper.

I wanna personal encounter from a personal add.

I wanna dress all in white.

I wanna black hat.

I wanna new groove, I'm not interested in getting my old one back.

I wanna new battery for my car's fob.

I wanna superpower.

I wanna supermarket that has more types of cheese.

I wanna superconductor.

I wanna conduct a symphony.

I wanna by a phony.

I wanna pony.

I wanna more money.

I wanna funny accent.

I wanna survive a place crash.

I wanna live alone on a desert island for 2 years until everyone thinks I'm dead and the bank gives up on my student loans.

I wanna sail.

I wanna get mail that isn't what my mail currently is.

I wanna burn bridges.

I wanna go to that place people talk about when they say "don't go there."

I wanna know which way to turn.

I wanna keep up, pass and leave the Joneses in my dust.

I wanna eat roast beef.

I wanna live inside a box so large I think I'm outside.

I wanna be the go to guy.

I wanna be left alone.

I wanna want less.

First Day of School

2007-08-27T10:11:00.001-05:00

I guess I'll play a little slow pitch and discuss the differences between your first day at school your in Junior High and your first day at school at college.

Night Before:
JH: In bed an hour early. Clothes laid out. Lunch packed
Col: In bed 4 hours before you have to be at class

Morning of:
JH: Wake up an hour earlier than normal in anticipation. Mom has prepared a breakfast featuring "brain food" and all 7 food groups. Dress to the 9's, take a photo holding lunch box.
Col: Wake up 15 minutes before class. Luckily clean clothes are available, try to look like you just woke up, shouldn't be hard.

First Day Classes:
JH: Teachers want to make a good first impression. Perhaps they have games or candy prepared but its time to "get to work" you start learning things immediately (usually what you forgot over the summer).
Col: "Syllabus Day" here is your syllabus... see you Wednesday.

Friends:
JH: Who are these new people?
Col: Where are the new people?

Biggest Fears:
JH: Public embarrassment
Col: Public anonymity.

Biggest Misconception:
JH: Everyone is watching everything I do.
Col: College will go on forever.

Lunch:
JH: Another dietitian prepared meal, featuring a encouraging note written on a napkin. Snack pack optional.
Col: Two chick-fil-a sandwiches, no fries, water to drink... also "lunch" is at 1:30pm.

Conflict:
JH: Boys fight in the schoolyard. Girls rip each other up emotionally with words.
Col: Boys fight on XBox. Girls rip each other up emotionally with text messages.

Homework:
JH: Reading list and diorama due in 4 weeks.
Col: The syllabus lists a lot of stuff but none of it is due next time you meet... therefore, nothing.

Boys/Girls:
JH: Girls only like slightly effeminate non-threatening boys (Zac Hefron). Boys are either oblivious or obsessed with girls.
Col: Freshman Girls are a hot commodity, single Senior Girls are desperate. Senior Boys are BMOCs, Fish boys have no chance.

After school:
JH: Tell mom everything that happened. Show off new books. Repeat stories when dad gets home.
Col: Nap.

20 Things about Maggie.

2007-08-22T10:28:00.000-05:00

Given that lots of my blog community has done the 100 things about themselves. I think its time to put a twist on it. Obviously 100 would be too long, so I settle on 20. Who better to start with than my oldest friend Maggie Inlow. I'm trying to do things she didn't already mention in her 100. This is a dangerous game though, you want to be honest, and not just blow smoke at them.

20 Things about Maggie (Maggie has a link on the Right side of this page to her blog.)

1. There is a picture of Maggie and I kissing poolside. We were both 2.
2. I knew something was up with Maggie and the Intern, they later married.
3. Maggie is able to talk me into almost anything.
4. Maggie is the most uninhibited person I know.
5. Maggie is one of the happiest people I know.
6. Numbers 4 and 5 are related I'm sure.
7. Mags is simultaneously a good gossip and secret-keeper.
8. Maggie and I went to school together 11 of 14 years from K-Freshman Year at College.
9. Maggie can remember the names of all our elementary school teachers we had. *
10. I guarantee Maggie can sing the entire school song for JT Stevens maybe know the words to the SCS Song. **
11. Maggie did not get along with her dorm mom at Harding.
12. Maggie's favorite flowers are tulips.***
13. Maggie causes people to relax around her.
14. Maggie is a good hostess.****
15. Maggie can make this little sandwiches wrapped up in tin foil that I love.
16. Maggie was once in a singing group called "Inner Voice"*****
17. Maggie will occasionally use new words she has just heard out of context.******
18. Maggie was a High School drama star! "Turn back, old man!"
19. Maggie has "Faith like a Child"*******

20. Maggie will NOT stand for dry pallet.

* I cannot.

**Nobody knew the words to the SCS song. "Our father... mumble... mumble... and lead in ... mumble... our Christian School." (She may prove me wrong.)

*** At least they were in High School, do girls taste in flowers ever change or is it set in stone?

*** This is an exception to her normal disorganized state. For a party she'll get the details down.

***** "If if you have have not heard your Inner Voices"
****** For example: I once told Maggie she was "wailing like a banshee". She took that to mean adding "like a banshee" to the end of something made it more emphatic. Later that day she was "hungry like a banshee" an expression I still use. Maggie has no fear of using words in this way. If its wrong its just funnier and she rolls with it.
******* I'm not saying she's childish or her faith is immature or frivolous. I'm saying when she believes she BELIEVES, without equivocation! (Maggie be careful how you use the word equivocation.)

OK Mags, consider yourself Tagged but you can't do me, pay it forward.

100 Things about Trey

2007-08-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

Emily tagged me and I'm not sure if I'm doing this right or not. I think its stuff you may not know about me. It seems like 100 things is a very large and a very small number.

1. I am brutally honest. (I know people say that a lot and mean it as a cool thing about them. Most of them are lying about it anyway. But when I say "brutally honest" I mean it as a character flaw that I have trouble controlling.)
2. My name is Ervin Franklin Laminack III
3. <--- Trey means "the Third" or 3. It is used in poker and roullete jargon. Trey is kind of a formal nickname on par with "Junior" 4. My dream job is author. 5. My favorite hobby is reading. 6. I am a habitual collector. 7. I suffer from male Playboy Bunny Syndrome. (Nobody asks them out because they assume someone that attractive would be taken and busy.) Usually I'm at home reading and find out later about stuff I missed. 8. I can perform a psychic cold reading. I am not psychic but neither are most psychics. 9. I'm learning how to do handwriting analysis. 10. There was a stretch when I 5-10 years old where I vomited at least one or twice a week. I did not have an eating disorder, I had an undiagnosed sinus condition. 11. I may be the 2nd worse spelled in the world. No you are not #1. 12. I stole an inflatable moose head from one of my professors at ACU, I named him "Madeinchina." 13. My father once made me apologize to the manager of a hardware store for stealing one tenpenny nail I found on the floor of the hardware store and took home with us.
14. I've never seriously proposed to any women.
15. I have asked Kelly Sargent to marry me over the phone. She just laughed. Ouch.
16. I plan on forming an exploratory committee do find myself a wife, but the paperwork is holding me back.
17. I can juggle.
18. I am addicted to video games. Currently my favorite online game is "Vector Tower Defense" I rank in the top 10 high scorers as "DrCreep"
19. I read a comic book every week.
20. I know all the rules to Dungeons and Dragons Editions 1 thru 3.5
21. I am a dork or a geek depending on mood.
22. I taught statistics during college as a G.A. and T.A. I understand multicollinearityand MANCOVA tests. But sometimes it takes me a second to figure out was 6 times 7 seven is.
23. I wanted to be an astronaut as a child.
24. My biggest fear is dying without having been a father.
25. I am not tidy, but I know were things are.
26. I once ate 12 blazing wings in under six minutes with no drink or dipping sauce to get on the wall of flame at BWW. My lips burned for hours.
27. I look Latin classes in elementary school, German in Middle School, Spanish in High School and Greek in College. Of these I speak Greek the best.
28. I formed a fake club at Harding and named it Super Chi. Its symbol was a superman symbol but with an X in the middle.
29. My favorite ice cream is Cookies and Cream.
30. My favorite food is Tex-Mex. (Adding Tex means there is cheese melted on everything and flour instead of corn tortillas.) Runner up is Buffalo Wings.
31. I consider myself an excellent dance. I'm credited with inventing "The Hammer." The secret to good dancing is a lack of shame and practicing in a mirror.
32. I am a member of Psy Chi, the National Honor Society of Pyschology Student.
33. I usually think I'm cyclothymic.
34. Sometime I think I'm kidding myself about cyclothymic and think I'm full on Bipolar. Then I think my psych training has gotten the better of me and I'm probably not either, I'm just hungry.
35. I would spoil my nieces and nephew more if I had more money.
36. I wanted to be a Youth Minister when I was 18. When I did my first internship I decided I didn't like teenagers at all.
37. I consider my 2 years at ACU grad school my "Time of Jonah" when I was trying to run away from being a minister. It didn't work any better for me than it did for Jonah.
38. I have been known by the nicknames: Wondermop, Mojo, T-Dawg, Old Dog Trey, Chilly Mac, T-Lizzle and maybe a feew others. Some of which lasted a long time and some only a little while.
39. I can play the Ukulele... did I already say that?
40. I don't know anybody's birthday but my own and Jesus'. (Yes, I know we don't know Jesus' b-day.)
41. I bought my first CD when I was 17 it was Green Day. (I had a few before then but they were gifts or loaners.)
42. I'm prone to speeding.
43. My dream job is author.
44. My biggest problem is being self-defeating.
45. I have started writing over 100 books only to quit when I thought they didn't measure up to what I thought they should be. I've thought of trying to publish a book with 100 first chapters of books.
46. I once swallowed a live goldfish.
47. I am an archer.
48. I don't work out or eat right.
49. I've saved nothing for retirement.
50. I probably won't need to save for retirement because my poor diet and exercise routine will probably kill me sooner.
51. I worry that the earth will become overpopulated due to increases in medical science, agriculture and globalization and that one day the shoe will drop and a billion people will starve to death.
52. I was president of my High School Student body and National Honor Society.
53. I don't take pictures of things besides church events, and then I get someone else to do it.
54. I can eat the same type of food two days in a row without throwing a hissy fit. (Order something different people).
55. If a place doesn't have Diet Coke I get angry if they serve me Diet Pepsi without saying so. I'd prefer tea or water.
56. I have reoccurring nightmare where an armed man holds our church hostage until one of us sacrifices himself. I volunteer and get shot.
57. I fantasize about winning the lottery. It always includes giving money to churches and setting up scholarships for my nieces and nephew before I go crazy.
58. My fridge at home rarely has solid food. Currently only ketchup, mustard, pickles and take out so old it has its own email address.
59. My fridge always contains cold drinks.
60. I am self-effacing. I hate people who hear me make fun of myself then repeat it back to me as an attack. At least be original in your hate speech.
61. I could have been a used are salesman but I hate the sun.
62. It was hard but I found a job were ADD is an asset.
63. I want to vacation to NY,NY and the Northwest because I think they're cool and because I have friends there.
64. Top 3 things I look for in a woman: Beauty, Sense of Humor, Potentially a Good Mom.
65. I might crumble into a pile of Trey-dust if I didn't have Tuesday-Boy's-Nights.
66. My morning routine can take between 10 minutes and an hour... based on #33.
67. I have voted in every election (major and minor) since I turned 18.
68. I'd vote Libertarian if it wasn't throwing my vote away, hence I vote Republican.
69. I have a lot of toys in my office. People come in and get distracted playing. Its interesting to see how people react to my toys.
70. I've never eaten sushi! There I said it. I've lied about eating it for years! The truth is out, free at last, free at last.
71. I don't intend to eat sushi ever. I think you sushi people are just trendy posers.
72. I talk to myself when alone and often sing and dance around the house, often just singing jibberish.
73. I always want what I can't have. (I'm suddenly tempted to eat sushi. I was just thinking about the valid oriental tradition of eating sushi, and the fact that Travis eats it and he's not a poser.)
74. Ann says I have a warped sense of humor. I said, "Hello Pot, this is the kettle. You're black." (A joke I invented but Jeff has since stolen and quoted back to me on my facebook.)
75. I think I'm too old for facebook and myspace, I have both.
76. I feel shackled by people expectations to be interesting, funny and/or intelligent.
77. Sometimes I'm boring, humorless and stupid.
78. I daydream a lot. Sometimes about Ninja attacks and sometimes about hypothetical social situations and what I might say in them that is interesting, funny and smart.
79. Given the choice between moving it or losing it, I choose lose it.
80. I had a school counsel and nurse double team me one time on my need to get on ADD meds. They had told me about the meeting 2 days in advance and I did my research. I told them to pull up a copy of my report card: All A's in classes. I told them it wasn't impairing my academic functioning and I didn't want to take needless drugs. This stymied them. I had read a book in the Library about over medicating children. I think they intended to convince me to convince my parents because I talked too much in class.
81. I tend to get to writing and write too long. (see # 80)
82. Top 5 inventions: Printing press, TiVo, Air Conditioning, Internet, Blue Cheese Dressing.
83. I want a smallish dog badly.
84. I work surrounded by women.
85. I'm unsure what to name my future son (if #24 doesn't happen). Can I in good conscience name a kid Ervin Franklin Laminack IV?
86. I've planned my own funeral.
87. My Top 3 Shows you probably don't watch: Flight of the Concords, Frisky Dingo, Metalocalypse. You tube them.
88. The most expensive pair of shoes I own are sandals.
89. My clothes need only meet two standards: Cleanliness and modesty. Fashion and Archaic traditions don't matter. I can tie a tie but I don't like to. It serves no function other than aid children in strangling me.
90. I read a lot! I've said that already but it bears repeating.
91. I'm certain once I finish this list I'll think of 20 better things to put on it.
92. I often suffer from buyers remorse.
93. You know that feeling after an argument or conversation when on the ride home you think of the perfect thing to say. That never happens to me. I always know the perfect thing to say when I need it. (But Tom Hanks was right in "You've Got Mail" this power has a drawback, you throw out a zinger and become Mr. Nasty then feel bad later.)
94. I'd like to own a large hunk of land in the country on a lake. Secluded, nature-ish, but with a cabin with AC, Internet, Tivo and Blue Cheese dressing.
95. I think I would make an excellent Judge or politician, I'm unbribable.
96. I can solve a Rubik's cube in 5 minutes or less. (It used to be 2 minutes or less but I'm out of practice.)
97. I think the Human Brain is the most amazing thing ever!
98. I'm a sinner.
99. I'm a Christian.
100. I think the Reformation call that started the CofC did not reach its target. I believe the we can be the 1st Century church but aren't yet. We made some progress, stopped and adopted new traditions.

Well there it is. I had trouble with the formatting. It kept wanting to put 3 spaces between the #'s or make it all one huge paragraph.

Advice for Billy Mitch McB

2007-08-14T09:55:00.000-05:00

Dear B.M. McB,

I thought I'd pass on a little advice, so watch your step because I'm about to drop some knowledge on you. (Although you don't walk or crawl so you don't have to watch your step. Also I won't drop it on you because I'm afraid of they soft spot on your head so I'll drop some knowledge adjacent to you.)

1) On TV: Don't let your parents make you a Baby-Einstein-Zombie. Recent studies show kids who watch that have a worse vocabulary than kids who watch what their parent's were watching. I think you'll like Lost although its slow pace and your short attention span might be a problem. Also, don't feel bad because you are still going to watch some Baby Einstein stuff, your parents need a break, and I'm sure its not bad in small doses. But parent's have been letting their kids do dangerous things for hundreds of years. When I was a kid we were allowed to watch Pee Wee Herman and sing along to Michael Jackson, this was a time before "To Catch a Predator" we didn't know any better.

2) On your Name: Don't stress over your name. At some point every body dislikes their name (trust me I know). Your parent's named you William Mitchell McBroom you think you got it bad, my name is Ervin Franklin Laminack III, I sound like secretary of the interior for 1805! Luckily I've already solved part of this problem for you by calling you Billy Mitch! What I wouldn't give for someone to have started calling me Vin (short for Ervin) twenty years ago!

3) Dealing with your mother: for the next two years I suggest you lay low and focus on being REALLY cute! You basically are dependant and you'll want to have put a lot of coins in your mom's cute-bank before you get to be a bother. After waiting two years I suggest you really freak out royally during your two's. Its the one time in your life you can be totally obnoxious and people will just shrug it off, unless you turn out like your maternal grandfather. Luckily you have a great mom.

4) Dealing with dad: A bond between father and son is powerful and unspoken. By this I mean don't expect to talk to him a lot. You have it good with your dad because he's not a uber-jock-make-my-son-play-football-in-the-womb kind of guy, so it'll be ok if you play video games. Actually asking your dad to play Wii will probably be the equivalent of asking him to play catch. But secretly every dad wants their son to be an athlete, so if you go Jock or Nerd you are covered. If you decide to go Jock may I suggest a sport: Curling. I think a curling champion named McBroom would be awesome. Or maybe Soccer, you could be "the McSweeper!"

5) On communication: Cry early, cry often. Until you can talk its the best you can hope for. When you can talk, ask a lot of questions that nobody could possibly answer. When possible, sing. Of course even if it is crying or talking or singing 90% of communication is non-verbal. Learn to throw things off your plate, make mean faces and pass gas.

6) On the diaper: Yes its degrading but its worse for your parents than it is for you. Try to hold back the really nasty one for when its your "dad's turn" to change you.

7) On shiny objects: Immediately put them in your mouth, swallow if possible.

8) On parents: It's guerrilla warfare. It's you verses them. All is fair in love and war, and this is both so go nuts. You must be the dominate life form in your environment before you are 7 or it'll never happen. By 15 you should be living in the master bedroom.

9) On grandparents: Payday baby! These strange hairy organisms will be a great source of pleasure. They'll want to spoil you and you will try to encourage this. Act differently around them, don't show them your mean face and don't swallow pennies in their presence. You are not at war with them, they are your allies against your parents. Even if they never gave their kids a dime they will think nothing of giving you $20 bucks just because its Thursday. The only war you should encourage is between your two sets of grandparents. Make them vie for your affection. The real trick here is the "1st Hug" Reward, eventually you hug them all, but if you are in a gathering with both sets of grandparents run up to the one who has given you something most recently and hug them and say, "Thanks for the Valentine's Card with MONEY in it Grandpsy!" This will cause the other grandpa to reach for his wallet. Also develop overly cute nick-names for your Grandparents. DO NOT ACCEPT PRE-CANNED NICK NAMES. If they want you to call her Gamma you mess it up in a cute way and call her Granola! (Better bland food than deadly radiation.)

Most of my advice is for your first few years, I better give you a jump start on the rest of your life. Early detection is key to survival.

10) On girls: I've spent a lot of thought and blog time to this topic. Let me be brief. Look for one that is "Acceptably Crazy." None of them are sane. None. If they seem sane they are just the worst kind of crazy that waits to spring after you're married or they are really a man. Knowing they are all crazy look for one that is "Acceptably crazy." And... avoid red head unless you have strong hand.

Good luck kid,
Uncle Trey

Thoughts on Change

2007-08-08T09:50:00.000-05:00

Tolstoy said "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in this world."
Heraclitus said "Nothing endures but change."

I particularly like the ancient Greek's thought on this. Particularly when you think about how much more durable change is than folding money. Paper money doesn't hold up well in the wash, even though its not actually paper but cloth.

Thoughts on Change:

The Quarter is the king of change. Universally useful and about the only change people are ever really happy to receive. Used to be, one would get you a phone call and two would get you a coke but these things are... changing. With the advent of the 50 states quarters all I can say is "Long live the KING!"

The Penny is probably the most noble and under appreciated of all coinage. I've known people who throw them away. I have to admit I've done it before, I swept the house, got dust bunnies from under the couch along with a few crunch berries and a penny or two. Looking down into the horrible mess in the dust pan I consider fishing out the 2 cents, but... alas... I sent Honest Abe to the trash can. Still there is something noble and cool about pennies. After all everyone likes a shiny one, and we all are on the lookout for a lucky one.

The Nickle is the most masculine of all loose change. Robust and stout. It also doesn't mess around with that girly decorative ridges around the edge. It is smooth like that. Also Buffalo Nickles are really cool and macho as well.

The Dime is the feminine yin to the nickles masculine yang. I'm tempted to call the dime "fruity." The dime has an identity crisis, worth more than a nickle its smaller, slimmer more easily lost in the couch. For Pete's sake its smaller than the penny. Also it doesn't have it's own color scheme like the Penny doesn't, weak. The Dime probably gets picked on by other coins in your pocket.

The Susan B Anthony Dollars is a joke. Its way to close in size to the quarter. Strangely when you mistake it for a quarter you should be pleased to discover its worth 4 times as much, but usually I'm annoyed that this feminist little coin is such an odd duck it isn't even round. I say lets melt down these coins and end women's sufferage (but that's a rant for another time).

The Sacagawea dollar is doomed to not take off for another ten years, America isn't ready for large increment coinage like Europe, we also still don't like soccer. But this large gold coin is a great improvement over the Suzy. The only hurdle left is to get people to stop pronouncing it "Sock-uh-JEW-ee-uh" and start saying it correctly "Sah-COG-uh-way-uh." Every time I hear that over stresses "JEW" in her name 1/32nd of my heritage feels oppressed. Why don't you just wrap my gold dollar coin in a small pox blanket.

The Fifty Cent Piece... do they still make these?

And I'll end with another misleading quote about that other kind of change by Robert frost:

"Most of the change we think we see in life

Is due to truths being in and out of favor."

Girls Lock-In

2007-08-06T09:44:00.000-05:00

You may be wondering why I was at a "Girls only" lock-in. But I was there to basically be a slave.

6pm - Start making Chocolate Fondue. Turns out one of the AC units was out so it was very hot.

7pm - Girls Arrive - I'm still cooking fondue, nuggets and fries. The interns have prepped plates of stuff to dip in chocolate. The interns are keeping the girls busy playing "take a hike," they do silly things like "If you think Lindsey and Leah rock, take a hike!"

7:30pm - Dinner begins. We have Chic-fil-a nuggets and store bought fries that I cook to perfection. The kids think they are "real" fries. They were tottally GBD.

8:00pm - The food it took me an hour and a half to eat is totally devoured in 25 minutes. The girls loved it. I was left with the cleaning. 3 fondue pots and three crock pots are now coated in chocolate. I begin to scrub over the sink.

9:00pm - I'm done scrubbing and the girls are doing Karaoke. The girls ask me to sing a song and I do that thing were I pretend to be shy for 30 seconds, "No I couldn't... I'm not ready... ok fine!" I begin my song by saying, "I dedicate this to song to the two greatest interns ever... Kelly Sargent and Rachel White." My current interns didn't think this was as funny as I did. I sang Proclaimers "500 Miles" with edited lyrics. "When I get done, I know I'm going to be. I'm going to be..."

10:00pm - Crafts. I make a bracelet. With lime green, chocolate and teal beads. People were jealous of it.

Midnight - I make my leave before the devo starts.

6am - Time to make the donuts. I run pick up donuts, OJ and Moo Juice so the girls can have breakfast at 7am. The parents begin arriving at 7:30 and the last one is gone by 8:30.

If was a very girly two days.

I promise my next post will be more pointless than this one.

What to read after Harry Potter?

2007-07-24T09:47:00.000-05:00

There are some people who weren't really readers before HP. They didn't know the dispair of a book release date two years in the future or the jubilation of its eventual release. Hopefully these people will become more that Harry Potter Readers, they'll become Readers, open to books that don't involve Hogwarts. (Although, I've already heard comments like "I'm done with book 7, now I won't have to read ever again.")

Well here are a few suggestions, if you liked Harry Potter you will probably find more books you like.

1) The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien - Another book for young adult readers, follow Bilbo Baggins all over middle-earth in his hunt for treasure. Followed by...

2) The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien also - You probably saw the movie but the books reads pretty differently. These are definitely written on a more adult level than the Hobbit and HP.

3) Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card - Ok, here is a book without any wizards in it, I know its shocking but you will probably love it! It does have kids and a special school, instead of a train there is a shuttle to get there. This is one of my Top 5 of all time. This book revolves around Ender Wiggin and his admittance into Battle School, were children are taught to be the military commanders of tomorrow. (I know you're thinking "Science Fiction barf!" but science fiction and fantasy are essentially the same genre, you just replace "magic" with "technology" to make miraculous things happen.)

4) The Once and Future King - T. H. White - Back to Wizards, the story of young King Arthur's rise to power. A classic. This book is so good Magneto reads it while he is in prison during X-Men 2.

5) Eragon - by Paolini - DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE... it stunk. But the book is fantastic. A young boy finds a dragon eggs, which are thought to be extinct. This book is for young adults and was written by one. (Of course some of you grown up who've only ever read Harry Potter books might consider yourself a young adult readers even if your 25.)

Well there are 5 books (if you count LotR as one which I do.). And don't give me that "how long are they" business. You just read 750 pages in one weekend!

I'll wait a few weeks before I talk about Harry Potter to allow people to read and digest.

Low in the grave I lay

2007-07-22T10:05:00.000-05:00

Tuesday we had the Teddy Bear Tea party and I suspect one of our little princesses passed on their child germs to me. I started to sweat (not uncommon) and cough (actually uncommon). Thus began my tale of sickness.

I got home around 5 and hit the sack and slept in fevered way until 9pm. Then I got up shock myself, took two Advil and went back to sleep.

Wednesday morning, my condition had worsened. Now I was running a fever and had trouble taking deep breaths without fits of coughing. I began to medicate with Alkaseltzer and Nyquil.

I became a real Alkaseltzer connoisseur. Tablets disolved in water lost their zing. So I tried it with Sprite, Orange Juice (nasty), and Orange Gatorade (not bad).

Wednesday evening I went to CVS and bought foodstuffs, I only had pickle juice and tamales from last Christmas.

Thursday was the day for being either sweaty or shivering cold. And my dreams were nightmares were a laticwork would encompass and overtake anything that my brain thought of. If I thought of a person he would appear then get eaten by the strange mechanical framework. It sounds stange to read it now, but at the time it was terrifying. The machine was testing me, anything I loved it took from me.

I awoke and had to check my phone to determine it was friday. I had a bried period of lucidity, followed by a crash into teeth chattering coldness. Sometime on thursday I had gone to the doctor but don't remember driving. I took the perscription and drank it as regulalrly as I could. It was horrible. I allowed myself to swish and spit but not swallow.

Saturday, I woke and showered and convinced myself I should go buy Harry Potter. I make it back alive. I slept and read, slept and read. Sunday I woke and felt like a shadow of myself, but came to church. I've returned to the land of the living.

Harry Potter: The Final Predictions

2007-06-29T20:30:00.002-05:00

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT

2 Years Ago I made Predictions about Book 7 Here is the Link

Here Are My Updated Predictions:
(BE WARNED I MIGHT SPOIL THE ENDING FOR YOU.)

1. Harry Potter - Odds of survival 50/50. I've calmed down some from my certainty 2 years ago that Harry will die. Instead, I believe he will sacrifice himself to kill Voldermort and think that he's going to die. So he gets credit for the sacrifice without having to die. A lot of people seem sure he's a horcrux and I guess that pretty likely, it explains why Lord V doesn't want anyone to kill him. Also, Harry becomes an Auror.

2. Voldermort - Dead meat... Harry will kill him with help... more on that later.

3. Ron - Gets together with Hermione finally no surprise. Ron may not have what it takes to be a Auror so he'll have to follow his dad into the ministry. But JKR will make "important" by Ron vowing to "clean it up." During book 7 he'll help by being Harrry's pal.

4. Hermoine - Get together with Ron. But she is actually helpful in her research into the horcruxes in book 7.

5. Ginny - Gets together with Harry, this is as obvious as R&H's romance. She liked him, he was oblivious. He liked her, she was oblivious. They were friends. Love is all that's left, if he survives.

6. Snape - Not a bad guy. He'll help Harry and another mystery person kill Voldermort.

7. R.A.B. - Regulus Black. They'll even give him a middle name. Serius thought he was dead but he might have died in an attempt to undermine V.

8. Wormtail - He owes a huge debt to Harry for saving his life. So what'll he do? What he does best, snivel and listen in the shadows. He will help Harry take down his boss so he can get out from under him. So the trifecta is Harry/Snape/Wormtail vs. Voldermort.

9. Neville - Will beat and likely kill Bellatrix Lestrange for killing his 'rents. He'll actually show some competence in, he showed a few signs of improvement in 5&6 and 7 will show him being really tough!

10. Quidditch - There won't be any in book 7.

VBS Nights 3&4

2007-06-29T20:30:00.001-05:00

Also went well.

VBS Nights 1&2!

2007-06-19T11:56:00.000-05:00

What a great couple of days. 2 Minor Miracles have happened thus far:

1) The Water from the Rock really only worked well ONCE! Luckily that once was during the performance.

2) We had to be under 40 minutes of footage for the video in the Night 2 or we might suffer loss of video! Our last practice ran 45 minutes. The actual performance took 39 minutes and 33 seconds!

God is clearly with this production and I've been amazed the number of visitors we've been getting this year!

Thank all of you cast, crew and teachers who are making it happen.

Want to be part of the fun? Bring cookies on WEDNESDAY! See you tonight!

VBS Tonight thru Wednesday!

2007-06-17T10:32:00.000-05:00

Hope to see you all there for Joshua: Shout to the Lord.

Night One features Moses, the 10 Commandments and water from the Rock!

Night Two features the 12 spies (10 were bad and two were good), the Wilderness Wandering, and the Intro to Rahab

Night Three includes more Rahab and the crossing of the Jordan River

And Night Four the walls of Jericho fall down!

Yes, I ran out of Gas

2007-06-15T10:19:00.000-05:00

Har Dee Har Har! Yes, it's a laugh riot. What a buffoon. What a stooge.

Of course, my humiliation was made complete in that Luke was a witness to my folly. In fact, about ten minutes previous he said, "Hey, we're on E."

And I said, "Bah! We'll be fine," with an air of hubris!

Ca-chunka! Ca-chunka! And we're stopped in the right hand lane of Miller near Jupiter.

Reaction of other cars: Honk! Honk! Curse! Curse! Honk! Honk! Need help? Honk! Curse! Finger! Honk! Need our cell phone? Honk! Honk!

Those who saw us stop were really angry. Those who came across us later were usually pretty nice.

All in all I spent about 12 hours in a U-Haul yesterday. I went to Fort Worth for Bricks, Dallas for Lighting and N.Garland for Shirts.

Pictures

2007-06-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Ok, so mine isn't a "picture blog", its a word blog, but here are a few pics. (I can't rotate the pics, please tilt head to the right.)

Here is the before picture of a bust of Shakespear.

Hereis the after picture... he is now an idol to Baal.

Also here is a picture of what happens to Chocolate Frogs if they are left on my laptop overnight.

Tower of Babel Poetry: "The Threshhold and the Critic"

2007-05-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

Today I tried to translate something into Spanish online and it turns out I turned "No need to RSVP, it's FREE!" into "Not necessary to hold self in place, there is FREEDOM!" This Got me thinking about a new Tower of Babel Poem.

For those who forget check the links, but it basically is an original poem I translate online into another language, then back into English. If its good enough for stereo instructions its good enough for poetry right? (Some poetic licence taken)

Tower of Babel Version
"The Threshold and The Critic" By Trey Laminack and Babel Fish.

Some of opinion, God closes a door then opened is a window
Nut I find the devil that hopes, you know
Yearning for to land a blow upon the window, closed in his knuckles
How he obtains this task and drowned laughter?
He sends to his spies to criticize

"Working difficultly or difficultly working"
Some investigate whereas some make faces
What you must, you do, you do not know?
Do violence to the open window with its elbow, breakage
It does what I discovered, cuts his eye covers.

Spanish Online Translation
"el umbral y la crítica"
Algunos dicen cuándo el dios cierra una puerta que él abre una ventana
pero me encuentre es diablo que espera, usted sabe
anhelando cerrar de golpe la ventana cerrada en sus nudillos
cómo él logra esta tarea y risa ahogada
él envía a sus espías para criticar

"¿trabajando difícilmente o apenas trabajando?"
investigan mientras que hacen muecas
qué debe usted hace, usted no sabe?
rotura violenta la ventana detrás abierta con su codo
haga lo que hice, corte sus párpados.

Original English Poem:
"The Doorway and Criticism"

Some say when God closes a door he opens a window
But I find the is devil waiting, you know
Yearning to slam the window shut on your knuckles
How does he accomplish this task and chuckle
He sends his spies to criticize

"Working Hard or Hardly Working?"
They Inquire while grinning
What should you do, don't you know?
Smash the window back open with your elbow
Do what I did, cut off his eyelids.

RIP: "Working Hard or Hardly Working?" Eulogy for a dead joke.

2007-05-22T09:02:00.000-05:00

Once before I retired/buried a joke, the annoying camo joke "I can't see you, where'd you go?"

Today another joke is being retired, and by retired I mean retired like a horse is retired to a glue factory. This joke is so overused it's become hackneyed, cliched and very vexing.

Somebody sticks their head into your office/cubicle/mad-bomber-shack and says, "Hey! You working hard or hardly working?" This is usually the office Alec Baldwin who takes it upon himself to keep tabs on what everyone else is doing instead of actually working himself. In it's most evolved form, this one liner is accompanied by "the wink and the gun." Where you wink and point one finger at the victim of your lack of creativity. Getting the combo of bad joke and wink/gun is probably what made you want to become a mad-bomber in the first place.

"Working hard or hardly workin'?"

Yes, you've said it before, I've said it before, everybody's said it before. Ergo, it is DEAD! A large part of the reason I like to put jokes out of their misery is that the quality of person who says it has dropped below acceptable standards. Whoever said that joke the first time was probably a comic genius. Then it got out into the public and the quick witted picked it up and repeated it. But now its been in syndication so long that even the dim-witted have learned it by rote memorization (even if they don't know what it means it always gets a polite chuckle, which, for the dim, is enough.)

Recently a man who I can't name but I think of as "that meathead" popped his head in and shot this one off and I thought, this joke deserves better. So, much like Cervantes killed of Don Quixote to prevent lesser writers from writ ting bad stories about him, I'm putting an end to "Working Hard or Hardly Working."

But I can't leave you with an empty spot in your already shallow joke reservoir, now can I? So I'll provide a few replacements. I guess the intent of this joke is two fold:
1) Be rude and point out that for the 1/10th of a second you walked by somebodies office they don't appear to be working. (THINKING IS WORKING!)
2) Cement in someones mind that you know some clever word play, or are a jerk or something.

So here are my replacement jokes. You poke your head into somebodies office and say:

"I heard putting your on the feet desk helps prevent heel spurs, do you have heel spurs?"
"Behold the habitat the endangered North American sloth, he's a beauty."
"Quick the boss is coming! Look busy!" Then quickly pull out of view and wait for a frantic shuffling sound from inside.
"Hey you bum, I make more money than you."
"Is this a bad time? I know if you don't get to daydream about ninjas for an hour each day your doctor said you'd have a seizure."
"So you're the one working on that big 'How You-Tube Can Save our Company' report I've been hearing so much about."
"Don't pull a muscle buddy." (This is my fave due to its brevity. Also you can substitute words for buddy to change it up. Try: champ, slugger, and bossman.)

And if someones asks you "Working Hard or Hardly Working" just shake your head and quickly draw in a hiss of breath and say, "Didn't you hear?" Shake head slowly. "That joke is dead." Stand up put one hand on Alec Baldwin's shoulder. "It came as a shock to me, too." Hug. "Let it out. Let it out." Tell them to read my blog.

Things I just realized...

2007-05-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

I just realized I should have bought that townhouse instead of the house with the big yard.

I just realized my glasses have been very crooked for more than a week, and nobody said a word.

I just realized I'm much too aware of my thinking, and my thinking about my thinking.

I just realized Craig and Tama had their last Sunday in Bible Hour.

I just realized I want a dog, and I guess I'll need that yard after all.

I just realized I've been getting to work 5 minutes later every month for 6 months.

I just realized I'm ok dying alone, its the living alone that gets to you.

I just realized my niece has a My Space.

I just realized that everything comes easy to me and this has become a problem for me.

I just realized I haven't tied or untied my shoes in a month, they've become slip-ons.

I just realized I rationalize a lot about how bad I eat and I'm going to die from it one day... possibly alone.

My one good Kent Brown Story

2007-05-15T10:37:00.000-05:00

Kent brown is the father of two of my friends from High School Josh and Kyle. He was pretty involved in the youth group and I particularly recall him going on High School Adventure with us the 1st year. (That's Wilderness Trek if you don't know.)

When you pack they tell you to carry 25% of your body weight in your pack. If that were true Kent must have weighted 800 pounds! He started with a heavy pack and all along the trail he started carrying more stuff for people who were having trouble. One of those was yours truly.

I was not prepared for the physical challenge that Kent seemed to revel in. I think he carried most of my tent. (And my group couldn't afford those high tech ultralight jobs, we were using somebody's uncle army surplus tent which was heavy.)

He also made it to base camp well ahead of most of us and dropped off his stuff and doubled back to help. Basically making the trip twice over and always in good spirits. I had become pretty surly due to the exertion and the proximity to the sun on the mountain.

At base camp Kent had his tent up quickly but then made the rounds getting everyone set up. I remember he help us city boys without making us feel useless. He said something that made it seem like the tent being in a knot was the tent's fault and not ours. "These old things are tricky."

When we had our evening devotional focus shifted to Scott Shepherd and people were thanking him for making the trip happen. Nobody thanked Kent, and he was happy to be out of the spotlight and let Scott have the attention so he could teach us. I'm tempted to side trail onto a story Cary Bransum tells about me on this trip, the infamous "Get him!" Story but for once I'd like to keep the focus on Kent.

Even though I wasn't very close to Kent I can see the effect he's had on the lives of his kids, his family and his church. Kent was a man you could count on, who helped without being asked and who raised an amazing Christian family.

Kent passed away in New Orleans a week ago, he was working to rebuild. His funeral was attended by the Who's Who of my spiritual life. And I can see how he had an effect on them, and they in turn on me., and with God's help from me onto my kids.

Addendum: Check out Ryan's blog for a pic from this trip. Ryan says, "Note Trey's surliness and Kent's smile."