Nasferatu

This whole story about the Whitehouse party-crashers has got to have the all-time world record for highest coverage-to-importance ratio by now, right? I don't even watch the news all that much and I'm sick of it. I just watched some idiot senator from New York rant on Fox News* for a full five minutes about how The Administration Needs To Accept Responsibility.

How is it even physically possible for anyone to give even a tiny fraction of a fucklet about this? Even the Tiger Woods car crash story is more interesting, as evidenced by this 100% accurate Chinese news reenactment:




* Yeah, yeah, I didn't pick it, it was just what was on in the doctors' lounge.

Can someone explain to me how, in stores that sell clothing, it became the Unquestioned Proper Way To Do Things to put the smaller/shorter sizes on the higher shelves, and the larger sizes--that, say, tall people might buy--at the bottom? Is this not completely, idiotically backwards? Is there no retailor alive willing to let logic rule the day?

This is an exhaustive list of what is acceptable for inclusion in tuna salad:

• Tuna
• Mayonnaise
• Salt, pepper, and maybe other flavorings in granular form (this is key)
• Possibly chopped celery, if you're the type that insists on having some "texture" (I'm not in this camp, personally)

This is a list of what (in addition to the above) I found in a sandwich labeled "tuna salad" by whichever disingenuous entity catered today's lunchtime conference:

• Big chunks of red onions
• Scallions
• Capers (I think....they could potentially have been peas)
• Pecans
• Apples

Seriously, now, people.....part of coexisting in a society is adherence to certain standards of decency. Slapping that mess on a potato roll and calling it a "tuna salad sandwich" is an act of utmost savagery, barely above the level of pelting passersby with excrement or attending Dane Cook shows. You want to make a sandwich like that, go right ahead, but make sure that the card in front of the tray properly reads "tuna shitstorm."

Crimminy.

Today I saw something I've never seen before: A homeless guy begging for money at a stoplight, but with his message of "Homeless - Hungry - Please Help" emblazoned on a professionally printed, laminated sign, and a matching silk-screened T-shirt. I'm not at all sure what to think of that.

And after I got home, I finally beat Level 19 in NES Tetris. Heady times in the Rau household, indeed.

Here's a video that has nothing to do with either of the above, aside from the fact that it was what was playing in my car as I tried to decide whether I was a dedicated enough blogger (or heartless enough bastard, whichever) to snap a pic of the homeless dude with my cellphone camera. Happy song!

My life continues to get stranger.

I received in the mail today a subpoena to appear as a witness for the state in the case of State of Maryland v. Some Dude I've Never Heard Of.

I have absolutely no idea what this is all about. And of course by the time I got the mail everyone at the State Attorney's office had packed up and left for the day, so I couldn't ask them.

So until tomorrow morning, I'll be trying to imagine a scenario in which my particular combination of knowledge about Scrabble, radiology, Coen brothers movies, Tetris, Lovecraft, indie music, and world capitals is the key to the state's case against some nefarious ne'er-do-well. 

I should probably re-watch "Blood Simple" and brush up on Africa tonight. Just in case.

I give you Barry Glazer, a Baltimore-area lawyer who absolutely oozes class, refinement, and style.

( OK, this one's only a nine... )

Some things I've learned from tonight's unpacking session:

• For reasons I cannot fathom, I own not one but two heavy-duty 100-foot extension cords.
• Heavy-duty 100-foot extension cords, when thrown in a box and not used for years, become very tangled.
• Kittens--or, more accurately, one kitten in particular--draw surprisingly little distinction between heavy-duty 100-foot extension cords in the process of becoming untangled and a jauntily bouncing bit of string.
• I really have no idea whether I should have used draw or draws in that last bullet point.

Also, this: My wife owns an absolutely gobsmacking number of cutesy little boxes and bags for putting even cutesier littler stuff into.

I'm thrilled to announce that the following exciting items have been added to the already fantastic prize pool for the upcoming Hartford Open:

• one terry-cloth men's bathrobe, size XL, slightly tattered.
• several pairs of gently used shoes, mostly men's size 13.
• a dazzling assortment of textbooks of the sort that a college biology major would have owned in the mid-1990s.
• one complete set of 1991 Fleer baseball cards, near-mint condition.
• one black torchiere floor lamp, possibly working.
• sundry mismatched kitchen plates and glasses.
• one cat, black, who has grown rather fat and boring over the past few months.

I would like to stress that these prizes have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we are moving one week after the tournament.

The results of my Boards are sitting in my mailbox right at this very second.

But I can't check them because we're still in Baltimore for another day or two.

Grrrr.

Oh well.

But I can still get a chuckle every time I think about the name of the Phillies' new pitcher.

Oral boards: over, done with, gone.

Ten sections on the exam. I'm pretty sure I knocked six of them out of the park, struggled a bit with two others, and fell somewhere in between with the other two. No psychotic examiners.

Now: a celebratory dinner to include much meat and bourbon. The latter, I'm told, is somewhat of a local delicacy here in the great state of Kentucky.

Afterwards: resumption of normal life.

....until my Oral Boards. My stress level right now is higher than has been at any point in my life, and it's still got until 1:00 to crescendo.

Please please please please let me not vomit, and if I do, let it land somewhere other than in my examiner's lap.

For the final RauHaus event at our comfy Connecticut digs, we decided to go big: $100 entry fee. Seven games. Three entire cows grilled up bulgogi-style.

It was an exciting finish, as five players (in a field of ten) entered the last round at 4-2. In the end, we crowned a new champ:

1. goldfishbw  5-2, +390
2. ftangredi  5-2, +241
3. key_lime_guy  4-3, +324
4. cheezchick  4-3, +283
5. wisemonkey  4-3, +236
6. Augustine Adda (who needs to get a dang LJ already)  4-3, +16
7. picopaco  4-3, -159
8. olaugh  2.5-4.5, -248
9. satireblank  2.5-4.5, -252
10. sr_orangepants  0-7, -831

Other prizes included most bingos (18) by Alyssa, most stylish bingo (GANGBANG) by Cecilia, and high game (597) by yours truly. Portions of the entry fee fund were spent on an array of housewarming gifts (including matching Monkey and Doggie baskets) for John and CeLe.

The final game at table #1 pitted me against Brad for all the marbles. It was a close game all the way which turned a bit ugly at the end, as my last rack of LMNQRWZ couldn't get the job done against his admittedly-not-all-that-much-prettier AEIIIRU. Congrats to Brad, who walked away with the biggest first prize ($400) in the history of the RauHaus events.

Thanks to all who've helped make these events so much fun. We're going to try to put our next one together this summer after we're all settled into our new digs in Baltimore.

....Samuel L. Jackson yelling, "I've had it with these monkey-fightin' snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!"

Before......



( Would I clutter your Friends page just to show you OUTDoOR? )

From the new NASPA wiki-site.....

Membership in NASPA currently costs US$30[....] In addition, players who join NASPA before July 1 will receive low-numbered membership numbers, a visible demonstration of their support for our nascent organization. Players who have a specific number that they want for their membership number may obtain it by paying a higher membership fee of US$50, provided the number is still available.

Current members:
[...]

AA000069 Jim Geary$

Well played, sir.

I got an email today from a coworker of mine.

She's a pretty bright person.

She's known me for about three years now.

Undoubtedly, she's seen my name in print dozens of times.

She was replying to an email of mine, which was bookended by lines reading From: Stefan Rau <stefan42 at gmail.com> and Thanks, Stefan.

What was the first line of her email?

"Hi Stephan,"

Thirty-three years, and this still annoys the living fuck out of me. Johns, Daves, and Franks of the world, you'll never appreciate how easy you have it.

I'm thinking it's a pretty clear sign that I should stop futzing around and get back to studying when Quackle responds to my bag-emptying bingo with a triple-triple outbingo.

Two games in a row.

I found this hanging on the bulletin board in my program coordinator's office and had to snap a pic.....



I don't think I'd be able to keep a straight face long enough to explain to her what it really is, even if I wanted to.

(For those who don't know what the reference is, Snopes has a page about this picture here.)

( Meet Noodle! )

Pookie's computer stopped working the other day. It now gets as far as the Windows splash screen before spontaneously rebooting. No safe mode, no nothing.

I tried re-installing Windows, and signs point to the hard drive being completely horked: the setup program recognizes the partition on which Windows had been installed as a non-NTFS disk with 100% free space. (Fortunately, most of the data--with the terribly unfortunate exception of all the writing she's been doing recently--are on a separate partition that would seem to be OK.)

So I'm trying to do a fresh install on the secondary HDD, so she at least has a machine to use. Problem is, since Pookie decided to "clean up" my computer area a few months back, I can't find my XP validation code, and have thus hit a brick wall in that process.

And I'm in full-on boards study mode, so I really don't have the time to deal with this shite right now.

I certainly shouldn't be wasting my time blogging about it, but there we are.

via BoingBoing.....

Keyboard made from Scrabble tiles.

All right, Jersey folks, which one of you plunked down the "$1200 to $1500" for this absolutely wonderful thing?

The mystery of why so many children of the fifties and sixties ended up terrified of clowns....

.....I stumbled across what has become my new favorite diagnosis, largely because of the theoretical conversations it conjures up in my head.

Doctor: Well, Mr. Smitherwick, your test results are back. That thing on your forehead is, as I'd surmised, a Pott's puffy tumor.
Patient: Oh, no!
Doctor: Don't get too excited, now......it's not really a tumor.
Patient: Oh, how nice!
Doctor: I'm afraid, though, that it is indeed very, very puffy.