Drink Rum

I took the libery of fixing the funky title image configuration issue that seems to plague all of the posts with long titles. I've got a snazzy script that adds an image to all of my posts based on the category, but it was making the text wrap funny. My solution (lazy) until this point had been to just use short titles. Alas, I was in feeling punchy so I just rewrote it.

Also, today I expect to be diagnosed with some sort of mental insanity or whatever the politically correct term is.

I've come to my own conclusion that my body refuses sleep because my brain refuses to relax. It's not just that sleep doesn't come these days... it's like my body is actively fighting it. You know those little adrenaline rushes you get when you catch yourself almost asleep at the wheel or that nervous chest energy you get before a performance or public speaking? I get that feeling every few minutes before I try to sleep. It stops when I get up and do something else, but as soon as I try to sleep.... bang... adrenaline.

I hope they have good food in the nut house.

Posted by Monty at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hooray for me.

I've finally finished upgrading the blog software. You should notice no changes.

The reason I did the upgrade was to help with spammers and intergrate some older plugins. Readers should notice that I've been able to keep the comments sections of the site spam-free, but I wasn't happy with the method I was using so we'll see if some of the new ones work better.

In the meantime...

My puppy Mad Max went from being the worst puppy in his puppy school to being the best puppy in his puppy school. My what a week of work will do. He's almost six months and is really just a furry pile of energy. Being an Australian Shepherd/Siberian Husky mix makes his puppy energy doubly potent. I've finally got him to focus on me versus blowing leaves, shadows, his reflection, air, basically anything that exists... or in some cases doesn't.

Max's instructor is a stout, square-faced lady that refuses to believe he has any Husky in him. She's a pretty good trainer so far. She'd AKC certified up the yin-yang and trains service dogs in her spare time. Last week was puppy socialization week and Max wasn't terribly interested in meeting other dogs, just meeting other people. He was a bit intimidated by a very large German Shepherd puppy that was out of control and barking like mad at all of the other dogs.

Max is almost as tall as Jack now. Maybe a couple inches short. Jack's still got a 15lb weight advantage when they wrestle, but they are good about taking turns playing top dog vs. beat up dog.

Max also knows that cars are full of people.

If a car comes by he will try to chase it... hoping it will stop and spew out its people contents for him to play with. Boy does he love him some people.

It's funny now when we have people on the sidewalk because both dogs bark like mad at them from the window, but for different reasons. Jack is trying to get the people to leave his yard and Max is trying to get them to come inside to play.

Looney dogs.

Posted by Monty at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the next day or so I'm going to pull all of my hair out and do a system upgrade. It might go painlessly, it might not. I think last time I attempted an upgrade, I lost all of my posts and I just gave up blogging. So if the site disappears for a few days, you'll know why.

Tomorrow will also mark the return of the FART.

It'll be a tough one with so many choice candidates.

Posted by Monty at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an effort to get my physical life back together, I'm now in training for a 10k run.

The run is a charity event and I'm not actually planning on running it, but do plan to do it at a 3 or 4 mph brisk walk.

I've been doing cardio training for the past 8 months, but I need to work on multi-hour distance endurance.

Even if I don't get in good enough shape to do the 10k, it's a good goal to work towards.

The dogs think it's great too, although the puppy has been known to get tired after a mile or so and lay down to eat grass instead. Brisk walking while carrying a 35lb puppy is a hell of a work out in and of itself.

The run/walk/trot is In early April, so we'll see how it works out.

Posted by Monty at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In doing some more research for my trip to Europe, I've found who easy (and cheap) it is to get track time at some of the high performance eurocar test tracks in Germany. I think it'd be fun to spend an hour going nuts in a car that I could never afford and probably isn't even legal in the US anyway.

It also made me think about Operation S2000 from 2005. As some of you know, Operation S2000 was overtaken by Operation 4Runner. I love my 4Runner. It's great... much better than the Jeep Grand Cherokee. But there are time when I miss having the convertible uber sport goodness that the Honda S2000 would have brought to the table.

I wonder if I could rent a Honda S2000 and take it on the German test tracks. That probably violates some treaty from the mid- 1940's, I'll bet. German and Japanese products cannot be within 100 feet of each other.

I could get an Italian car though... although I imagine that the Germans still shoot Italian car drivers.

I guess I'll stick with a German muscle car.

If I'm ever in Italy, I'll rent a scooter.

Chaio.

Spelling kills.

Posted by Monty at 5:14 PM | Permalink

Do you have to be an illegal immigrant to get Carlos Mencia?

I made the mistake of watching five minutes of his crap show on Comedy Central. I just didn't see anything funny about it. It reminded me of Cheech Marin without the pot or the humor.

Some people seem to think he's funny. No me gusta.

Posted by Monty at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was at the grocery store yesterday... doing the normal Sunday grocery buying thing (along with the entire population of several states, apparently). I need to get a prescription filled. I've spent quite a bit of time getting my prescriptions filled at this place over the past year. There are only a handful of people that work in the pharmacy so I knew them all. I didn't really, but in the boredom of waiting in line, I named them all. There was Teddy, Oompah-Loompah, Big Mama, Grand Mama, Ho Chi Minh, and Barbie.

Barbie was a cute blond person in a blue lab coat who usually spent her days in the back mixing pills. I guess she's a pharmacist... or a helper... I don't know the blue coat vs. white coat hierarchy. Anyway, yesterday she was working the register because they were pretty busy. I walked up with my ticket number and credit card in hand.

"Nice shirt", she said... referring to my snazzy retro Pink Floyd shirt I had on. It was a beaten up, over-washed grey with a big pink pig in the center. "Where did you get it?"

I was wondering why Barbie was making small talk with me. She clearly lusted for me.

"I got it at Target" I said smoothly. (Target is where all the smooth shoppers shop.)

"Cool... my dad really loves Pink Floyd."

Somewhere in the distance I heard a weepy trumpet cueing an audience that it was time to laugh.

"Thanks."

I took my pills and headed home.

Tomorrow I'm going to go buy a hippity-hop shirt.

Posted by Monty at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow... it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I got kinda busy.

Anyway, I'm going to be making a significant effort to make more posts here in 2007.

I'm going to try to swing a trip to Europe in the fall... so that'll be cool. The current plan looks to take me through England, Scotland, Ireland, Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg), and Germany. It'll probably be a week in the UK/Ireland and then a week on the continent.

I'm looking forward to that greatly. I'll probably take a German 101 class somewhere so I can not look like a total idiot when in Germany. I know most of the folks over there speak at least a small amount of English, but I'm going to try to avoid the tourist hotels. If possible I'm going to stay in small taverns/inns, farm houses, and bed and breakfasts. I think it'll be just as fun to learn some European culture from the locals as to look at castles and Big Ben.

More to come.

Posted by Monty at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)