The clown’s day off.

The problem with being the perennial “class clown” is that it becomes an unwritten part of your job description.  If you’re the one in the office who is always jocular and makes people laugh through the day they begin to expect it.  You’re not allowed to be in a bad mood.  You’re not allowed to [...]

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My annual Halloween rant.

Halloween occurs every year on October 31. Every calendar I’ve ever seen has Halloween marked on the 31st. Not the 30th. Not the 29th. The thirty-freaking-first. It’s not President’s Day, to be observed on the third Monday of the month. It’s Halloween.
So why is it that every year we [...]

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Dish(tm) customer service — Jekyll and Hyde

Some times when you have a bad customer service experience it’s due to the CSR on the front lines, who is either having a bad day or would rather be having his/her spleen removed with a rusty spoon than dealing with another irate customer.
Often though, the people we deal with directly are doing the best [...]

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Movie soundtracks revisited.

Not that I hold Vanity Fair magazine in high esteem or anything, but their editors have recently named Purple Rain as the greatest film soundtrack of all time.  They say Prince’s opus is "a flawless combination of ‘funk, R&B, pop, metal, and even psychedelia into a sound that defined the ’80s.’"  Amen, brothers and sisters.
See?  [...]

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Shameless plug for a new blog.

A fellow West Virginia blogger has started a new blog all about video gaming, past and present, and I’ll be contributing occasionally. We’ll be discussing games from all major consoles, as well as talking about classics and games that should be in the video game hall of fame.
Whether you’re a current gamer or still [...]

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WV makes the news. Sort of.

From a recent article titled “‘95 – ‘96 Prayers Finally Answered” on The Onion:
HEAVEN—Explaining that He had been “absolutely swamped,” God announced yesterday that He was finally able to find time in His busy schedule to answer a portion of the 1995 and 1996 prayer backlog.
“Unfortunately, I don’t really want a red wagon anymore,” 18-year-old [...]

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Home at last.

It took three planes and fourteen hours to get home from Orlando thanks to a canceled flight (the plane broke), but I finally made it. It’s good to be home.
Here’s one more picture from my trip, this one taken while kicking back in a hammock and enjoying the beautiful evening — my last in [...]

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Second star to the right, and straight on ’til morning.

Orlando Travelogue: Day the Third
Day two was rather uneventful.  More seminars and cheese — what everyone needs in life.
While relaxing outside the hotel between sessions I rather enjoyed the view and was inspired to grab my camera. 
 
How do you know?
I was lucky enough to have my picture taken with Mickey and Minnie Mouse (Were [...]

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It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears.

Sorry for planting that in your head.  Enjoy it for the rest of the day.
Orlando Travelogue: Day the Second.
After an early breakfast I took my coffee out by the resort lake to enjoy the beautiful, peaceful morning before the busy day of seminars began. 

(Click the pics for full size.)
It’s amazing how quiet even a [...]

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Hush, hush.

The travelogue continues.
I landed in Charlotte, NC, where the state flower is pork barbeque, which worked out perfectly because it was lunch time.  I grabbed a plate of the fast-food version of a pulled pork sandwich with some greens and an unidentified object that turned out to be a deep-fried pickle.  That’s a new one [...]

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