Slippery slopes, we all fall in.. what ever happened to my sure footing? Why do I fall down, why do others follow me down? If I miss the signs, will anyone ever give me warning? Who tells me when to stop, when I go too far? Oh well, my fault, my mess to clean. If you know me well enough to know what I'm talking about, keep me in your prayers, maybe drop me a line. I'm going to go beat myself up or something.

Spambots are starting to wax poetic now.
do cut hurt
somewhere turnoff give
for watch speak
That stand fill
A ask put
lie know hurt
sleep cancel look
will try understand
Are clean think
right shut close
lie open open
close have sing
we lose sing
But fix change
eat fly forget
them tell reply

Today I added the word qlol to WikiPedia to see if will become more popular. Essentially, well over a year ago, in rant 128 we were discussing the fact that people don't really laugh out loud when they say "lol".. they just type it. So, we coined the term "qlol" to indicate that while we may be laughing, we're doing it very quietly. I've been pushing this around to various friends and some of them have started using it on a regular basis, so now I'd like to conduct an experiment to see if others will pick up on it and start using it. Let the games begin!

Here's a little something I made up after some recent grocery shopping expeditions.

Shopping at the store, gonna get a lot of peaches
Peaches come in a jar
They were put there by Thailand
Shipped to my town
And if I had money to pay
I'd eat peaches everyday

Grailing or more accurately, Holy Grailing is a time-honored
pasttime where one quests for the Holy Grail. There is a lot of
different stories concerning this grail, and while no one can agree on
what it looks like, everyone agrees that it is lost and that "you'll
know it when you see it."

No one knows where the grail is, which means that it can be
anywhere. Additionally, no one knows if the grail is stationary or
mobile. These facts make Grailing a sport that one can participate in
at any time, at any place, with any number of people. I personally
like to go Grailing around town or out in the woods. I occasionally
will wear a boonie cover while I am Grailing, but it is not required.
In fact, there are almost no requirements for Grailing, and it can be
incorporated into just about any other activity.

Don't be fooled by the so-called "Grail Experts" because quite
frankly, they haven't found the grail either, so they are in no position to
offer advice. If you're thinking of taking up the sport of Grailing
(more of a hobby or an ongoing quest really), the best thing to do is
just to have fun with it and enjoy the sport. As Mark Twain said in
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: Every year
expeditions went out holy grailing, and next year relief expeditions
went out to hunt for them. There was worlds of reputation in it, but
no money.

Got this from Kristin

The Weekend.

I wrote about this weekend in an email first, and then slightly
edited it for public consumption.

Friday Chris and Jess came down. We were headed for Hoss' before
picking up Robin, but the line was long so we went to Ed's instead
(Friday night fish fry). Usually, when a place has a fish fry, it's all
pretty much made up and ready to go. Chris and I ordered the fish fry,
Jess ordered steak. It took about 30 minutes for the food to arrive --
Jess's steak was a bit cold, and our fish was warm (showing us what had
just gotten cooked). The fish was horrible... slimy inside, falling
apart... never again. The waitress was real nice though and recognized
the three of us from the last time they came down.

Anyways, after that we picked up Robin and went to Comedy night.. John
was, per custom, an hour late. He missed the first comedian entirely.
The comedians were from Philly, and (although they didn't reveal this
until the very end of the show) a husband/wife team. The husband (Brian
Shecky) revealed this at
the end. He did this as part of a joke, but I am actually taking the
joke out of this in order to maintain a certain PG-13 rating on this
site.

We dropped Robin off after that (she had to work at 8am), went back to
the shop and watched Kronk's New Groove.. it was funny.. there was
couple singing parts they probably could have done without. Some good
lines. Kronk at one point had secretaries named Tina and Marge (always
getting their names mixed up). As he was loosing everything (including
the secretaries) he stood at the balcony and said "Do not cry for me
Marge and Tina." You might have to say it out loud to get it.

Next morning I had a few customers picking up/dropping off/paying bills
(nice as always). We played Monopoly and I seriously won that. I
started off purchasing a couple railroads and one of the utility
companies. Then they started purchasing real properties. I purchased
the other utility off of Chris for $300 and then his very next roll, he
landed on it and ended up paying me back $120. Then, I proceeded to
roll the dice, advancing to community chest, chance, free parking, my
own properties the rest of the game, as they kept landing on my stuff.
They built houses, I skipped right past them. Finally I started
getting property and they would land on that. It was completely
ridiculous... I owned like 6 spots and had about $3000, whereas they
were just barely over a grand and owned everything else. Chris landed
on that one utility company he sold me over 6 times, rolling high number
every time.

At 5, I went and picked up Robin (her brother started working on
replacing the brakes on her car the week before new years, and the whole
thing is turning into the never-ending project.. an entirely different
saga of ordering the wrong parts, shipment delays, improper tools,
busting a line... it's ridiculous) and some subs for everyone and
returned to the shop. John had arrived with his new date Reanna and for
some reason they had changed plans from playing Clue to watching a
movie, so we watched Kiss the Girls (which was actually quite good).
There's a scene where one woman is in the hospital, systems shutting
slowly shutting down and they don't know what's wrong. Morgan Freeman
(playing a forensics psychologist) asks to borrow the Physician's Desk
Reference and figures out what she was infected with. It reminded me of
in the Princess Bride where the prince sniffs a glass of wine and
goes "Iocane powder.. I'd stake my life on it. It's a colorless,
orderless, tasteless drug." Everyone got a kick out of that.

After the movie, we finally did play clue. That was definitely a blast,
and with 6 of us, it took almost an hour. Then, it was off to Denny's
for snacks and fun. I took some pictures there, but my camera was doing
its fuzzy thing again. Basically if you turn it on and the lens doesn't
come out on its own, they come out fuzzy. Turning it on and off seems
fix it -- for now. I might be in the market for a new camera sometime
soon. After that, took Robin home and called it a night.

And to wrap up the weekend, went to church Sunday, gave two guys a ride
back to Bedford, then met back up with Chris and Jess, and we kidnapped
Adam. I snuck up to him and grabbed him as Chris peeled up in the
Impala, and then I went to open the back door, it was locked, so Chris
had to unlock the door, then I opened it and threw Adam in. We went to
Denny's for breakfast, Chris and Jess went home after that, and Adam is
here checking email/chatting online.

I think I've become addicted. It started out with a busted lip a few months ago, which led to constant chapped lips. So I started using chapstick. I kept using it because my lower lip kept splitting back open whenever it chapped. So I moved up to "Carmex" which helped, but not enough. Then I stepped up even further a couple weeks ago to "White Petoleum Jelly". I can't stop using this stuff. My skin absorbs it like a white shirt absorbs a permanent marker. What's worse is that I have to keep using it because I still have a small remnat of that split lip. It's almost healed, and the healing process started once I stared using the wpj, but soon it will be healed, and I wonder if I will be able to stop then?!? Ai yai yai!

The year drew to a close, and so does this saga. I don't have my family's Christmas pictures gathered together yet, but the rest of December's is up for viewing.

Some have asked me about New Year's Resolutions. I rarely make them, because I make resolutions all the time. This year though, I decided to make one, but I've actually started it well before the end of the year. I want to remove those things in my life that seperate me from God (bad habits, ways of thinking, etc). One of the big things that God has laid on my heart in 2005 has been sexual purity. While I may be physically pure, my mind is far from it, and I intend to change that in the here and now. I'd also like committ more time to reading the Bible, studying God's word. Beyond that, I am believing in making my business profitable in the first 3 months of this year. I want to have all of the bills paid and current (not just the important bills), with a surplus in the bank. These are currently my main goals for 2006.

What's been hapenning since the 30th? I ended up going down to a bar in Hopewell after all. John and myself are in dispute about the name. He calls it "Steele's Bar", and everyone I know calls it "Lisa's Bar", but neither of us looked at the sign when we were down there. Anyways, we played pool, ate hot dogs, watched the ball drop, and had a great time. Robin and I are hitting things off quite well. She is proving herself to be a well-rounded, emotionally stable, intelligent individual. She's also a tomboy which is absolutely fantastic (she is however, rumored to pull a Cinderalla act from time to time, which could be interesting as well).

Yesterday and today I managed to catch-up with Adam and hang out a bit, which was good because with both of us being busy recently we haven't really been able to.

And finally, next Friday is Comedy night, I've got friends coming in from as far off as Pittsburgh, and from as close as Everett. Saturday, I want to get some activity together, either watching movies or playing board/card games. It turns out that quite a few of my knuckles are busy on Saturday, but there should be enough of us to have a good time. Contact me if you're interested.