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Potted Ham Received

By the way,

If you’ve sent email here but have earned no response, I apologize. The spam filters are not working and I’m having to wade through hundreds of pieces of krep every day. If my eye accidentally passed over your message, please send it again with something eye catching in the subject line, like [a jaunty little blog] for instance. I’m setting up a filter to look for that and if it’s not abused, I’ll keep it running.

Sound okay? Okay!

– bob

editor’s note: they can always leave a comment. -ed

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Weather Observed

Friends,

Some people are no doubt saying to themselves “ahh, now that’s what March is supposed to be like.” I’ve been tracking this system for a little while, but let’s have the Green Cafe tell it…

Today – Mostly cloudy.
Areas of fog in the morning.
Chance of showers in the morning then chance of showers and slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Cooler.
Snow level 6500 feet.
Becoming 4500 feet in the afternoon.
Highs 36 to 46.
Winds west 35 to 45 mph.
Gusts to 80 mph becoming 60 mph in the afternoon.
Chance of measurable precipitation 40 percent.

Woof.

Hail is currently coming down in buckets and the winds have died down to 10 MPH. Yeah, I’m working from the Damp Dog Lodge today. I’m no hero (a lot of school kids are sobbing right now. – ed).

Your pal,

bob

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Similarities Noted

Pals,

Here’s your Friday night YoohooToob video. You’ll see some striking similarities to my own commute, including the winding roads, the drivers’ uncanny skill and talent, the scream of finely tuned engines…

It’s almost like being there!

– bob

editor’s note: six fewer cylinders in that amc-derived lump of engine of yours in that wallowing suv, more swerving and veering on your part than any sort of talent, there’s a winding road though. as for scorecards, you’re mostly lying. – ed

WRITER’S NOTE: Sigh. I know. – bob

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And Along Came Windy

Friends,

The wind was furious today at my secret alpine laboratory. Things flew, including the umbrella set in the patio table. It lifted four feet out of the center tube, and flew across the backyard. Take that Mary Poppins!

The rain notwithstanding.

Maybe the water district won’t need to burp the radioactive water into the lake after all. Geez.

Your pal,

bob

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What Is It, Girl?

I don’t know which is more disturbing, that tainted moist pet food is killing dogs and cats, or that a company called Menu Foods Income Fund actually makes IAMS, Eukanuba, Nutro and almost every other brand. Here’s a little something from Nutro’s copywriters that rings a little hollow today:

The MAX brand philosophy is simple. We constantly strive to provide better ingredients and better nutrition for better health at an affordable price. Every MAX product is 100% natural. We use only high-quality ingredients. No chicken by-products, no ground yellow corn.

Who’s this “we”?

– bob

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Whatever Happened To…

Friends,

Nobody is very sad that we’ve stopped writing The Question, but we did. We wrote it primarily for our own amusement anyway, but it stopped being fun and started being an obligation. Actually, I personally received way more negative commentary about it than positive and that was certainly no fun. It may rise again one day, but no time soon.

Your pal,

bob

P.S. I’m also working on a follow-up piece to the Town Crier story (note: google cache link used since the town crier doesn’t permalink to past articles. – ed) on radiation in the drinking water, plus how blogging is killing my career! Come back for those later in the day, won’t you?

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Is It Spring Yet? – Unfounded Fears Edition

I’m afraid. Very afraid. Here’s why…

  • Global Warming Crier People: My house is apparently going to go up in flames this year. It’s a La Niña weather pattern, people. The lowest amount of rainfall since the Twenties? The bark beetles will prey on the desiccated trees, the fiery fires will pop up and we’re all doomed. Why? La Niña of course, which means that the equatorial Pacific Ocean temperatures are too cold. Take that, polar bears! (naturally the temps are too cold, what with the glaciers dumping the ice bucket into the ocean. – ed And the perfect doomsday ice cubes stopped melting until they got to the equator? That’s cute. – bob)
  • Germs: People I work with have become ill. Not deathly ill, since they still have the brain-dead notion that they’re indispensable and insist on continuing to clock in. They are sick enough to come into work, touch the keyboards of the computers that they would ask me to touch, and complain about how they can’t keep anything down (or up). Just wonderful. As far as I know, Mr. Boss still frowns on my wearing latex gloves while working on machines in front of the staff. He can’t keep me from slathering on the Purell though. It’s the small victories…
  • Traffic: Has everybody gone insane? Have the snowbirds in the desert finally decided to spring up (as septuagenarians might spring) and take to the wheel today? They’re fast enough to be a menace, yet slow enough to serve as rolling roadblocks. I’m looking at you, British Columbia, Montana, and Idaho. BTW, economic stimulus, my ass. The only stimulus I can see they’re providing is to the auto body shops. Go f-ing home.
  • Rants: As I’ve become more bitter, I fear that I’ve become more bitter. I rail against a couple things now and then with no real point and no real purpose. Sure it’s nice to vent, but in the end who really cares? You? I suppose not, and I’m afraid of that too.
  • Winning The Lottery: I’m afraid that once I win, all of those millions will go straight to my head. I’m going to continue working though… (oh crap, who am I kidding?)

Your pal,

bob

UPDATE: Y2K7.191780821918: Yeah, sure, we’ve updated the clocks on all the computers to see the time change this weekend, but what about the toasters? All of the watches? My GPS-enabled electric socks! Eeek!

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Pretty!

Friends,

I work at a place that serves folks who are down on their luck. In an attempt to get their lives together, they go through various programs that my coworkers provide and hopefully find permanent housing and a job. Self-sufficiency is the model and that’s extra swell.

Swell until an onslaught of folks happened upon the place. Hot meals are just ducky but where to sleep? It’s chilly in the desert right now. Particularly if you’re sleeping on the desert. Wouldn’t shelter for all of those folks be nice too? Sure it would! Mr. and Mrs. Powers That Be decided that a tent would be lovely, so they set to putting one up, full of cots and bunk beds, that would house as many people as possible. As many people as needed a place to stay that was out of the elements.

Everything went as well as could be expected (badly) considering the yokels running the minor town that claims jurisdiction. Handicap ramp is sloped too steeply (1.5 degrees too steep, if you’re keeping score), this dirt isn’t compacted as much as the surrounding dirt, there needs to be a certain number of cots accessible to disabled people (how does that work?), the lighting isn’t bright enough… Blah, blah, functionaries, blah. Once the blather subsided, the disenfranchised lined up for a space in this new soft-sided paradise. But there was something terribly wrong. Oh, horribly wrong! Sweet mother of Walter P. Chrysler, so wrong.

No large screen television!

Our guys had wired these giant sets for cable and I put signal boosters on both ends of the 400 foot run, but no signal. I’d washed my hands of it, but it nagged anyway. I wasn’t interested in the resident’s entertainment, it was a technical challenge—and I had failed. I connected their feed to another line and traipsed out to check the picture. No sooner had I turned on one of the sets and programmed all of the channels (our robot overlords actually take care of that, I just summoned them with a button press) that I realized things were actually working. What’s a non-offensive channel to set them to? Nick Jr. of course. (link warning: super slow Java mess that might crash your browser)

Thirty seconds later, the people who were napping after a no-doubt highly stressful free lunch woke up and were thrilling to the sights and sounds of the Backyardigans. Young and old, 30 pounds or 300, they were glued to the sets.

Um, hooray?

– bob

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Are You Down?

Well, I am, apparently. The server that serves the service of serving the pictures and ephemera here has been down all day. bobtherieau.com is down too. Either we’re working on it or my host hasn’t received my check. I guess it’s time for a phone call.

sigh.

– bob

UPDATE! Hackers! They’re attacking the server, the good guys fix it, they attack again. It’s a real live situation! More later…

ANOTHER UPDATE: We’re back up! Now let’s see how long that lasts.

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We’re Gonna Blow The Lid Off

Would you rather…
uncover the conspiracy among the world’s fish population to ignore your lures,
or
a secret cabal of radical leftists?

a) …written on tiny scraps of paper, passed out in undersea meeting halls…
b) NASCAR? I never would’ve guessed!

Yes Wilbur, even Velveeta.

– bob

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Idyllwild On The Teevee!

Fellow couch potatoes,

I really did try to find a direct link to the Larry Himmel piece on Idyllwild at KFMB. Really. I know you’d rather get right to the meat of the piece by this stand-up comedian turned lifestyle editor on my little burg, but you’ll have to got the the story’s page instead. And click on the video link. And hope that their player works. And that the page stays up for a while.

The visuals are nice though. I looked, but can’t find a videography credit. Did Himmel throw a diva-like fit and get the cameraman’s name removed? Who can say!

Your pal,

bob

UPDATE: The video link on the story page isn’t working. Try going to their main page and scrolling down to “Mile-High Mountain Excuse For Larry Himmel To Get Out Of The Office” in their frustrating Flash player. Sorry about getting your hopes up.

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Zzzzzzz

Friends,

There’s a lot of stuff to cover since the last big post, so let’s get to it:

  • Down at San Diego’s Omnipresent Charitable Organization’s Far Eastern Outpost, they finally dedicated this little pup tent they put up. It’s nine months late, way over budget, and is set up to sleep 100 people. The clergy, bosses, politicians, people with fat checkbooks, and the rest of us were there. It’s been occupying too much of my time and it’s still not ready.
  • My trip to Chicago a couple weeks ago was cold, but still pretty fun. I have a bunch of pictures of the Chicago Auto Show and of those cute nieces of mine. I should post them!
  • I also don’t have pictures of Senator Obama announcing his presidential candidacy that weekend. Drive three hours each way to hear any politician say anything for half a minute? Pass. Please. Now if it was Tom Vilsack…
  • I have to think that the Idyllwild Chamber of Commerce must’ve been thrilled with the weather last weekend. Saturday was warm and sunny. Sunday, less warm but still very nice. Monday brought a half inch of pretty, fluffy snow that melted by noon to allow the tourists safe passage off the hill. The perfect winter display?

Will I adhere to a more regular posting schedule now that the big projects at work are (mostly) complete? Sure!

Your pal,

bob