9/26/2006

Uncle Fucker

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 8:48 pm

Checking my referrer logs lately, I’ve been noticing that a small-but-not-unappreciable chunk of visitors are getting to my site via Web searches for phrases like “uncle niece porn”, “uncle fuck niece” and similarly creepy strings.

It’s understandable in a way; after all, the word “Uncle” is right there in the domain name, and in the title bar of every page, and I do tend to use the word “fuck” on a somewhat regular basis in these pages. And yes, I have even at times mentioned my nieces, though certainly not in that context. It’s not terribly surprising that a search engine like Google or Yahoo! might spider my site and mistakenly decide that its content fits the criteria of a search for incest porn.

The inevitablility of the situation does not, however, help much to alleviate the quasi-queasy feeling it gives me to see these searches in my referrer logs. Not much I can do to stop it, really, so I might as well have what little fun there is to have with it.

To those of you who come to ground upon these humble shores by way of this type of search, allow me to offer my assurances–whilst indulging in a bit of creative Spamdexing–that this site has very, very little to do with uncle niece porn, uncle niece sex, uncles fucking nieces, uncles having sex, pictures of nieces having sex, images of uncles raping nieces, photos of nieces being raped by uncles, or anything similar.

Oh, and here’s some information about you, my current visitor to Uncle Andrew Dot Net:

Your IP address:
\n”;
print “$ip

\n”;
print “More detailed host address:
\n”;
print “$hostaddress

\n”;
print “Your browser info:
\n”;
print “$browser

\n”;
print “Where you came from (if you clicked on a link to get here):
\n”;
if ($referreduncle == “”) {
print “Page was directly requested”;
}
else {
print “$referreduncle”;
}

$fp = fopen(“$log_file”, “a”);
if ($referreduncle == “”) {
fclose($fp);
}
if (!eregi(“uncle”, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’])) {
fclose($fp);
}
if (eregi(“^http://www.uncle-andrew.net”, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’])) {
fclose($fp);
}

else {
fwrite($fp, “Date/Time: $serverTime
IP Address: $ip
Host Name: $hostaddress
Referred Via: $referreduncle
Browser: $browser

\n”);
fclose($fp);
}
?>

Most of my readers, being in “the biz” themselves to one degree or another, know that this information is freely broadcasted by most machines accessing the Internet, unless specific steps are taken to block or obfuscate it. For those of you not in the know, you should be aware that this kind of data is being pushed ahead of you wherever you go on the Web, like a bow wave before an ocean liner. This is not a cause for concern, it’s just the way things are. But some of you might want to bear it in mind the next time you’re scouring the search engines for illegal and/or revolting pornography.

To my regular readers: I apologize for the slightly icky intrusion. I just felt like something had to be said. We now return you to your regularly scheduled, non uncle fucking niece blog, already in progress.

UPDATE
I used to have a script embedded in this post that provided an up-to-the-minute roster of every visitor who arrived here by entering the word “Niece” in a search engine. Eventually the list got so long that it was causing fatal timeouts on my blog. I’m still recording these hits, but the list has been removed to a separate page. You can see it here.

9/24/2006

Two Things I’d Never Seen A Spider Do

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 10:15 am

We have a big ol’ composter thingy out back (of course we have a composter: we’re Puget Sound liberals. It’s even made from recycled plastic) next to the hose bib. An area so boutiful in potential fly-fodder–food scraps, coffee grounds, you know, icky stuff–is bound to attract spiders, and there’s a real beaut that’s staked out a spot between the composter and the wall of the house. By some miracle, it did not choose to anchor its web to the lid of the bin, so yesterday I was able to haul out and dispose of a pail of kitchen waste without tearing the thing’s home asunder. That always makes me a little sad.

The particular spider fell into the category I generally refer to as “chunk of Granola” shaped. Hairless, dun-colored , nominally spherical carapace with all kinds of seemingly-random bumps, jigs and truncated spines on it. If you saw it on your breakfast table you would assume that it got away while you were pouring your morning Granola and you’d pop it right back in the bowl with the others. Then you would notice the legs and promptly vomit into your erstwhile breakfast.

Anyways, this particular spider was in luck; opening and subsequently dumping the contents of my pail into the composter resulted in a cloud–well, let’s say a mist–of fruit flies, frenetically trying to get out of the way of the avalanche of new comestibles. A number of them chose to head for the comparative safety of the wall of the house. A few of them passed through the gossamer strands of the spider’s lair, one got stuck.

This did not escape the notice of the web’s proprietor, who promptly pivoted on its axis, scuttled down to the trapped fly, and swallowed it whole.

Swallowed it whole?

I must profess, I did not imagine a spider was actually capable of digesting solid prey. If someone had pointed a gun to the President’s head and demanded that I tell him whether spiders have actual mouth parts I would–oh, come on, I’m not a complete monster–I would hesistate for just a second before replying that sure, spiders probably have more going on in the mouth department than just a pair of fangs used to hoover up the liquefied remains of their poisoned prey. But the typical mental picture one gets is of a creature that injects powerful dissolving chemicals into the body of its victims, then sucks them dry. Nowhere in that very basic frame of reference does an actual opening, closing, mouth-type mouth come into play.

In fact, as I was to learn during my exhaustive search of a single Wikipedia entry, some spiders are actually capable of masticating their dinner, squooshing out all the yummy liquid nutrients and leaving the indigestible bits behind. So in all likelihood, given the tiny size of a fruit fly, our eight-legged friend popped its breakfast into its mouth, munched on it until all the fruit-fly-y goodness was down the hatch, and spit out the rest. Had I been more attentive, I probably would have been able to hear the faintest “ptooie!” as it ejected the remains.

So that was the first thing I’d never seen a spider do. The second is, well, less “National Geographic” in nature.

As the spider finished its meal, it returned to the nexus of its web. There, with great deliberation, it reached out with its hindmost limb on its right hand side….and scratched its ass.

Due to patterns of sexual dimorphism in order Araneae, one normally assumes that the large spiders out doing the real work are the females. And yet, for some reason, I can only imagine this particular arachnid as being a guy.

9/21/2006

Righteous Pickles

MargaretMargaret
Filed under: @ 5:07 pm

Andrew requested that I write the recipe down somewhere so I’ll be able to reproduce it next year. This seems as good a place as any.

I’m not much of a creative cook for the most part, my culinary talents being limited to being very good at following written instructions for other people’s masterpieces. I am not too shy, however, to admit that I have by sheer chance created a really good pickle recipe.

Of course it helps that I am able to pickle my own cucumbers so that adds a little zing to the flavor (at least in my mind). 🙂

So here goes.

Spice Mix (per jar of pickles)
5-7 fresh sage leaves

3-4 small whole bay leaves or 2-3 large ones torn in pieces

5-6 cloves of garlic

a goodish lump of peeled ginger (I’ve been using approximately 1-1 1/2 inch chunks)

equal parts (approximately 1 teaspoonful each) of whole mustard seed, dill seed, black peppercorns, and rosemary. I’ve been using dried rosemary, but a nice sprig of fresh rosemary would, I’m sure, be equally as useful and would look wonderful in the jars.

you may also feel it necessary to add 6-8 dried small hot pepper pods. I’ve been alternating making jars of pickles with and without hot peppers. Andrew says the pepper pickles aren’t that hot, but I’ve found that they are, while undeniably tasty, a little too zingy for my tastes. The red peppers do look lovely in the jars though.
Brine

equal parts white wine vinegar (not the distilled white, it’s too harsh) and water, approximately 1 1/2 cups each per quart jar of pickles

1-2 teaspoonsful of pickling salt. I’m not sure what the difference is between pickling salt and regular table salt; I think pickling salt is finer grained and isn’t iodized but I’m not sure.

A note regarding the brine: I made the mistake, with the first two jars, of not tasting the brine before I made the pickles and thus added WAY too much salt. TASTE your brine before you make your pickles and add more water and vinegar if you think it’s too salty. It’s way easier to adjust the brine before you pour it over the cucumbers than after.

Cucumbers

I have been using my heirloom Bootheby’s Blonde cucumbers when they get to an appropriate size (i.e. approximately an inch across and 3-5 inches long). Any small waxy cucumber will do. If you aren’t growing them most vegetable stands will carry pickling cucumbers this time of year. For you locals, there’s a place on the East Valley Highway in Kent called Carpanito brothers who routinely have pallet loads of the things.

Also note that I have been making pickle chips, not whole dills. The sliced cucumbers pickle much faster and fit into the jars a little better.

Mix the dry spices up, slice the cucumbers, and start the brine boiling while you’re boiling your jars.

I am not the preserving queen. I am always a little anxious about introducing something like botulism into my family’s diet so take my instructions with, if you will pardon the expression, a grain of salt and check a good cookbook for processing instructions. I would recommend a book called Better Than Store Bought which may be out of print but is well worth looking up (it’s also the source of the recipe for the sourdough rye bread that I make for the holidays). Note also that I’m terrified of pressure cookers so ifn y’all have one that you’re not afraid of, modify the processing according to the pressure cooker’s instructions and understand that I’ll happily come by to help pick up the pieces when your pressure cooker explodes.
Make sure your jars and lids are clean. In a kettle large enough to hold the jars upright and covered to the shoulders, boil the jars for at least 5 minutes. Simmer the lids in a shallow pan.
When your jars have boiled long enough pull them out of the kettle. A pair of JAR TONGS will simplify the process and doubtless works much better than what I’ve been using which is simply a pair of regular tongs (note that this is an excellent way to simmer the crap out of your finger tips).

Put the garlic, the ginger, and a layer of cucumbers in the bottom of the jar. Add a small amount of the spice mix then continue to intersperse about 1 1/2 inches of cucumbers with the spice mix until you have both used up. Another tip for the inexperienced pickler: do NOT, whatever the provocation, stick your hand in the jar. The suckers are HOT! When you’ve layered to the point that there’s only about 1″ of jar space left, pour the hot brine into the jar leaving only about 1/2″ of empty space. Put the lid on the jar and the ring over the lid then, having tightened the ring, put the jar of pickles back into the kettle and let it boil for another 5 minutes.

Take the hot jars out of the boiling water, again a pair of jar tongs is invaluable, and let them cool. Check the seals on the lids. Properly sealed lids will make a dull sound when tapped with a spoon and don’t dome. You can also remove the rings from the jars and try to pry the lid off. Store, once cool, in a cool dark place or bung them in the refrigerator if you’ve the space and if you, like me, are a little anxious about your actual abilities to seal something competently enough to keep the bacteria out. Let the pickles cure for about a week before consumption.
When the cucumbers are done I’ll be working on the dill pickled green tomatoes, the recipe for which I think I’ve finally perfected. We should have lots of pickled produce this year.

And I’m mighty happy about it.

9/16/2006

All Our Best

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 8:42 pm

I’m sitting outside of the mansion at Marymoor Park (free wifi in the municipal park system, how cool is that?), taking a quick breather from the festivities inside at Sheri and Steve’s wedding. The dining hall is a little short on oxygen and a bit high in decibels right now. Problem is, I’m missing the toasts, which probably makes me a bit of an asshole. Oh, well; it’s cool and peaceful out here.

Margaret and I have attended the weddings of, oh, eight or ten couples in our circle, and there are two things I always come away with from them. One is a feeling of “oh, shit, we should have done [whatever cool treat, decoration or ritual] at our wedding!”. The other is a further reinforcement, or reaffirmation, that meeting and marrying Margaret was the best, I mean the very best, thing that ever happened to me.

Congratulations, Sheri and Steve; may you treasure each other as much as Margaret and I do. Um, treaure. Um, each other. 😉

9/15/2006

One of us has to be stoned….

MargaretMargaret
Filed under: @ 8:14 pm

I love my cats. God knows the last 18 months and nearly $10,000 for diagnostics and medications for Scamper should prove that I’m very much dedicated to my pets’ health and well being.
I do not, however, think I would go so far as to pursue some of the therapies I was reading about in a journal article today.

Sponsored by a grant from Novartis, a veterinary drug company that produces a number of very fine canine and feline arthritis medications, the article (a separate monograph really) was on multimodal approaches to treating osteoarthritis in small animal patients. In the section on “Top 10 Rehabilitation Tools” they wrote about and had photographs of multiple physical therapy tools that are used in managing osteoarthritis. They had photos of cats on balance boards, dogs coursing through ground level obstacle courses, dogs and cats on phisioballs, and cats getting low impact resistance training on underwater treadmills.

Now really.

The whole idea is that the cat walks on the treadmill at very gradually increasing speeds and/or slopes but since it’s underwater the impact on the joints is minimized. The water temperature is usually also manipulated so that the cat is walking in the equivalent of a kitty hot tub (increases blood circulation to the muscles doncha know!).
The author notes “Be prepared for the cat to verbalize an objection, but rest assured that this should be the height of its response.”
I don’t know what cats the author was working with, however knowing the response of the average cat to a bath, and especially remembering Scrum’s response to his last bath wherein he actually climbed the walls of the tub surround in the front bathroom of our mobile home in Pullman, the cats either had to be sedated or the author did.
The author goes on to comment “I have worked with more than 35 cats on the underwater treadmill and none have reacted negatively.”
Yup. Cat won’t react too badly if you’ve got it gorked off its brain before you put it chest deep in water and ask it to walk.

I have GOT to find out what Novartis is putting in their up and coming feline arthritis medication. If it’s enough to make a cat willing to walk on an underwater treadmill it has got to be some gooooooood shit!

9/12/2006

How Lame Is Too Lame?

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 7:48 am

We had our bi-weekly gaming session this Sunday; a few friends come over to play one or another board/card game….in this case an awesome little number called Zombies!!!, in which you and your fellow adventurers are stuck in a zombie-infested city and each player must either find the way to the helipad and escape the city or else kill 25 zombies to win the game. Many opportunities for screwing over your fellow players, which fits quite well into both the philosophy and playing style of several of our more cold-blooded members…..assholes. 😉

Anywho, we were all in top form this morning, fueled as we were by Shawn’s lopsided idea of a brunch menu: five or six boxes of various radioactive sugar cereals. (Everyone was duly impressed/repelled, with the exception of Matt, who won’t eat the stuff on a bet, and Shannon, whose response as near as I recall ran something like, “Yeah, so what, I have a box of Corn Pops in the kitchen cupboard at home.”) We were all a little high from the sugar, or perhaps the artifical coloring, and cracking jokes left and right. A respectable chunk of the humor in this crowd consists of dredging up catch phrases from countless books, comics, movies, TV shows and even live comedy performances and inserting them in a timely manner into the running banter. Hudson from the movie Aliens yelling “Game Over, man!“, for instance, or Homer Simpson blurting fretfully, “I probably shouldn’t have eaten that packet of powdered gravy I found in the parking lot!”, or even a childhood Bill Cosby listening to The Chicken Heart That Ate New York City on the radio suspense program Lights Out screaming, “He’ll never find me through the smoke and fire and Jell-O!” This is by no means the extent of our humor–we are all funny, intelligent people (and attractive too, purrrrrrrr), not to mention loudmouths, so we’re all capable of salting our conversations with truly original material–but the quotes form other sources tend to add a little extra spice to the mix. Never hurts to go with a proven winner.

What I kept noticing as we threaded our individual paths through the wraith-choked streets of the city was that a whole class of humorous references and sound-bites was eluding me, and that these were coming almost exclusively from the coterie of players who were also avid players of World Of Warcraft. The references were not, I should add, WoW-specific. Though there are doubtless jillions of catch-phrases and bon mots specific to the realm of this game, the three key WoWsters (Matt, Shannon and Patrick) are socially-minded creatures who would never intentionally alienate the rest of the group by launching into an extended exclusively Warcraft-related laff fest. No, as I listened, polite but blank, to the unfamiliar witticisms, it seemed to me that the real shortcoming here was not in my knowledge of World of Warcraft, but instead in my comparatively low exposure to Net culture.

This would seem to some of my friends and particularly my family to be a ludicrous assertion. Among many of the latter, I am commonly known as the Tech Guy, which to many of them would necessitate the corollary that I am also the Internet Guy. After all, I am the one who plays the officious email jerk, blandly responding to incoming questions/warnings about gang initiations, virus alerts, online petitions regarding prospective email taxation systems, etc with a link to the appropriate Snopes article dismissing said electronic missive as bullshit, and scolding people for USING ALL CAPS IN THEIR EMAIL BECAUSE THEY’RE TOO LAZY TO WORK OUT THE PROPER GRAMMAR FOR THE WRITTEN PAGE. I regularly read Slashdot, Macslash, xlr8yourmac, Fark and half a dozen other sites to keep abreast of recent developments in news, technical innovation, pop culture and humor. But that sort of behavior does not bear any resemblance to the herculean act of remaining patched into the vast, varied realm of Internet news, culture and–perhaps most difficult of all–humor.

Net humor, and the waxing and waning popularity of any given instance of same, is not merely vast and varied; it is positively metastatic. It waxes and wanes, grows and mutates according to no pattern whatsoever. No one can predict what the body intellect of the Internet will find amusing and worthy of further dissemination, nor which of the inevitable spinoffs, apes, counterfeits and copycats will enjoy similar favor. Many a hopeful and hubristic advertiser has tried to spark the interest of the Infobahn with some viral Internet marketing campaign based on a projection of what surfers out there will like and pass on to others, with varying degrees of success. Trends pass through the membrane of Net consciousness like buckwheat through a goose, and riding this four-dimensional tsunami of data is more than any but the most die-hard of Internet-based life form can handle with any grace or aplomb.

Hence the tie to World of Warcraft. No, I’m not saying that every participant in WoW is a lifeless wonder, a pathetic Web trawler straining content from the ether like a baleen whale straining krill from the ocean. My point is more that a vast network of hard-core Netizens like WoW acts as a natural concentrator of pop Web content, filtering and amplifying the colossal and undifferentiated well of words, sounds, pictures and video for the consumption of the entire community. This effect can be seen in other online forums besides MMORPGs: message boards, chat rooms, anywhere where a large group of Net-savvy computer users regularly gather to exchange information can act as a mediator/repeater for this sort of stuff.

My real point for ruminating on this subject matter is not to identify and evaluate the sources or nodes of popular Web content. The main purpose of this post is to ask the question: does it in fact matter that I am not nearly as intrinsically linked with the ebb and flow of Net culture as I otherwise might be? Does not being so make me a worse Netizen? Tech Guy? Human being?

In my Internet salad days, I was pretty tuned in. Fungi Perfecti got on the Web in 1995, and had our own domain name in 1996. We were early adopters in this field, and that made me want to absorb as much of the neonatal Internet culture as I could. It was new, it was way, way different, and it was–for the moment–pretty exclusive. But after a while the whole exercise began to chafe. After you had received the same well-worn email joke from a dozen people, or told the twentieth well-meaning neophyte to stop sending you the latest bogus PBS petition, which was in fact just a rehashing of the last bogus PBS petition, after you had answered the twentieth email from a family member, friend or co-worker asking if this or that Net rumor was true–as though the search engine had yet to be invented, as though said person had not in fact used a search engine at least twenty times that day to look something else up, but for some reason did not think it worth his/her (okay, his) time to do so in this instance when (s)he could instead drop me an email and demand that I spoon feed the information directly to them–the allure of Internet culture started to fade.

And the geometric expansion of the infosphere only makes constantly updating one’s personal content database that much more problematic. Not only do you have to struggle constantly with the volume of humorous hyperlinks thrombosing your inbox; you also have to manage the volume and quantity of stuff you let back out. How many times in oh, say, the last five years must some poor n00b have stumbled across the now-famous (and by Net standards, practically paleolithic) Flash animation “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” and forwarded it to three dozen people in his address book, only to be shot down by one or more antisocial respondents for having passed around re-re-recycled crap? In a medium where trends have a half-life of days or weeks, everything old is new again, and a lot of what is old and busted to you is teh new hawtness for many others, and vice versa.

So my desire to dip my cup into the fast-moving river of Net culture has waned a bit in the years since I first logged on. This is, on its face, just fine with me. Like my tastes in music, movies, recreation and just about everything else, my taste and tendencies in Net culture have started to atrophy as I have gotten old (my father is even now spray-painting the screen of his iMac with his morning coffee at my use of the term “old”). Like many of these other arenas of personal taste, the problem isn’t really that I don’t like anything new so much as it is that I don’t have the time to find much that is new that I like. There’s just too much to see, hear, read and experience to just dive in and soak it up; not if I also want to be paid for services I render unto my employer. So stanching the flow of Net culture past my eyes and between my ears is, in a very real sense, an act of self-preservation. It also fits well with my ever-growing sense of myself as a curmudgeon.

But on another level, such a development speaks ill of me, or at least my perceived future as a Tech Guy. Like it or not, I am the (untrained, self-taught, totally inadequate) Information Technology Officer for my company. Until cyber-Ronin David rode his horse (okay, Vanagon) up to our castle gate one day, I was the first line of defense for Fungi Perfecti’s corporate network….hang on, have to shudder…..hhhhhuuUUUUBLHUBLHUBLHUBLHHhhhhh….and may once again be the first line of defense some day in the future. In addition, I do happen to run a Web server out of my home, which means haveing to be entirely too familiar with the latest news on Windows exploits, botnet attacks, router vulnerabilities, et-oh-my-God-cetera. So while I may consider it acceptable to lag behind in one area of Net culture, it is extremely important that I maintain at least a decent awareness and depth of knowledge in another. And to be frank, I’m not sure I know where the boundaries between the two seemingly disparate arenas may lie. If I don’t know why people are yelling “Chuck Norris!” in a chat room, does that mean I will also miss the discussion about the latest backdoor exploit for the D-Link DFL series firewalls, either because I am not in the right place at the right time or because the nomenclature for describing same has shifted underneath me without my knowledge? How lame, in other words, is too lame for my own good?

Shit, you didn’t come here for answers, did you? Move along, Buddy, nothing to see here…. 😀

9/8/2006

Anyone Heading To London In September?

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 9:12 am

If so, could you please bring me back a case of Stinky French Garlic Spam? I will gladly pay all costs, including any import tariffs.

9/6/2006

From The Department Of Cool Useless Stuff Department

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 8:02 am

I wish I had enough surplus cash dribbling uncontrollably out of my many and varied orifices to be able to justify picking up my very own olde-timey rotary cell phone. That would be the point where I knew that I had “made it”. Hell, I’d buy two of ’em; one for the dashboard of my car.  😀

9/4/2006

Oh, For The Love Of….

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 3:24 pm

I thought about putting this one in the “Truth In Advertising” section, but decided that might be misinterpreted as a tacit endorsement of the very objectionable qualities that made me bring this up in the first place.

I recently began getting a “complimentary” subscription to PC Magazine, as a reward for filling out an online questionnaire. The mag’s okay, yet another missive with which to divert myself from undue reflection whilst on the throne (John Dvorak’s kind of a prick in my opinion, but I’m not sure he can help himself. When you earn your bread and butter yelling about stuff, it’s hard to know when enough is enough).

However, some of the ads in this thing leave me wondering what the editors were thinking. The following comes to mind:

golf-ad.jpg

See the problem? Allow me to elaborate: “We’ve got $3 million in advertising, and we have Annika Sorenstam….it’s what you call a hole in one.” Get it?

What kind of dickbrain was paid to put this ad together? I have a little trouble imagining that this was a totally innocent error. Don’t we computer nerds have a bad enough reputation without someone implying that we think this kind of thing is funny? “Heh heh, he said ‘hole’.”

On the other hand, I guess I shouldn’t be terribly surprised, given the other ad that caught my eye some twenty pages further:

athena.jpg

Between these and the full-page ad for Skoal Bandits on the inside back cover, you get a pretty distinct—and unfortunate—picture of who they think is reading their fine publication. Don’t think I’ll be renewing my subscription when the trial period lapses.

9/2/2006

Moose Bites Can Be Very Painful…..

MargaretMargaret
Filed under: @ 7:58 pm

No really!

I was out in the garden picking tomatoes the other day. Honestly there hasn’t been much I’ve done in the garden over the last six weeks that hasn’t involved picking tomatoes in some way.

Anyway, tricked out for high powered tomato picking. Shorts, flip flops, a grubby garden t-shirt. Happily picking away at the Tiger Like tomatoes when I felt something sharp stab the top of my right foot. Hard. Felt like someone had taken a tack and jabbed it into me.

I looked down to find out what the hell was going on and saw on top of my foot, gnashing its mighty fangs……..

A daddy long legs.

Now leave alone the question of why the multi-legged little bastard decided to bite me. I wasn’t doing anything to him, I wasn’t even disturbing the spider webs that have been strung in and amongst the tomatoes. I have no idea why he was biting me.
What really rankles is that I’ve been bitten by a lot of creatures in my life and now I get to add to that list the arachnid equivalent of a dust bunny.

And it itches like fury!

9/1/2006

Holiday Traffic

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 8:47 am

Today’s Dork Tower perfectly sums up how I feel about traveling the highways and byways of our great nation on or around a national holiday. I’ve been traumatized ever since the day Margaret and I spent thirteen hours making the journey from Eastern to Western Washington one Memorial Day weekend. With the advent of the Internet and home DVD delivery, there’s very little that can convince me to leave the house at all, much less on a heavier-than-already-shitty-normal-traffic weekend.

And yet I managed to get myself talked into attending a barbecue this weekend. In Everett. About fifty miles north of here. By freeway. I’m a chump.


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