It’s been a few months since I posted some video of the kids, but that’s all about to change! Here’s a video of Emma making Grayson laugh. It reminds me a lot of the video of Emma laughing while playing football, although Emma was three months older in that video that Grayson is in this one. In any case, I think you’d be hard-pressed not to smile during either. You’ll also notice that Emma feels the need to say “jump jump jump jump” while she is jumping. In case you weren’t aware that is what she was doing. :)

A few days ago I found the following campaign ad attached to my mailbox. I’ve highlighted the “Personal Accomplishments” section I am about to discuss.

Now, let’s go through these.

Married to wife, Becky, for 30 years. Maybe it’s a sign of the times that this is listed as a personal accomplishment. But I can’t help but read it as an insult to his wife—like the accomplishment is putting up with her for 30 years.

Three children. Okay so your kids don’t sound like hoodlums. I hope my own kids don’t grow up to be hoodlums. Probably the most accomplishmental thing here.

Member of Rocky River Presbyterian Church. I don’t know too very much about Presbyterianism. Maybe I need to consult with my uncle the Presbyterian minister, or my cousin the aspiring Presbyterian minister. But I don’t think it is all that difficult to get in.

Harrisburg resident. Harrisburg isn’t exactly Beverly Hills. I think living there is even easier than joining a Presbyterian church.

I have devised a very simple scale for evaluating Mexican restaurants. There are only two points of evaluation:

1. Are the fajitas sizzling when they are brought to your table? If so, the restaurant gets 25 points.

2. Are the tortillas there as soon as the fajitas are brought to the table? If so, the restaurant gets 75 points. (Score no points if you have to sit there and watch your fajitas sizzle out (assuming they were sizzling in the first place) waiting on the waiter to bring out the tortillas.)

For those of you who aren’t mathematically inclined, the only scores possible are 0, 25, 75, and 100.  0 and 25 are equivalent to an F-.  75 is a C. 100 is an A+.

A week or two ago I discovered the blog How To Write Badly Well. Anyone can write badly badly, but it takes real skill to write badly well, and that is what the blog tries to explore. (The blog only has twenty entries so far, so it’s possible to read from the start if you’re so inclined. Some of my favorite entries are here, here, and here.)

One post asked for badly-well-written 300-word stories, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I made an attempt to ham-fistedly combine fantasy and sci-fi, while also abusing the character map. I wasn’t the winner, so I figured I’d post it here. Enjoy.

Aõgÿne could do this. He knew the dragon had a weak point near her upper rectum, if only he could trick her into exposing it. He tossed an antimatter grenade to the dragon’s left. The implosion would tear a tiny rift though the space-time continuum, which he hoped would frighten the beast. When the grenade detonated the dragon turned with a screeching hiss. At once he activated a laser-tipped spear and hurled it with all his might. It was a direct hit, and the creature cried out in pain as the laser burned through her bowels. Aõgÿne now unsheathed his sword, approached the writhing dragon from behind, and slit her throat in one swift motion. This Wævian moon would be terrorized no more.

But he knew the victory was bittersweet.

After six months on Fa£aña, he would now have to leave. It was all part of the job for an intergalactic dragon slayer like Aõgÿne, and leaving had never been a problem before. But falling in love was never part of the plan. His heart ached as he thought of leaving Eröå behind.

He paused before entering the building to watch her through the window. The sight of her beautiful elvish features was too much for his heart to bear. He scribbled a message on an electronic tablet and placed it in front of her door.  With a heavy heart, he flew away from the moon at three hundred times the speed of light. But he knew there was no speed so fast that the memory of Eröå wouldn’t catch up to him.

Below is the first paragraph of some spam I received today:

Dear Kip,

Since you recently supplied your email address to Marriott, you’ll now receive advance notice of new hotels, services to save you time and money, and hotel specials and packages.

Now, reread that, but this time use a cartoon super-villain voice, and end with “and there’s nothing you can do about it!  A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

That’s more like it.

PS: Their unsubscribe page also told me it might take up to 10 days to complete the unsubscribe operation.  Idiots.

A week ago, when I tried to connect to the wireless internet at our resort in Williamsburg, I was told I needed to pay for it.  I found the second purchasing option to be very strangely worded:

Protip: don’t forget who your friends on Facebook are.

I received an e-mail forward today that contained something I felt had to be pointed out.  So I took a screenshot and added an annotation.  See if you can find it.

I think I just participated in a Turing test.  I had a problem ordering a new cell phone from Sprint, so I did an online chat with a customer service representative.  They said they would e-mail me a transcript, but they haven’t yet.  Since the chat was in a Flash object, I couldn’t select the text to copy and paste it, so I just combined two screenshots, and added some annotations.1

This is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/hot_new_video_game_consists

It’s a satirical news story from The Onion, about a video game called “Close Range.”  I would summarize it more, but I think it’ll be funnier for you if I don’t.