I was sitting here thinking of things and I thought of possibly the coolest thing ever.  Ever see that guy tooling around on the moon in a moon buggy?  THAT is the coolest thing ever.  There is nothing that even comes close.  I mean, just being on the moon is pretty friggin' rad, but everybody knows that walking blows.  Even on the moon, walking blows, although probably only about 1/6th as much as it blows here on Earth. 

Moon buggy. 

I still can't get over how cool that is.  I bet if an alien came zipping by while that dude was moon buggying, the alien would think to himself that moon buggying is the coolest thing he's ever seen.  On the moon!  ON the friggin' MOON!  With a buggy!  I don't even know how to adequately express how friggin' awesome that must be.

Moon buggying.  I guess that about sums it up as well as possible.  I really want to say it one more time, because it's as close as I'll ever get to the physical act itself.  Wait for it....waaaait for it...moon buggy.  :)

Dear Farmer in the Dell,

This morning I was reading your rather unremarkable biography and I couldn't help but notice a blaring incongruity in your story. While I believe that most people have already heard the impossibly brief account of your forray into the dell, I firmly believe that many of them either a) do not know what a 'dell' is or b) are not very discriminating readers.

I'm sorry to say that for the better part of my life, I was a member of the former camp.

It turns out that a 'dell' is defined as "a secluded hollow or small valley usually covered with trees".

I, for one, would like to know what you were doing putzing around in the woods instead of tending your crops and animals in the fields with the rest of your farmhands. Even if you subscribe to the 'peculiar institution' of slavery, I find it hard to believe that you would leave your slaves to their own devices while you go traipsing about in a merry-o fashion through a secluded, wooded valley.

For generations, your story has met no resistance but the buck stops here, Farmer! I think we all deserve to know what you were doing in that dell. While my own mind is running rampant with speculation concerning the various immoral acts you may have been performing, I will refrain from any unfounded accusations at this time and let you plead your case.

Sincerely,

Cavutto

Dear Britney Spears,

Hi again! It's me, Ryan. I saw a clip of your performance at the MTV awards, courtesy of the Today Show this morning. Matt Lauer was kind of a dick to you, but whatev! Well, after watching the clip, I thought that maybe I could give you a few pointers on how to maybe do better next time.

First of all, I'd like to address that song you sang. I only heard a snippet of it, but it seemed awful repetitive (which is really saying a lot since I only saw a clip!). I think that maybe next time you're writing a song, you should really try to concentrate more. Maybe turn the TV off or don't listen to other music so loudly. You have to try to find a quite place with no distractions. It really seemed like maybe you were onto something when you kept saying 'baby baby baby' over and over again. I mean, who doesn't like a heartfelt song from a mother to her children? I just think that maybe you could've gone a bit deeper with it, that's all.

Also, I think you might need to take some more dancing lessons. Don't get me wrong, I tried to dance at a wedding last summer and it was a disaster! It's so much harder than it looks! You just have to remember that if you are dancing the same dance with a bunch of people and you forget what the DJ told you to do, just follow everybody else. Nobody's really looking at you in particular...they're just looking at a huge group of people dancing. Maybe try to stay in the middle of everybody else so you're harder to see.

Well, I guess that's about it. Sorry that everything didn't go quite as you planned. You must be really happy that it only played on MTV! I don't know anyone who actually watches that channel anymore. Can you imagine if it played on the History Channel or some other station people actually watched? How embarrasing! You really dodged a bullet on that one.

Your friend,

Ryan

Chips ahoy! Avast all ye landlubbers!

Dude, we got a boat.

In the great maritime tradition of Newington, few vessels have been as highly anticipated as the newest member of the fleet. This sleek and elegant inflatible raft is at the very height of modern naval ponding. We estimate that she'll paddle at maybe a knot or so and ride high on the negligible swells of most small to midsized ponds. Her fore and aft inflatible compartments are designed to withstand the rigorous pounding of beers for hours at a time. Captaining this stately schooner is one Kyle J. Barber (he's the only one with a boat license) and I have been selected for the ball-breaking position of First Mate. It is with great pride and fuuuurious anger that I present to you the S.S. Ship-to-be-named-later.



We're actually floating around a few names at the moment. Let me know what you think of these...

Patches
Dreadnough
The Vituperous Floating Enchelada
Billy Dee Williams
Chock Full O' Seamen
Wiggity Wack
Imperial Floater
Early Morning Whore
Dances with Trout
Larry

Here is an artist's conception of what she'll look like as she sails the open seas.

I've got nothing to blog about. No new and exciting office supplies. I had a dream last night where I was pretending to be asleep...how boring does that sound? I did wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if Jesus woke me up so that I could watch TV for a little while before he took me to heaven. At first I thought, "Well, that's a pretty morbid thought, dude" but then I realized that Jesus was kinda being a cool guy for letting me watch a little TV before I went. You know...not just taking me in the middle of that stupid lame-o dream. So there I was, watching a Glen Beck rerun while I awaited my imminent salvation and I thought, "Man, you are an idiot. Here you are, lying around with the knowledge that you only have a few minutes left while Jesus warms up the Heaven Express and what do you do? Watch a Glen Beck rerun you already saw. Congrats man."

What are you supposed to do though? It's the middle of the night and you only have a few minutes before Jesus comes to take you. I guess you just sit there and wait.

In any event, waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall asleep again isn't so bad if you think that Jesus woke you up so you could watch TV for a little while before you died. You're actually kinda glad to be awake.

So I was sitting here at the computer, working on my fantasy baseball team, and my brother asked me if the bigger bubbles in the fish tank go up faster than the smaller ones (The fish tank is less than a foot to the left of the monitor). I thought about it for a second and told him that the smaller ones are probably faster because they don't deform like the big ones do. I mean, I'm sure they deform somewhat and aren't totally spherical, but the big ones really mushroom out and wobble the whole way up. The smaller ones generally follow a more direct route to the top.

Anyways, we're pretty sure the smaller ones go faster upon close inspection.

This got me thinking. What if you had a super huge bubble underwater. Being so big, it would probably go up really slow. Like slow enough for me to beat it to the top if I really tried.

Well, what would happen if I brought a huge balloon to the bottom of a lake or shallow ocean. Like a balloon that was like 8 or 10 feet in diameter. Then, pop it while I was down there with it. Do you think that I could stick my head into the bubble and breathe the air on the way up? I know that only my head would be able to stay in there and I'd have to swim up really hard with the rest of my body, but I'm pretty sure I could keep my head in there. Inside the bubble! That would be so friggin' rad!

I wonder why nobody has thought of this already.

Yeah...I wonder...

Retard.

I bet that if you were alive 50 years ago and somebody told you that in the future there would be laserjets, you would probably imagine something way cooler than what laserjets turned out to actually be. I think that's a damn shame. I don't want to live in a world where laserjets are cumbersome, drab grey computer peripherals. You had so much potential, 'laserjet' the word. You could've been soaring through outerspace at nearly the speed of light, shooting death rays into stars and blowing up planets. But no. You just sit there next to my crappy desk, sucking up recycled paper and grinding out documents. Documents! Accountants work with documents. I don't know how you go sleep mode at night. You make me sick.

You know how when you're a kid and you want the most expensive shoes ever and your parents say 'no' and then you say that all the other kids at school are going to make fun of you and then your parents tell you that school is 'not a popularity contest'...where did they get that from? Are there really popularity contests out there? I wonder what kind of criteria they evaluate to determine your level of popularity. I don't think they actually exist. I've only heard about them through my parents comparing all of the popularity decreasing events in my life to them. I doubt that my parents ever put much thought into them either. I should've asked to participate in one...like after I finished with all my 'non-popularity contest' events.

"Next up, number 23, Cavutto. He will be attempting to get drafted in the first round of kickball. Obviously, points have already been deducted for not qualifying as a 'captain', but he can make up some of that deficit with a solid, base-clearing kick in the later innings. Also, keep an eye out for a new move that he's been working on in his bedroom for several nights now. Word on the playground is that he's been spending a lot of time kissing his forearm in preparation for the popularity contest 'coup de grace'. That's right, tonguing."

Hi. I was hoping to get some advice/opinions about something. As everybody knows, A-Rod is one longball away from hitting his 500th homerun and this weekend the Yankees are going to be playing down in Baltimore. I was invited down by my dad earlier in the week to go to the games, however I've been checking the weather everyday and it looks like it is going to be a thunderstormy weekend down there. So, today is kind of the deciding day and I'm still up in the air. If I am going to go, I was planning on taking tomorrow (Friday) off from work so that I could be there in time for the game (7:05). Here's my mental list of pros/cons:


Pros

-After I catch A-Rod's 500th homerun, a representative from the Yankees will come find me and offer me all the riches in Yankeedom for the ball. I will inform them that Cooperstown is on line two and a furious bidding war will ensue. I'll probably favor the Yankees and spend the rest of the weekend yukking it up in the clubhouse with the guys and go home with a sweet bat signed by all of them. Maybe Joe Torre will let me kick Kyle Farnsworth in the junk.

- I would get to hang out with my dad at the Inner Harbor after the game. A-Rod will probably still be hounding me about the ball, so I'll make him be my wingman. I will own the Inner Harbor that night.

- My dad's girlfriend's son has Wii and I'm really good at Wii Bowling already. I bet I could beat him pretty bad.


Cons

- I think all of the games will probably get rained out.

- It's a five hour drive all by myself.

- I'm supposed to be helping my mom move this weekend and I feel kinda bad about that.


So...what'cha think?

I've been feeling kinda bloggy lately. Not sure why. It comes and it goes. It's like I fall into these little routines with how I spend my 'bored' time. Speaking of little routines, I've started eating pears a lot lately. Not the real ones, but the kind that come all chopped up in the can already. I would do the real ones, but I don't wanna take the 'ripe' challenge. Too early = Suck. Wait too long = Waste of money. I like the canned ones because they come in the pear syrup. Man, I would love to drink that shit but somewhere in the back of my mind there is a little voice that is telling me that the juice has got to be 'too good to be true'. Right? I mean, it's like super pear extract times ten. It probably tastes better than an angel's boobies but then you will have to crap out the anal equivalent of the Amazon. It's funny how crap is almost always brown...and uniform. How the hell does that happen? It's like no matter what you put in, you get the same thing. I wonder what would happen if you took a few cups of stomach juices and put a bunch of food in it. Like, in a bucket or a ziploc bag. Would that stuff eventually turn brown and smell like shit? Maybe you'd have to like, massage it or something like your inner muscles do. I don't want that job. I also don't want to donate my stomach juices either. I don't want to talk about this anymore, but I am in the mood for pears. I don't think that they make enough pear flavored things. I think pear is one of the most underrated flavors. Pear juice would be a huge hit, I think. Maybe it's really hard to get the pear flavor just right. I just sat here for a minute, staring at the wall, trying to think of pear flavored things. The only thing I could come up with was my ex's spray-on flavor, which is funny because I still haven't come up with anything that tastes like pears. Just something that sorta smelled like them. I wonder why pears got such a bad rap? I bet is has to do with shipping or something stupid like that. Like, the shape of the pear doesn't lend itself to packing really tight or something. God, I hate...produce producers? I'm going to go eat pears. Sliced up into bite size chunks and floating around in a can of pear nectar. I bet those stupid terrorists can't just go in the kitchen and get themselves a can of bite size pears in pear nectar. They're probably all like, "Hey, I'm gonna go take a break from all this blogging and go grab another goddam falafel. Allah dammit, I'm really starting to hate falafel. Death to America."

I'm kinda freaked out that eyeballs are almost completely exposed all day long. It just sounds like a recipe for trouble. I mean, there are eyelids and stuff, but they seem laughably deficient for protecting something as imporant and fragile as eyeballs. I'm surprised that more people don't get their eyeballs all cut up and broke. I find random cuts on my face from time to time and I don't know where they come from. I think it's only a matter of time before one of my eyeballs gets cut. They really seem too delicate to have remained exposed on people's faces for so long. I'm gonna lose one. Maybe both. I can just feel it. Once one of them is gone, I think the odds of losing the other skyrocket because you lose your depth perception. Maybe I should start wearing protective eyewear all the time. Big-ass goggles. If somebody gives me shit about them, I'll reach into my pocket, grab a handfull of scraps from aluminum drillings and throw them right in their eyes. That will teach them. You don't fuck with the guy wearing protective eyewear.

I ate something that was really good for lunch today and I would love to know what it was. It looked a lot like a brownie but instead of being a square, it was a triangle. It tasted sorta like a brownie, but it had this other taste to it. At first I thought it was cinnamon, but then I started second guessing myself into thinking that it might have been nutmeg. I'm not really sure what nutmeg tastes like, but I imagine this taste was it. What does nutmeg go on usually? Oh, and the mystery brown wedge also sorta had this cruncy layer on top. Maybe not 'crunch' cruncy, but different. Almost like it had a thin layer of the crumbly powder you use to make brownies with.

Any idea what I ate? It was really friggin' good...

Well, the first seven were really good. After that, they kinda gave me a stomach ache.

...and bitches are like 4 of them maybe. Ever notice that animals friggin' love nature? If I was an animal, I would want to be a bird because birds seem like they would be able to escape from everything except cages. Wow, this blog is so deep. I should really erase it and start all over again. Fuck it. I like sitting down with no ideas whatsoever and typing. I wouldn't be doing this if my goddam fantasy baseball team didn't suck so bad. I used to spend my mornings working on it. Comparing stats and looking at match-ups, but ever since they started sucking, it's like I resent them or something. I just want to call a team meeting and be like, "Alright team, I just wanted to let you all know that you suck so bad. Is Ichiro here? Where? Oh. Dude, you gotta like stand on the bench or something cause I can never see you. Cool. Yeah, Ichiro, you're like the only one that's not sucking real bad. The rest of you bums...where do I even begin. Mike Lowell. What are you, like 45 years old? You had a pretty good week last week, but you really gotta get that 'Just For Men' beard coloring stuff. Keith Hernandez uses it and you like Keith Hernandez, right? Alright, now who the hell is Orlando Hudson? I don't know who you are, but I had to drop Ian Kinsler at second base and you were the best guy I could pick up off of free agency. Is your name really 'Orlando', because that's wicked gay. I bet you're black. You suck really bad and I wish there were more second basemen still available. Dice-k, Dice-k, Dice-k...man, you are such a let down. You were my first round draft pick too! What was I thinking? You suck really bad. There's a guy on this team called J.J. Putz and he's given me almost a hundred more points than you! A guy named 'Putz'! For real. Speaking of J.J.s, I'm really kinda pissed off at you too, J.J. Hardy. I thought that having two J.J.'s would lend itself too all kinds of cool duo nicknames, but you haven't been producing at all for like the past month. I should've known better than to pick up a shortstop from Milwaukee. I should've known better than to pick up anyone from Milwaukee. Yeah, that's right, I'm looking at you, Yovani Gallardo. Wait, now that I look at your stats, you aren't actually doing that bad. Dang! I'm sorry I had you on reserves the past few weeks. I just thought your name sounded ridiculous. My bad. You're in from now on. Go warm up."

Do you think that our line of ancestors goes all the way back to the first lifeform on the planet? I mean, where else would it lead if you traced it back, right? Unless life might have come from two different places (or more), I think it's a safe bet that whatever primitive single cell organism started it all is like my great grandmother or something. Then I started thinking about how all the life before me has been pretty successful as far as the basic goals of living things. Live, reproduce, die. Well, maybe dying is so successful, but it's inevitable. So anyways, what if I never reproduce? That would sorta mean that I'm the first failure in the billion year history of my ancestory. Great. No pressure, right? I suppose I could just go knock up some slut and claim success.

This morning I was thinking that being a spy would be a really cool job, but then I started thinking about how if I was a spy, I probably wouldn't be doing it full-time, ya know? I'd have to have a 'cover' job or whatever. That pretty much killed that fantasy. Why would I want two jobs? Unless spying paid really well and I could do it like every other weekend or something like that. Also, in the brief instant when I was imagining myself as a spy, I noticed that in my imaginings I was always humming the theme song to Mission Impossible and playing with my watch (which doubled as some kind of spy gadget). I don't think that these kinds of actions are conducive to being a spy. You'd think that it would be a dead giveaway. Who's the spy? Oh yeah, that guy wearing the trench coat and fedora standing on the wharf humming Mission Impossible and playing with his watch all day. Yeah. Probably that guy. Then I thought that maybe it would be a good cover to look exactly like an idiot version of James Bond. I mean, who's gonna expect the guy that looks so much like a spy to actually be one? Just civilians probably. They can suck my ass.

In lieu of Phoenix's upcoming (temporary!) departure and longing for the 'good ol' days', I figured I'd step in an post a few stupid thoughts...you know, cause that's how I do. So, first, I think that I would like to become a airplane pilot so that I could throw stuff out and see what happens. I'm specifically thinking about fans for this one. You know, like the big square kind. I think it would be pretty neat to throw one out and have its blades push air up towards the sky so that it would accelerrate down to the ground faster. My guess is that it would reach whatever terminal velocity is for a fan and then reach a sort of equilibrium because the air passing through the blades would be going the same speed as the air outside the casing. You would probably have to attach some kind of rigid tail structure to it so that it wouldn't start flopping around all willy nilly. One foreseeable problem with this would be that if there isn't some force to counter the energy of the fan spinning, the casing will spin the opposite direction. Eventually, it this whole mess will maybe reach some kind of equillibrium as stated earlier. Another thing that might be cool would be to skydive while holding the fan. I wonder what kind of lateral distance you could cover if you held it out in front of you, a la Superman. Probably not much, but I think you might get like a hundred yards out of it. Another cool fan experiment would be to make a parachute out of one of those big industrual type fans. Like, have it point down so that it would be pushing against the flow of the air as you descend. You'd probably need a whole matrix of industrial fans to get any kind of decelleration out of it. Plus, when you start strapping a matrix of industrial-sized fans on your back, you are really asking for trouble.

I think I threw out my imaginary bowling arm playing too much Wii lately. It's really starting to hurt my imaginary golf game. Although, I have a gut feeling that after a few hours of poker, hitting the imaginary links will sounds like a fabulous idea. Maybe even a few rounds of imaginary tennis. I'm sure my downstairs neighbors really appreciate the energy we put into mixed doubles at such an unimaginably late hour.