Bovine + Flour = Miet Mache

Fine readers, I'll have you know that I prepared my taxes evening last. It took me about 2.5 hours, and the cats seemed to understand my need to remain undisturbed. Usually, when I sit down that's an open invitation to my lap and whatever may or may not be on it; dinner, laptop, magazines, etc. Last night, the kittens were given strict instructions not to jump on my lap, and for the most part they followed them to a tee. Occasionally, their instincts had the better of them and they found themselves being thrust from my lap, but they seemed content to sit on the couch and snuggle with eachother. Ahh, kittens. So cute, yet occasionally so obnoxious.

After finishing my taxes, I treated Nano to a game of Blue Mouse. It's a very similar game to Green Mouse, with the only distinction being the color of the mouse. If you aren't familiar with Green/Blue Mouse, here are the rules... I throw the mouse in his vicinity, and he catches it. If I slide it along the floor, he bats it around until he reaches a wall. Traditionally, the game is closer to the canine sport of "fetch", but now that Nano's reached the ripe old age of 5, he is no longer interested in returning the mouse to me. But I'll be damned if I can get the mouse past him. You might almost describe his reflexes as "catlike". And the pride he takes in catching (literally) the mouse out of the air, I can only assume, is equivalent to a parent watching his/her child win an Olympic event. [Tear]

As I lay in bed last night, circa 10:00 in the PM, I was awoken by the thought that I had to make my breakfasts for the rest of the week. I dragged myself downstairs and put together my oatbran/strawberry/flax seed/butter/water/honey concoction. Done!

Shit, I also wanted to make beef stew for dinner tonight. Knowing how angry Morning Coot would be with that lazy son-of-a-bitch Evening Coot, I conceded and set to work preparing all of the ingredients. The bonus here was that I got to put my kickass Wusthof knife to work. That thing will cut your whole arm off if you aren't careful.

I chopped and I chopped and I chopped some more until I had three bowls of meat and veggies assembled. I coated the meat cubes in a flour mixture per the recipe and put everything in the fridge.

ERROR! ERROR!

Some of you might recall a little arts and crafts project commonly known as Papier Mache. Well, I made Miet Mache (French for Meat Mache) as the flour mixture formed a nice tight bond between the cubes of deceased bovine. This was certain to make one terrible stew, so I had to painstakingly separate each cube from the pack. An inconvenience sure, but when Afterwork Coot is enjoying his stew, it won't seem so bad that Morning Coot had to do all of that work.

Sniff, sniff. Yup, that stew is going to be delicious.

I must bid you adieu whilst I begin digesting a delicious grilled reuben sandwich.

Over and out,
Old Coot

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It was all about barking dogs

Kind readers, I'm going to regale you with tales of the unbelievable. They may be slightly exaggerated, but are based 100% in reality.

Yesterday morning was a nice early morning trail run. We hit up some trails in Pittsfield State Forest for a few hours. It was roughly 15 degrees (Fahrenheit) and snowing, perfect. Actually, by the end I was soaking in my own sweat, so it really was about right.

After 2 hours in the woods, I was ready for a nice hot shower. The nasty blisters on my toes were worse after the run than they were before, strangely enough. I decided maybe next time I'd have to forgo the wool socks for something thinner the next time.

Next was breakfast; some steel cut oats hit the SPOT. I even threw some banana slices and strawberries in there for an extra health boost.

Once I was clean and fed, it was time to round up my tax information. Per my mental schedule, I was supposed to do my taxes yesterday but I don't like stressing myself out too much if I don't have to, so instead I built a fire and watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Plus I made corned beef and cabbage (and potatoes and carrots and onions). The veggies were great, the meat sucked. It was easily 75% fat!

This morning I awoke, dressed and headed out to L-to-the-anesboro for another run in the woods. Fear not faithful readers, it wasn't 15 and snowy today. It was 7 and windy. Once the blood warmed up my extremities I was in business. I even got to see a coyote den (minus the coyotes) and heard story after story of all of the dangerous wildlife in this particular series of trails. This was enough to keep my eyes peeled for danger.

DANGER! After passing a farmhouse, we were chased by three HUGE dogs. Now, the conventional approach to dogs is to stop, look them in the eye and yell "STOP". When our leader booked ass I followed suit. I hated to leave the woman behind, but in a life or death situation like that you don't have to outrun the dogs, you just can't be the slowest person. My afterburners kicked in and I was GONE.

Well, the woman followed conventional wisdom and stopped the dogs from chasing. She waved goodbye to them followed by "Goodbye puppies". Man did I feel like a heel, an alive heel, but a heel nonetheless. I promised I'd embellish this story with something about bears, but I just can't mislead my readers.

Today's run was another 2 hour jobber and my dogs were BARKING, yo. Soaked to the bone, they were cold, tired, blistered and ready for a rest. All I could think about was breakfast and coffee. I headed home to get out of my soaking wet clothes (damn I'm a sweaty bastard).

Ahh, home at last. When I walked in, I remembered that the sink stopped draining last night. I had put some drain clearing enzymes down the drain last night to clear the clog naturally. That didn't work so I knew I was in for a fun time. I was going to have to open the cleanouts in the basement and snake the drain. If you've never done this, it typically involves dumping disgusting water all over your person and a whole lot of swearing. I made sure to hit both of these points early on so I could get on with the repair.

I only had to try two cleanouts before I hit the clog. A couple of cranks on the snake (get your mind out of the gutter) and I busted threw. I put the plug back on the cleanout and tested the drain. Everything went down nicely, so I cleaned up and had some eggs.

Well, that's plenty for all of you. It's time for you to get back to your own lives. I'll holler at you tomorrow.

Over and Out,
Old Coot

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3 Nipples = 1.5 boob-persons

Friday was a fantastic day in the world of electrical engineering. I can't believe I get paid to do what I do; listen to this... today I updated several spreadsheets AND a couple of powerpoint presentations. Viewgraph engineering at its finest. I admit, I did look at a few drawings and datasheets, but it was primarily spreadsheets and viewgraphs.

But for real, it sucked. Then after work I went out to a Polynesian restaurant for dinner with a few chums. Originally it was supposed to be The 99, but the wait was outrageous. So we hit up Luau Hale, a fine Polynesian eatery. The food was fantastic, and the service great as well. Plus the waitress was nice looking, always a bonus.

As we enjoyed our fortune cookies, HECOW was a little distracted. He finished his cookie, but alas could not find his fortune. A quick eye-scouring of the table, then "Hey, where'd my fortune go? Did I just eat it?"

We never found his fortune. Not a good sign, HECOW.

After dinner was cards and a flick. Looking for a light comedy, we opted for American Pie: Band Camp. Note to the gentlemen, the intro gives you all of the important visuals, so just put it on and enjoy. There are boobs aplenty.

After watching the "Band Camp" movie, it was unanimous that there should be a boob/minute rating on movies. After a few scenes, we thought maybe the boob count should be normalized to a unit of measurement coined "boob-persons". For example, in one scene there were three girls showering, but only 3 full boobs (nipple in view), normalizing that to two boobs per person, that scene would have a rating of 1.5 boob-persons. This act of nerdizing was much to the disapproval of ECOW, but she was outnumbered.

So that was that. Being the pansies that we are, 11:30 was about it for the night. I had to get up early for a run in the woods so I was glad to call it.

Over and out,
Old Coot

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What's yo hat sayin?

I'm not one to be up on technology. I'm the guy waiting for that new-new shit to come out so I can buy the old-old shit offa someone else at a disCOUNT. This time, I bought myself the older model of a digital camera to replace the one I had before. My old camera decided it was only going to take 2-3 pictures per charge of the batteries, if that. I called for help before I trashed the old camera. Here's a transcript of my conversation with the good people at HP technical support...

Tech Dude (TD): Hi, thank you for calling HP tech support. How can I help you?
Me: Hey man, what's up? Yeah, I have the M305 camera with the docking station. It doesn't seem to be taking a charge though. It either freezes up on me or if I'm lucky, it'll take 2-3 pictures then freeze up.
TD: Have you tried recharging the batteries?
Me (in my head): Oh shit! You have to charge them too? My bad.
Me (for real): Yeah, I left them on the charger overnight. The camera doesn't recognize the batteries. I even charged them in another charger. Then I tried regular alkalines in it and it still doesn't work.
TD: What I'm going to do is have you reformat the camera (then tells me how to do it).
Me: Yeah, I tried that too. Didn't work. I was thinking maybe it had something to do the latest firmware upgrade. It was right around the time I upgraded it that it stopped working.
TD (sensing maybe I'm not an idiot): Oh, hmm. There's a firmware upgrade that corrects some of the power issues.
Me (sensing he's not listening to my whole response): Yeah, I just updated it. I put in v1.7.
TD (he's locked on to the word firmware and he's not letting go): Okay, I'm going to have you try to upgrade the firmware. You can check it online, if you don't have v1.7 you'll have to upgrade it. That should solve your problem. Anything else I can help you with?
Me: Yeah, I just told you that I upgraded it to v1.7, even the camera's help menu says it has 1.7 installed.
TD: Oh. That didn't work?
Me: No, that's why I'm calling.
TD: You can send it in for service, but it's probably going to run you about $75 plus shipping. That's our flat rate for service.
Me: Uhh, hmm. I don't think I'm going to do that.
TD: No, I'd just get a new camera if I were you.
Me: Okay, well thanks for helping.
TD: Is there anything I can help you with today?

He didn't even help me with the one problem I had. I'll tell you what, there was no way I was going to buy another HP if the service guy tells me they can't fix my firmware problem and I have to buy a new camera.

Anyways, I bought myself a new camera about a week ago. I got the same one my sister has, she's been raving about it. I even went out and bought the highest capacity batteries I could find so they'd last as long as possible. I'm talking Nickel Metal Hydride 2500mAH jobbers. What WHAT!?!

After the first charge, they lasted a few days which included a lot of pictures, a few movies, uploading to the PC, etc. It seemed quick, but I was okay with it. Another overnight charge and I was back in business.

Last night I busted out the A-camera to snap some hot photos at my friend's house. I even shot a little 10 second video to play around with that. The next thing I know it's telling me to replace the batteries, then it shuts off. What the fuck? I took all of 10 pictures and one short video (on the lowest resolution, mind you) before the effin batteries died. I threw them back in the charger last night and the fuckers better work TO-DAY!

BUT, today is Friday. I just got paid. I'm bout to do my taxes this weekend (and subsequently get me some dividayunds). Plus I think I might treat myself to a new hat. Now that my head isn't as rotund as it once was, I can sport hats. I thought about a nice Red Sox hat, not because I'm a fan (I hate baseball) or because that's what all the rap stars are wearing these day (they're not), but because it would be my quiet way of mocking the Yankees fans at work.

Or maybe a nice mesh/foam one with some catchy saying on it. Plus urrtime I leave the house I can think to myself "Boy, throw a hat on that weave".


Back to building bombs for WWIII,
Old Coot

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Some guys are so nasty

As I sidled up to Urinal #1 in the men's room yesterday, I was able to overlook the pile of pubes on the edge that builds up over the course of the day, but what really grossed me out was the puddle on the floor. I thought maybe someone spilled some water or his shoes were wet, but today as I waltzed up to - and subsequently past - Urinal #1, I noticed the same puddle. Ewww.

Whizzing in a toilet has it's challenges, I'll admit. You have the obvious crooked stream that needs adjustment from the getgo. Then you have the occasional spray pattern difficulties, variations in temperature (pool and wind related), time of day and so on. Even hitting the water will splash some, but hitting a urinal is second in ease only to peeing directly on the ground, with peeing on a tree at #3. Anyone who's ever tried to pee on the ground - male or female - knows how easy this is, and even #3 doesn't even offer much of a challenge. So when I see that presumably more than one guy has somehow missed the urinal, I have cause for concern. Really, I'm not claiming to be John Holmes, how small do you have to be to not be able to reach the rim of the urinal. It even extends outwards to catch the "shake drops". If you can't hit that, you may want to have your chromosomes checked, ma'am.

Next on my list isn't so much gross as it is funny. We were discussing professional eaters, and it came up that one guy at 135 wings at Hooters during a training session. Of course he had to pull over on his way home to boot them up, but this got me thinking. To expand your stomach from something the size of a fist to something that can accomodate 135 chicken wings, it would have to be pretty damn close to paper thin. The convulsions that allow you to vomit must be dangerously close to tearing that thin membrane. We took it from there...

Imagine someone attempting to boot up 135 wings, and after the preliminary hoarks he realizes that nothings coming up. It turns out that his stomach has torn open and the wings have spilled into his abdomen. He decides to work the wings (using his hands as a squeegy) up his side to his chin, where he proceeds to pop the 135-chicken-wing-zit all over the mirror. Puh-ritty nasty.

So there you have it folks. Guys are nasty. But only some... I didn't pee all over the men's room floor, but I did help take a simple professional eating conversation to the next level.

I'll leave you with those tidbits of conversational jewelry.

Over and out,
Old Coot

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