I’m Getting An iPhone, Y’all!
Wow! My staff just presented me with a gift card for a 3G, 16gb iPhone for my upcoming birthday. Is that cool, or what?
Escalator Mishap Makes a Mess of Makeup
Forgive me for laughing at this.
The Black Hole That is Dallas, Texas
Sometimes I think living in Dallas is just too much of an embarrassment. But then a story like this comes along and I think, wow, where else could I hope to find this kind of entertainment?
That’s right–two Dallas County officials consider the term black hole to be racist.
Dear Deron
Please stop all of this silly work and come back to clusterflock, where you belong. We miss you.
Christopher Hitchens Describes Being Waterboarded
At last, a high profile figure has submitted to being waterboarded. It’s no surprise to me that it was Christopher Hitchens. Dick Cheney, who insists that this is not a form of torture, doesn’t have the guts.
See the Vanity Fair video, with a link to Hitchens’s related article, here.
Dear Clusterflock
What’s the funniest movie ever made?
Jesus Appears on Granite Slab in Dallas
Texas has had its share of Jesus sightings on tortillas, and occasionally he and/or his mom turn up on panes of glass, but now he’s shown up on a slab of granite. Cool.
By the way, be sure to read the comments. Unfair Park is a great Dallas blog, and yours truly often leaves comments there. Smart, funny people.
Daryl, Deron–I Hope You’re Happy
Overheard in the Hospital Cafeteria
So, you going home to grill some biscuits and drink beer?
Man Stuck, Naked, Inside Porta-Potty
Rescue crews had to cut apart a portable toilet to rescue a man who got stuck naked inside the potty. Authorities say the 31-year-old man used his cell phone to call 911 on Sunday from inside a portable toilet.
Police say the man had been drinking and had taken off his clothes. Somehow, he immersed himself in the holding tank.
I fully expect this guy to join clusterflock someday.
Y’all
Daryl finally re-grouted the bathroom tile around the tub. It only took him three years. I feel soooo blessed.
Now that I can take a bath without getting the heebie-jeebies, though, I’m not sure I can lift myself out of the tub.
Today at the Diner
1. After some discussion, Daryl and I decided that the English language should appropriate the Spanish word for “choke”–ahogo. We should just take it, like we took Texas.
2. The man next to us ordered only white foods: scrambled egg whites, sliced bananas, two bowls of oatmeal, milk. I’m pretty sure he’s nuts.
3. Some new guys started complaining that it was taking too long to get their hamburgers. All of the other patrons glared at them. Everyone knows that the cook watches sports on Sundays, and you get your food only during commercial breaks. What a couple of assholes.
I Love Texas
Where else will you find a naked mother arguing with her son who accidentally shoots herself in the finger?
Dear Clusterflock
Of all the jobs you’ve held, which was your favorite?
Handy Manny
So every morning before school, Mia watches this show called Handy Manny. It’s a little young for her, but I encourage her to watch it. Little does she know that I’m forcing this on her just so I can hear the owner of the hardware store say, “Hello, Manny. Hello, Tools.”
I laugh like Butthead every time I hear it.
I Love Texas
A man used a loaded gun to scratch his back and shot himself.
Crash, Burn, Get a Ticket
This just cracks me up. I mean, I know it shouldn’t be funny, but I just can’t stop laughing.
Martin Parr’s Photos of Mexico
See more at The Morning News
David Byrne on Errol Morris
David Byrne has written an interesting exploration of documentary filmmaking in general and Errol Morris’s Standard Operating Procedure in particular.
High School Latin
Did I ever tell y’all about my high school Latin class? It was taught by a very sweet man, Mr. R, who wore the same suit every day. We knew it was the same suit because it always bore the marks where someone had pounded him on the back with a dirty eraser as he leaned over a student’s desk. He spoke five languages, four of them dead. He’d declined a Rhodes Scholarship because Oxford was too liberal. I took Latin as a freshman because I thought it would be interesting. Everyone else in the class–every single other person–was male, much older than I was, Hispanic, and was taking the class because it promised to be easy and fun. Here are some of the things that happened nearly every day:
1. Someone would give a signal, and we’d all change desks. Quickly. While Mr. R had his back turned. He’d turn around and get all flustered and tell us to move back. We’d do that very slowly.
2. Someone would give a signal, and fiery paper airplanes would fly across the room from every angle.
3. Someone would give a signal, and we’d all inch our desks forward. We’d do this several times, until finally our desks were huddled around Mr. R’s desk. He’d turn around and get all flustered and tell us to move back. We’d do that very slowly.
4. Someone would ask Mr. R if Cindy could go to the board and conjugate Puto. And Mr. R would say, why, yes. Cindy is good. And they’d all say, yes, Cindy is good. And I’d go to the board and write puto, putas, putat, putamus, putatus, putant.
5. On the day of the final, someone blew up a desk using a bit too much gunpowder, and we had to be evacuated.
I loved that class.
Dear Clusterflock
What do you regret?
Someday
I will have a back yard filled with vintage lighted signs. The large ones–some neon, some with tiny colored bulbs–of the sort that stand in front of old liquor stores and neighborhood shopping strips. I’ll have ten or twelve of them. And then, on very special occasions, in the middle of the night, I will flip a large switch and turn them all on.
Overheard
Coming back from College Station yesterday, I stopped at the Shell station in Riesel (as is my wont) to buy gas, pee-pee, and buy a Diet A&W. Two nearly identical-looking women stood behind the counter, one appearing to be about 14 years older than the other. Here’s the conversation:
Younger: Need you to keep a eye on your son-in-law. Gotta go to Manchaca 4 days.
Older: What’s in Manchaca?
Younger: Gotta pick up the little goat what’s mama died.
Older: Jimmy not goin with you?
Younger: Caint.
Older: Awright.
Lexus Man
Yesterday morning around 6:30, as I was driving on a near-deserted rural stretch of highway south of Dallas on my way to a distant meeting, I saw a car zooming up behind me. This is an odd occurrence, given the speed at which I usually drive, but nonetheless, a sapphire-blue car going about 90 eased toward me. As it approached, I could see the driver had a nice pimp thing going, leaning over in his seat, single arm resting on the steering wheel. I liked him already. As he passed, his car registered to me as a mid-90s generic American vehicle, probably a Ford. But when he pulled ahead of me, I saw that the car said Lexus on the back. I pondered this for a couple of seconds, trying to remember at what point Lexus could have had a design such as that. Then it hit me. The guy had taken all the hardware off of the back of the car (no dealer branding, no logo), and he’d added the Lexus name to the back. Dude got himself a Lexus.
I’m in love.
Hey, Yall?
Can someone Heimlich me? I’m choking on Wasabi peas.