ePlushpidity

Lucky you, Hatkateers! Two posts in one day! I have to tell you that I did something so stupid that it left me convulsed with helpless laughter for twenty minutes, so why not share the joy? It all started when Rockstar Tailor talked Hardingfele and me into stopping by the craft store to buy supplies for her online business, Random Queen Girls, where she and some school friends sell random stuff online to raise money for pet shelters. While she was collecting beads, I admired the ePlush stuffed animals. Most cost quite a bit of money, but for some reason a very pretty white pegasus with gold hooves and wings was on sale for a fraction of the price of the others. Now I need another ePlush like the proverbial hole in the head - and in fact what happened next may convince you that I have said hole right through some vital part of the brain - but I did buy it. Since my ePlush creatures are two boys and three girls, I decided that my little winged horse would be a boy to keep the balance even.

I was going to name him Thanatos 2U, and Tailor thought I should make it a girl and name her Ophanta, but Hardingfele nixed Thanatos. I mentioned to a Mexican janitor as we entered Hardingfele's office building that she didn't like the plushy's name so I should call him "Cabron," and he laughed. But Hardingfele thought that meant "buddy"! So I went to the ePlush website, entered the secret code to activate the online avatar of my little stuffy, and was surprised when they asked me to enter it again. Too late I realized the first time they must have been asking for his name, so now he is immortalized with the moniker [six random letters and a number], his now not-so-secret code. OOOOOOOOOPS!!!! In case you're wondering, it's pronounced "Joe."

Famous Hat

Missives from Mickey Mouse Heck

Two days ago Kathbert, A-Fooze, Anna Banana II, and I received the following alarming message, desperately sent from the depths of Mickey Mouse Heck:

Rich: HALP! I am being held prisoner by a giant mouse couple who insist on entertaining me in exchange for money! :-))

I replied right away: How much do you need for them to stop entertaining you? Maybe I could wire it tonight...

Anna Banana II then sent this message: Hi Rich, I have Scrooge McDuck working on the ransom money. He is working on a deal to have you out of Mickey Mouse Heckland by sometime on Friday. Hang in there! :)

The only thing I have heard from Rich since then is this: BTW, I am planning to pick up a tacky Disney snow globe for your collection if I am able. Is this something you'd like to add to your collection, or would you prefer something else? :-))

So it appears he is still alive and spending money in Mickey Mouse Heck. If he comes back in one piece and with a snow globe containing a miniature replica of The Enchanted Castle, I promise to take a photo of it and post it on this blog. Stay tuned….

Famous Hat

Hickey Hat Heck

Greetings, Hatketeers! What a derby day it is! Let's all sing the Hickey Hat theme song:

It’s a world of fezzes and a world of toques
It’s a world of fedoras and a world of caps
There’s so many hats to wear
That it’s time we’re aware
It’s a hat world after all!

Now you can stroll around Hat World and buy all kinds of hats. Any kind of hat you like, as long as you want a hat emblazoned with the "Hat World" logo. Everyone here is hatty!

Sound familiar? Kind of like, oh, say, PURGATORY??

Famous Hat

blooggin' with marvin

So here I sit in Rich's house (that's right, bad people! if you think his house is an easy target while he's in Mickey Mouse Heck, I'd be happy to put the smackdown on you), attempting to blog on Marvin the Computer. This is no trivial task, since Marvin is a tiny green computer made for kids in Third World countries. I may have small hands for an adult in a First World country, but even I find it a challenge to type on Marvin. So please excuse any typos. I have promised Toque McToque a photo of Marvin, since one does not encounter adorable computers every day, and I have just the thing to put it in perspective, but of course said object is at my house and I am at Rich's house. It has taken me twenty minutes to laboriously type this paragraph because I have to type so carefully. Now I generally type upwards of 60 words per minute, but typing at my normal speed on Marvin would be a disaster. Allow me to demonstrate with a poem we all had to memorize in hgh school, although I was never sure why:

Whse woods theseare I think I know;
His houxe is in yhe vvillage, thoughy.
He will noy see ,e syoppinh jete
To waychhis woods fill up wiyh snow.

my liyylr hotse musy find iy queer
To syop wiyout a villge near
beween he woods and frozenm lake
The darkest eveninghg of the yer.

He gives jos hness ells a shake
Yo addk if there's neen some mistake
The only oher' suimds the sweep
og fromst ywind anmd downy flke

The woods we lovely, dk nd deep,
but I hcew promiea to keep
nd miles to go befor eI awlpp,
nd miles to go before I aeep.

-- Robert Frot

So you can see why I will be wraping things up now.

Famus Hat

Visiting Rooster

Sorry, I have lots of pictures – and a movie! – from my trip to my hometown of Rooster, but I can’t put them on the blog yet. It’s a long story, but Rich is currently on a family trip to Mickey Mouse Heck, and he brought Aquinas with him for aid and comfort, so I have not been able to download the photos off my camera. I will provide a brief summary for now and will post pictures once Rich returns from Mickey Mouse Heck.

My besty Tiffy and I hit the road late Saturday morning and arrived at my brother’s house in a downpour right on time for De-Niece’s graduation party. I brought her the cash and savings bonds I’ve been saving for her all these years, although in two years I will not be able to bring the same thing to De-Nephew One because I sent it all to him earlier this year so he could afford to go to Europe for some Fantastic Opportunity that will get him College Credit. Among the guests at the party were two Rottweilers and a pug, besides all sorts of friends and relatives of the graduate. My sister-in-law had a beautiful setup for an outdoor party but no contingency plan for rain, so we all crowded into the garage. De-Niece’s girlfriends smeared cake all over her face, which didn’t please her too much. There was a mortarboard-shaped piñata which we never got to take a swing at and plenty of food and drink that we did get to consume.

Then Tiffy and I stayed at the swanky Kahler Hotel, which really wasn’t much more expensive than your basic motel for our little room with two little beds. It was very cute and cozy. The pool is on the top story, with incredible views of Rooster in three directions and a dome over it that lights up different colors at night. We were a bit weirded out by all the kids running by the “no running” signs, diving under the “no diving” signs, jamming themselves into the “maximum capacity four” hot tub although they were clearly under the minimum age of 12, and playing around with the weight-training equipment, all without any obvious parental supervision. Miraculously, they all survived. Then we met my parents for a late dinner at an Italian restaurant.

Sunday morning we met my parents for brunch at a Dutch pancake house, and when I ordered a chocolate chip Dutch pancake a la mode, Tiffy said, "How old are you?" Then we drove back, passing through several torrential downpours. I went to the late Mass for Corpus Christi and saw a number of other regulars from the 9:00 Mass there, so either everyone was out of town this weekend, or everyone else slept in.

Famous Hat

A Week in the Life of Famous Hat

Sorry for the sporadic blogging - it's been a crazy week. Right now I am at Rich's house blogging on Aquinas, after Tiffy and I went to the Mideastern restaurant in the hood for dinner and a hookah with jasmine and rose flavored tobacco. A belly dancer performed a much more traditional dance than the one A-Fooze and I saw there months ago, and since it involved no fire, the fire alarms did not go off. Here are some stories from this week:

It is acceptable to throw holy water at the choir director if you think he is possessed. However, doing it because you're angry at him is bad form, especially if you are a person who constantly crows about your own holiness. Just sayin.'

A doctor was presenting an article at Journal Club about a study done in Taiwan, and she noted that the average weight of the patients was 63 kg. When she asked how that compared to the patients our doctors see in the ICU, another doctor quipped, "Do you mean 63 BMI?"

Another doctor was telling Light Bright and me that he thinks the rules about having to put kids in car seats until they are practically able to vote is forcing people to have smaller families, since most cars cannot handle more than two car seats. He then told us a story from his childhood in a distant time and place, when his family was driving somewhere and suddenly his little brother was gone... because he had fallen out the car window! To this day the brother (who was three at the time but is now past retirement age) accuses this doctor and their older brother of throwing him out the window, but they insist their father just went around a curve too fast. Of course, they were having this conversation in Spanish sometime before the Ross Sisters performed "Solid Potato Salad," so things were different, but still.

A government agency in this state hired a construction firm to build a new building for them but specifically requested that they not use a specific software for the elevators. So what did the construction firm do? Of course they used that software for the elevators. I don't know who is crazier, the company that did exactly what they were told not to do, or the state agency that now refuses to buy the building, because although the elevators work perfectly well (and I can attest to this, since I have ridden in them), they use the wrong software.

Say there were four doctors in training, and one of them spent a lot of time at a VA hospital, two spent some time there, and one did purely Pediatrics. Now say the VA was funding one of these four doctors in training. Wouldn't it just make so much sense to say they are funding the Pediatric doctor? And here I thought we didn't use child soldiers in this country. Silly me!

Famous Hat

When a Loved One Dies

Yesterday my computer got a virus somehow. (I'm not saying it was the "Online Buddies" email that Jilly Moose sent me, but just remember that cute pictures of puppies and bunnies can be full of dread disease.) Since in my fantasy life I must be some kind of IT guru, I decided to try to fix it myself instead of calling IT immediately. Whether that made things worse or not, I can't say; all I know is last night I left it running a scan, then this morning I cleaned up the bad files and rebooted. (I downloaded some freeware from the internet because my standard issue virus protection could sense the virus but couldn't get at it, so it bombarded me with messages every second that it had tried and failed to erase the threat.)

The computer was a little wiggy after the infection, but after the "cure" it was far worse and just kept getting hung up. Finally I contacted IT, and they tried to fix it remotely but couldn't, so they advised me to turn the computer off. Which I did, after holding the button in, since it wouldn't turn off on its own. An IT dude came up to see my computer, and he turned it on but only got the Blue Screen of Death, so he unplugged it and took it away. I wasn't sure what to do at that moment - all the bosses are out of town, and Light Bright suggested I just go home, which was very tempting - but after doing all my non-computer tasks (e.g., filing - always a good time) I decided to move into the Bat Cave, a tiny room with ancient computers in it for the student hourlies. Luckily the students are all gone for the summer, so I was able to get a lot done in the Bat Cave. But I did miss my window, and the computers in the Bat Cave are glacially slow. Hopefully tomorrow I can return to my rightful office...

Famous Hat