Grab Bag

Indianapolis Star photo by Matt Detrich.

I had just finished dinner with my Poor Wife (who yesterday brought home the annual High School Student Walking Petri Dish Death Germs cold she gets every year--the warm weather this year has delayed it from its usual end-of-September starting date) when there was a loud boom and an intense, magnesium flash and the lights flickered once and went out. I went into the kitchen to grab a flashlight and there was another flash, kinda brown at the edges.

We in Hoosierland went another round yesterday with what the teevee weather hairdos like to call Possible Tornadic Activity. All we'd gotten here was some high wind activity and a couple of precipitation events, but that had passed already. I got a couple more flashlights going and went outside, and just across the property line was a large sycamore limb on the power line burning like a Yule log. I ran over to the neighbors', not sure if they were home, but they were busy grabbing their own flashlights. They'd been outside when it happened and were still purblind from the flashes. The branch was throwing off sparks like crazy in the wind, but everything was too wet to burn, and power, and modern life, was restored in thirty minutes.

Not so my notes for today's posts, so just imagine they are funnier.

The bloggy goodness that is Corndog featured some exorbitant praise for a comment I'd left there. Ordinarily this sort of thing embarrasses the hell out of me, and this is no exception, but since I really have to make every idea count I would like to mention my fondness for the idea that the Bee Gees squandering of their harmonic talents was like Bach writing strictly for the accordian. Even if it was my idea. I'd like to teach the World to simile. Shut up.

And at the risk of causing the ever-delightful Julia any more respiratory distress, I was driving home this afternoon and the story of a gag popped into my head. I don't remember the comic's name, but I'd recognize his face if that helps any. It's a bit about a blind skydiver, and the punchline is, "Did you ever hear a German shepherd scream at 20,000 feet?" And then he explains that he originally told the joke as, "Did you ever hear a dog..." and nobody got it. And he's right, in a way that can't really be explained. Wording is everything.

So, I wanted to note that the third blurb for "Santa's Letters to Penthouse" was supposed to come from "the WettSpott DOT COM". I meant to put a .com in there somewhere and just forgot. And I think third is the right place.

Likewise, in the post about grandma's candies a couple weeks back my Viet Vet cousin really should have awakened screaming, in a cold sweat, and had his wife say, "What is it, honey? Charlie again?" To which he'd reply, "No, dammit...BRACH'S!"

Okay, I think this is about how long the thing was supposed to be.