Time

There is an plethora of cliche's and sayings in which the subject is that of Time. "Time flies when you're having fun." "Time is on my side" (Mick Jagger) "Time is money" "Time to make the doughnuts." You get the idea.
It has been well over a week since I last found time to blog. You see when I set out on this journey of introspection and formalizing my thoughts into the written word, I had intentions to compose 5 days a week. Well, another cliche' states: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I'm not saying that I am planning a trip down the river Styx into the great abyss in the near future,(of this I am not absolutely certain, after all I can't see into the future, but I like my chances of obtaining at least the "Telestial kingdom"). However:
A) I did have good intentions. And:
2) to again steal a thought from my boy B-Dog, the notion of blogging every day is a bit "indulgent". I believe gluttony is a sin. (perhaps a sinonym? Ok maybe a stretch. B-Dog thinks HE is the master of the parenthetical!)
The notion that I am going to visit Mephistopheles is a distinct possibility given the above notation.
Digression. It seems to be a pattern for me. I believe the subject at hand is Time, of which for myself has been scarce in the last week. Time did indeed fly, though I must say I wasn't having all that much fun. So that cliche isn't relevant. Perhaps it should say: "Time flies when your having fun, but it also flies when you are extremely busy." It's easy to "lose track of Time" when you are busy. Next thing you know you are 43 years old with 4 kids and you look in the mirror and see an old man staring back at you. A bit over-dramatic, but you see the point. Even as I sit here now I feel the Time slipping away from me and my thoughts turn to other things vying for my attention. Maybe it is "Time to make the doughnuts." "Mmmmmmm dooooughhhhnutttsss" (Homer). Yeah it's definitely Time.

A Dog's Blog

Salutations! My name is Shep. As you can see, like my master Rich, I am a handsome fellow.(See his blog about how People Magazine snubbed him again.) Being as I am a dog, you might think that I would not have a lot to say in a web log, in fact it is quite the opposite. Starting at a very young age I have had a voice. I remember the first time Rich came to meet me in the furthest reaches of rural Idaho. He tells me that he drove for many hours with two young children in the hopes of obtaining a companion for the family. As he arrived, myself along with my 11 litter-mates stood at attention at the sound of the minivan pulling into the gravel drive way. I was only 8 weeks old at this time, very small, but boy did I have a voice. We lived in a pretty nice home with lots of straw and acres of land to run around on and I stood up and told Rich all about it. I barked and barked and barked about it. I had lots to tell him about myself. You see I had to tell him that I almost didn't survive being born. My human mother told Rich that I was her "spider puppy" that I was so tiny that I shouldn't have survived. I had to compete with all of my brothers and sisters for food, but by god I did it. Also, my canine mother tugged kind of hard on my umbilical cord creating a hernia in my belly button. I know Rich has a belly button and he finds nice surprises in it, but mine is an outtie because of mom. Long story short I did survive and Rich took me home to Utah to live. I never stopped talking the whole way there. I was sad that I had to leave the only family I had ever known and it made me cry. Rich and his family told me it was going to be ok and they gave me a nice place to live. He taught me how to behave too, because just between you and I, I was a bit of a little shit. As I said I had a lot to say and I said it a lot. Rich told me to be quiet all the time, in fact he still does. But I still need to tell the world all of the wonderful things that go through my big beautiful head. ( I am pretty aren't I?) So I talk. I talk to anyone that will listen. It's kind of funny because the humans that I talk to just look at me in puzzlement and tell me that I need to be quiet. I don't really have an inside voice, I just have to speak at the top of my lungs. Sometimes Rich actually commands me to speak and I let it rip. He seems to really enjoy it when I talk after he tells me too. Sometimes though I do have a quiet voice. In fact the humans don't seem to even hear it, but I think Rich does. Sometimes I stand in front of him and just look at him with my big brown eyes. This gets his attention and he looks at me, I can tell he knows that I am saying things to him. Usually I am saying that I am hungry and want some supper. He just gets it, and he takes me and my other dogs up to the place that he keeps our food and I just chow down. I along with all Labradors absolutely love food.

Sometimes I look at him and tell him I have to go outside and pee, and he gets it. He lets me out so I can go. Other times I just look at him and tell him I need a hug and he gets down on my level and gives me attention. I act like I don't want it, but I really do. My other humans love me too. I have a boy that comes to visit me every weekend and sometimes he just won't leave me alone. Don't tell my other dogs but he loves me the best! I have it pretty good I must admit. My humans give me everything I need and I will keep telling anyone who wants to listen. By the way, thank you for listening to me.

People Magazine Has Snubbed Me Again

Once again the literary giant People magazine has published one of it's "who's hot" lists and I am not on it. They announced today their Hottest Bachelors for 2008. Topping the list, Mario Lopez with a wonderful pose paying tribute to Marky Mark in his Calvin Klein's. He looks absolutely scrumptious and I can certainly see why he is at the head of the class, wait it was Saved By The Bell wasn't it. Never mind.
People Magazine always does this to me. They put out these lists of people that are "hot", "sexy", "beautiful" etc. and invariably I am never on them. I don't mean to be braggadocious, to borrow a term from my boy B-Dog, that he dropped on me yesterday, but I am a damn good looking fellow if I do say so myself. Hell ask my wife, she'll tell ya. Sure she has a slightly biased opinion, but I am certain there are others who can confirm this for me.
Who are the "people" that are responsible for compiling these lists and why aren't they looking for me? I'm just sitting here at my desk every day, it's not like I am hard to find People! So yeah I get it, I just gave them a reason to not come looking for me this time, I'm married and therefore not a "sexy bachelor". Sure I'll give them that one, but how valid can their lists really be if they aren't scanning the globe, scouring every nook and cranny, ever searching... for me?
You know People, it really hurts. I deserve to be on that list, not that list, but one of them. Throw me a friggin bone here. I'll be the guy sitting behind his computer, day after day, doing my part to make the world a better place with not only my mad skills in social work, but with my beauty. You owe it to the world, make it right, put me on your lists.

Fonts

As I sit in front of my computer this beautiful sunny day, I feel as though my gaze into the computer screen is going to reveal a universe of diodes and wires that create the many colors and letters that make up the page. My thoughts of blogging on a daily basis have prematurely come to a stand still after only two posts. Did I burn out too quickly like some distant super-nova in the expanses of the universe? Is Belly Button Lint the only clever and witty topic that the bundle of neurons I call a brain could muster up to muse about? My blank stare at the monitor stimulates the neuro-transmitters into action. Words, I need words. Good this is a start, things are again moving. But how to assemble them into sentences and paragraphs. A topic, I need a topic, then suddenly I see a small white box in the right hand corner of this posting box. "Font" The proverbial filament in the light bulb over my head blazes forth with irradiation. Fonts. Lets examine fonts. What an interesting and perhaps expansive subject to contemplate. I click on the drop down box, revealing the available styles. Only Eight. Suddenly it isn't so expansive any more, but maybe I can squeeze more out of this. How did fonts come to be? Back in the day we didn't have word processing programs to document. We had mechanical boxes with metal arms inside of it that leaped forward when a key was depressed by the user, striking a black carbon ribbon creating an imprint of the corresponding letter that was cast into the end of the metal arm. We didn't have a diversity of options that allowed us to "change it up" if you will. Now I have eight, eight different options to work with here. Who comes up with these things? Web Dings? What the crap are Webdings? Does this make any sense at all?
The above sentence, yes it is a sentence, says "How does this make any sense at all?" I am going to warn the reader right now that my admiration for profanity is about to be exhibited so stop reading right now if you are adverse to obscene verbage. Go on, leave the room, I'll let you know when it's safe to return.
What the fuck? I mean seriously, who the hell was sitting around going " We should create a font that is all just pictures, it will be cool" ? Oh and by the way "Pass the Dutchie bro because my buzz is starting to wear off, I thought you just said lets make a font out of pictures!" Come on people!
Those of you who left the room may now return, I am back in control of myself. Sadly though, I think that I have depleted the available neurotransmitters that so aptly allowed me to create this entry today.
Maybe I'll go get some coffee.

The Human Belly Button, Natures Lint Trap

Many years ago when I was a young child, my parents received a gag gift from someone that was very intriguing to my young mind. It was a small plastic box with a clear hinged lid and gold lettering that said Belly Button Lint Kit. Within the box was a small brush and a small packet of seeds. There may have been one or two other inconsequential items in the kit, but what they may be I do not recall. I do remember asking my parents why they had this kit and they proceeded to tell me that it was a joke.
As a young child I failed to see the humor in this gift, but I proceeded to ask my parents how it worked. They told me that you had to plant the "lint seed" in your belly button and then wait for it to grow into a lint ball. The small brush was to harvest the fully mature lint plant. "Does it really work?" I asked them. "No sweetie it's just something that adults have to deal with and that is why it is funny to us." I shook my head, looked at the shallow indentation in my stomach, wondered how could a plant exist in such a small hole, then wandered off to play with my Evil Kanevil racing bike. Do you remember those toys? Man they were cool. Yet again I digress.
I never did plant a lint seed in my belly button to see what all the fuss was about, but here I am decades later and this anecdote came to mind as I was sitting in my recliner last night pondering what I would blog about today. As I often do at the end of a long day I go home, get changed into some comfortable clothes, pour a glass of red wine, and sit in my recliner to partake of television programming that will take my mind off the day's events. For dinner I had a particularly nasty meal of Del Taco, god what was I thinking when I got that for supper? I had gorged myself and was rubbing my rather substantial torso, proud of the accomplishment of downing not only a Macho Burrito, but also a Macho Taco. To top it off I had a nice piece of strawberry short cake. As I was rubbing my Buddha belly for good luck, praying that the misgiving of over indulging myself; god what was I thinking, Del Taco, really? My finger crossed over my belly button. I found myself exploring the now cavernous indentation of my abdomen, and to my surprise I found a full grown lint plant. There was my blog, belly button lint. So it's not the most eloquent and political topic that one could choose to blog about, but it absolutely fits with my personality. Think about it. Belly Button Lint. What the hell? Where does it really come from? How did this fully grown lint plant come to exist in my button? I didn't plant any seeds. Did it spontaneously appear out of the microcosm that surely exists within such a place? Now my mind has wandered to realms that perhaps are better left un-disclosed for this dialogue. But here's a thought that I will share. What if I were to collect all the fully grown lint plants that I am able to harvest for an undetermined amount of time. After all the fruit of a fully grown lint plant is minuscule and doesn't yield a usable harvest. However a collection of lint fruit could eventually have global implications. Could one utilize this resource to say perhaps create a nice pair of knit socks? A cardigan? An afghan comforter? I think the possibilities are endless and in a day and age that gasoline is over $4.00 a gallon, the savings of creating usable items from an item in which the investment is naught? Well I think the fiscal implications for a person could be substantially positive.

Blog Virgin

It has been many many years since I lost my virginity, so this is a new feeling for me. It is difficult to admit to being a virgin at the age of 43. It conjures up images of Steve Carell lying on a table getting his chest hair waxed, just letting the expletives fly. I am quite fond of expletives. Sometimes there isn't a better way to express oneself that using a good curse. I don't know that blogging is quite comparable to having scalding hot wax placed onto the hair of my chest, then having it ripped off with excruciating pain. Conversely, I imagine that blogging can be enjoyable, maybe not to the level of losing ones virginity, but in a more cathartic way perhaps?
Like the pressure to have sex in high school, the notion that "everybody's doing it" has me wondering if blogging is all that people say. After all, it seems like work. Losing one's virginity is work, sex doesn't just fall into your lap, ok maybe for some people. But in reality this isn't about sex, it's about blogging and finding meaningful things to say to the world.
The title of my blog is "The Answer is Always More Cowbell" Many of you in the blogosphere (is that the correct term?), may be familiar with the SNL sketch with Will Ferrell playing a cowbell in the band Blue Oyster Cult. Here is a link to it: Here
So maybe not everyone loves Will Ferrell the way I do, but the reality of it all is that he makes me laugh out loud. I love to laugh. There is truth in the old saying that "laughter is the best medicine." Laughing is good for your soul. The great Danny Elfman wrote: "Just once or twice it's good for your soul." Of course he wasn't referring to laughter, but Danny Elfman is a musical genius in my mind and any time I can reference him in the course of a thought or conversation I will exploit my admiration for him. But I digress. The point is this, I am a social worker with abused and neglected children, which is sad and difficult work at times. The one way that I have found to be able to cope with all of that is to laugh. Finding humor in things; looking for ways to laugh. Just being able to look at a grown man with a curly haired wig and a shirt that is too tight and short so that it exposes his hairy belly, banging on a cowbell and dancing like there is no tomorrow; this is what life is about for me. No matter what life throws at you, the answer is more cowbell.